We've moved (in case you haven't noticed...)

As if the complete lack of posts wasn't enough to clue you in, this blog has been abandoned. Katie and I now maintain a family website, complete with news updates, photos, newsletter archives, blog ramblings, and more. Come check it out, and subscribe to the RSS feeds to stay current.

LASIK

As Jesus was approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging. Now hearing a crowd going by, he began to inquire what this was. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he called out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Those who led the way were sternly telling him to be quiet; but he kept crying out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" And Jesus stopped and commanded that he be brought to Him; and when he came near, He questioned him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" And he said, "Lord, I want to regain my sight!" And Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God. - Luke 18:35-43, NASB

Well, I've had no miraculous healing, but I tell you what, LASIK is about as close as you can get. Friday almost two weeks ago I had LASIK surgery on both eyes. My eyes weren't horrible. I could function fine without contacts if I needed to, but I couldn't legally drive without them. I now see 20/15. It doesn't get much better than that!

The entire procedure took somewhere around 10 minutes for both eyes. It's a two-stage procedure. First they cut a flap in my cornea. I paid extra for them to cut the flap with a laser instead of a blade. Second, they peel the flap back, and a second laser adjusted my vision. From my perspective, it seemed just like I was lying there watching a blinking red light. And I could see my vision changing as it worked. Finally, they put the flap back in place, and I could see. Simple as that. Each stage for each eye took 20 seconds. Incredible!

When we got through, all I could think about was that I wanted to take a nap. Katie drove me home and I went straight to sleep. When I woke up, there was no pain, no drowsiness, no anything. I felt 100%. And I could see 20/15. They made me wear goggles for 24 hours, and then every night for 10 nights, so that I wouldn't accidentally rub my eyes. And I'm just now getting to the end of the medicated eye drops that are supposed to aid the healing process.

Is that a miracle? Well, not in the same sense as what Jesus did in Jericho. Still, I attribute it to God and His power. In this case, God worked through a long history of inventors, scientists, and doctors to develop the technology, and then He worked through the doctor that did the surgery. And He has been working through my body in the healing process. God is at work, every day. Perhaps we should restore our sense of awe at what He does, especially through us humans.

Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him, glorifying God; and when all the people saw it, they gave praise to God.

Quite a Weekend

A quick update on our weekend: Katie and I went to Searcy to celebrate the graduations of her brother (Josh Granberg) and her sister and brother-in-law (Laura and Jared King). So we packed into the GAC at Harding and, 650 names later, they had their degrees. Actually, they had empty degree covers. Close enough. This is one type of event where having a decent SLR would have been handy. I made do with my trusty little Sony digital point-and-shoot. Here are a few pics.We also got a few minutes with our mission team, Sam Shewmaker (missionary to Rwanda), and Alan and Rachel Howell (missionaries to Mozambique). We would have loved to spend more time with all of them, but alas, we do what we can. We also got a chance to see several friends, such as the Bontragers and the Ritchies, which was awesome.

In addition, we celebrated Katie's parents 30th anniversary, Jared's Dad's birthday, and Mothers Day. Katie's first. We ended the weekend with a pleasant visit to my Grandmother Reese in Pocahontas. Thank God for such a wonderful family!

Changed Location

In the interests of making this blog easy for me to update, I've moved it from http://angolateam.org/reese/blog to its new home at http://angolareeses.blogspot.com. Update your bookmarks and blogrolls if you need to. Sorry if it causes any inconvenience. Here's a picture to make it worth your while.

Our Most Exciting News

For those who haven't heard, Katie and I are expecting our first child in September! We are incredibly excited, and it's getting harder to wait. We found out a few weeks ago that she is a beautiful little girl! And we've been thinking and praying about names for a while, but yesterday we finally decided. Her name is:

Eliana Dell Reese

Eliana is Hebrew for "My God has answered." Indeed, our God has answered our prayers for child, and we pray that throughout her life Eliana will be God's answer to the prayers of many people.

