andi's perspective

KILLING HOLY? COWS

While on my way to talk business with Marcus & Marcus, out of-the-box kingdom pioneers in Meiningen, my train ran over a whole herd (!) of cows nicely processing in single file exactly in the same track that my train wanted to use...

Guess who won... !!!

After a series of small bumps our train stood and firefighters counted 12 dead cows (not all of them in one piece.)

The poor dudes and us made made it into the news: here and here.)

GOING KANGAROO

Memories from down-under:

After a week of research Dave and me went petting Kangaroos for a change.
Enjoy the fotos finally uploaded :)

THE STARFISH VISION

Wolfgang is leading the way. Here finally comes his long awaited introduction into what he calls a "flat-structured global apostolic network" symbolized by the starfish (and alluding to the famous business conception of leaderless organisations):
"Die Starfish-Vision", until now in German only. What i really like is that the vision comes with more than just words: The Starfish Portal introduces an "apostolic resource structure" incl. downloads, newsletter, association, foundation, donations.
As usual with the prophet, claims and visions are unsurpassable. Let's see what that new structure can help us achieve for the King.

LAUSANNE RESEARCH

Hugely enjoying the 5th Lausanne Researchers Conference here downunder in Melbourne, Australia!

We've done the Great Ocean Road today and with perfect sunset we arrived at the spectactular Twelve Apostles. Koalas included. Fotos pending.

Great and resourceful people to meet here. I also got nice 5 minutes to shortly present where we are at with emRG. This was very well received.

In a word. I am completely enjoying it even while my sleep rhythm got totally screwed..

By chance i learnt about Alan's and Andrew's Forge weekend conference just about the street. Guess i will rather flock to the flocks of cangaroos and wombats, however.

Greetings from downunder

STRATEGIC INFORMATION

Here is the announced prototype of our new nation pages for church planters in Europe: Portugal. Check out and feel free to comment. It is work in progress and early days...

The idea is to provide original data, orientation in the mass of existing data, as well as some predigestion and summary evaluation relevant to church planters and missions strategists.

You as a missions-bearer in your place - what would you do with such an information page if it were zoomed down to your city?

Web 2.0 News (DE)

Hier ist ein exzellenter fast täglich aktualisierter News-Blog, der mit Web 2.0  Neuerscheinungen schrittzuhalten versucht: www.zweinull.cc. Gegenwärtig werden dort 10 Thesen zur digitalen Zukunft diskutiert.

Volle Empfehlung! Danke Johannes für diesen heißen Tip!

RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

Just finished reading Stark's "Discovering God". Pretty boring title for what turns out to be an excellent sociological work on comparative religions.

Starks couragiously claims that rational thinking allows to distinguish between inspired and non-inspired religions, that all religions descend from early High-God conceptions before having been watered down into temple cults, and that by today we have a better understanding of God than ever before. He builds strongly on the notion of the "Axial Age", i.e. the remarkable parallelism of religious innovations during the 6th cy. BC.

What impressed me most, however, was how consistently he traced characteristics of social movements across times, contexts and religions:

• There is no mass conversion. Conversi0n processes in growing religious movements are standard diffusion processes along social networks and identical to the S-curve we know from the take up of technological innovations: It took about 300 years for Christianity to fill the Roman Empire as it took about 250 years for Islam to fill Persia and North Africa.
• When given a "free market", religions compete for adherents: a process that stimulates religious innovation. In stifled religious monopolies individual spirituality will turn to the cheapest solution (read: magic) and decrease in general.
• A well documented church-to-sect cycle sufficiently explains the inevitable fragmentation of any monotheistic religion.
• Religiosity is not irrational, but based on rational choice following perceived personal benefits - which again has all to do with social networks.

My next Stark book is already on the table, ready to provide more building blocks for my increasingly sociological perspective on life.

RELIGIOUS CAPITAL - POWER STRUCTURES (DE)

Habe mich auf der Basis von Bourdieus Feldkonzept an einer machtanalytischen Betrachtung des freikirchlichen Feldes versucht: PDF. Nur der Anfang einer Arbeitsrichtung, die ich vertiefen möchte. Feedback erwünscht. //

// You can test your German on my essay on power structures within the religious field of German evangelicalism. I sketched this analysis based on Bourdieu's "field" concept and as part of my sociological studies. Feedback welcome.

FEELING CHURCH

Celebrating the life and death of Josua we today took our leave of him in the good company of family & friends.

 
We were honoured by many a friend expressing their love & sympathy, sharing prophetic impressions or lending a hand in practical matters. It was good experiencing church - local and global - as a real life support network. The amount and intensity of empathy and interest actually surprised us. Joshua to us finally became not only a uniquely personal, but also a powerful relational exerience. "In his name" we wish you all a blessed celebration of the life & death of Josua's namesake!

DEEPER MEANINGS?

Partaking at a collective funeral for preemies we've waved a final goodbye to our firstborn today.

While i tend not to look for a deeper meaning where just plain nature (read: God authorised fallen reality) hit, we were suprised to receive a number of prophetic impressions for Josua: from being a "seed" over being a "sign to the city" to being a "prophetic image about the condition of the church".
For me Josua's being buried in Magdeburgian soil in the good company of other preemies is primarily a sign of confirming our incarnational attitude of sowing our lives into this specific place. We will see what comes out of it.

A huge thankyou at this place to all friends who by various ways have expressed their sympathy over these last weeks!! THANKYOU :.-) 8.-)