thebackyard's Xanga

Basketball, Hate and Jesus!

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:55:36 GMT

from a mentor and friend:

My (Unusual) Lenten Reading

During Lent I have been reading a book about hate. Well, truthfully, it’s not my Lenten reading, but my selection for our next book discussion group.

And since we meet April 8, the day after the Final Four college basketball national championship game, it’s fitting that it’s about the long-time rivalry between North Carolina and Duke. The author, Will Blythe, is a Tar Heel fan as I am. And equally a foe of Duke.

To say he is obsessive is way too charitable. But he does admit this in his sub-title: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry.

But this is more than a sports book. It is funny and literate, an exploration of culture and human nature, and the search to understand our obsessions, our loves and hates. Blythe goes one day to discuss his obsession with a minister he likes. On the way he muses about basketball as “the common religion that binds us together” and how in church as a boy he had to fight to stay awake and listen to platitudes.

I had been drowsy all those years because church was boring. The theologians of the twentieth century somehow reduced God from a voice out of the whirlwind to a gentle breeze whispering through the parking lot, from an awesome mystery into a civics lesson, from the power and the glory to the friendly and concerned. That’s if He was around at all. So that attendance at church struck me as largely an exercise in being good, in should and shouldn’t. You rarely encountered joy or terror. You were rarely if ever possessed with the spirit. Larger spiritual hungers went unaddressed. Now there are good things to be said for such moderation in the face of divinity (the wilds of spirit life teem with their own dangers), but I am speaking of the bad. This was religion as a Rotary Club meting. This was religion as ethical culture. This was religion as a dead magnet with no power to attract, offering comfort and duty and nostalgia in place of the shock and disorientation of genuine spiritual feeling.

Or so it seemed to my demanding and bewildered heart. Admittedly, I was an extremist. I wanted burning bushes, voices from that whirlwind, visions of ladders to heaven, wrestling matches with angels. I wanted to know God’s true name. As a13-year old in the grips of religious despair, I even went so far as to ask Jesus if he wouldn’t mind appearing on my bedroom wall right next to the picture of Che Guevara. (From Will Blythe. To Hate Like This is to be Happy Forever. 285-6)

I read this and am chastened. This is Lenten reading indeed. It makes me wince in repentance. How could we ever make The Story about Jesus on the way to the cross, about the cosmic contest between sin and salvation, so tame? How could an (admittedly) classic sports rivalry command more passion than Good Friday and Easter? How could we commit the sin of making Jesus boring? And how may God strike terror and joy into the heart of Will Blythe? I can only imagine how he would write if he fell in love with the God who loves him so passionately! I hope that happens before the final buzzer.

Leighton Ford

March 2008.

Making a Difference in Bangkok!

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:52:27 GMT

Check it out!

http://live.newsong.net/blogs/dave/newsong_making_difference_bangkok

Thanks to NewSong and Xealot for their partnership!

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:18:57 GMT

From Jim Gustafson:

I am on Koh Yaow island just off of Phuket working at the MRI where the SDRF has set up a spiny lobster and grouper production system. A couple of weeks ago 3 mother lobsters gave birth to literally hundreds of thousands eggs. These eggs have now hatched and we have baby lobsters swimming in our hatchery tanks ( see below one of them that I photographed yesterday). We are busy setting up the system for feeding "rotifers" (small zoo plankton we grow in tanks) to the small lobsters. It is a mind blowing experience to work with the production and growth of spiny lobsters - I once again marvel at the fantastic way God has created this world.

God continues to amaze me as he moves, always ahead of us, to find at risk people and meet their needs. On January 20th we met with a group of new believers in Hat Yai, south Thailand. They had invited us to visit and celebrate the birth of Christ with them. After Nujon asked the group why they had beleived in Christ, we sat and listened as they spoke, many with tears, from their hearts. "I believed because God gave me a new family - all of the other AIDS infected believers in this group"; " I believed because I saw the change in Narong ( in whose house we were meeting) and wanted to experience what he has"'; "I believed because God touched my body - even though I know that I still have AIDS, my body has been transformed from weakness to strenth"; "God is good and has blessed me beyond anything I ever dreamed was possible - I now have a house ( really a small shack) and I just got married by God's grace". As I sat there listening to them I wept as the goodness of God came flowing over me from these AIDS impacted people who were being moved by his grace.

