Secret Life of the Soul - chapters 1-3

Most of us were raised to keep the deepest part of us private. It's that secret secluded place we've learned to slink into whenever we're scared, hurt, confused, or just plain embarrassed. We do it so instinctively in western culture that we usually don't even see it happening. But here we are packing up our bags (or unpacking them) and moving towards a shared life. And that means we're probably bringing our private, vulnerable, but well-guarded souls into a community. That could be scary, and it might even tempt us to begin constructing even more sophisticated retreat routes into our private souls.

I wanted to begin the formation of our community by reading Keith Miller's The Secret Life of the Soul together in hopes that we would not only understand our own souls better, (and the stuff we've surrounded them with), but so that we would understand each other's souls better. Not just so that we would know and be known, but so that we might learn how to fight for each other's souls so that we never have to retreat or fight alone. So as you read, read with that ultimate aim in mind. Here are some other questions we're asking ourselves from the 1st 3 chapters:

What has been your understanding of the soul?

What works against your soul?

What does the broken, disillusioned soul of a child instinctively begin to do very early on in life?

How does that instinct play out in your life?

How could that instinct play out in our community?

Soul.

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."
—C.S. Lewis

I read this quote today, which I thought was particularly fitting given the book we're now reading through, The Secret Life of the Soul, by J. Keith Miller.

I touched the fence ...

Last Saturday I went to Friendship Park aka Border Field State Park right at the border of Mexico and the U.S. Quite literally, I was able to touch the fence. This will soon end with the new impenetrable fence coming in. Right now families are able to visit with each other to a certain degree. But soon, even this will be gone. The picture above is one that I took while standing at the fence.

The event was called God's Kingdom and Immigration, and was with a group called U40, you can find them on Facebook.

Some of the questions discussed were;

Is the border fence a good or bad thing? Is this an issue between two cities, two countries, or perhaps two kingdoms? Where should we stand on the issue?

One of the guest speakers, Marcos Mujica helped us navigate this conversation. Marcos is a graduate of Pt. Loma Nazarene University and is an insightful authority on the immigration issue from a kingdom perspective.

Throughout the day I heard about what God is doing in the city and the big highlight for me, is that we celebrated communion together. There was something powerful about having communion right there on "the land of in between" - the line that separates us in so many ways. I felt that God was there and pleased that we were discussing His kingdom and how all of us, no matter what side of the line we live on, are a part of it.

It was a good day.

border fence

Sophia came across this short but powerful 2.5 minute clip on the border fence right where we celebrated World Communion Sunday. It's definitely worth watching and offers a counter-intuitive response to dealing with long term immigration issues:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/oct/15/uselections2008-usimmigration-mikedavis

a picture of what's ahead

Jon Hall just put together a cool little new video of Project Mexico, a ministry he has nurtured and led for years and one we hope to help build on and advance through our new little community in San Diego. Check it out...



Project Mexico_Margaret from Jon Hall on Vimeo.

You can read the complete post on Jon's blog here.

terranova heads to the border

The Russian Novelist Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “Everybody wants to change the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Maybe we're a little over ambitious, but we want it all. We want to change our world and become a changed people.

NieuCommunities are unique missional communities scattered around the world that are developing a new generation of leaders to follow God in the way of Jesus. Each year we invite a bunch of young, emerging leaders to come and spend time with us as we pursue our God and engage our world. Some come for a few weeks, some for a few months, and others for a few years. But no one leaves unchanged.

Through an integrated mentoring and missional experience our apprentices and staff are challenged to make God the center of their lives. They are shaped in the crucible of community, and they are formed for mission through real-time ministry in the neighborhoods around us. The trajectories of our lives are changed as we reimagine what it means to follow a missionary God, and along the way, so is our world.

Since the birth of NieuCommunities in 2002, our approach to missional formation has been both holistic and rigorous. We meet almost daily for training, coaching, worship, prayer, common meals and shared ministry in our neighborhoods and beyond. We’ve met in barns, homes, B&Bs, church buildings, and coffee shops. We’ve lived under one roof and we’ve been scattered across town. Through these diverse experiences we’ve learned how powerful it is to be submerged in a place that will help stimulate an environment of discovery and transformation, and to create a hub that serves as a place of hospitality for our neighbors. And this month we are setting out to establish NieuCommunities in another new city.

Many of us know San Diego as “America’s Finest City” with its great beaches, the zoo, the Gaslamp District, and Balboa Park. But there’s another side to the city that we sometimes miss. San Diego is a border city. Its economy, its social structure, and its politics are inextricably linked with its sister city—Tijuana—just to the south. These two diverse mega cities straddling the most trafficked border in the world create a very complex, and unique metropolis.

The city’s majority population is non-white, non-middle class. They often work 2 to 3 jobs a day to survive, and rarely visit the places that tourists enjoy every day. San Diego is also one of the United States’ designated “sanctuary” cities. There are significant refugee populations from Africa and Southeast Asia sprinkled throughout the city’s downtown neighborhoods, and these groups all face significant challenges.

The legal border between the United States and Mexico lies 15 miles south of the city center, but the real border lies about 1500 yards south of downtown where cultures from around the world collide. These are the neighborhoods we believe God is calling us to move into, to serve, and from within to develop young missional leaders to send all over the world.

And this month both the Halls and Yackleys are packing up and moving south to help create and form the leadership team of this new missional community and extend the global reach of Terranova Church.

farmers markets

It's good to be home! Saturday morning I was unwinding at Krakatoa after a long week of moving and I got into a conversation with a couple of locals who were on their way to one of the farmers' markets in the area. They said there were 3 markets worth visiting: 1) Every Saturday morning from 9a-1p in East Village; 2) Every Thursday after 3p in Northpark; and 3) "the biggest and by far the best" is every Sunday morning from 9a-1p in the DMV parking lot in Hillcrest. I can think of at least a couple folks in our community who will be eager to check them out!