Village Christmas

This Saturday at the Mavuno Dome, don't miss Mavuno's annual Christmas concert. Doors open at 5pm and show begins 5.30. Please come and bring all your friends. I suspect you'll be glad you did!

Oh and tonight (Thu 18th), Atemi's concert at the Carnivore begins at 7pm. Hope to see you there...

Christmas Controversies

2000 years ago was born a man who arguably became the most controversial figure in history. He was controversial while he lived and remains so to date. I bet you this month as we remember his birth that there’ll be the usual news articles giving some brand new ‘evidence’ that that he was married to Mary Magdalene or that some church or political leaders made the whole thing up!

The message of Christmas is not conventional. Not quite what I’d make up if I was trying to get people to believe a yarn I made up. A girl who claims to be a virgin becomes pregnant. The baby she’s carrying is apparently God’s son, the True King. This is not just blasphemous to the spiritual leaders but treasonous to the political class. He is born to a poor family and grows up in a small town. He later receives a death sentence and is executed for being a public enemy. But not before causing quite an upheaval!

I sometimes wonder whether Jesus stirred up some of the controversy on purpose. Apart from healing sick people at inappropriate times, he often ruffled religious sensibilities by claiming to forgive sins. He attended parties so much he was referred to by the religious elite as a glutton, and he hang out with all the politically incorrect people. It drove his critics mad to no end that call girls and corrupt government officials liked being around him.

I believe though that there was good reason why he deliberately went against the grain. Sometimes we church-folk get so comfortable about religion we need to be shaken up. We forget to ask the real questions. We focus on non-issues. Why they sing certain songs or why the sermon was a certain length and why that guy was wearing dreadlocks in church and how dare that girl wear a tight dress.

Meanwhile, the good news remains un-preached to the poor, captives remain un-released, the spiritual blind remain blind and the downtrodden in society remain oppressed (see Jesus’ controversial mission statement in Luke 4:18. His life was completely other-centered!)

Has the church that seeks to represent Him become so predictable and uncontroversial that we’re in danger of becoming completely irrelevant to this generation? Are there some controversies that we need to start to deliberately engage in? Not merely for controversies sake but in order to get us out of our comfort zones into focusing on what’s really important?

I wonder….

December...

Had a great weekend. It’s always good to come back to Mavuno and Pst Esther Obasike did a great job with a message about Christmas and forgiveness. Then on Sunday evening, we attended the concert of the year, as Kanjii launched his new album ‘Stories’. It was a phenomenal event that set a new standard for concert excellence. We were tishwad by the sound, lights, video displays, and the ambience. And of course the great music that addressed the themes of everyday life ~ love, marriage, money, politics, paying taxes etc. Thanks Kanjii & crew for creating wholesome entertainment for our generation that isn’t lewd, suggestive or X-rated.

Speaking of great entertainment, I can’t wait for Aaron’s concert tomorrow evening at Simba Saloon as well as our Village Christmas concert on the 19^th & 20^th at the Dome. Please come and bring a friend.

I love December!

This morning, I met with a group of men at 5am in a men’s-only prayer event called Gideon’s Torch. This spartan, no-frills, weekly event held at the Mavuno Dome is a great time to connect with other men and to pray together as well as get prayed over. Last one for 2008 takes place next Wednesday and if you’re reading this and you’re a man, consider yourself invited.

The Night The Heaven’s Smiled

So… I completely missed it because I was in Mombasa and apparently the sky here is completely different. But last night, residents of Nairobi were treated to a rare sight; Jupiter and Venus aligned themselves above the moon’s crescent to form a heavenly smiley face. I saw the pictures - amazing! Though I don’t subscribe to horoscopes, I have several guesses as to what the omens signified. It probably had something to do with our government intervening (finally) to keeping maize meal prices affordable. Or maybe it was about fuel pump prices finally beginning to inch lower! Wow… talk about good news to all mankind (at least of the Kenyan variety!) Now imagine what would happen if our MP’s finally did the right thing and paid their taxes. And not in 2012!

Okay… time to end the daydream. Apart from the heat (34C and about 1000% humidity), Mombasa is quite the place to be. It seems everybody is heading this way; traffic’s picking up, prices rising ~ it’s the annual high season. Lots of reasons to smile for local business as guests pour in from all over.

Our days here are sort of predictable. We wake up around 8am (would sleep in much longer if we didn’t have kids), have a leisurely breakfast, read newspapers and generally relax as the kids play or watch a movie. Oops… before you know it, it’s already lunchtime! After lunch, we pile into the car and go swimming at Mombasa Beach Hotel. The kids stay in water for as long as we’ll let them. Today we got to hang out at Mama Ngina Drive afterwards and drank madafu (coconut juice drank with a straw straight from the coconut) and cassava crisps (drenched in lemon juice and chili). Definitely a must-do if you’re in Mombasa. Mmmh… there’s quite a lot you can do/eat here that actually doesn’t cost that much.

