Hearts and Transitions around Nieu Communities Part 2

In the midst of these transitions, I have found myself in an interesting place. For the past two months now, God has been placing some deep vision things in my heart for what we’re doing in SA. Really shaking me up and saying “SON YOU DREAM SMALL”. God has such awesome and fun plans for us in South Africa, and I’m starting to wonder if it might even expand further than that.

But in the midst of dreaming, there has been loss and new transitions. It has deeply sensitized Natalie and my hearts for our team and I’ve been really excited as I’ve gotten to spend some really quality time with many of my teammates already. What we could use prayer on right now actually centers around this.

At the end of July, I (Joe) really need to get away from the action for a few days and get with God for some intentional reflection and writing about what I’m hearing Him speak to the depths of my heart for our family, our community, and the work here. Even more than that, what is God trying to speak into my heart? I want to love my teammates accurately and deeply. I want to know that I know that I know I’ve heard things from God about direction for the future. I want others invited into the dreaming process with me (and my teammates have been really rad in that respect already… very helpful in the process). Please pray as I look for some days at the end of the month to get alone and get quiet. God is up to something exciting for Nieu Communities and we’re just at the front end of the ride!

Hearts and Transtions around Nieu Communities

Over the past month, there have been a lot of big transitions taking place at Nieu Communities in South Africa. It was no surprise that our site director (Arthur) and his family were going to be moving to Cape Town to start a new ministry there. But what has been decided in the last few weeks is that they will be moving out of our team sooner than later. In the interim, my friend Bryan will be taking over to finish out our year here.

Along with Bryan, there is a guy from CRM in town with his family until early November. Colin runs the ministry “Enterprise International” doing business for the purpose of ministry and ministry resourcing. Colin and his wife will be around to serve as coaches/mentors for the staff. I’ve already had the privilege of working with Colin on some future vision sorts of things, and it’s proven quite awesome for me (he actually lent me an extra computer to use at home until ours gets fixed… hence why I’m blogging now).

What’s hard right now is that while Bryan is the interim leader or our apprenticeship, we have been informed that he and his wife will be leaving at the end of the year as well. Transitions are hard. Saying goodbye to friends like the Wards (Bryan and Daleen) and the Stewarts (Arthur and Melissa) is a blow to the heart. They’ve been highly instrumental in our lives and we’re sad to see them leave. BUT, God has new things for them and THAT… THAT is where we celebrate!

computer is down

Wanted to send a quick note to everyone who reads this for updates. Our computer has been surged by an electrical thing (like my techincal terminology?) and we may be without for the next few weeks. It puts us in a very large bind in getting our next update out to everyone, so we apologize. We’ll be limited to communication for the time being. Thanks for understanding!

Oreo Cookies and Mission (part 4 of 4) – why the Holy Spirit?

For me, this is always the tricky part of the conversation.  I have always believed that the Holy Spirit is real and that it gives me gifts to do the work of God.  I’ve taken all the “spiritual gifts inventories” and have seen my “top gifts” at work in my life and ministry.  But for me, I’ve struggled to see how that’s any different than my personality type and natural ability.  But this understanding is growing (note – I feel like I have a lot to learn and understand in this aspect of my faith… I don’t claim any major knowledge on this subject).

The longer I’ve been in ministry, the more I realize one thing: I’m a small small man with small small dreams (though some who have served with me may say contrary!).  God has invited me to open up my heart and my mind to let Him come in and be the Lord of my dreams.  We’re all in process of letting Jesus become the Lord of all the parts of us… well this season of my life, it’s the dream sector of Joe.  So I’ve been asking God why he’d want to reside there now more specifically.  I have some answers, which, funny enough, have come from my “love filled community” component of mission!

God wants to reside here now because He is opening up Nieu Communities and CRM to things we never dreamed about as a ministry.  He’s giving these same dreams to people we’re in relationship with in SA and it looks like He’s setting up an AMAZING partnership with those people.  What could come out of all that?  I think more than I can write about right now.  As a community and as friends in conversation, we feel like God is stirring up some really big things and we’re excited to explore possibilities together.

When the Holy Spirit initiates, it guides.  Where it guides, it empowers.  Where it empowers, it sustains.

Oreo Cookies and Mission (part 3 of 4) – why the message?

Those from my camp may be wondering why this is even an important topic to discuss.  The reason is, the message hasn’t always been present in mission.  So it’s critical to look at each piece of the “oreo cookie of mission”.  Here were some of the things we spoke about.

1.  The message is how we understand our need for Jesus.
2.  The message, in the context of the community and the Holy Spirit all working together, is a powerful, transforming component.  Without the other two, we wonder if the message holds much weight???

Why else?

Oreo Cookies and Mission (part 2 of 4) – why community?

Why is the “love-filled community” component so critical?  What we discussed the other night were a wide variety of things.  For our purposes here, let me share with you a few, leaving it open for comments.  These are the results the group that gathers every week with me came up with… (note: The people present come from an Afrikaaner descent in the East of Pretoria.)

1.  Community offers discernment.  How can we know for sure that the Spirit is initiating something if we’re not in agreement together?
2.  The Spirit gives vision to a few people for something that it wants to initiate, discernment to others in a community to make sure it stays on task, and abilities to everyone to see that vision come to fruition and sustainability for the long term.
3.  Without community, there’d be a lot of individuals doing a lot of things only partially.  Community allows us to go deeper.

