Cutlure and the Body of Christ: Reflections on Work Part 2(b)

More than a month ago, I wrote about how part of our call as missionaries is to help the body stay connected. One aspect of this that I didn't discuss then is the idea of cultural exchange as a way of learning about Christ.

In the Bible we get several significant hints that culture will outlast the current era and enter into eternity. In Revelation we read that God will be worshipped in every tongue by every tribe; when John sees Zion he tells us that 'nations will walk by its light,' that the 'kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it,' and that the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.' God created man in His image, but later created woman also; one gender alone apparently could not contain all the giftedness of God. I think the same could be true of culture.

And if this is true it means that different cultures have different strengths in seeing Jesus. Nothing radical so far; Paul calls his racially diverse churches the body of Christ made up of people with diverse gifts for the building up of the whole. I think given his context we can assume that part of what he meant was that cultural differences are given to us because we reflect Christ better together than we do apart. Our cultural worldviews and assumptions and commonalities, in other words, are too small to reflect God's imaging glory. So he made tribes and nations and races and peoples to reflect, mosaic-like, His glory to the world.

So missionaries have a rare opportunity of learning how another people group thinks. And I believe that if we keep our eyes and ears open, God will show us new things about Himself through the way "the other" looks at Him, and will convict us of our own culture's particular sins in light of another culture's. Because whether Kenyan hospitality and community solidarity convicts me of my own culture's individualism and greed, or whether my anger or frustration at Kenyan culture's seemingly lacking concepts of sexual morality remind me of my own culture's blindspots in the same area, living here is constant conviction through the new eyes of another culture.

My boss Horace Tipton is currently taking seminary classes at St. Paul in order to be ordained in the Anglican Church here one day. I recently asked him about his experience, and what he said really struck me: "I'm so glad I'm doing my studies here, because I couldn't learn this much about the way Kenyan Christians think anywhere else." In other words, Horace is seeing first hand that Kenyans envision and formulate their faith with nuances different from our own, and that knowing them is valuable for all of us!

It is far too easy for someone as arrogant and prideful as myself, coming from a culture as arrogant and prideful as our own, to walk through the world with my eyes squeezed tightly shut to legitimate differences of perspective to the Bible, to faith, to family, to finances. It is far too easy for me to believe that the narrow theological tradition where I find my roots contains the full counsel of what God has given to the world. Perhaps it is far too easy for us as American Christians, with the italics and word order all wrong, to view all things through our own red white and blue tinted cultural glasses, and to pretend that nobody wears glasses with any other hue. But being here has challenged Rebecca and I in that, and that is surely a gift from Jesus.

Peace,

Michael

Pilot Project 13: And The Cycle Continues

Progress continues in the pilot group, and our meeting on Thursday was really exciting. It looks like everybody from the first planting group will begin moving seedlings from the nursery into their now-prepared fields this week, and everybody from the second group has planted in the nursery. And as far as we can tell every single person bought certified quality seed, instead of spending money on questionable seeds to save cash and potentially losing their crop (as they have in the past). And I can't even say how great I think that is.

Even more exciting, though, was the farm records training we did. One of the issues that we wanted to address in the group was the lack of record keeping among small-scale farmers. Without good records, farmers don't have the ability to compare their profits between crops or their productivity between different years and farm techniques. In other words, they aren't learning year to year what they can learn about their own farms. And this seems to be where the most important learning happens: not on demonstration farms or from government ministries but on an individual's farm year to year through hands on experience.

So we had this great training for the farmers on how to keep records of what they spend on inputs (including the opportunity cost of their labor), what they do in terms of work on the farm, and what they get when they sell. The best part? The entire training was done by one of the farmers within the group.

We began with this group by explaining that we believe God has given these poor communities resources to manage and steward in such a way that they can improve their lives and overcome problems by working together. This is part of what it means to be made in the image of God and given the task of stewardship over the creation. And this training of the farmers by the farmers gave us the chance to remind them that they really do have resources and abilities, gifts and strengths, and that God has given them all of it to use for His glory and for their families and their community.

We began by talking about this group's special resources and abilities, and now here right in the middle of planning we're seeing new gifts and abilities coming up from the group. And so the cycle continues.

