Wow what a week. It was great. Thanks Steve for some great teaching, thanks fellow learners it was a privilege to be with you.
Some of my background. As you may have noticed I am no spring chicken. I am a boomer, born in 1956 in Wales. As a sickly kid doctors recommended my parents find a warmer climate and so at the age of 8 I arrived in Whyalla South Australia. Definitely warmer.
At 17 I was confronted by the verse in 1 John 4:19 and now knew that this God that I had always suspected of existing but absent was not only present but loved me. I became a believer but it took a couple more years before I twigged that it should cause a change in my behaviour. When it twigged I had a desire to live my life for him.
A deep involvement with Christian things began, I was involved in youth work, preaching, evangelism and whatever I could get into. Church on the beach with visiting God Squad riders, street preaching, discipling other youth leaders, Boy’s Brigades and the list goes on.
At the ripe old age of 22 I married and with my wife continued church involvements. I had trained as a cook and set up a business called rent a chef so that I could cook for church camps and functions without needing to ask for time off.
At 28 I convinced my wife that the time was right for us to go to missionary training college in Melbourne with a view to being involved in any ministry that God would lead us to (except pastor). We went to Tasmania willing to go anywhere but on leaving I was a bit more specific and stipulated to God somewhere warm. Remember that childhood experience. So even Whyalla was not warm enough and we ended up spending 14 years in West Africa, beautiful warm humid tropical Africa.
Arriving back in Australia in 2004 I had a quadruple bypass and prepared to settle down in suburbia. I began work at the El Shaddai camp in Wellington and loved it. Denise was not as settled and felt there was something else. In 2006 we were asked to join the staff at WEC International’s training centre in Tasmania. So here we are and loving it. It does mean more of that stuff called studying but it is worth it. However mindful of the early years of my life I say bring on global warming, a few more degrees here would be welcome. If not I am working on plans to pull the anchor on Tasmania and to it round to Cairns. What the heck, they have rain forests there as well.
The cool welcome back in Tassie confirms the need for global warming.
Don
1 comment:
Dear Don,
Having been thoroughly modern and a pre-boomer, I could easily relate to where you were coming from. Boxes, definitions, propositions, clear instructions, control ... They are what we were broughtup on aren't they. I don't know about when you were overseas, but I found myself questioning so much of that whil in the Islands and wa sso grateful that study at Fuller helped validate much of what I was thinking. Coming back to Australia I recognised postmodernism as a huge paradigm shift, and that our society was developing a completely new culture. How to relat, that was the question.
Accidentally linking with a postmodern church when I cam back I found myself immersed in juxtaposition, abduction, imagination, stories, metaphors, experiential worship, awe and wonder lll and was classified as a heretic by my fellow faculty members. But I did not give up. I knew I was onto something and this week has helped to break open the modern shroud ever furthers. you have a trememd ous opportunity as you teach students and as you preach. Go for it!
We moderns also like control don't we, especially we who teach. We are the experts! This is one of the good things postmodernism has done for me - to realise that I may be something of an expert in on area, but not all, and may insights make life and minsistry richer, not least for me! I found if also takes a way a burden. I hope you find that too, though I won't say teaching is any easier in spite of the burden going.
Si Smith, Interview on "40"Emergingchurch. Inf, Stories February 2006, http://emergingchurch.info,/40/stories/index.htm (Includes working and diagrams)
Debra Cash "A Conversation with Anita Diament" Living Text 3 1998:17-22
Leonard Sweet The Metaphor Moment (Part One) National Pastors convention, http://nationalpasotrsconvention.com/2002/resources,farticles/metaphor1.htm
Bob Roglien, Experiential worship, Colorado Springs, NavPress, 2005,pp.175-176, 183=185.
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