All too soon, its home time. 8.30pm and the city looks like it’s just waking up. Only in Mombasa. The kids are already asking ‘Do we have to go home?’ ‘Ever?’ ‘Can’t we just live here?’

Sigh… maybe we can hold on to that daydream for a few more days…

Away

So... am back in Mombasa, my favorite vacation spot in the entire world! Only am not on vacation, but attending the annual retreat of the Nairobi Chapel lead pastors. Great to catch up and to hear what God is doing in all the other churches. As well as to synchronize plans for 2009…Am definitely privileged to be part of the Chapel family; what a great team of leaders!

More and more I’m realizing that one of my biggest responsibilities is developing other leaders around me. An ancient Chinese proverb supposedly (not quite sure how ancient or how Chinese) says, ‘If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for twenty years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men’. I’m the product of much investment by others and I pray that God will use me to invest in and develop great leaders around me in my lifetime.

Next week though, I do get to stay behind and vacation @ the Coast for a few days with Carol & the kids. We’ll be staying with some good friends and I look forward to some R & R. Changing the world can hold off till next year!

Media Revolution

Kudos to Citizen TV for kicking off a renaissance of Kenyan content on our TV screens. The other stations are paying attention and working hard to catch up! Several years ago, Carol & I ran a video production company and it was very difficult to sell local content to our TV stations then. They preferred cheap Hollywood (or Bollywood or Nollywood) re-runs.

The current situation is really a win-win-win though. We get (hopefully) more relevant TV programs, local production skills increase, more jobs are created in the sector, and TV stations can focus on their core business; transmission of programs and production of news shows.

Though we don’t watch much TV, we treat ourselves every week to my favorite program; Citizen’s ‘Mother In Law’ and Carol’s; NTV’s ‘Wash & Set’. We have also both enjoyed ‘Churchill Live’ another NTV show. Very glad to see Churchill, a Christian comedian, building a name across our country for clean comedy.

Media and the arts are such powerful tools. I believe the time has come for radical kingdom minded Christians to proactively engage them. As musicians, actors, dancers, DJ’s, writers, editors, graphic artists, event organizers, record label executives, TV producers, movie makers, media station owners etc. And not necessarily through ‘Christian media stations' or by producing ‘Christian programs’. But as undercover agents, in every media outlet, set quietly in place to win the battle for hearts and minds of our generation…

The current situation is a great opportunity for Christians to get in at the ground level and to set the agenda. Let’s produce creative & entertaining content that will promote healthy societal values.

And while I’m going on about media, two really great movies made by Christians that are ‘must watch’ (neither is local). One is ‘Faith Like Potatoes’ (www.faithlikepotatoes.com) shot in SA. And the other is ‘Amazing Grace’ (www.amazinggracemovie.com), about British MP Wilberforce, an amazing man who changed his generation.

Have a great week!

Summit

This week the Mavuno pastoral team is attending the Global Leadership Summit, a training event for Christian leaders hosted by the Nairobi Baptist Church. It’s a good bonding event for us as a team and also a time to network with other Christian leaders from across the city. For me, also a great time to sit at the feet of great Christian leaders and just learn…

My treat of the day yesterday was hearing Bill Hybels speak. He’s senior pastor of Willow Creek Church, which puts together the annual Summit all around the world. For some reason I’d expected his address would be on video then I realized he was there in the flesh! Anyhow, it was great to see, hear and even shake the hand of this great man who’s had a huge impact on church leaders across the world, myself included. He’s the one from whom I gained the conviction that the church is the hope of the world. It was great observing this mature leader who God has used to accomplish so much. He spoke about some of his leadership mentors and the things he’s learnt from them.

The rest of the speakers were on video. Jim Collins, of ‘Good To Great’ fame, spoke about the qualities of a Level 5 leader. [His bestselling book was an exposition of a 5-year research on the companies that have had extraordinary results over several decades. One of his findings was that there was a qualitative difference between leaders of these companies when compared to leaders of similar companies that hadn’t had the same longevity. His ‘Level 5 leader’, who displays both genuine personal humility and ferocious determination to accomplish the organizations goals, very closely resembles Jesus’ own model of leadership!] Anyway he challenged us about the Level 5 decisions we are facing at work; those that require us to make personal sacrifices for the cause. Good stuff.

Interestingly, Jim sees having charisma as a liability for leaders! Because charismatic leaders often get used to leading based on their own gifts as opposed to building systems that will accomplish the organizations goals long after they’re gone. So he taught how to overcome ‘the curse of charisma’!

God really spoke to me through Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission, who talked about leading people in the things that matter to God. Just because I’m leading and people are following doesn’t mean I’m leading in the things God is passionate about. If I want my leadership to matter, then I need to lead in the things that matter to God. His was a very challenging call for Christian's to be involved in the work of justice, with some practical pointers about how do so.

Am blessed to love what I do. And to be part of Mavuno’s incredible staff team. And to belong to such a fun church where God is at work and anything is possible.

Peace