This is Almada, at least the old part of it. The skyscrapers in the backgroud weren't as pretty.

 

This is the 25 Abril bridge with Lisboa behind it. Kind of looks like the Golden Gate Bridge. We went over the Vasco de Gama bridge coming back. It's newer and very cool looking, but you couldn't see it from here in the morning, it was hazy. Anyway search it on google images.

 

New friends. Wilson and Elso Spindola are the pastors of the church in Setubal.

 

 

 

 

at the soccer game. They had cheerleaders. Yes cheerleaders. Apparently it's a new thing. And they were terrible. They were basically dancing around and happend to have pom poms. The goalie got a red card for a terrible foul, he's fighting with the ref. Then the penalty shoot for the foul. He missed, but Sporting (in green and "our" team) ended up winning.

 

Seth with Robert and Derlani

 

again at the Cristo

 

couldn't resist the imagery

 

this is the cristo

 

Updates so far

(Apologies if any of this info is repeat. I can't remember who has heard which stories)

Why I hate New Jersey and other tales of travel woe
So getting here. Everything was great until Newark. I find I lack fondness for New Jersey. Our flight was supposed to leave at 8:15 pm to arrive in Lisbon at 8:15 am local time, about 2:15 am ET. Three planes, two gates and two set of airplane food later (the first sets went bad we were waiting so long), we took off at 3 am ET. Yes that would 45 minutes after we were supposed to be Lisbon. Sigh.

On a positive note I'm happy we didn't fly over a big blue ocean on a BROKEN plane and we ended up on a bigger plane than scheduled which meant everybody had room to stretch out and it was the one with the little screens in the seat back. Got to see the new Pirates movie finally, rock. And the denizens of our flight were surprisingly laid back and calm about the delay. We broke into applause when we landed, remembering our crew had been waiting the extra 8 hours with us. I hope the stewardesses were pumping them full of coffee.

But getting here was the only harrowing part, everything else has been amazing.

Who knew a speedo could double as a cooler... while being worn

So we went to the beach the first afternoon. Yes, where we are staying is 10 minutes from a great beach. It's ok to be jealous. They were giving away this new yogurt drink as a promotion so there was a small mob of people. Free stuff gets the same reaction everywhere. So there were a couple of guys who I guess figured, "hey as long as it's free..." and would get a couple of bottles then get in line again. Keep in mind they are coming from the beach. A European beach. Speedos everywhere. (side note: interestingly and terribly unfortunately, only people over 40ish seem to be wearing speedos. Everyone younger wears American style trunks. I mean no one looks good in a speedo, but beer bellies don't improve the look) Now that you've got the image, being that most of these guys were wearing just speedos which are lacking in the pocket department, where to put the extra bottles? Well in the waistband across the back of course. And if two fit, why not, let's say 6 or 7? Seriously these guys were loaded up. It had to be cold.


American Idol and Oprah and taking over the world

So there is a lot more American TV than I was expecting. Some with voice over, some with subtitles. (Myth Busters in hilarious dubbed) We came home the other day and Deborah, Robert and Derlani's daughter was watching Oprah with no commercials
Its on a special "women's channel" with Dr. Phil etc. And I am grieved to report that last night flipping through the channels we actually saw WWF wrestling. You just can't get away from it.

I know American Idol started in England as Pop Idol, but I didn't realize the extent to which it had swept the rest of the continent. We watch a show called Superstar Familia the other night. It's American Idol with two family members who have to have at least 10 years of age difference. And it was the first night. You know, bad singing is funny in any language. Especially when accompanied by an 11 year old playing a synthesizer.

New vocabulary learned at soccer matches

We went to a soccer game on Sunday night. It was amazing. The stadium is enormous it hold 45,000 and it's not the biggest in town. There are three super liga (premier league) teams in Lisbon and countless smaller teams. The largest stadium in town (which is near the one we went to) hold 70,000. And there are nothing like European soccer fans. There was a guy in front of us who I can only describe as having a prolific vocabulary and I don't speak Portugues. So quick lesson in words and hand gestures not to use. But he did have the most impressive whistle I've ever heard in my life (they whistle instead of boo). I can't even really describe it in writing. You'll have to ask me for an impression in person.

The real reason we are here

So after all of those stories, you might be thinking "Didn't they go to Portugal to see if they wanted to start a church there?" Why yes we did. And the work towards that has been really good.

We've visited the churches that Robert and Derlani have been working with over the last 19 years and the people were very friendly and welcoming and all asking us in Portuguese when were are moving here because Portugal needs our help.

