OK, Plan B

The great thing about good intentions is that they can be inspiring -- even vision producing. The bad thing is that they are intentions, which by definition are future, and there may not happen. Like my good intention to blog each day from my classes in Seattle -- the intention was indeed good, the follow through, not so much.

So, instead a summery. (I'll add here that class was mostly long days of fascinating interaction plus journaling each evening which left me too worn out to blog each night). Anyway, a big theme of the class was providing opportunities for the students to be challenged, to defend, the be pushed, to push back and to overall be exposed to what an urban theology in a post modern world might look like; what does it look like to contextualize the unchanging gospel into a rapidly changing world.

The really cool thing was that the answer to that question -- which would usually vary from person to person -- was as diverse as the makeup of the class (31 people including students from Africa, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Korea, Kazakhstan, India, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Canada and the United States (more than half of which were African American). The questions of what the church looks like in a post modern, post christian society and all that goes with that question are things I am very familiar with, or so I thought. I realize that I am very familiar with the white middle class American version of that. How many times did I hear "what you said has no application in my country," and to learn how the post christianization of the west is viewed and even effects people other places, and how our how our missionary efforts in some of these countries which I am so quick to point out were often prompted more by colonialism than gospelism are still seen by many in those countries as amazing blessings by God.

Anyway it was a cool time, I was stretched, I made great friends, and look forward to continued learning.