February 2010

Going Deep with God Last month's Antioch Network Gathering was my eighth, and the third for the Apprenticeship to Jesus community to participate in and as always it was rich time and we left strengthened and envisioned.   Below are a few highlights:
Greetings!  Noleen and I  hope this email finds you enjoying the life that is before you.  We are doing well.  We want to share three things we are thankful for today: 1. Our beautiful family and little Elyana beginning to laugh and smile (she's 3 months)     2. That God communicates his deep love for us through our family and friends; laughter and joy.  As well as through visitors and strangers; pain and suffering.  Pause for a moment, can you hear it?  The soft strong constant voice of our Father saying I love you!  Hearing this in our heart has the power to change us.  Can you hear it?   3. The Apprenticehsip to Jesus community we get to live life with daily here in downtown Phoenix growing in Christ-likeness as we pray, study and serve our neighbors together. Our times  were focused on hearing from God together The Lord gathered the Antioch Network fellowship and guests in Antioch, Turkey, from over fifteen countries (Syria to Singapore) and many Christian traditions: Messianic (Jewish), Eastern Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Maranite, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Mennonite, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and free church.  In Antioch the disciples were first called Christians (Acts 11:26), the church of the "one new man" of Jew and Gentile (Eph. 2:15) was first fully expressed, and the mission to the Gentiles was launched (Acts 13:1-3).  In an atmosphere of worship, prayer and fellowship, we listened for what God would say to us.  Christian reconciliation was in the forefront of our prayers.
Praying in St. Peters Cave Church (where early Christians gathered to worship Another beautiful expression of our diversity yet united hearts in Christ was expressed at the St. Peters Cave Church, where our Catholic sisters from Syria sang in Arabic, followed by a Messianic couple from Israel singing the Shema in Hebrew, and a Chinese Methodist pastor from Singapore blowing the Shofar.  We were humbly aware of the beauty and wideness of the body of Christ that we so often miss in our limited vantage point as modern American Christians God gives us the grace of repentance: During one of our prayer times a Protestant worker in Turkey stood to repent for his ungodly attitudes toward Catholics.  A Catholic approached him saying, "I forgive you."  They embraced.  Another Catholic came forward to ask the Protestant for forgiveness for the failures of the historic churches.  They embraced.  A second Protestant confessed with weeping her unkind attitudes toward the Orthodox.  An Orthodox person extended forgiveness.  Soon another Catholic confessed, again with tears, her harsh and unloving attitudes toward Protestants.  Before she could finish, a Protestant young woman came forward, took her in her arms, and said, "We are sisters."  One of the Apprenticeship to Jesus interns, Tyler (seen in photograph) was able to experience this in a deep way personally and later stated that "I experienced deep healing from the pain and wounds from the divisions of my church experiences growing up" Apprenticeship to Jesus-revisiting the foundations This past month we in the Apprenticeship to Jesus community have been revisiting the foundations God has been laying for our community and ministry.  Here are a few thoughts:  Why choose to be a disciple/apprentic? What would be the thinking, the convictions about reality, that would lead someone to choose discipleship (apprenticeship) to him (Jesus)?"  Dallas Willard writes, "Obviously one would feel great admiration and love, would really believe that Jesus is the most magnificent person who has ever lived.  One would be quite sure that to belong to him, to be taken into what he is doing throughout this world so that what he is doing becomes your life, is the greatest opportunity one will ever have. As Jesus' disciple, I am his apprentice in kingdom living. I am learning from him how to lead my life in the Kingdom of God. It is my faith in him that led me to become his disciple. My confidence in him simply means that I believe that he is right about everything: that all that he is and says shows what life is at its best, what it was intended by God to be. "In him was life and the life was the light of men."