We continue to move forward in God's strenth in Nan province, north Thailand. The new high school that we are building there at Baw Yuak school in the mountains of Nan is in the initial construction phase. We are targeting the middle of the year as the completion date - the Thai school year starts in May and we hope to have the school completed in time for that. We are also building a Development Center (DC) about 10 kilometers from the school. The DC will provide a prep school for high school graduates in the area as well as doing work in the area of agricultural research and vocational training for the marginalized people in villages of this isolated area. We are currently building an access road up a mountain the SDRF has obtained - the DC will be built on the top of this mountain.

God is good and he is doing great things. As I stop and look around myself from time to time I am, once again, moved to praise God for his goodness. I trust that you are experiencing his goodness and moving with him.

Blessings,

Jim

Baby spiny lobster at the MRI, Kho Yao island.

New Development Center mountain in Nan province.

AIDS impacted group in Hat Yai, south Thailand.

cwows!

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:20:52 GMT

Sunday was amazing! So many of you commented how clear and excited you are about our vision for a church without walls! We re-established a couple of things:

1. The church is the people and not the buildings.
2. In cwows, everyone plays! We're all priests.
3. Pastors are not at the top of the food change, but the support team for the movement. You lead the way!
4. NewSong is making a difference in other churches locally and globally. No question the fruit we're enjoying now was birthed out of pain (we took action this past year to deal with the financial shortage by cutting the budget, restructuring our team and laying off staff).

But I can honestly said, this past season was a gift to us. We've turned the corner and you can feel the energy and excitement growing. Our services are getting crowded. We'll be launching one more service time in Irvine to respond to the growth and continue to develop our multi-sites in Santa ana and beyond. Btw, Houston, NYC and other cities are interested in our underground (house churches too).

We're coming out with a revolutionary way for us to connect not only with one another. You'll be seeing a roll out of some pretty exciting ventures these next few months. (some of you were wondering about the recent national recognition given to NewSong this month- you can check it out at:
http://www.tonymorganlive.com/tony_morgan_one_of_the_si/2008/01/americas-most-i.html)

Also, some of you wanted the statistics I shared on Sunday, here they are:

· If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, that is more than the one million people who will not survive this week. - or the 27,000 children who will not survive TODAY because they will die of preventable disease.

· If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

· If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you have more freedom than three billion people in the world.

· If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.

· If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

· If you can read, you have more education than 2 billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

· If you turned on the tap this morning and drank the water without fear that is might make you sick, you are more fortunate that nearly one quarter of the world's population.

And here's a picture of the beautiful saint I talked about on Sunday (thanks to Steve Hayner, Professor and World Vision Leader I deeply respect, for the picture, the story and the stats!):

Love you all!
Dave

btw, pray for us as we go to Bangkok to commission our newest multi-site pastor, Peter Dewitt! NewSong Bangkok is rocking! Read more about it at http://live.newsong.net

could this be the type of third culture school newsong does around the world?

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:37:24 GMT

Georgia School as a Laboratory for Getting Along

By WARREN ST. JOHN

Published: December 25, 2007

DECATUR, Ga. — Parents at an elementary school here gathered last Thursday afternoon with a holiday mission: to prepare boxes of food for needy families fleeing some of the world’s horrific civil wars

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Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Carol Fox, left, and Brenda Constan teaching phonetics. Refugee children at the school receive daily classes in English as a second language.

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Audio Slide Show

The World in One School

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Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

A kindergarten class.

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Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Students at the International Community School in Decatur, Ga.

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The community effort to help refugees resembled countless others at this time of year, with an exception. The recipients were not many thousands of miles away. They were students in the school and their families.

More than half the 380 students at this unusual school outside Atlanta are refugees from some 40 countries, many torn by war. The other students come from low-income families in Decatur, and from middle- and upper-middle-class families in the area who want to expose their children to other cultures. Together they form an eclectic community of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, well-off and poor, of established local families and new arrivals who collectively speak about 50 languages.

“The fact that we don’t have anything in common is what we all have in common,” said Shell Ramirez, an American parent with two children at the school.

