Praying for the London Crew

Thanks to those of you who will be keeping us in your prayers May 9-16th. Here's the summary I gave to the team about what we'd be doing. Perhaps it will help you as you pray:

Purpose of the trip – We’ve called this a “different type of mission trip.” In fact, mission agencies often send teams to provide what they call “member care” to missionaries on the field. While the folks we’ll be meeting with are not under the “umbrella” of a mission agency they are no less missionary so our purpose has to do with supporting them and their ministries. But we are also creating a new kind of learning experience. While it’s not a conference with workshops at pre-set times, we will be sharing learning via conversation and specific dialogues. So frame this experience either way or make up a new word for it! The agenda, like the participants continues to “emerge”. We know that we are going to cover four areas:

Doxology -- how God can further use an art project to both create spiritual dialogue and perhaps a source of funding;

Protest4 -- assisting those who are engaged with advocacy regarding human trafficking;

missions messaging – how we can tell the stories of the emerging church around the world so that the established church understands and supports it (and we’ll be experiencing examples of this)

ministering to ministers – each of the team members have something to offer the folks we’re meeting with and they have something for us on our journey as well, this facet of the trip is really up to the team members.

Our U.S. team consists of Ken, Becky, me, Larry Jay . . . all folks you know. Larry is starting a new ministry called re:creation whereby he's going to connect folks with spiritual experiences in the great outdoors. San Francisco may be the next stop on the Doxology tour and he and Robin Paoli are representing that venue. Robin was a pastor at Houston's Harbor Church and is now living in San Francisco and looking for what God is going to do next regarding her leading a community of faith. She's a marketing guru and will especially be helpful with Doxology and Protest4 discussions. Trisha Taylor is a therapist and an ordained minister who is married to a Clear Lake pastor. She's going to be very busy with the "ministering to ministers" portion of the agenda. Steve Johnson is a former missionary who has experience with assisting artists in becoming more self-supporting so that they can then support the church. He's also into relief and development work. He's from University Baptist out in Clear Lake. While Margaret Menger of Copperfield is not traveling with us, she's been super supportive of what we're doing and will be stateside if we need her help with marketing questions that may come up.

There is a whole other crew coming from Austin and Germany so it should be really interesting.

Oh! and Becky has graciously consented to coordinate the kitchen for the 20-30 people who may be at the table at any given meal. There's a prayer request if I ever heard one!!

Thanks for being our supportive community!!

Karen