Dell is in honor of her maternal grandmother, Gena Dell Granberg. We thank God for the faith that lives in Eliana's four grandparents, and we pray that it will live in her too. She is blessed with an incredible heritage of faith.

Isn't God good?

Just call me the epitome of consistency

I think I'm fairly consistent in my blogging. As in, I have consistently not posted now for over a year. I might, however, try to break out of that rut and do something different for a change. Like actually post. But of course, I make no guarantees. If I do post more often, I'll try to include more newsy things about what's going on in our life, since my esoteric ramblings aren't nearly as interesting to you as they are to me.

By the way, if you want an easy way to keep up with (in)consistent bloggers like me, try adding a Google Reader widget to your Google page. I've found it very convenient, because I have Google set as my homepage, and so whenever I open the web browser, I am confronted with a list of the newest blog posts from my friends. And it's easy to scan through them without even leaving that page, if I don't want to. Obviously, there are lots of other tools for doing the same thing, this is just the one I find most convenient. Here's a screenshot, in case you're interested in doing the same thing.

So an issue that has come up several times in recent discussions is whether God calls us to be faithful or to be successful. This is an important issue in various missions paradigms. Central to the church growth school is that Christ said not “Go try your hardest to make disciples and I’ll be okay with that” but “Go make disciples.” He expects us to actually get results. Therefore, the advocates of the church growth approach spend enormous amounts of efforts researching, analyzing, and evaluating methods in order to be the most effective. On the other side of the issue are many evangelicals, especially of the Calvinistic stripe, who stress that all mission success depends on God – we are simply privileged to be tagging along. Since God judges the heart, all that He cares is that we are faithful, that we try our hardest.

So where do you land? Are we shooting for faithfulness or success? More importantly, where does God land?

Okay, I can’t claim to speak for God. He’s fully able to speak for himself. On the other hand, he has spoken in Scripture. I think particularly of the OT prophets. They seem to be the epitome of the faithful and ultimately unsuccessful ministers. How did God feel about them? Well, actually, it was his idea in the first place. Consider his call to Isaiah:

God: Who will go for us?

Isaiah: Here I am, send me.

God: Okay, go preach. Preach and expose the stubbornness of these people.

(Isaiah thinks, “Uh, I’m not sure this is what I signed up for…)

Isaiah: How long, Lord?

God: Until cities lie devastated and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate.

And that is what Isaiah did. He preached faithfully for years and years, and just as God had foretold, the people didn’t listen. Success, in any tangible sense, was not even in the picture. Jeremiah, similarly, became excessively bitter because of the lack of “success,” and he let God know about it. But he too remained faithful. The prophets spent their lives trying to fulfill their commission. Success was not the measure of God’s pleasure with them. Perhaps it’s not with us either.

On the web again

So it's been a while. I know. I might think about posting again soon... maybe. Meanwhile, I've just started trying out Facebook.

A blogging wife

Mm hmm, Katie's loose in the blogo-sphere. There's no telling what she'll write about, but if the current entry is any indication, we all might learn a little about the fuzzy sides of life. I'm enjoying getting to teach her about new things, and she's excited about trying out this new toy. So stop on by and say hi at http://www.angolateam.org/reese/katie.

My Modern Medieval Monster

Here's a thought prompted by history class today. During medieval times, three orders of society crystallized. There were:

1. Those who fight (knights, nobles, lords)
2. Those who work (serfs, peasants)
3. Those who pray (monks, priests, clerics)

These orders of society were indications of professionalization. In other words, those who fought were the only ones who fought; they fought on behalf of the whole society. Similarly, the serfs did the manual labor for the whole community. More interestingly to me, the clerics did all the praying for the society. In general, others (whether lords or peasants) didn't do their own praying. When they felt the need for God's intervention, they asked the priest to pray for them.

