Fellow Incarnational Workers,
See below for the introduction from our friends who, in order to function subversively, need to be called simply "two workers in Hawaii". (BTW have you seen Eugene Peterson's chapter on "The Subversive Pastor" in The Contemplative Pastor? He makes the powerful point that "Jesus was a master at subversion".)
Two comments come to my mind about this report. The first is that it reminds us that each of our "mission fields" have a different level of receptivity. As a result, the strategies that He gives us will vary. There's no "one size fits all" here. I see our MRT Community as a place where we can reflect on these differences with safe people who understand the uniqueness of each calling.
Second, I love the fact that this MRT is consist of just two people - in this case a husband and wife. ("... and He sent them out two by two" -Lk 10:1) The simplicity of this has huge implications for multiplication. Neil Cole: "Only that which is simple can multiply rapidly."
Your comments/observations?
John
We are two workers following God into mission in the beautiful Hawaiian Islands. We believe God has called us to be vocational apostolic workers here for the rest of our lives. This place is our home and these people are our people. We aim to take on the "flesh" of our fellow citizens as a way for them to see the Kingdom revealed among them. That means, we're doing everything we can to blend in and incarnate Christ here in a local manner. Hence, we've taken regular, ordinary, everyday jobs as a vehicle for building continuity with our fellow locals and opening up venues for ministry and evangelism. For far too long, Christianity has been brought here with a foreign fist ready to strike at anything non-Western. We feel it is now time for the Kingdom of God in Hawai'i to be revealed with love and aloha - allowing ordinary people here to see that they can join up with God without having to "leave home" in the process.
For the now, it is just us as a couple who are part of the MRT for this region - at least, we're the only two that know we're part of it. There are others we live among and connect with on a frequent basis that hold to CO2/MRTish practices and have missional hearts for this place. So, while we don't have any official MRT-mates (as of yet), we are definitely not without believing company. We're actually just getting started (within our first year in our current location) but we do have a church of believers (6 adults, 3 kids) that shares life together within our neighborhood. We have also found many people of peace in this place (some followers of JC, some not) that we are nurturing relationships with and seeing where God leads. Even though we may not live to see it, we look forward to the day when every person in this region is within close-reach, both geographically and culturally, to a local family of Jesus.