Peace,
Michael

A Little Bit Of Everything

Sunflower and Aloe Vera Projects

The farmers continue to sell sunflower oil, and both groups have now gotten their first pay outs! This only happened because Rebecca has God-given gifts in both basic accounting/budgetting and teaching. So she's spent a couple hours with the leadership of both sunflower groups in order to help them figure out how to record their sales and distribute money to the individual farmers and their loans in an equitable fashion. She's so good at it that both of them have now gone through the fairly complicated process on their own. Please pray that they keep selling and that the farmers are empowered to gain some entrepreneurial skill by getting out there and selling the stuff.

One of our aloe vera groups has also sold some seedlings, and looks like will sell some more really soon. We also have a potential buyer for the leaves (the real harvest) coming soon. There have been a lot of complications with all of this, though, so keep praying for wisdom and time for us to help the farmers get it together to meet these marketing options.

Mt Kenya

So last week Rebecca, my sister Katie, our good Kenyan friend David Khisa and I summitted the Lenana Peak of Mt Kenya! Considering that the summit is over 16,000 feet (read "higher than anything in the lower 48" here), we felt pretty darn proud of ourselves. It was a gorgeous 4 day adventure to the place where the Kikuyu people, who make up the majority of the farmers in our groups, traditionally believed that the creator god lived. And for us it was a pilgrimage of sorts, I guess. On summit day we started hiking at 3 a.m. beneath an enormous star-filled sky with the rugged sillhouette of Mt Kenya rising up before us, and I couldn't help but be filled with gratitude, not just for the hike but for the gift of this season God has given us in Kenya, and for the friends and family who have participated in it in both big and small ways.

More At New City

I recently got all excited on this blog about getting to lead once a month at NCF. While we were in South Africa, however, our worship leader got called to another church, and I suppose, noting my enthusiasm, the church decided to elect me the interim guy for the time being. This is an awesome opportunity for me in myriad ways that I'm sure will come out in conversations and blog posts soon enough, but for now please just pray for our church and for me as we seek to understand what Jesus would have for us in this family of faith. Also, the young adults group asked me to preach on August 8th for a "youth service" (10-35 year olds), so I'd appreciate your prayers there too.

One particularly cool part of the new responsibility was getting to do some songs with Katie last week! We realized afterward that we've never really sung together publicly before, so that was awesome, especially since Katie's got a great voice and an ear for harmony which eludes yours truly.

The Garden Revisited

When we got back, our land lady had taken out some container tomatos Rebecca and I had planted and consequently felt so bad that she gave us small patch out back to practice on. And so this morning, Katie, Rebecca and I went to work in the garden. Beans, onions, cilantro, radishes, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, and broccoli seeds all went in, as well as tomato, hot pepper, pepper mint, basil, and rosemary seedlings. We also set up a few bucket irrigation lines, just like the ones we're promoting with the farmers, that will help us save water, cut down on disease, and give us a little bit more info on just what it is we're telling our farmers to use.

Writers and speakers like Wendell Berry, Rusty Pritchard, Annie Dillard, and Matthew Sleathe have convinced me that God cares deeply for our Earth, and that part of our kingdom call is to take care of it. Our work here, which has kept us constantly on small farms exploding with horticultural diversity, has changed not only my diet but my interest in the miracle that brings food up out of the ground and the systems which put food on our tables. And finally, as we've felt on previous occasions, gardening for us is an act of solidarity with our farmers, a tangible reminder to long for rain and wrestle with agricultural diseases. It isn't much, but it's something. At any rate, look out for more musings and updates on our 110 sq foot reclamation of our original pre-Fall calling.

Peace,

Michael

Pilot Project Part 12: Planting

Hey folks, sorry it has been a while. If you've been watching the World Cup you may have seen our blogs on ESPN, aka us painted from head to foot on the front row at the USA games. We had a blast and our time with long time close friends Abby Wismer, Jonathan Wilson, and Mike Shaw was incredibly refreshing and encouraging on all levels.

The Pilot Group farmers have begun planting! Against all of our fears about what would happen during our two week absence (full proof that we haven't fully embraced our best principles yet!) about 1/3 of our farmers got together to buy inputs according to the plans we made together, and then planted those seeds in the nursery about a week and a half ago. If you look at the picture, that's a week old rice nursery for a two acre farm. I'm hoping to get out there and help plant when they transfer from the nursery to the farm.