That's all very interesting, but what does that have to do with us? We don't continue the same "professionalization of prayer." As good ol' Protestants, we each pray individually. But with a little further reflection, it seems like we continue the same tradition with a twist: we have a very definite "professionalization of theology." Our "clerics" do the thinking for the whole community. When others (whether lords or peasants) have questions about God, they don't often dig through those questions themselves. Rather, they ask the preacher (who in turn asks the commentaries).

Am I wrong? I'm sure most of us want to react against this criticism. And obviously I'm over-generalizing. There are many dedicated Christians who spend much time contemplating on the things of God. But I think what I'm saying is still an accurate broad picture of our church. And what are we going to do about it? I'm a poor one to bring up this subject - my training is making me a professional thinker! It's like trying to reverse the negative effects of monasticism by becoming a monk.

So I'll leave this to you who still have a chance...

Angola's new housing development

We spent a month this summer in Angola (which for those of you who are geographically semi-literate is a country in southwest Africa; for those of you who are geographically illiterate, it's not in America). It was incredible on numerous levels. I thought I might share a few pics that illustrate the state the country is in. We'll start with Angola's new housing development - which isn't quite what you'd expect:



The big concrete thing isn't a new development. It's been there a while, and like many other buildings in the city of Kuito it got bombed out during the 18 month siege of the city several years ago. The caving in roof doesn't seem to bother the market sellers out front - it hasn't yet fallen all the way down, so why should it today? What's more amazing is the housing inside the ruins. That's right. Look carefully and you'll see mud block walls inside the concrete building. Those are people's houses. They moved in, built houses, and stuck around. They live there. They sleep there. Every day. Like this family:



I took that picture inside the collapsing building. This is just one of perhaps 30 families that laugh in the face of impending burial under tons of concrete. There is even a store inside this little development. It's quite a burgeoning community. They were all quite surprised to see two white guys inside it, though. Who knows, we may have been some of the first white people to enter the premises since its half-destruction. If you live in a place like this, you don't have to worry too much about unwanted visitors.

Back in the saddle

I'm not sure which saddle we're talking about, but I'm back anyway. This summer has been an incredible whirlwind of Angola, wedding, and class mumbled together, and now the fall semester has caught me not quite prepared. So I'm working my tail off. Actually, I'm taking a break to post on a long-forgotten blog. If I can manage it, I'll post a few tidbits of our trip to Angola during the next several weeks.

I've also started editing Wikipedia in my not-so-free time. It's fun, even if certain critics think it's a waste of brain power, or perhaps lack thereof. You might enjoy it too.

Where is God in African politics?

The word that comes to mind when I think of African politics is "broken." It's like trying to run a high-end server on Windows 95. What is God doing in the middle of all this? How does He work in the midst of such chaos and corruption? Here's what one African head of state thinks:

President Olusegun Obasanjo said at the weekend he remains undecided if he should seek a third term as president and would let God decide for him...

Additional time in office, if approved by lawmakers and voters -and God, could allow reforms he has initiated in the past seven years to become "anchored", he said in an interview with an American newspaper on Sunday.

Obasanjo, a born-again Christian, also said: "I also believe that God is not a God of abandoned projects, If God has a project, He will not abandon it."

Many of his initiatives remain unfinished, he added. His second term is due to end next year.

In other words, the Nigerian constitution only allows him 2 terms, and he wants to stay in power longer than that. So God, combined with the democratic process, will see to it that the constitution is changed. After all, God wouldn't start something He didn't want to finish, right? Sounds like Obasanjo and Bossuet would get along just fine.

But I can't complain that a professing Christian President is talking about God. Good start, I guess.

A Minister's Prayer

Lord, speak to me that I may speak
In living echoes of Thy tone;
As Thou has sought, so let me seek
Thine erring children, lost and lone.

O strengthen me, that while I stand
Firm on the Rock and strong in Thee,
I may stretch out a loving hand
To wrestlers with the troubled sea.

O teach me, Lord, that I may teach
The precious things Thou dost impart;
And wing my words that they may reach
The hidden depths of many a heart.

