Brimingham day 1

After Arriving in Birmingham yesterday we hung out with a group of folks from B1 (Nick and Lauren's church community) and had some great conversation about church, mission, relevant worship, the importance of relationality in the emerging church structure, belonging as a sense of being valued, networking, authenticity in leadership among many other thoughtful and insightful stuff.

That Aston Villa/Arsenal game was canceled so we hit up Birmingham and doing some pub crawling, seeing the canals, and the city center of Birmingham. It was a great afternoon and evening.

Here are a few pics from the day. I thought the first pic was amazing since there is this ancient Anglican church amidst modern architecture, shopping mall and bustling people. It is really an amazing physical image of the dislocation of the church in the Western world.

England at last

Well Katrina and I fly across the pond tomorrow for my first trip to the UK. We will be doing some study and research, visiting with friends and getting some R & R. Oh and a life long dream of mine I will get to see an English premiere league football game!!! I will be doing some study of emerging churches in the UK and discussing with them the following questions:

1. Why was/is the “emerging church/fresh expressions” movement missiologically essential in England? What was missiologically deficient or lacking in the Christendom model of church in the UK? How is the emerging church addressing those deficiencies?
2. It seems that the “emerging church/fresh expressions” movement is centered on worship renewal; do you see that to be true? If that is accurate what is the relationship between the mission of the church and worship of the church? How do see worship fueling the mission of the church and vice versa?

So you can journey a bit with us here are some of the people and communities we will be visiting over the next 12 days.

1. We fly into London and then take bus up to Birmingham and stay with our dear friends Nick and Lauren Burdette.
2. We will visit with their community B1 in a variety of settings
3. See Arsenal play Aston Villa
   
4. We will visit another church outside of Birmingham called Sanctuary
5. We will hook up with an organization called Faith to Faith which is a national Christian organization which supports Christians and Christian mission in the context of our multi faith society
6. Next is an amazing missional thinker Martin Robinson who works for Together in Mission, which works to equip churches to plant other churches and helps churches reorient around mission.
7. After some sight seeing with Nick and Lauren we head to London to visit with Gareth Powell from Moot
8. We will worship at All Souls Church and Moot on Sunday the 4th
9. And finally visit with Steve Collins from Small Ritual and Jonny Baker from Grace

It should be a blast!