The International Community School, which goes from kindergarten through sixth grade, began five years ago to address a pressing local problem: how to educate a flood of young refugees. It has evolved into a laboratory for the art of getting along, a place that embraces the idea that people from different cultures and classes can benefit one other, even as administrators, teachers and parents acknowledge the many practical difficulties.

For example, the school’s weekly newsletter is published in six languages; yet it still is not intelligible to many parents. Some refugee children arrive at the school having never seen a book. And while the school devotes extraordinary energy to a specialized curriculum designed for refugees, it must still satisfy exacting American parents.

“If it were easy,” said a co-founder, Barbara Thompson, “everybody would be doing it.”

Refugees began arriving in Decatur in the 1990s, when aid agencies pegged the area as perfect for newcomers because of its low rents and proximity to jobs in downtown Atlanta, just 10 miles to the west. In the late ’90s, nearly 20,000 refugees arrived in Georgia, most to this area.

Soon this once mostly white suburb on the western side of Stone Mountain, a historical bastion of the Ku Klux Klan, had become one of the more culturally and ethnically diverse areas in the country.

The children of these refugees present unique challenges for the school. Many suffer post-traumatic stress from the horrors they have witnessed. Few speak English when they arrive. Some have no formal education and are innumerate and illiterate, even in their native tongues.

To complicate matters, many refugee parents cannot help with homework or understand report cards.

Some children have had to be taught to stand in line, or the significance of raising one’s hand.

Linda Dorage, who teaches English as a second language at the school, said she had even had to introduce children to “just the concept of a two-dimensional image meaning something.”

One early student, a goat herder from Mauritania, did not know how to use a door knob. A Sudanese girl was so traumatized by war and relocation that she insisted on sitting on the floor beneath her desk each day.

“The teacher decided she would go under the desk with her and do lessons under there,” Ms. Thompson said. “She drew her out in her own good time.”

Addressing Unmet Need

Until the community school came along, most refugee children found themselves in conventional public schools. To understand the difference, it helps to visit the family of He Tha and Mya Mya, a Burmese husband and wife who arrived with their four children last summer after 25 years in refugee camps in Thailand.

The family now lives in a two-bedroom apartment, its walls bare except for a homemade shrine of hand-drawn figures in red and blue ink around a photograph of friends left behind. Written below the photo is, “Never say goodbye.”

Mr. He Tha’s eldest children — 15-year-old Monday and 18-year-old Baby Boy, who was given his name for arriving a month premature — were too old for the community school. They were placed at a high school, where they receive an hour of English instruction and spend the rest of the day in regular ninth-grade classes, even though they speak hardly a word of English.

Asked what it was like to spend hours in classes he could not understand, Baby Boy laughed and blushed.

“It’s boring,” he said.

Mr. He Tha’s younger two children — Tuesday Paw, 12, and Eh Dee Na Poe, 7 — attend the community school.

Refugee children there receive daily classes in English as a second language, and additional individual instruction based on their needs. There are after-school classes until 5:15 p.m. each weekday, along with art and music classes, and French and Spanish for all students. Classes are relatively small, 18 students on average, and each has an assistant to the teacher. Students wear uniforms — light blue or white collared shirts, and dark blue pants or skirts — so that clothing does not become a distracting status symbol.

Many on the staff understand the refugee experience first-hand. One survived the Rwandan genocide. The lunchroom lady is from Srebrenica, driven from the town during Serb soldiers’ massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian men and boys.

“I constantly remind them how lucky we are,” said Hodan Osman, 27, a tutor who at age 10 was separated from her parents during the civil war in Somalia.

“We could have been killed,” she said, “and not only are we here, but we’re in a place where we’re celebrated. I tell them they can take everything away from you, but your knowledge is in your head, and it makes you brave.”

Naza Orlovic, a teacher’s assistant from Bosnia, said her experience as a refugee allowed her to recognize and to soothe hurt feelings that frequently arose out of cultural misunderstandings. Ms. Orlovic recalled comforting a Liberian boy, who was upset when other students could not follow his jokes because of his thick West African accent.

“I said, ‘Tell them to me,’” Ms. Orlovic recalled, speaking in a thick Bosnian accent herself. “Because they don’t understand my jokes either.”

