Vulnerable, gentle, powerful self-giving love

Happy New year to all of the wonderful readers of this blog!

It is set to be an exciting year for my family and I - we have that wonderful mix of security and change.  It is wonderful to know that we will remain in Somerset West for another year, enjoying our friends, our community, our home and our beautiful surroundings!  Yet at the same time it is a blessing to consider that we have a few new challenges ahead.

As of today my time will be split between three primary work projects and one personal project.  

First, I will continue to serve alongside Graham Power in the Power Group of Companies with chaplaincy responsibilities and opportunities to offer leadership within our two main initiatives, the Global Day of Prayer and Unashamedly Ethical.

Second, I was appointed to a post at the University of Stellenbosch in Ekklesia within the faculty of Theology. Here I will have three primary tasks: oversee two Master of Theology courses in missional leadership and spirituality, to coordinate research outputs and projects for Master, Doctoral and Post-Doctoral students who are in the partnership of Missional Churches. It is such a blessing to be back in an academic post! I am looking forward to a great deal of creative growth this year!

Third, I will be coordinating an international campaign to mobilize 100 million Christians around issues of ethics, justice and poverty.  The Campaign is called Exposed - Shinning a light on corruption (14-20 October 2013). The cost of corruption is staggering, over US$1 Trillion each year! In most instances it is the poorest of the poor who bare the brunt of such abuse. We will never rid the world of systemic poverty until we deal with systemic corruption. As Christians we need to be informed and empowered to deal with corruption in our own lives, and hold persons and institutions who have power accountable for their use of the world's resources.  So please do look in on this blog from time to time to see how this magnificent initiative unfolds in the months to come!

The personal project that I will continue to be involved in is a second PhD.  I was truly fortunate to be awarded a scholarship to do a second Doctorate at the University of Radboud in Nijmegen, Holland.  I have been working on that for a little less than a year now and will continue to do so this year.  I am working under my mentor in New Testament studies, Professor Jan van der Watt.  In short I am developing a new narratological approach to reading John's Gospel using integral (intersubjective) identity theory.

When I think of what lies ahead I get a little anxious!  I frequently feel that I may not have what it takes to do each of these tasks well, least of all to care for my family and honour God in the process.

However, in my devotional time this morning this quote from NT Wright offered me great encouragement:

When God wants to change the world, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the mourners, those who are hungry and thirsty for God’s justice, the peacemakers, and so on. Just as God’s whole style, his chosen way of operating, reflects his generous love, sharing his rule with his human creatures, so the way in which those humans then have to behave if they are to be agents of Jesus’s lordship reflects in its turn the same sense of vulnerable, gentle, but powerful self-giving love.

- N.T. Wright

Please can I ask for your prayers for my family and I?  Please also pray for each of these projects that I am involved in - each one is making such a significant difference in bringing transformation and renewal in the Church and the world.

May you be richly blessed in all that you do this year! Please let me know what your plans are, and if I can pray for you.