Ed Dobson’s Year

Looks like the story of Ed Dobson’s year long quest to live like Jesus has gone stratospheric in the blogosphere, following an interview on ABC News

I’d first become aware of Ed’s year during a recent visit to Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, MI.

Sadly, the clip on the site has led to a slew of pretty ungracious attacks in the Comments section of the ABC site …together with some more supportive responses to Ed’s efforts. Most of the vitriol is related to Ed’s admission that he’d voted for Barack Obama.

As an aside, you might want to check some excellent pics of Ed at Brian Kelly Photography

Mars Hill visit

I was glad to have the opportunity - together with my family - to visit Mars Hill in Grand Rapids this morning.

Although Rob Bell wasn’t around today, having become a regular listener to the podcast and like many felt the benefit and influence of Rob’s writing & teaching it really was good to check out the community there. I’d been looking forward to it for some time, and the day didn’t disappoint.

Although I don’t want this to come across like some kind of Secret Worshipper/consumer test thang, I thought I’d outline a few impressions….they’re all good.

Today’s teaching came from Ed Dobson, sporting a spectacular beard of quite literally Biblical proportions. At first I surmised this was just Rev Dobson’s particular preferred fashion arrangement, but he unpacked a little of the back story as part of his oratory. We learned that Ed is coming towards the end of a year of living as closely as he could in line with the teachings, example and life patterns of Jesus. Local rag, The Grand Rapids Press gives it’s take on the story here. It’s worth the read.

Aside from the fascinating facial hair story, Ed spoke powerfully from Luke 1v67-79.

Look out for the podcast at the Mars Hill site in due course

Above and beyond the Teaching and the Worship, a few things that impressed me:

• The unassuming building that somehow reflected the character of the Church
• The genuinely warm welcome from individual folks, despite the size – I guess about 3,000 people – of the congregation. It felt authentic and unstaged
• The obvious attention to detail right across the board. All the handout materials were well displayed plentiful, easy to understand, aesthetically pleasing and consistent
• Good coffee, in eco friendly cups!

God bless Mars Hill. It was a pleasure to drop by.

Baruch El-Elyon!

HT to Grand Rapids Press/Emily Zoladz for the Ed Dobson pic

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)

Rob Bell In TIME

Good to see Rob Bell getting some props in TIME Magazine:

Read the piece here:

HT to the Headphonaught for the gratuitous “me and my buddy” pic with Rob.