The school has classes for the parents and older siblings of refugee students. On Thursday nights, there are computer classes. On Saturdays, the school offers English classes and tutoring.

Mr. He Tha attends those classes, along with his wife, Baby Boy and Monday. Speaking through a translator, he said he hoped to learn a little English so he could get a job. But he added that the family’s prospects depended in large part on the education his children received.

“The future is done for us,” Mr. He Tha said, gesturing toward himself and his wife. “We are just support for our children. We don’t want to see them have the same problems we had.”

No ‘Enclave’ for Refugees

The community school was born a decade ago when Ms. Thompson, then a freelance writer, met William L. Moon, the principal at a prestigious private school in Atlanta, and Sister Patty Caraher, a Sinsinawa Dominican nun and social activist who once taught under segregation at an all-black high school in Mobile, Ala.. Each had done volunteer work on behalf of refugee children, and each had concluded that such children’s needs were not being met through conventional schooling.

The three conceived of a school that would include hours of individual attention and an empathetic environment. They hoped to model it on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s notion of “the beloved community,” where people of all races, nationalities and classes were accepted, and on the common schools established in the 19th century by Horace Mann.

“The mission,” Ms. Thompson said, “was never to create an enclave for refugees only, because that would just separate them more.”

The founders saw this formulation as not just idealistic but practical. Studies have shown that low-income students benefit academically from exposure to middle- and upper-middle-class students. And Ms. Thompson and her colleagues believed that exposure to a wide range of cultures and ethnic backgrounds would appeal to affluent, socially minded parents.

Ms. Thompson, Mr. Moon and Sister Caraher received seed money from several local charities and help from advocates for refugees and other concerned neighbors. Mr. Moon assumed the role of principal. The school leased space from a church and, in 2002, was granted charter status by the local school board and the state.

There were plenty of early difficulties. The school was short on money. Though it receives county, state and federal money, it must still raise some $400,000 a year. Classrooms at the church were small and the tensions high, particularly among children whose lack of English got in the way of their expressing themselves.

An effort to form a parent-teacher association failed because of language differences; the sheer number of translators needed for such meetings made them impractical.

Early on, some American parents who had been drawn to the community school because of its small class sizes and curriculum — French and Spanish from kindergarten on, art and music for all students — pulled out their children because they felt the emphasis on refugees got in the way.

And some new arrivals to the school had to overcome intense trauma before they could begin learning.

Teachers noticed that two sisters from Afghanistan seemed terrified as they arrived each day. As refugees in Pakistan, the children had worked making carpets. Exhausted, they regularly dozed at school, which drew beatings. The sisters had assumed such beatings were standard at every school.

Despite these challenges, the school grew. A new grade was added each year. A second campus was opened in space rented from another church a few miles away. Volunteers poured in, mostly retired teachers and students from nearby Emory University and Agnes Scott College.

All the while, administrators and teachers said, the school took its energy from the optimism many of its students had toward their new lives in the United States. Sometimes that optimism was hard to miss. One second grader from Congo is named Bill Clinton.

A Draw for Americans

The diversity at the community school extends to American families. Twenty percent of the students are African-American, and roughly 10 percent are white. About two-thirds of the students come from families that qualify for reduced-price or free lunches, while some of the other students are the children of doctors, lawyers and bankers.

Parents from low-income families tend to choose the school over other nearby public schools because it is safe and has small classes. More affluent parents seek it for the potential benefits of exposure to so many cultures. Most of the middle- and upper-middle-class parents are social progressives from Decatur, a liberal enclave. But not all.

Harvey Clark, whose son Zade is in the fifth grade, is a veteran of the Persian Gulf war and a Nascar fan.

“They’re getting exposed to cultures that they normally would not be exposed to except in National Geographic,” Mr. Clark said of the American children. “Instead of my boy having to go off to war to meet foreign people, he can do it here in town.”

But the interactions between parents from so many backgrounds are complicated. There is still no parent-teacher association because of language barriers. American parents organize food drives for newcomers, give them rides and help them connect with doctors when children get sick. But getting to know one other takes effort.

“My children don’t just know about the Iraq war; they know the difference between Kurds and other Iraqis,” said Shell Ramirez, who has a son and a daughter at the school. “But it’s not for everybody. It’s something you have to buy into.”

