Thanks Erwin!

Having devoured Erwin McManus’ fabulous book, The Barbarian Way a couple of years back it was so cool to go and hear Erwin speak at Kerith Community Church in Bracknell this weekend.

It was such a good day…inspirational on all kinds of levels.

Erwin is such a dynamic, engaging and challenging speaker; it’s hard not to be motivated by what he says. A special word too for the beautifully produced short films which acted as bookends to each session. Each was a poignant and thought provoking film which made you really think. Amazing stuff.

There was so much to compute…so much good stuff to take on board that I’ve not had time to put my thoughts down. I’m still processing it all. I’m kinda hoping there’s someone better and brighter than me who was there, who is going to commit their thoughts on the day to the blogosphere! Hopefully, though, as the days go on I can actually manage to get some of my response down on paper.

Most significantly I was glad that through all the teaching, Erwin constantly brought us back to Jesus.

Also, it was fascinating to hear something of the story of Erwin’s tribe - Mosaic in LA and the rich diversity of the community there. One phrase that jumped out to me

…”we like people who are not like us”.

I love it!

It was great too to hook up with Neil Nakamoto from Mosaic, one of I think eight guys who’ve been travelling with Erwin on this European trip. A kinder and more gracious guy you’ll struggle to find. Knowing that Neil, Eric Bryant and Adrian Kohler are on staff at Mosaic with Erwin must mean those guys alone make up part of a rocking team!

…wonderful too to finally meet Sam and Rachel Radford from Mosaic in Sheffield, all the guys from The Salvation Army in Histon and fellow Twitterer Ben Pocock

Anyhow…an awesome day...I bought my copy of another Erwin book, “Wide Awake” – looking forward to reading it.

Thanks, Erwin!

If you know nothing about Erwin or Mosaic, the stuff online is really worth checking out.

Welsh Retreat

Well, we're back from a couple of weeks of holiday.

Week one, we chilled at home, and I wrestled with an IKEA wardrobe, which seemed to take the whole week to assemble! All the same, it was so good to get up when my body was telling me to do so, instead of when my Blackberry's alarm told me to. It was even better to hang out with Janet, Mia and Noah. I love to spend time with them, and this was the best opportunity to do this for quite some time.

Week two we travelled to West Wales to stay at the beautiful Cerrig Llwyddion in Camarthenshire. This was our chance to really chill and relax in the most wonderful peaceful environment. Check out the site if you are looking for a quiet friendly place for a family break, or a venue for a retreat. The Barn can take up to eight adults. Highly recommended!

The kids loved the easy going nature of the place, and being around the chickens, pigs, cats and Murphy the dog.

Even though it rained pretty much every day, we still mananged to hit the beaches along the Ceridigion coast every day. Mwnt became a favourite.

I didn’t manage to do as much reading as I had planned, but did manage to whizz through one of the Oxford University Press’ cute little Very Short Introductions series on “The Celts”, which was OK, if a little bit heavily skewed towards the Breton part of the equation, with only cursory mentions of the Scots. (hence my interest). As a series of books, though, I think they are worth exploring.

..caught up too with some excellent podcasts from Eric Bryant & Erwin McManus at Mosaic, and various bits from Mars Hill, particularly preaches from Steve Chalke & Phyllis Tickle …just quality stuff.

Thanks to Linda & Julie for making our stay so special. (and thanks for the pic to illustrate this post)

Wise words from Mosaic

Some wise words I picked up from my buddy Eric on his blog:

They all bear repeating....

The “conqueror” is the more common strategy for leadership. The “explorer” excavates the talent of those already there. We need to become explorers.

If you keep looking for a new place to speak, you will never become a better communicator. We need to look for ways to have something important to say whenever and wherever we have the opportunity to speak (one-on-one conversations, team trainings, youth ministry, and so on).

If we don’t translate building community with us, then we won’t be able to do this in our teams. We need to move fast but never at the cost of creating community!

We think we have to tone down the Gospel to attract people to Jesus, but we actually need to elevate the understanding of the Gospel (to where Jesus intended) to offer life-transformation to those out there who are looking for meaning.

We need to initiate relationships and conversations with the people others see as invisible.

Not everything has to grow large, but we need to be honest about what we have and are doing and always be a place for outsider.

The more people feel you are speaking to a person, the larger the church can become. The more people feel you are speaking to a crowd then fewer people will want to come.

We need to ask the question: “How do I help the people around me become the people God wants them to be?” We are spiritual leaders, not just leaders.

HT to Keith and the guys at Core Magazine for the pic.

For more of the same, check out MOSAIC & Erwin McManus

Pax

J

Minty

…looking forward to hooking up Peppermint Filled Pinatas author , Eric Bryant at Mosaic Alliance’s UK event at the end of the month, way up in Preston.

Should be an interesting day.