I really got excited hearing the groups' feedback about buying the farm inputs together. When we first started discussing the idea of sending a representative to buy all of the grousp inputs for them it seemed pretty overly complicated, and a number of farmers sort of said "ah well, let's just do it every man for himself." Afterword however, they were all very encouraged and excited because buying in bulk allowed them to save significant amounts of money and time. This gave me a chance to draw out the lesson with them that working together is almost always better than working separately, yet another example of how the Bible's version of what we're designed for in terms of community actually works.

Our work now is watching, helping the farmers troubleshoot issues, and preparing for selling. There have been some revelations with the micro-credit situation as well, but I'll save that for later.

In other news, please pray for my father, Mike, as he is having serious open heart surgery tomorrow. This is as unexpected as it is unpleasant: Dad is a pretty fit guy who still can fit in the pants he got married in. Please pray for my mom as well as she nurses him back to health. Also, sister Katie is here for her last hurrah before dental hygiene school, so we're climbing Mt Kenya together this week! It'll be a four day hike up to the second highest summit (17,000 feet) on the second highest mountain in Africa. Pray we make it, don't freeze, and get good weather for the summit . . . sometimes you can see Kilimanjaro!

Peace,

rhodes

"Contextualizing Learning Experiences from Rhodes' Blog," Or "What to Do With All Your Spare Time When We're Not Blogging Because We're At the World Cup," Or Maybe Even "Holler for the Home Town Boys"

So Wednesday Rebecca and I will head to South Africa to watch the U.S. of A. beat the tar out of England, Slovenia, and Algeria at the World Cup. We're traveling with our good friends Abby Wismer and Michael Shaw, and will meet the indominatable Jonathan Wilson down there for games 2 and 3.

Among other things, this blog has been an attempt at community learning across continents, an invitation to join in on the conversation that we're having about God's kingdom, and its intersection with economies, race relations, etc. So while we're AWOL down South, check out some of these podcasts from folks who are applying kingdom theology to life lived in urban America. Maybe you'll find these helpful, as we have, as we try to learn just what Micah meant when he said that what is required of us is to do justice and love mercy and walk with God.

First and foremost, check out two sermons from two pastors from my hometown church. I love tuning in and finding out that Second Pres is preaching the gospel for the poor back home in ways that challenge and encourage us here!

Richard Rieves: Richard is planting a church in the neighborhood near Advance where Rebecca and I used to work. This is an incredible sermon on how God calls us to diversity . . . for our own sake! http://www.2pc.org/media/amen.xml


Sandy Wilson: Warning! This will knock your socks off. Here's an excerpt-“Most in this city are simply trying to figure out where they can get their half-acre, 500,000 dollar home, with their wall, and their gate, locked, so that nobody can get in and steal their stuff.  They’re not thinking about, “How do I get down there where people don’t even have a half of a half of an acre, and don’t have anything to put in their house and give something to them?!” I’m telling you, that is WICKED! IT’S MORE WICKED THAN THE STRIP JOINTS IN OUR CITY! “And most of the rest of the people are just complicit partners, who want to claim that by being passive, they haven’t done anything evil. If you are passive, you WILL do evil! Because we’re seeing here [in this passage], with this light shed on the world order, IT IS EVIL! IT’S ALWAYS BEEN EVIL!    http://www.2pc.org/resources/audio/?customshow=1&find=series&series=revelation&series_name=Revelation

Now for one not so close to home: Tim Keller on Jonah. This is probably one of the best sermons I've ever heard about our responsibility to the city . . . any city! http://sermons2.redeemer.com/sites/sermons2.redeemer.com/files/RSS_Feeds/Timothy_Keller_Podcasts.xml