Buying in may be easier for children than for adults. Consider the friendship between Ms. Ramirez’s 9-year-old son, Dante, and Soung Oo Hlaing, an 11-year-old Burmese refugee with dwarfism.

Dante likes to read Harry Potter books and to play Shrek on his Wii video game console. He lives in a comfortable house; his father works at a large consulting firm.

Until he arrived last summer, Soung had lived in a refugee camp in Thailand. He spoke no English. His father supports the family by working at a chicken processing plant for $10 an hour.

The two boys met on the first day of school this year. Despite the language barrier, Dante managed to invite the newcomer to sit with him at lunch.

“I didn’t think he’d make friends at the beginning because he didn’t speak that much English,” Dante said. “So I thought I should be his friend.”

In the next weeks, the boys had a sleepover. They trick-or-treated on Soung’s first Halloween. Soung, a gifted artist, gave Dante pointers on how to draw. And Dante helped Soung with his English. “I use simple words that are easy to know and sometimes hand movements,” Dante explained. “For ‘huge,’ I would make my hands bigger. And for ‘big,’ I would make my hands smaller than for ‘huge.’”

Ms. Ramirez said that coordinating Dante’s social life was much more complicated than if he were at a more typical local school. “Slumber parties are definitely a pain,” she said. “It can be quite confusing if one of the kids doesn’t know his phone number and the parents don’t speak English.”

But even so, Ms. Ramirez said she became close with Soung’s family because of the boys’ friendship. She drives them to appointments, has had them over to bake cookies, and spent a recent weekend afternoon trying to program the family’s remote control. To celebrate an ethnic holiday, Soung’s mother, Mu De, recently gave Ms. Ramirez a traditional Burmese sarong.

For now, the women communicate mostly through gestures. But it will not be long before Soung is translating. His English has improved markedly, enough so that he regularly torments Dante with a reliable schoolyard prank: he tapes a piece of paper bearing the words “kick me” on Dante’s back.

“They’re two peas in a pod,” Ms. Ramirez said.

‘Worthy of My Best Shot’

The long-term prospects are far from certain. Because it is experimental, the school is more at risk of closing if its students fail to make adequate yearly progress, the standard by which the national education law judges public schools.

Academically, the school seems to be on track. It has met the annual requirement under the No Child Left Behind education law each of the past four years. And this year the school was one of two for disadvantaged children that were commended by the Georgia Board of Education. It was cited for closing the performance gap between low- and high-scoring students, a feat that the school accomplished without lowering its higher scores.

Ms. Thompson, Mr. Moon and Sister Caraher said a short-term goal was to combine their two campuses. Mr. Moon said he wanted to open a health clinic for refugees at the school. And supporters are trying to start a school for refugee children who arrive in their teens, with less time than younger refugees to make up for lost years.

In the meantime, refugees continue to arrive, most recently from Burundi, Eritrea and Burma (now known as Myanmar), and some of their children will inevitably learn their first words of English at the school.

“When you see those kids who are as positive as they are, and you know what kind of problems they’re going through,” Mr. Moon said, “you just say, ‘This is worthy of my best shot.’”

The Golden Compass

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:13:43 GMT

I typically get disappointed not with movies like The Golden Compass but with the narrow imagination and lack of discourse among some Christians regarding such art. The posture of the Christian community often sets us up for valid criticism when we can't recognize redemptive themes and life in such films. Going to a movie is not agreeing with it. It's like reading a book or talking to a friend. You choose to enter into a dialogue. While I may not be a fan of Pullman's theology I can still appreciate his imagination.

I went with my daughter and actually found the movie entertaining and filled with magical moments. If you can get passed the fact that witches and demons are often considered good in the film, you can actually appreciate the creativity of the film and mind of the makers. But even in the Scriptures we find evil doing what looks to be good. Satan himself is called an angel of light. The scriptures even say demons believe in God. Use the film to have discourse and even good and lively debate but boycotting a film like this seems way to extreme.

Here was a good excerpt from our friends at Intervarsity Publishing House regarding The Goldeen Compass.

