Heady Stuff

A new conference has started at the Seminary so there are new students here and some PhD students have left. Chapel is crowded as is coffee time. Many things are happening all at once so the schedules have changed. I am meeting more new people from more new places. Many languages around the table.

This morning I attended a presentation of a paper that was really examining the methodology behind the methodology of doing liberation theology. It was philosophy and theology and ........
heady stuff. The presentation was good and the question and answer time was helpful. The questions flushed out my questions which really were about content but that is not what the presentation was for. The thread gets difficult to follow.

More reading on Leadership in Context and more conversations about churches around the world.

This afternoon I have taken myself to a church, a big Baroque style Catholic Church. I went because I needed to walk and I needed to rest my brain. I went alone and navigated the public transportation into the city. I am getting better at it. Have a better sense of where things are in relationship to each other. Being a visual person it is important for me to do these side trips while it is still light out, so I headed out late afternoon.

I am always taken aback when I have to pay an entrance fee to get inside a church. I guess we could have our little church open during the week and Fran could take fees, it might help. [joking of course]. My concern is that what has happened to the church in Europe is happening now to the church in the West too. Churches are becoming museums of what was. Where is the life?

These questions are all tied up in what I have been studying, church identity, context, mission. How best to lead in difficult time? How to work at discipleship that is living and produces good fruit? Do we want to preserve the church of Jesus Christ or do we want to preserve architecture? The paintings were beautiful, the building and sculptures ornate, but it was just me and an Italian couple [I know because they spoke Italian to me] that were actually praying.
I am getting a better sense of where things are in these matters too. I am getting a better sense of who we are called to be. Study leave can be a very good thing. Sometimes it is what is needed to take oneself outside of oneself so that one can see.

Lots of things to ponder. Yes. Lots of things to pray over, yes, even more.
I look forward to coming home soon.
J