Finally, here's extra credit. One of the most damaging theological errors of our recent history is the fundamentalist Zionist belief that the nation state of Israel is the literal fulfillment of the Bible's prophesies about God fulfilling His covenant. This misguided belief has led Christians to support violence, violation of human rights, and an increased racial divide between Israelis and Palestinians. Moreover, it has damaged the gospel work in Palestine amongst Palestinians, as proved by the large Christian population present at the time of the initial Israeli war, a popluation that has been decreasing dangerously and dramatically ever since. If you don't believe me, or want to learn more, why not listen to the opening talk from a conference put on by evangelicals from Palestine (by Rev. Alex Awad)? And if that whets your appetite, why not listen to the rest? I'm working my way through right now! http://www.christatthecheckpoint.com/lectures.html

Peace,
Michael

One Lord, One Faith, One Birth: Reflections on Work Part 2(a)

My previous post on work brought up questions about our efforts to create small anticipatory pictures of the kingdom through helping the poor to get more money for themselves and their families. When Rebecca and I accepted this opportunity through Planting Faith it was this that we primarily considered, and it is this work that dominates much of our thoughts. But lately I’ve been thinking about a different and much less discussed part of the missionary call.


Rebecca and I have been studying the Pauline Epistles together, and we have been amazed by what these very first “missionary updates” have to say about the call to “go.” And while much of the theological meat comes in the middle of these brilliant letters, what has struck me recently mainly shows up in the greetings and the good-byes. I’m talking about the names. Paul’s letters ooze with personal references: Priscilla and Aquilla who risked their lives for him, Stachys, the dear friend, Apliatus and Apelles whose names indicate they were probably slaves, Rufus and his mother who had become a mother to the apostle, Fortunatus who refreshed his spirit, Epaphras the dear fellow servant, to name just a few.

Two points I’ve missed in the past: first, almost all of these names are Gentile names. These are non-Jewish converts to Christ. In the very earliest days of the church, the gospel called formerly racially defined Jews out into a world of mutual relationships with the “unclean Gentiles.” In fact although we can try to ignore it, a huge amount of the New Testament and particularly Paul specifically addresses a racial question: how do we, who once were enemies, now live as the new people of God defined primarily by our union with King Jesus the Christ?

Second, and infinitely more challenging for the western missionary, Paul, the most prolific author of the New Testament, the authoritative and almost borderline arrogant apostle to the Gentiles, clearly loves and depends on these Gentiles. These are not paternalistic one-sided relationships in which the “man of God” comes and helps the spiritually bereft Gentiles. No, these are his mothers and brothers in the faith, people whose death would cause sorrow upon sorrow, who supply his needs!

And so we get this crazy picture of members of this new, persecuted and poor movement traveling great distances through dangerous waters (remember Paul’s shipwrecks) and spending great sums of money all in order to be together, to share in what God has taught them in the faith, to support their brothers and sisters in their need, or to receive help in their own times of need. And suddenly it occurs to me that part of the missionary call is to make sure that we who are the body of Christ stay connected, that we remember our common Lord and King, that we learn about each other’s strengths and struggles. Maybe the phrase “missionary” can almost hide one of our most important callings: to really live as the unique people and family and body of God Himself simply by getting out and getting to know each other.

Whenever either Rebecca or I are about to come back to the States, our farmers say a very funny thing: “Tell those Christians there that we love them.” In the context of Paul, I think that I have begun to see how this, this sharing of needs and abilities, this brief intersection of Christians on the road with Christ from different tribes and tongues, this fellowship with “all the saints” that mirrors the saint filled party going on above, is part of the whole point. Maybe we are a little like Epaphras, and this blog is a way for us to tell you how the Paul and Barnabas’s of Kenya are doing, and of how they love us and are praying for us. And I think Jesus delights in all of it, as He looks down and sees His church learning just a little more about their brothers and sisters on different sides of His beautiful world.

Maybe also God knows that when the hands and eyes meet they learn a bit more about the head. But that will have to wait for Part 2(b) . . .

Peace,
Michael

Check out the brief call for thanksgiving over the farmer's recent sale just below!

Hallelujah!

The Lord answers prayer: our farmers sold around 440 dollars worth of aloe vera seedlings this week! I know that many of you have been praying for this, and yesterday a buyer came! This is great for our farmers on multiple levels: of course it means some cash in their pocket and that they will be able to begin to pay off their loans, but it also will be a great encouragement to them. Thanks for your prayers, and please, please, please keep praying for these and all our groups!

Peace,
Michael
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