The Golden Compass

New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass opens in theaters this week amid much debate and controversy. Based on Philip Pullman's book, the first of a trilogy, it is set in another world like ours but not. Some are concerned that the book does (and that the movie will) represent Christianity in a false and unflattering light. Certainly Pullman has said, "My books are about killing God." So he is not being guarded about his intentions.

Having made my way to the halfway point of the third book, I have found the books to be immensely imaginative and creative. The worlds, the framework of his universe, the driving plot line all contribute to a good read. With a few exceptions, I found the characterizations generally disappointing. Somehow I don't get Lyra. And Will (who shows up in books two and three) hasn't captured me either. On the other hand, Mrs. Coulter is deliciously evil--one of the best-crafted villains I've met in the pages of a book in a long time. (I'm sure Nicole Kidman will be perfect for the role.) Lee Scoresby is as enjoyable a Texas sidekick as you'd ever want exploring the arctic with your pre-adolescent daughter.

But then there are more villains than Mrs. Coulter. Chief among them are the Magisterium (the council that rules the Church in Pullman's world as there is no pope) and ultimately the Authority (a god who was the first to evolve out of matter and who has hoodwinked angels, humans and others into thinking he is eternal in an attempt to control all). This, of course, is where all the hullabaloo comes in. The Magisterium is responsible for immense wickedness and abuses of power. The Authority is not far behind.

So what should we think of all this? Tony Watkins offers a balanced perspective on the trilogy in Dark Matters, a book that I think will be welcomed by devotees and detractors alike. Tony sat down with Pullman to interview him for the book and offers an appreciative portrait. A coworker here at IVP actually believes the books subvert Pullman's own viewpoints, for his heroes and heroines actually act out and approve themes of grace, sacrifice and redemption that would have been impossible without the biblical story.

Mark Morford in a no-holds barred piece puts the challenge this way to those who are upset about the books and movie, "If your ancient, authoritarian, immutable belief system is truly threatened by a handful of popular novels, if your ostensibly all-powerful, unyielding creed is rendered meek and defenseless when faced with the story of a fiery, rebellious young girl who effortlessly rejects your stiff misogynistic religiosity in favor of adventure, love, sex, the ability to discover and define her soul on her own terms, well, it might be time for you to roll it all up and shut it all down and crawl back home, and let the divine breathe and move and dance as she sees fit. Don't you agree?"

Morford's challenge is valid. This is a case where the proper response is likely not boycott or blanket condemnation but engagement and discussion. To the extent that Pullman's work feeds into and reinforces existing stereotypes of God and Christians, a response is needed. Rather than dissuading others from hearing a thought-provoking and potentially hostile story, however, let us offer better thoughts and better stories.

NewSong at its best

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:44:10 GMT

This week has been fun!

With needs both in London, Bangkok and Irvine, we've seen God provide in great ways! Our people are believing the vision as indicated by their sacrificial giving not only on Sundays but in other generous ways.

Check it out:

Angel Tree- purchased 400 gifts for families in Santa Ana; Angel Tree party in Santa Ana
Soup kitchen provided 75 gift baskets for the homeless at the OC rescue mission
Casa Hogar Ministry provided 100 christmas gifts for the children at the orphanage
International Students ministry is growing. They had a Thanksgiving dinner on Nov 17th with students from UCI

Also, since these are all completed Christmas opportunities, if families still want to get involved and give for Christmas, we have an announcement in the bulletin for the KidWorks Christmas store. This is the last Christmas opportunity....There will be a table in the foyer with more information too. Basically, families buy Christmas gifts for the KidWorks Christmas store, and the parents can go to the store and purchase gifts for their kids at 10% of the value.

There's nothing like giving. . . We never become more like Him when we do!

Catching the VIBE!

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:29:38 GMT

NewSong Church

December 2-9, 2008

Hey NewSong!

WE had a great VIBE this morning sharing what God is doing in our church! Here were some highlights:
1. A key study done by a consulting team affirms the direction we're going at NewSong! And so did many who attended the VIBE Core meeting this morning! We're also a few percent above budget!!!

2. The dirty little secret is alot of the mega church movement is in decline. And even more sad, is that the church is the biggest social network in the world yet is probably the most reluctant to collaborate.

