new space

Hi guys
Today is big day in the story of 3rdplace.. we just gave notice at our current venue and trusting God for something more central and more with the people...

anyways, the way we view/use our gathering spaces.. is that it is part of the message.. i'm sure you've heard the whole the medium is the message message.. 'you can paint a smiley face on a atomic bomb.. but it won't change the message' or something like that at least.

So our first space was a reputated gay bar, owned by our buddhist mates. It taught that we are part of this city part of this world.

second space continued that line. It was 'the bar'. A friend of ours owns a bar, that is closed on sunday's so we used it as a gathering space. It taught: God is everywhere. We need to live towards and in the 'world'

the third space, is a completely stark white gallery like space with a concrete floor and no chairs. you had to bring your own. I taught two things.
1st: The person is important, no people no church. The people are like artworks in the stark space, the beauty that exists in us is that which the world needs.
2nd: It teaches us to live simply, to engage God in silent, to move towards a contemplative life

now we are moving again, I've been wondering and we have been chatting about what the 4th space should be..

at the moment I am thinking, maybe 3rdplace should be a story space.. wherever our community gathers it should create space for stories. Lately stories have been bubbling up more and more in 3rdplace.. and it's taking centre stage. Stories inspired and teach. We live in a story, we define ourselves by the story of Jesus and scripture. We live our lives in God's story.

So where ever 3rdplace gathers, we should make space for stories...
houses, coffeeshops, bars, a rented hall.. what ever..

whacha think?

people

sunday at 3rdplace was an interesting one...

I taught on narratives and told some crazy stories, I asked one girl in our community to share her story.. she was amongst other things.. a 3rd level inca high priestess..

seriously, an inca high priestess..

afterward a guy came up to me and said: I am just a pretoria boy, who likes fast cars.. I can't believe that story!! (or something like that)..

then i thought about the church, and about 3rdplace and about how it is the craziest mixed bunch of people:

an inca high priestess
a pretoria boy who likes fast cars
a guy who was in a mental institution
a couple of people with various psychiatric disorders
some dancers
a girl who paint murals in goth clubs
rugby fans
various creatives
programmers
an ethiopian refugee
a manchester boy
germans
a american 'refugee'

and we all love Jesus..

i think Paul might be proud.

grace & peace

pierre

Post Capitalism?

Hi Guys

A friend of mine fwded me this mail, with the thinker's thoughts on.. The bit about post capitalism immeditatly caught my eye.. If christians are missionaries to contemporary cultures.. the what would the influence of post capitalism be? What would it look like?

"Wat beteken dit vir ons as Christene? Dit is presies tye soos die wat vasstel of ons skatte in die hemel is of op die aarde. Dit is nie vir ons om te worry nie. God het belowe dat ons sal eet en aantrek, en in dit kan ek ook lees, warm slaap (vir ons in Duitsland is dit belangrik). Die krises het ek elk geval 3 jare terug voorspel. Die val van kapitalisme is die laaste vesting van die moderne tyd, dit is eers na kapitalisme wat ons regtig in die postmoderne tyd sal in beweeg. Die oorgang in postkapitalisme gaan nie oornag gebeur nie, maar dit het begin met die krises. Postkapitalisme is nie sosialisme nie; sosialisme was ook 'n vesting van die moderne tyd en het al klaar weggeval. Wat postkapitalisme presies gaan wees sal tyd ons leer, maar tot dan is dit ons as Christene se taak om sekerheid te wys in ons verhouding met God." Hannes Nortje

For our english readers, the bit basically says: That the financial crisis started the fall of capitalism, and that capitalism is the last stronghold of modernity. Post capitalism will not be socialism since that is also a relic of the modern age. Finally that we will only enter a true post modern age when we enter post capitalism...

hmmm.

g&p

p

Noa's bday

this pic was taken by travis and or maike see http://www.welovepicture.co.za/

Hi guys Saturday was Noa's first birthday. It was such a blessing to have all or some of you there. thanks. you are the village. Now here's the bit where I get all metaphorical... Things change a lot when you have kids.. or a kid.. Someone once said that it is like having your heart walking around outside your body. It must be what God feels like? Maybe we are his heart, and we need to love, and when we meet any body we meet a part of his heart and maybe when we get along his heart becomes whole. hmm.

