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adam_mabry
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Name: Adam
Country: United Kingdom
Metro: Edinburgh
Gender: Male
Interests: Music, Christ, Music about Christ, my gorgeous wife, my cute little girl, and even my somewhat obnoxious, but ultimately pleasant dog. Real relationships, expanding the Kingdom, guitar, driving on the left side, living on the right side.
Expertise: Singing, husbanding, fathering, and I make some mean cheese scrambled eggs.
Occupation: Artist
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
10/22/2005
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| Hello all,
Just in case you were wondering, I'm done posting here. Please continue to keep up at http://web.mac.com/adammabry
Thanks guys.
adam | | |
| So recently I have become overwhelmed. Not in the good way, where you are overwhelmed by something nice like God. No. My feeling of being overwhelmed has been the result of an increase in my workload, and the extreme diversity thereof.
God, however, in his extreme mercy has dropped something in my heart that has been so refreshing that I cannot let it go without sharing it and dwelling on it myself for a while.
You may know that I am the worship leader for our church here. Something of an ambiguous job description, worship can be hard-to-define area of our Christian lives. So in seeking God about worship, and what part it plays in my role as a missionary, I believe this is what he has shared with me: Worship is both the beginning and ends of missions. What do I mean?
Worship propels us to serve God. Worship is, for us, everything we do to bring God the glory that he is so radically worthy of. Worship drove my family to Edinburgh, because there are people here who don't know God, and He deserves their worship. Thus, worship is where we start. But, worship is also the entire point of missions for exactly the same reasons. Because our whole point in planting churches and reaching lost people is to, by the power of the Holy Spirit, transform them into God-lovers and God worshippers. Once that is done, missions is no longer needed.
I used to think that the point of missions was people. I was wrong. People are important, but not as important as God. God and His worship is both the point and fuel for missions all over the world. Hard to swallow...perhaps. True? Absolutely. | | |
| So I've said often that here in Scotland we have a postmodern culture. I have used this term, probably once a day since moving here. But, the thought occurred to me the other day...I have no IDEA what that actually means.
Whoops.
So, after my flagrant ignorance was uncovered, I decided I should look into this postmodern thing a little further. I would like to share with you what I found out.
To understand postmodernism, one must first understand a bit about modernism. So, let me reader's digest it for ya: Modernism was spawned out of the enlightenment where everyone got really excited about reason and logic. The good thing for Christians that came from the enlightenment was all these really cool apologetics and reason-based arguments for the truth of Christ's life and miracles. Good stuff.
Unfortunately, people in a post-modern culture don't really listen to reason much. Let me give an example. If you ask a modern person how they can know truth, they might say, "By studying the philosophies and world views, and finding the most consistent, logical, and cohesive to reality." On the other had, if you ask a post-modern that question, they would say, "that depends on what you mean by 'truth,' and if I believe in truth at all, as you define it." Now, if the only job of us missionaries was to help a logical people understand truth by means of rational thought, then my job would be WAY easier. Unfortunately, there is a bit more to it than that.
Needless to say, this can give one some cause for concern.
So, here is what I have found. People want to see us be holistic Christians. That is, they don't want to see Christians who are Christians only up to a point. They want to see a people that really live it out. People that are simultaneously charitable and blessed, walking in radical Holy Spirit power but humble, lovers of God and lovers of people, radically committed to doctrinal truth AND experiencing the subtle leading of the Holy Spirit of God.
That is much harder than just having a fancy apologetic memorized.
This is our challenge... my challenge. Not just to be 65% like Christ. Not even to be 95% like Christ. But to strive, with all of our being, to be like Christ, in everything that we do.
That makes me need God. What about you? | | |
| I love my pastors. There, I said it. I love how they lead. I love how they think. I love how they strategize. But, most of all, I love how they are so committed to see Jesus rule the city of Edinburgh, that they are willing to change everything about themselves and how we do church in order to see that come to pass.
Today we had a staff meeting where we spent three hours talking about how we are going to better reach this city. Without going into detail, we are basically going to change a lot of what we are doing. And, as we were sitting there, looking at our church, I had this thought:
By every measurable standard, we are successful. We are a 7 month old church with 60-80 people on a given Sunday. We are growing. If an outsider were to look in, we would be told we were doing a good job. Yet, here we are, changing our strategies. Then I remembered that book "Good to Great." All the companies that made it from good to great had this in common: they would try a lot of stuff, and throw out what didn't work. Sure, maybe they were pretty successful with what they were doing. But, pretty successful is not successful enough, especially in the Kingdom of God.
So here we are, changing our stuff. Our core values, our mission, that never changes. But our strategies are constantly changing to better suit the people we are trying to reach. And, after a few hours on change, I am convinced now more than ever that we are going to see this city won by the gospel of Jesus.
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| I am sure that many of you were beginning to wonder if I had gotten sucked into some time warp, not writing for almost a month! Well, fear not, Adam has returned. Quite literally, actually, I have returned both to Scotland and to xanga. After a great month in the States, we are finally back home in Edinburgh. Thanks so much to all of you who were praying for our trip. It was a great sucess.
So, Alanna brought back a little souvenier...a cold!  Woo Hoo! Actually, as I write this, our poor little thing is trying to sniffle her way to sleep. Not pretty. Please pray for her swift recovery, and that she would adjust to being back in this time zone with great ease.
More later.
P.S. Due to some negative feedback about my last profile pic, I have changed it to one with the world's largest milkshake. Enjoy! | | |
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