in Madrid - Partnership

This week I am helping out with an Upwards Basketball camp in Madrid. FBC Concord in Knoxville, Tennessee started these camps about four years ago. Since we used to live here we are having a blast seeing our friends from our old neighborhood. Our kids are helping in the camp this year along with Susan and I. I "try" to help the 13 - 16 year old boys group and my wife helps in the ESL part of the camp. I have forgotten just how hot Madrid is in the summer time. Whew!

Some cool things about the "hot" camp and the partnership with this church.

• They now have over 100 kids and they do not publicize the camp. Friends invite friends.
  
• The church that started the camp in 2005 is still coming back each year? Yea, FBC Concord.
• Repeat trips makes a difference. Several of the camp staff have been here serving 5 times or more since our partnership began in 2002. The children at the camp know many of the camp staff by name.
  
• The partnership has been to Madrid and not to a worker. Once we moved to Germany the church still comes here to work.
• The church often brings entire families to come and work the camps. It is a great experience for the children that come with their families to serve.
  

More soon on partnerships. I got to go to Camp!

Larry visits Mars Hill

Yesterday we went into Athens to see the sites. We made it to Mar's Hill. I will tell you about a really cool ministry connect we made there in my next post.

The book of Acts comes alive here as you walk around the marketplace, the temple sites, Mar's Hill.

I am standing next to his speech as recorded in Acts 17. I giving you the English version in case you cannot zoom in and read it in Greek.

²²Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

I must say when you come to Athens you must try the "Frappe". I doubt the Apostle Paul was able to experience this aspect of Athenian life but the"iced coffee drink" is something to remember.

More Soon.

In Athens

We arrived last night in Athens. We flew in from Zurich to Madrid and then on to Athens. We had a long layover in Madrid so we took the metro into the city to get a cafe con leche (coffee) and some lunch. It felt good to be back in Madrid even if it were only for a few hours this time.

We flew out of Madrid and arrived late in Athens.
We are going to spend the next couple of days being tourists in Athens. We are grateful for staying at the home of some people who are doing "Business as Mission" with Greater Europe Mission.

More soon.

Partnerships

I think we see the importance of “partnership” with the apostle Paul to the church at Philippi. No blog post on partnerships would be complete without these verses:

3I thank my God every time I remember you. 4In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

7It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. 8God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. Phil 1:3 – 8


Some quick bullet points on these verses that always impress me.

• Paul is thankful to the Lord for that church.
• Paul is thankful because they have continually “partnered” with him in the good times and bad.
• Paul knows that their partnership is also growing them as a church and God’s grace is being shared.
• Paul has a deep affection for this church.

Some questions that jump out at me?

Was the church at Phillipi his “sending” church? What is the difference between a “sending” church and a “partnering” church?

In what ways did they partner with him?

In what ways did he partner with them?

Did they have a formal written agreement?

Did they pray for him?

Did they give of their resources to him?

Did they send out people from their church to help him?

How could they know his prayer request without “twitter” or “facebook” in those days? Grin.


More soon.
lmc

Partnerships

I am going to finally start my partnership series. I know you just cannot wait. Smile.

I feel that "partnership" needs a definition. It is a well used term. It may not be used as much as "missional" but I do hear "I want to partner with you" quite a lot.

What does “partnership” mean?

Is it like saying – “hello, how are you doing?”

When someone asks me that question do they really want to hear how I am doing? Do they really want me to stop and tell them if it is anything more than – “I am fine”.

That is the trouble with overused terms or phrases. They can lose their meaning.

So a quick google search on the word “partnership” and here is what I found.

A Partnership -

* the members of a business venture created by contract

* a cooperative relationship between people or groups who agree to share responsibility for achieving some specific goal; "effective language learning is a partnership between school, teacher and student"; "the action teams worked in partnership with the government"

* a contract between two or more persons who agree to pool talent and money and share profits or losses
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

In missions how do we use the word “partnership”?
What do we really mean?

What does this mean coming from missionaries or mission organizations?

What do churches and organizations who want to partner with the field mean when they say “we want to partner” with you?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Vision Trip - the final edition

Vision Trip to Rome and Marseille

This past weekend I returned home here in Germany after Upstream's vision trip.
We had a great week. Learned a lot. It was really cool to be around a group of pastors and mission leaders who are serious about keeping "missions" in "missional". It is encouraging to listen to people who want to connect globally as well as in their own communities.

I need to say some thank you's for I am very grateful for the help on this trip.

A thank you to Ed Stetzer who came a long with us. He is a good friend and I always learn much when I get to hang out with him some.

I also have to say thanks to Caleb Crider who really did an outstanding job on this trip with his talks about missions and posting on our blog.

I want to thank Scott and his team in Marseille and Jason and his team in Rome for hosting us and making us feel welcome and giving us a great glimpse of these two cities.

We had a great group of people who came along for the journey.
Check out this blog and some cool videos here.

Next on the stop is Asia in September. It looks like we will be going to Taiwan.
We will be in London and Paris next May 2010.

If you have an interest in either trip fill out the application form at our website.
You can also sign up for our free e-newsletter to get a glimpse on future events or trips.

Go Conference

When I returned home I spoke via skype at the Go Conference hosted by Greater Europe Mission. Check out this blog. We are looking into co-sponsoring one of these in the Southeast this August as we search for people who want to live and work in Europe, on Purpose.

Next Up
I am continuing to formulate some thoughts on partnerships. Thanks for those of you who have sent me some information and material on the subjects of mission partnerships.

In Rome

Our Upstream Collective vision trip began last night. We had our first gathering last night at a local café and got to know each other a bit. We come from diverse background but connected in that we all want to see the church involved in missions. Several conversations that I had revolved around how we feel the Great Commission was given to the church. What does this look like in a day where it is so east to pay organizations and networks to do it? How can the church fully express itself in the Great Commission.

This morning we are headed to St. Paul’s here in Rome. It is the second largest church. We will have more conversations and lots of café. Have I mentioned that the café here is great.

I am going to talk this morning about being “invited” in. I will look at the story of Phillip as he went up to the Chariot as the Spirit led him on the road out of the city. As he obeyed the Spirit the Ethopian official invited him in. We see this again with Paul as he was in Athens. I will actually be in that city next month but that is another post. Paul was in three spaces as Erwin McManus says. He first went to the religious place where there were God fearers present and he engaged in conversation with. As often the case he would work in the marketplace for he was a tent maker and the marketplace was his second place. I believe as Paul was in this second place it gave him opportunity to be invited into the “third space”. He was invited into the group to be able to explain these things that he believed in.

Ministry in Europe today is a lot like that I think. We have to live amongst the people here. We pray for opportunities to join them. We seek to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. We hope to be invited into their spaces. It is then when we have awesome opportunities to share Jesus and see people’s lives changed.

More later,

Larry