O fill me with Thy fullness, Lord,
Until my very heart o'erflow;
In kindling thought and glowing word,
Thy love to tell, Thy praise to show.

by Frances R. Havergal

NR Thoughts

If you haven't already read Greg's entry on Neo-Restoration and Bobby's parody thereof, do so. Get a move on. What are you waiting for?

As I said in response to Greg's post, I am inclined to say that there is validity in trying to restore something of the NT church, even though that doesn't mean restoring their patterns of practice. I'll admit I'm still a bit fuzzy on what that might be. One reason I'm convinced that it's worth searching for is that God decided to give us Acts and the NT epistles. Our goal of emulating Jesus (and that is our goal, is it not?) does not exclude emulating the early church. If it did, the NT would need only the Gospels. Rather, the example of the NT church helps us to know how to emulate Jesus. It's analogous to 1 Cor. 11:1.

I appreciate Mark's comment to Greg's post. I think he hit the nail on the head. I really have no idea what hermeneutic to aim for. Someone help us out. I know a few things that need to change, but I don't have a coherent understanding of what needs to replace them.

Here are a few thoughts on practicalities. In other words, these thought won't help us arrive at a better hermeneutic, but rather will help us frame it as we seek to put it into practice.

• A Neo-Restoration hermeneutic needs to be packaged simply. A complex ivory tower solution will do little to help real churches, unless we work on a completely top-down denominational hierarchy. The Church of Christ focus on the priesthood of all believers, which I think is largely a healthy focus, demands that this hermeneutic be available to all. Command, example, and inference may have many weaknesses, but one strength is that it is simple to say, simple to understand, and (relatively) simple to execute. The ordinary guy on the pew can use it as a tool to figure out what the Bible means to his situation. Whatever replaces it will have to be similarly accessible.


• We must realize that Churches of Christ are not homogeneous. Rural traditional churches still constitute a majority of the movement, while large suburban churches gain more and more impetus toward general evangelicalism. The middle ground is being stretched dangerously thin. Many progressive congregations have already given up on the old hermeneutic, without thoughtfully replacing it. It will be tempting for us (i.e. future ministers) to lead this left wing of churches to a better hermeneutic, abandoning the right wing in the process. I'm not interested in being a part of that kind of move. Our challenge will be to help the entire movement come to a more solid hermeneutical foundation. Is not unity a key goal in this whole question?


• Speaking of unity, a NR movement is inadequate if it can't see further than the Churches of Christ. Isa. 49:6 is completely appropriate. Salvation to the ends of the earth is vital. But let's realize that restoring Israel and Judah is also no small task - it encompasses many more denominations than just the Churches of Christ. I understand that God has placed us in this fellowship right now, but if our goal is simply to bless the current Churches of Christ, we contribute to a sectarian mindset. I appreciate the example of the earliest RM leaders who strove to win anyone that would listen, even whole congregations, regardless of denominational affiliation.

Okay, those are some of my thoughts for now.

The Angolablog Returns

Just want to welcome Nathan back to the dance floor.

Nathan's blog

Round 1: McGavran v. Garrison

Well I finished The Bridges of God by Donald McGavran a few days ago. Fairly easy read. His basic thesis is that significant Christian expansion will occur not through one-by-one conversions but through people movements, where bunches of people are influenced by the conversions of their relatives.

To a large extent, the phenomenon that McGavran is describing is the same phenomenon that David Garrison describes in Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World. They focus on different aspects, and they attribute the massive expansion of these movements to slightly different causes, but they end up making similar suggestions.

But here's the rub. When it comes to distribution of personnel, McGavran and Garrison give opposite recommmendations.

McGavran: "If you see a people movement starting, throw as many missionaries as you can at it! People movements fail because they don't have enough missionaries to sustain them."

Garrison: "If you see a people movement starting, stay out of it! Church planting movements fail because too many outsiders come in and crowd out the indigenous initiative."

So who is right? Are people movements (or church planting movements) most likely to start in a place with many or few missionaries? And once they start, should churches send missionaries to foster the growth, or should they stay out of the way?

What do you think?

