the Blog has Moved

Thanks for reading my blog. I have moved my missional musings to www.kiwiupover.com, I look forward to find you over there soon.

Dave Laird the kiwiupover

Friends and Über spiritual language.

I have been wondering if christians who use an über spiritual language have any friends outside church. I mean friends that are involved in your life. I don't think they do. How could someone outside the church relate with that type of language.

I think back over my life and remember a few time people telling me I was to heavenly minded to be any earthly use. Also there were many years I didn't have friends outside of my christian world. Mate you should have heard my language back then too. I hope that I'm getting closer to a language that people around me could understand and connect with.

My friend Gea Gort is a journalist in Holland, writing for the best paper in town on spiritual subjects which were really well received in the very post christian culture. She says the reason why she can write this way is because she has deep friendships with non christians.

I think it is an important skill and way of life for a missional person. We need to be people who speak of spiritual things in an earthy everyday language.

Amazing Grace

Last night I wept from the beginning to end of the film "Amazing Grace." William Wilberforce a member of English Parliament lived a life that allowed the Kingdom of God change his life and in turn saw God change his country and the world. This film tells the story of Wilberforce and his struggle for abolish the slave trade in England, which changed the world wide slave trade. I think the film makers did a great job showing the integration of his faith and his work.

Next week I'm hosting a discussion called "Working for God" to help empower people to see how their faith can be huge part of their work. Wilberforce was a man who integrated his faith into his daily life that has in turn changed the world. He help found the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) among other things. I think the way we have been taught to follow God has separated our spirituality and humanity. The integration of those two is where a missional life begins.

This year marks 200 years since the abolition of the slave trade in England however there are still a huge number of people trafficked and enslaved in horrible working environments around the world today. Stop the Traffik is one group of people working today to stop the underground slave trade. Also check out onevoicetoendslavery.com

Missional Living Podcast!

I have been listing to this podcast by Machael Frost about missional living, stories from his life in Sydney Australia, and it has really encouraged me. Encouraged me to live out my thoughts and dreams of a missional life. I want to live a missional life with others, get together and talk about each others experiences and dreams. So to hear stories of these stories really helps and Michael Frost tells it in such a way that it compels me to move outside my lack of confidence. Here is the link to the podcast. There are 6 podcasts with this one being the last. I had to look around the site to the find the first but the others are easily downloadable. I would love to hear the 7th podcast of 7 but I can't find it, bummer.

Not the Same Newsletter

I'm sitting in one of my favorite coffee shop these days. Cloud City Maple Leaf for Life Baby. Also trying to write a newsletter before we head out in two day to the Oregon Coast with the family for two Holiday.

As I think through the last few months what were have been doing and try to communicate that with our supports I'm having a hard time talking about the details. The details toady are so much about friendships, about people. I would be horrified if one of those people we are working with are seen as a project. They my friends, they are not projects. They are people that are being good friends to us as well. Involved in our lives caring for our kids and for Jen and I.

Our supporters are allowing us to think through this way of life we are trying to live and we are totally honoured to have them involved in our lives. We need them at this point of our lives we are going to figure out how to live better as followers of Christ in a Western context.

So if we are involved in our neighbors lives, in our friends lives, hanging out with people at the coffee shop we can't talk about those people. So our newsletters have to be about how we live, who we are, the way we are living. Not about people and projects.

Sustainability

I was reading Patrick Dodson's blog about sustainability which sparked some of my own thoughts.

I have thought that this moving short term mentality, project based life that we have been taught, modeled in YWAM is not good for us. I was taught that privates in an army make decisions based on how they see the future a month or two ahead. However Generals make decisions based on they see the future 50 years from now. During my time on DTS staff I thought that I was a private only being able to think a few months ahead. When I finished staffing seven DTSs and went on to other things in YWAM I was shocked to find that I was thinking many years into the future.

I have been wondering for years now ""what are we teaching students when we set up outreaches to move to three or four different locations over the two months of their outreach." I think we teach students more by the way we do things than by what we say.

I heard a guy saying that we need to live in a way so that we live in a way. We have lived in a way in YWAM. That way has been program after program then on to the next school. Country after different country and then on to a zone. Relationship built, relationship long distance on to new relationship. The roots are not deep. I lived in LA for ten years and my roots there are not deep at all, I'm sad to say. However that was the way it was modeled to me.

I really want us to live in a way that new students join. They join our rhythm of life and not the other way around. When a child is born into a family that child joins the life of that family. I see a lot of families these days that the new child sets a new tone or new rhythm from day one. The new parents change totally the way they live because of the needs of the new baby. It seems that the new baby dictates the way the family lives. The rhythm is now around the demand feeding, the nappy changing of this one month old child.

I believe this is what happens with DTSs in a lot of cases. We go out into the streets because the students are here. We put on our outreach mindsets because we are on outreach with the DTS.

We are not long termers we are still short-termers we just happen to live here.

Bright Hope

I was walking around San Francisco last week with a bounce in my step. No really even a skip or two. I'm really excited about the future. We were looking at some art in SF, the colors were full of hope, bright morning colors, yellows and bright reds. Hopeful and I think I'm catching it. We also walked past Crate and Barrel the home furnishing store, it was not the same, very tame muted colors, lots of white but sterile. It reminded me of the church how we often try to be relevant but end up being tame and sterile.

Anyways I'm looking forward with hope and excitement.

What do you think the future looks like?