Gathering Together

A few Christian communities in the Dublin area gathered together last Sunday for some worship and fellowship. Here's a photo of the day:

Ireland to Kenya on a blog

Just wanted to let you all know that you can keep up to date on how the City Gates mission trip is going on their blog.

Summer Reading

Andrew Jones has put up a list of books that he feels are essential reading for those in and thinking through emerging forms of church. If you're looking for some summer reading, check Andrew's post out.

Andrew Journeys Home

We had a great time with Andrew again this morning. He led us through Luke 8-9 (apt, seeing as we looked at Luke 10 as a model for mission in Ireland on Saturday). Great insights. It was a great ending to a fun and thought provoking weekend. The whole weekend was very unstructured in format, allowing for a multitude of questions and conversations. The hostel worked out great, the food was wonderful and Phil cooked up some great chicken wings on Saturday night. Good times. Below are some pics of our time together. We look forward to the next one.

Andrew Jones Itinerary

THE WEEKEND PLAN (so far)

Friday 9 June

For those who can come earlier on Friday:

Try to get to Glendalough as soon as we can (leave Dublin 11ish), lunch on the way or at Glendalough Hotel. We’ll try to walk the monastic site and lake walks together and have some time with AJ. This is for anyone who can make it up that early.

Everyone else should try to arrive by 6. Settle in at the hostel (details below).

Dinner 7ish at the local pub

After dinner and till Saturday mid-afternoon, we are under AJ's tutelage. This means we will engage with several pertinent questions about church planting, ecclesiology, the Irish cultural and spiritual scene, and whatever else, during this time. Andrew is adept at leading groups like this with no pre-ordained agenda, so this will, we suspect, be his forte. Phil has a list of questions that have been pre-submitted: we'll look them over then tweak them. The tweaked questions will likely provide a starting place for our discussions.

IMPORTANT: What’s are the key questions you would love to see addressed over these days???

Bring them along with you and we’ll try to make sure they get raised.

Overnight at Glendalough International Youth Hostel

We’ve got rooms reserved for 17 (2 six person rooms; 1 five person. All ensuite).
Cost is €22.50 per person. Breakfast €6

Glendalough International Youth Hostel
The Lodge
Glendalough
Wicklow
Phone: 0404 45690

Past the Glendalough Hotel and the Monastic Site gates; on the left before you reach the first lake. http://www.anoige.ie/directory/wicklow

Saturday, 10 June

Breakfast at Hostel / (€6 for the full Irish Breakfast..)

Time with Andrew and each other. Breaking for lunch; then on till mid-afternoon finish and departure.

7:00pm Saturday evening
There’s an open gathering at Phil and Cheryl's place (in Shankill) for pizza, chat, and a chance for all to interact with AJ. May let him speak or do a Q and A time.

This is open to any interested parties who either were or were not at Glendalough with us.

Sunday AM, 11 June / @ Journey in Blackrock

9 or 9.30 AM gather at Nyquist's for the customary Journey Sunday Brunch, some worship time and a teaching time.
We'll ask AJ to teach us from the Word that day. Also open to any interested parties.

Usual time for kids with Matt and Hailey after our gathering.

Surf Trip Update

We had a great time on the West coast of Ireland for The Journey Surf Trip in Lahinch. I was once again reminded about how cool these lads are. It's always amazing to be hanging out in Clare but feeling like we'd flown to Tenerife. It was hot enough to make you want to get in the water to cool down and once you did you found that it was actually quite pleasant. Great conversations, great food (thanks Hailey) and great company made up for the poor surf. Almost all the guys got up on a board on the first day but the second and third days didn't have enough push. Also, just let me say, I've never seen so many teens covered head to toe by so much shaving foam. I have no idea what the woman at Centra was doing selling 10+ cans of shaving foam to a bunch of students with nothing more than peach-fuzz to show a need for them. But she did it and a foamy mayhem ensued.

Brian McLaren in Ireland

We never posted anything about our day with Brian McLaren. So let me do that now. He was in Ireland to speak with about 90 of us on the issue of church in a changing paradigm/age. As we read and prepared for his visit it became apparent that a lot of what he's proposing is really applicable to the situation here in Ireland. His talk didn't dissapoint. Let me explain.

McLaren noted that throughout history the forms of church have been in constant change, like a dance with their culture but that there are certain periods in which a huge change takes place (I think he noted Constantine's proclamation of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and the Reformation in the 1500s as two major examples of this). He used the analogy of creating an omelet - the egg is liquid, getting warmer (small changes throughout history) but all of a sudden a huge change occurs in an instant as the egg becomes solid.
McLaren's talk really resonated with the Irish leaders present, especially when Ireland's recent history was taken into consideration. Sean Mullan - president of Evangelical Alliance Ireland - noted how Ireland was very much pre-modern in the sense that truth was imparted from the Pope in a hierarchical fashion up until around 1980 (Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979). The Modern period in Ireland was actually very brief and the country found itself thrust into the post-modern/emerging period very quickly (a quick liquid-turning-to-omelet change). Much of this was due to the Celtic Tiger, increasing the economic prosperity of Ireland and seeing new cultures actually immigrating into Ireland (Ireland had a long history of emigration prior to the mid 1990s - indeed, I've been told that there are more Irish passports in USA than American). So, when McLaren started to point out some of the transitory changes that the church in Ireland might find/is finding itself taking, people in the room really seemed to resonate with the ideas. We were encouraged and challenged. I hope a lot of the conversations he got going/moved on will be furthered during Andrew Jones' visit.

Brad has put up the mp3s of Brian Mclaren over at EmergentIreland.com. Brad also included the powerpoints from the session. Enjoy.

Matt

John Ortberg goes iTunes

OK, I'm way behind on this but just to let you all know that you can now download/subscribe to a podcast of John Ortberg's church: Menlo Park Presbyterian.

HT: Menlo Park Podcast

Matt

Communication

Just thought I'd mention that you can contact us at journeycommunity at gmail dot com if you need to.

Journey Through the Summer

Well, we have been doing a horrible job keeping this blog updated. But we haven't given up. Here's what's going on over the next month:

June 3rd-5th Surf Trip Beach Excursion to Lahinch. It seems the surf is non-existant at the moment. No matter. We'll have a laugh over there.

June 9th-10th Andrew Jones will be leading a group of us through a time of discussion/dreaming/vision about how the church in Ireland could look. It will be great to bounce ideas from the McLaren event and other readings with each other and with a tall skinny kiwi. Let us know if you'd like to join us for the weekend. We'll be in

June 18th - Journey Gathering. Location TBA. A few groups will be getting together to worship.

June 24th - For those reading Pete Rollins' new book, he'll be down on Dawson st. to chat about it. (check out Emergent Ireland for more info)

There will also be some pilgrim walks later in the Summer that we'll keep you updated on.

Any other events we should be aware of. Let us know.

Matt