In your contexts, what else might be a good rationale for “why community is critical in mission?

Oreo Cookies & Mission (part 1 of 4)

One of the areas I work at has been quite fun lately.  I’ve been working to infuse some of the Nieu Communities DNA into a local church here and have just begun working them through some of our “submerging posture” objectives.  In blending us with them, I have sought to expose this congregation to various parts of the Bible that aren’t always talked about.  This section on “submerging” I felt God suggest we discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in mission (which submerging is trying to get after).

In understanding the Holy Spirit, we always go to the book of Acts where we’re introduced to its role with humans.  In preparation, I was reminded of a video we used earlier this year in some of our training at Nieu Communities.  It was a video of Paul Ford (author of “knocking over the leadership ladder” and key proponent in the Grip Birkman testing… by the way, if you’re part of a team, you MUST check out Grip Birkman stuff.  It will give you language and tools that can take you exponentially further together).  In this video, Paul discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in mission as he saw it unfold in Acts chapter two.  His illustration was an oreo cookie (immediately he has my attention as I run to the kitchen for a glass of cold milk for dunking).

The idea he revealed was that the first twelve verses show the power of the Holy Spirit.  Verses 14-41 revealed the message of the gospel, which, in my camp, has tended to be the central part of mission.  Then in verses 42-47, there is the presence of a love filled community.  The power of the gospel message is sandwiched and delivered in between the shell of the Holy Spirit’s power and the love filled community.  Most of the rest of Acts, this is a similar pattern we see.

Now, when it comes to mission, one thing that I’ve been notorious for neglecting is the central role the Holy Spirit has in initiating, guiding, empowering and sustaining mission.  If we want to do small things, then we just go about ministry out of our own strength.  But if we want to see deep and wide transformation in a city, country, continent or globe, we must learn to follow the guidance of the Spirit in the context of our love filled communities.  God wants to do immeasurably more than we ever asked or imagined possible, and what I’m starting to think is that the way in which the Holy Spirit functions in mission is in the context of a love filled community that, when leaning into the Holy Spirit’s guidance, proclaims a powerful message  to all.

Over the next few posts, I’d like to discuss what we’re seeing as to why each of these components is so critical for submerging into mission.

Language Learning Blunders

Last week, I received a “teach yourself Afrikaans” book and audio CD.  I was pretty excited, so I jumped into lesson one and thought I had learned some things.  Thinking “let’s go impress our friends” I went up and said “Ek es me mouder”.  When I was asked what I was trying to say, I said that I was learning introductions, and I was introducing you to my mother.  Then a howling laughter came forth.  What I ACTUALLY said was “I am a mother”.

Language learning… I feel like a 2 year old.  Hilarious (guess you had to be there )!

stories

What a whirlwind we have been on these last few weeks.  There have been a lot of people coming through to discuss where Nieu Communities could be going in the future as well as helping our team steward the rest of this year well.  I feel like we’ve neglected the blog some as a result though, so I apologize for those who look for notes from us more frequently.  This entry is about something that took place at our home last Saturday (June 22).

A while back, I asked all of our apprentices if they would be interested in working with me to take what we are learning in our context and help translate it into a local church setting for my friends at 3rd Place.  It has been a remarkable success at the church, and one of our apprentices, Chris, has played a major role in that with me.  This past Saturday, we invited the leadership team of 3rd Place to our house for a day long retreat.  The idea was to give the team space to process a new chapter that is coming in their life as a congregation.  They will be moving into a new space sometime by the end of July/early August, so we felt it would be appropriate to help them remember where God has taken them and where He will take them into their future.

Something stuck out to me on that day.  There is something quite powerful about remembering our past.  For many of us though, that’s often a painful process.  But in remembering what has been, pain and all, we remember how God has worked out His plans in our midst.  Case in point…

One of the exercises we did with the team was to have them draw out their own individual timeline and share it with some others in the group.  What I saw in every story I heard was pain from the past that Jesus redeemed.  Those are remarkable points in our journeys.  They help shape our character and our perceptions of the world.  I’m starting to learn that in sharing my story with others, and hearing theirs as well, I am reminded of how faithful God is to reconcile all things to himself.

amahoro (peace; shalom)

btw… Natalie went to the clinic today for her first appointment.  I’m going to get her blogging about this experience… it’s going to be such a cool thing to watch unfold.

Sprinklers in the Sky

Tonight, me and some friends went to distribute blankets to some folks having to stay out on the streets tonight.  I met a fellow named Peter.  I don’t like this story.

Peter took me by my hand and led me to the side of the building he and some friends were sleeping by.  Pointing to the sky, he began telling me about how the owner of the bicylce shop there had rigged up a series of sprinklers in the trees.  Every night, at various parts of the evening, the owner goes out and turns the sprinkers on these people sleeping under the security lighting of the shopping area.  This is done in an attempt to remove them from this section of the sidewalk.

I held the hand of a beautiful human tonight who is fighting for work every day only to be greeted by rediculous sprinkler systems in the sky.  My understanding of sprinklers was that they were for the lawn…