The Horse and Rider

As I (Blake) was prepping for my annual worship course I teach at AGI's SALT school, I ran into a wonderful story by Henri Nouwen in his book Creative Ministry. It ties in to last weeks post about the importance of understanding our "why".

"...a Vietnamese Buddhist monk came to Holland and one day walked into the house where I lived. He was a thin man whom you would be afraid to touch...While he looked straight into my eyes, he said: “There was a man on a horse galloping swiftly along the road. An old farmer standing in the fields, seeing him pass by, called out, ‘Hey, rider, where are you going?’ The rider turned around and shouted back, ‘Don’t ask me, just ask my horse!’ ” 

    The monk looked at me and said: “That is your condition. You are no longer master over your own destiny. You have lost control over the great powers that pull you forward toward an unknown direction. You have become a passive victim of an ongoing movement which you do not understand.”

We must all always seek to understand why we worship the way we do and test these methods, first and foremost, with the Word of God. Secondly, we must test them against our culture. Our private worship will drive our public worship. In public (or corporate) worship, participation is the key. If we are riding a horse that no longer communicates to our culture and encourages those in our culture to participate in worship, then we must be open to changing directions...even possibly changing horses.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. As I begin teaching next week, together we are impacting students and churches literally all across Ireland.

The Why

I (Katy) was able to spend some time in Glendalough last week looking at some of the old ruins there. In the centre of the valley, there is a church that was once the largest gathering point for Christian believers of its time. The area was a place of pilgrimage and theological study. It was built in the 900's and took roughly 100 years to be completed. 

Even though the bones of the structure are still standing today, it is but a shadow of its former glory. As I was walking through the front doors of the church, I wondered how the people who journeyed there felt about the place at the time. That place was a pretty big deal to them and to the rest of the God-fearing nation. 

The truth is, it was just a building; a building that is now frequented by Japanese tourists with cameras. See, it was indeed just a building, but what lives on about the parish is the impact the Word of God had on the generations that followed. Buildings, systems, liturgy, and all that we use to convey the message of Jesus are merely tools. They are temporal and will fade away. They are the "What," not the "Why." Sometimes we as Christians have a tendency to worship the What. 

We should be the most focused on the big picture - why do we do the things we do? Do they bring the most glory to God and illuminate His love? Our vision of the present should reflect the truth that, unlike what we can build with our human hands, the Word of God will never fade away. 

Three Prayer Requests

There are three things going on right now, about which we could really use your prayers.

• Sickness
  • We are currently all enjoying our third cold/sickness in two months. We're optimistic though that this will be the end of illness for a while. Don't worry, it's nothing serious, just very annoying. 
  • Please pray for health and rest for all three of us, especially Katy who is 20 weeks pregnant.
• Visa
  • We are currently collecting documents to send in a letter of application for our visa. Approval on this application will allow us to go officially apply in May. You could say this is our application to apply for a religious visa. These can be somewhat tricky since our approval is purely at the discretion of the person who happens to receive it. Some get turned down, even with proper documentation.
  • Please pray that we receive approval to apply for a new visa
• Ministry
  • e are at a very crucial point in our ministry here. As we begin to lay the groundwork for large upcoming projects, we will desperately need your prayers. In the next few months we will have important conversations with university faculty/chaplains, students, university ministry colleagues, etc. Favour and direction through these conversations will set our course for the next few years.
  • Please pray for wisdom, discernment, favor, direction, and courage in the conversations we will have coming up.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. Together we are working to show the love of Jesus to university students of Ireland.

By the way, here's a great pic of Katy's baby bump!