Noa. I love you. Rialette, i loved you first.

pappa

losing faith

Yesterday, I had the great privilege to attend a lecture by Scot McKnight, he wrote some pretty amazing things about Jesus. Read ‘the Jesus Creed’, it’ll change everything.

He talked about how people convert to Christianity, how people become followers of Jesus. It seems to be a universal process with almost set dimensions, some of which may surprise you. I believe he wrote about it in his book ‘Finding faith, losing faith’ though I must admit I haven’t read it, not heard about it before yesterday.

This is all semi-interesting, but what hit me right between the eyes yesterday, was that he claims (and I think he is right) that people leave the faith the same way they came in! Not backwards though but the same process of conversion with the same 7 dimensions in roughly the same order. So becoming a Christian and leaving or losing your faith follows the same steps.

When you become a Christian you experience some sort of crisis (side note: he discovered after mapping 100’s of stories that this crisis is almost never a realisation of sin...) which leads to a quest which leads to an encounter with some carrier of the gospel which eventually leads to a life in the body of Christ or in the church or whatever you want to call it.

But when you leave, you experience a crisis as well in the forms of questions (he listed five):

1. The infallibility of scripture (for instance when a person discovers that the bible was not dictated by God, but written by human beings)
2. Conflict with science, specifically the evolution vs. creation debate
3. The picture of the ‘cruel’ God in the Old testament
4. Hell.
5. Dodgy Christians.

Then the reason people leave the faith is mainly because these questions aren’t allowed in ‘church’. They are ignored, shouted down or at the best answered with terrible theology or sweet nothings.

Now to be clear, I do not have all the answers and to some of these questions I simply have to say: I don’t know.

Why is it so hard for the ‘church’ to be the least and say I don’t know? Christians should be the perfect agnostics since we can never fully know God. So why pretend that we do?

Probably to keep up appearances, to keep the facade of the powerhouse that in any case has little or nothing to do with Christianity.

If society (and secretly the church) are struggling with these questions and the very role of the church is to engage society (if I read my bible correctly), then the obvious route is to engage and allow these questions, is it not? Why is this news to anyone? Can the church be that disconnected?

Sad to say but yes it can and is.

I do see light though; I see some beautiful churches and communities welcoming questions while patiently and honestly walking alongside these angry almost non believers. We should (I included), leave our masks at the door and sit at the feet of these teachers. Where do you find them? I suppose where you would have found Jesus, where the people are. We need to get out of our buildings and into the streets and on our way there maybe even read a little Dawkins.

vow evening

Hi

At 3rdplace as most of you know, we have a vow. The vow is kinda based on a monastic rule of life. It helps us to live more intentionally in the way of Jesus. see more here: vow

anyways.

once a month all the ppl that have taken the vow come together and share stories and the eucharist.

What struck me last night was the sheer simplicity of the stories.

Someone started a relationship with a beggar by asking their name.
someone started going for daily walks with a co worker.
another is making friends with a neighbour.
one handed a book to parent to give to a sibling that needs Jesus.

simple things, everyday things.

If we all could live simply, live the way of Jesus in the small things. would n't that be a great world.

'We can do no great things, only small things with great love' - Mother Teresa

new 3rdplace

Hi guys, this is the possible new space for 3rdplace.. we are seeing a gallery like thing filled with couches and lekker retro lamps maybe.. good fair trade coffee obviously.

It's a step in faith for us, it's a little expensive (for us at least :) ), and the landlord does not want to hold it for us until July, when our current lease runs out. So pray with us..

Oh and it's above a liquor store and across from a gay bar..

should make for some interesting times

grace & peace

p