just being there

::: we spent the afternoon in kobe with a neighboring family, with whom we had dinner about three weeks ago...earlier this week mr. and mrs. o invited us to watch their youngest daughter in her very first gymnastics competition (btw, she did great...all 9.0+ scores and no bumps or bruises)...

...as many of you know, incarnational ministry is all about building trust in relationships with an eye towards intentionally expressing the love and truth of jesus within those relationships...in this gradual process, just being there when a person or family experiences a milestone is soooo special...

...one can legitimately question whether our time with the o. family is a waste of time... spending an entire afternoon may seem like a lot of time and effort to discover little factoids, such as mr. o. graduating from waseda university, or the fact that he loves the beatles (more for their feeling than their lyrics) and prefers hideo matsui over ichiro suzuki (because he's a rabid yomiuri giants fan)...

...spending an entire afternoon may seem like a lot of time and effort to learn that mrs. o. knows a lot about japanese history and has family in kyoto...

...but incarnational ministry offers no relational shortcuts...it's not a matter of simply shouting at strangers from steeples...its about spending time with people and learning that they love the beatles...each step of togetherness providing more texture in the relationship, which, in turn, creates a more meaningful context for sharing the love and truth of jesus christ...

...for these reasons, we're looking forward to spending more time with the o. family...we covet your prayers for our relationship :::

p.s. i shared with claire an epiphany i had while watching the gymnasts...among the 40 or so young gymnasts, there were a dozen who wore the same distinctive white outfits...mrs. o told us that these gymnasts train intensively six days a week, while the others train two or three times a week less intensively...without question, the white-clad gymnasts were substantially more skilled, balanced, and confident in their exercises compared to the others...reflecting on the apostle paul's use of athletic metaphors vis-a-vis the nature of the christian life (e.g., training in season and out of season, running metaphors), God inspired me to affirm the value and necessity of daily discipline and determination in practising the presence of God in a fallen world...