3. Affirming Research findings and what we are going to do about it:
    A. Catalyze Spiritual Practices/disciplines at NewSong! Our FLOW process is unfolding with key experiences, consultations and coaching for you. We'll also be handing out a special tool for spiritual growth in the beginning of the new year.
    B. Focus on ACTION! There comes a point in our spiritual maturity that we grow the most when we SERVE. Where our focus is Giving not receiving.
    The findings demonstrated that sunday mornings cannot meet all our spiritual needs. In fact, the primary source of spiritual nutrition is not church on sunday only (it's a great buffet but we all get hungry again). The goal is for us to become cwows--a church without walls. Where every one plays How? By BEcoming the church. While we'll have services on Sunday, for a healthy spiritual diiet must continue on throughout the week espeically by serving and giving our lives away to God and to others!

4. Vision of Irvine and Santa Ana: BOTH/AND
We are going to continue moving into serving both Santa Ana and Irvine. While we still will keep the location in Irvine we are also planning on serving in Santa Ana with continued passion and action. We have met with Santa Ana government officials such as the parks director, the educ director, city planner, community dev. corporation leaders. We're planning to adopt a school, a park, and renew our commitment to the CDC 's in Santa Ana. PLEASE AGAIN NOTE WE ARE STILL PURSUING SERVING IN SANTA ANA WITH EQUAL OR GREATER ENERGY yet we are also at this time, EQUALLY committed to serving the Irvine community! We're praying about starting a preschool program in 2008 in our Irvine location!

5. Check out the CIP and Invest now! Don't miss out on being a part of what God is doing locally and globally! http://newsong.net/cip/
My family and I are praying about what God would have us give not only to the great initiatives before us but also to newsong for an end of the year gift!

6. RED. . . We got a hot event for our whole newsong family in north America and around the world coming up the last weekend of June (27-29th)! It has to do with RED (we'll tell you more in a few weeks).Mark your calendars now. This will be a time of inspiration, newsong relationship building, and incredible fun! It's a time all of us come together to renew ourselves to God and one another. Don't miss it. This year Tony Campolo will be coming!

7. A Revolutionary WEBSITE for NewSong will be debuting in January!

That's it for now! Don't forget to see what God is doing through your passonate sacrifice and service at newsong at http://live.newsong.net

love,
dave

http://live.newsong.net

Wild men @ NewSong!

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 04:25:06 GMT

Watch out when you get a group of men together! Usually when men get come together you think of hooting and hollering, crude jokes and other unsavory things. However, this uniquet gathering of men from newsong would go beyond what we could imagine.

This weekend men from mostly our three sites in SoCal got together. It was one of the highlights of the year for me.

An Indonesian lead pastor of one of the biggest churches in the world shared with us about a year ago that when God moved in his church it started with the men of his congregation confessing their sins. And that's what happened this weekend. The raw transparency and the grace shared among the men was a spark that I believe will ignite our church! One man shared he had dreamt of this two years ago. With tears in his eyes, he was able to see what God had laid on his heart come into fruition.

As we talked about on Sunday from Isaiah 6, "the cut off stump will become a holy seed!"

Sitting in Vietnam with Bob

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:37:33 GMT

I'm sitting with Bob. He's one of my closest friends. We have a blast together. He just finished blogging. Here's what he wrote. Check it out:

Bob Roberts & Dave Gibbons at Religion & Rule of Law Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam

It’sbeen a wild ride. My clothes didn’t make it - so I”m wearing anotherman’s clothes - hope he doesn’t have any diseases! Last night we metat the US Ambassadors home - it was nice - opening remarks, etc. Then,several of us went to different art galleries to look - looking for aspecial painting for our new worship center. I’m sitting beside DaveGibbons from New Song Church in Irvine, Ca. Takes me back to our daysin the early 90’s with Leighton Ford. Dave was always makingwisecracks - disrupting the class - doing stupid stuff - he’s a reallive Irish/Korean/Texan wannabe! I’m on his computer - he tied intosomeone’s open wireless system - and in Vietnam everything is open! Dave is nodding his head as the lecture is going on, oh wait - - - -he’s not agreeing - - - - he’s sleeping, now snoring - should I wakehim? There’s a Vietnam TV camera man filming - will they get Dave? Nope, ain’t gonna wake him - this may get good.
I am sitting in a room with some of the greatest pastors in allVietnam, some of the greatest scholars on religion and rule of law inthe world, and my good buddy Chris Seiple. He’s just done an awesomejob putting this together. There are some 85 people in the room. Representatives from all over the world are present, scholars,religious leaders, and others. Phuc Dang is two down from me sitting byPastor YKim - NorthWood, he’s doing great and sends his greetings toall of you.
I can hardly believe what is happening here. I remember my first triphere in ‘95 - Vietnam is growing in every dimension - it’s economy,it’s education, it’s global involvement. No things are not perfect,but they are changing. We had meetings set up for Malcolm Morris ofStewart Title yesterday and he’s studying the whole real estateexplosion here. Kent Humphreys is also visiting with key leaderstrying to look at different business opportunities. Sherman Chau, headof Glocal Ventures here has made great inroads - between NorthWoodincreasing it’s involvement and now USAID here, along with a couple offoundations - we should have a fantastic year up and coming.

