Surprised by grace

Surprised by grace, originally uploaded by Dick Davies.

The Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides is pretty remote, but then drive out of town for an hour mostly down a single track road, drive through the gate at the end of the road and park at Mealsta Beach (White sand, azure sea) where there was once a village (before the clearances). I wandered off up a rise with a cairn on it, and then I found in the ground this celtic cross. In a place which considers itself both celtic and christian, a celtic cross is almost unheard of.

It's really only now it sinks in how strange it was to find a celtic cross in such a place.

But it does reflect something about how God seems to be. Gracious, unpredictable...

Check these photos on Johnny Baker's blog

(re)Discovering Roland Allen

I was reading tallskinnykiwi again. This post about tea with Roland Allen's grandson led me to downloading "The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church".

To leave new-born Churches to learn by experience is apostolic, to abandon them is not apostolic: to watch over them is apostolic, to be always nursing them is not apostolic: to guide their education is apostolic, to provide it for them is not apostolic.

Roland Allen "The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church"

For a book published in 1927 it has a pretty amazing description of "Church Planting Movements".

Why Blog

Because this young whippersnapper made three good points, and this old man of blogs is such an enthusiast.

Why Missional

I was working this weekend at the Fusion National Weekend and got to hear/meet TallskinnyKiwi
I found his take on being missional very interesting. Recently I was speaking about how Church can engage with postmodernity, building on a chapter from Tom Wright's book "The Challenge of Jesus" - walking to emmaus in a postmodern world. As a missionary (with WEC) myself I was seeing this as an exercise in contextualisation.

Now it appears that I might (or might not...) be missional. I like the thought that those "dead old institutions" might have something to reflect back into church.

Must get on to a spot of Missio Dei (might be a cue for a spot of praying first then)