So far today has been a day "plein de choses." In fact, it was so full that it wisked by rather quickly. It has left me with many questions to ask, much clarification to demand, and more subjunctive to memorize. I'm just going to think "cyberloud" for a few minutes....


Aside from my sore legs and feet from the long walk yesterday, I feel much better and my cough continues to render that ugly flem we all know must come up and get clear of my lungs. I joined a group of area missionaries representing several countries this morning to hear the minutes from last year's meeting and vote to approve things like a budget I had no part in constructing way back in November and doesn't affect my anyway. The field meeting. The field was meeting me to for the first time. I felt like some kind of rare bug under the microscope. In some ways, I am a rare bug. I'm the first of the OIKOS team to show up at their meeting; this means I am representing something totally new to them.


Most of the meeting was spent tossing around several acronyms that I am still trying to sort out. Just what do they all stand for, who is represented by them, what is their function, which layer of this onion am I in? L'alliance, L'association, MEBF, CC, and on they go. I did feel quite a security in the rocking boat though, in that I have a lifevest called OIKOS and Jonathan FINLEY who preside over my being here. Of all that passed verbally around the room in those 2 hours, I understood nothing except that I won't understand and don't necessarily need to at this point.


Like all teams, this one has its bumps along the road and even more since there is so much transition happening in the mission world these days. I saw a lot of dynamics at work, personalities came out, question without clear answers evolved and were left in ambiguity. As I listened to everyone- one french accent here, an irish there, the banter of classic californians, canadians eh...- I started to hear passions and desires in these people's hearts. They want to see believers, churches, more organization, clarification. I also saw my heart and passions fly. Convictions on purpose and methodolgy began to arise in my own heart. I saw where I think differently, alike, where my gifting seems to be leading me.


What does it mean to be a Christian? to be a little Christ? I will love God with all my heart cuz He first loved me and sent His only son to shed His blood in my place and win me a heritage in his family. I will live as a child of the King and revel in His amazing love for me.


What is missions about? Taking this very personal, yet powerful and universal message to the world.


What is the assembling for or what so many refer to as "church"? The communing of the believers together, remembering the wonderful love of Christ and showing it to one another. If I remember right, at the end of Acts 2 the believers were gathering daily, learning from the apostles teaching, sharing what they had (everything in common), praying and people were being added daily to their number (thus growth like a bad weed).


More and more, I am convince that my role as a "missionary" is to live like a 'bad weed', like the kind that if you barely touch they shower their seed everywhere, or the kind that can't be pulled up (I always hated that kind!), or the ones that just seem to live faithfully in the potato patch, flowering so much more often than the pototoes themselves. I want to find the believers that exist around me (the "local" ones) and hang out as much as possible, praying with, sharing and giving among, learning together more about our Savior and worshipping Him in whatever way we can conceive and watch those around us get sucked into the family.


(A parentheses on the french culture: Sometimes evangelicalism is viewed as a sect. In some ways the original church gathering was viewed the same way. They were called the Way and they met privately in homes kept to themselves because of persecution for security reasons. I guess that would sound a little spooky to a skeptic.)


From here I think a little more strategically, "missionary-like", in that I would want to see this worshipping community work like a virus, contagious and passing from community to community leaving its local gang behind revelling in their new found "immunity." (I guess I use this illustration cuz I'm in the process of physically catching all the french bugs and developing an immunity to them.) The words 'church-planting' to me sound a little too forced. It scares me a little to think that I'm supposed to go out and make something grow. Even the idea of running around in a community asking people to come and partake in the local church gathering seems to forced. If Christ is either attractive or repulsive, people will be attracted or repulsed by the truth which is what I desire to live as a child of God. And, yes, I make it my business to take the message to others around me, but I can't make any converts. When something good is happening, others say its good, and those who hear want to partake. That's the smell that should be trailing us believers.


I'm still working all this out in my head and heart. Time will tell me more about myself and strategy and giftings and team. For now, I'll keep chewing on all this. I want to be the most useful tool to the Lord. He's made me a certain way and I need to be of the correct orientation to be most useful to Him. I'm searching for that orientation which includes my heart attitude, first; then, position, physically and metaphysically, correct use of my giftings. Abide in Him and then the fruit will be produced, not of my own effort but of my willingness to draw on his life.