And of course, I ask this question not as an abstract missiological principle, but because I want to know what is best for Angola.

Hebrews is difficult, okay?

Just so you know, translating the Greek text of Hebrews is a pain.
Vocab, sentence structure, idioms, ellipses - take your pick, they're
all hard. And once you finally get a workable translation, you still
don't really know what it's trying to say. We're in chapter 12. Take the
exegesis of verse 24, for example. "The blood of sprinkling that speaks
better than Abel." What in the world does that mean? Or the theology
that lies behind verses 16 and 17, talking about Esau giving up his
birthright and not being able to get a blessing no matter how he wept
for it.

Okay, I'll quit whining now. Despite all the difficulty and the many
hours of work and the paper cuts from flipping pages in BDAG, I love it. It's a wonderful feeling when the translation finally hits you.
Wonderful. I just wish it would hit me sooner.

So Angola...

It's a big country (twice the size of Texas) in southwest Africa. Long war, finally peace, lots of rebuilding to do, and a key time of receptivity to the gospel. If you really want to know more, there's more info on our mission team's site, www.angolateam.org.

Today I ran across a news article which describes Angola's economic progress in glowing terms. It sounds like good news. Sounds like the country is moving further and further from war. But I wonder what the more complete story is. Is Angola's economy stabilizing and growing, or does all the growth belong to foreign companies seeking their fortune in Angola? The country has a long history of economic slavery to other nations (500 years). Is this simply a variation on a theme, a remix for a new generation of radio?

And if Angolan firms are also gaining a more solid footing, are they doing so to the benefit or at the expense of the Angolan populace? This article notes,

Many new buildings are being erected, mainly in the commercial centre of Luanda, where oil and financial sector companies are establishing offices.

But another news article gives a different perspective on the same growth phenomenon:

Police arrived at 07:00 and began tearing down homes in Cambamba 1 and 2 neighbourhoods [in Luanda]. More than three hundred families have been made homeless.... The houses were apparently torn down to make way for new buildings.

I pray that Angola's political and economic leaders are doing what needs to be done to set the country on firm enough footing to help the majority population meet their basic needs. Big business growth doesn't seem to be an indicator of such.

Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against big businesses. Nor do I think the hope of Angola's future lies in economic progress. Angola's hope lies in the Lord, period. As best I can tell, the Lord takes a keen interest in the sufferings of His creation. He has definitely noticed the Angolan people, and He is working to rectify their situation. Whether he uses economics, politics, or missionaries, He will continue to redeem Angola from its dark past - physically, relationally, emotionally, spiritually.

A tip o' th' hat to Bobby

I'd like to share my testimony: I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Bobby the blogangelist (p. b. u. h.). What a mentor he is for me in this brave new world where all are empowered to let their foolishness stream forth. I've got some foolishness of my own to add to the hobo stew; if you don't like the way it tastes, I guess Bobby is to blame. But then again, he's to blame for Bob and Greg too.

By the way, I mean that bit about campfires and bridges. Two things dear to my heart. From my childhood in Africa surface cherished memories of the starlit southern hemisphere, a majestic midnight blue canvas enveloping a world of adventure, danger, and peace. The night air alive with the sounds of insects, jackals, lions, owls. The nearby bushes concealing who knows what. And the light of the campfire radiating on the faces of those who love God's creation. I learned to listen to God there. I still long for those times. Grad school just isn't quite the same.

And bridges. Connections. I'm constantly pondering how to make new connections. How to connect people with Christ. (Ever read Bridges of God by Donald McGavran? I'm checking it out right now.) How to maintain bridges among Churches of Christ, left right and center. How to build bridges between Churches of Christ and other denominations. What types of bridges need to be built between America and Africa. How to build bridges of African Christians from other countries into Angola. How development may serve as integral parts of bridges among Angolan Christians. How seminary students like me can bridge the gap to normal life, normal people.

Campfires and bridges. My prayer is that both will be an honor to God. It is Him for whom I exist. I hope that's true for you too.