I’m convinced more than ever - whether working in the Vietnam or theMiddle-East - the way of the future is engagement. Communication andtransportation has connected us. Edicts, threats, and strong armdiplomacy/military must be used sparingly in this new world. There areenough reasonable people in the world with access to communication thatif we identify them and connect with them - we might be able to avoidwar like never before. I know you may think that’s crazy - BUT as themillineal generation comes into leadership - I”m optimistic.

Now for an interview with Dave Gibbons.

Dave why did you come and what do you hope to accomplish by being here?

Play with Bob. Eat Pho. Get Vietnamese massages.

Dave seriously - people are going to hell - what are you learning?

okay. . .i’m here to understand and get a pulse of what God is doingin one of the hottest spiritual areas in the world. I’m captivated bythe advancement of religious freedom that is being addressed. Moreover,I’m encouraged by individuals like yourself and Chris Seiple who arequietly doing work that is advancing the cause of Christ many inAmerica may not be aware of.

Bob: Dave you’re an Irishman who loves Thai’s - I’m a Welshman wholoves Vietnamese - why do you think we love this opposite cultures somuch?

Southeast Asians are some of the friendliest, loving people on theglobe. They have alot to teach us. Their culture and love of life, aswell as their hunger for the deeper things of life are certainlycompelling to both of us. Furthermore, this is the frontline of what webelieve is a great awakening like never seen before.

Bob: Dave I really believe the greatest move of God is from Asiaand it is going impact us more than the other way around - what’s youropinion?

I sense the same thing. Their are currents that are moving throughthis region of the world that are evident by the economic, political,and socio-cultural front that are unbelievable. Millions are enteringinto a conversation about God and spiritual things. At this Asianintersection, we’ll not only see business and artistic innovation buttheological as well. Theological perspectives coming from suffering andmarginality are deep and will resonate with most of the world more thana prosperity/blessing type of gospel often communicated via the west.

Bob: Dave that’s really good. OK, this is heavy - BUT, I honestlybelieve one of the biggest obstacles to the church in America is thather pastors are giving her the wrong medicine. It’s not that it’s justnot helping, but that it’s poisoning us. They see empty buildings,out of church people, and try to get them in the barn. The focusshouldn’t be the barn, but the Gospel of the Kingdom engaging the lifeof the disciple. Willowcreek just released their Reveal study - butthis isn’t a shock - it’s obvious. What’s your take?

hmmmm . . i love what bill hybels and willow has done for the churchnot only in America but also the world.. They have encouraged many ofus to be sensitive to the culture around us while communicating thegospel in relevant ways. While the study may not be new to those whoare engaged in a more global dialogue it is certainly welcomed. My hopeis that the study will lead us to who really is in our backyard andwhat is our main task as the church. It should lead us to reallyexamine who truly is our neighbor. As time goes on, the megachurchmovement has framed a unique picture of our neighbor that may not bewhat Jesus was actually talking about. Our typical American definitionof our neighbor has further ghettoized and segregated the globalvillage. We are more polarized than ever with the typical church growthbeliefs we have posited not only on the US but now in churches we haveinfluenced around the world. It’s time for a dramatic change.Otherwise, our church in America continues to become more self-centeredand insular.

OK, guess we’d better be listenning closer - if you have questions - email us and we’ll perhaps tackle some of them later!