Yesterday we went across the river to Almada and Setubal (Google maps will help you out) to do prayer walks which simply means we walked around the area and prayed asking God where he wants to start a counseling center and church and to speak to the people in the neighborhoods we were walking through. There is an enormous statue of Christ like the one in Rio called the Cristo Rei that faces the city. We started there and went up on the monument and looked over the city. It was an awesome experience to stand at the feet of Christ (literally and figuratively) and pray for the people of the city.

I'm going to try to post some pictures, I'll include another post with the link.

We appreciate all of your prayers as we try to figure out if Portugal is the right fit for us.

Bem Viendo de Portual

So we´re in Portugal, safe and sound. We are having a great time so far and I promise promise promise to post a longer post later this week when I have wireless access. We´re sharing a computer with the rest of the Fife clan right now, which is perfect for checking emails but I don´t want to hog it blogging. And the European key board is screwy and takes me 2x´s as long to type. Who knew there were European keybaords?

Anyway highlights so far (and teasers for the longer post):

Why I hate New Jersey and other tales of travel woe

Who knew a speedo could double as a cooler... while being worn

American Idol and Oprah and taking over the world

New vocublary learned at soccer matches

Chasing a Lion

I am continuing to really dig Mark Batterson.

I got a copy of his book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars at the conference and being that school is not officially over, I have not had a chance to read it yet, but from the skimming I've done, I really like it.

He posted a Chase the Lion manifesto on his blog and I thought it was really cool, so here you go.

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Consider the lilies. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshipping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze a new trail. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion!

My favorite: Don't let what's wrong with you keeping you from worshiping what is right with God. wow. and ouch.

any way, that's my thought for the day. here's another one: aren't blogs wonderful suckers of time when you should be doing something else? right. back to the grind stone, only one exam left. sigh.

Laura abroad

So my little sister is studying abroad in Italy for about 6 weeks. I'm dead jealous. But she's keeping a blog(for which she is getting three hours credit. again, dead jealous), and it should be entertaining.

She's a little nervous about International living, this is the first time she's gone anywhere where she doesn't know anyone. That's a big step for a small town girl who has always had a group of friends that she's known since grade school around. Not that I know that from personal experience.

So keep her in your prayers and those of you with European living experience, I'm sure she's up for advice. Kelly, I'm telling her if she gets into any trouble to run to Spain ;-). Speaking of which, does anyone have any connections in Florence? She's in a really great campus ministry in college, so if any body knew of a church she could hook up with, that would be really cool.

She's taking a communications class and an elective, "A gastronomic tour of Italy". That's right she gets class credit for traveling around eating good food and drinking good wine. Dead jealous.

conference

right,
so 98% of the National New Church Conference rocked. I was totally excited and inspired and got a TON of great practical and theory ideas. The best part was being around so many people who were so passionate about reaching the lost for Christ, it was contagious. Paradoxically, missing a week of school gave me the inspiration to come back and really knock out this semester, it reminded me why I was in school.


I'll briefly address the 2% that wasn't cool.

1. I'm still a little queasy about printing the death certificate for the traditional American church. To the guys that are in LA, New York, DC, I can totally see you're reaching people that would never darken the door of a traditional church. But in some of the smaller towns, I'm wondering if it's not just siphoning off all the people who are really excited about being a part of the body of Christ. And the numbers emphasis gets a little concerning sometimes. Also, talking from a DiSC perspective, I pray to God that he has engineered teams around some of the PAINFULLY high D guys I heard at this conference that can mellow them out and reign them in a little. Seriously, is obnoxious like a job skill in this field?

2. Mark Driscoll video
so seriously watch it for yourself before you see what I have to say about it.

Honestly, it was kind of a slap in the face. After spending a whole week listening to these guys, being inspired by their stories, hearing about God's vision for reaching the lost and how the church is part of it, I was shocked. I thought, is this really what you think? That I have no place in God's vision?

What I heard from that video was: We don't want you, we don't need you, and there are too many of your type around here anyway. I was sitting back really trying to listen to what he had to say until: "60% of all Christians today are female. I'm glad that the ladies love Jesus. But if you want to win a war, you've got to get the men" At that point, I thought, nope, I'm not just a little annoyed at non gender-inclusive language, he really is saying he could care less about women as far as their role in "winning the war". So I was miffed.

This conference had representative from all sorts of denominations and I thought they did a fair job of being ecumenical. And there are some denominations that don't approve of women in leadership. Fine, I'm not applying for jobs with them. But this was more than a doctrinal disagreement, this just said we don't need women for anything but sex. (That was the only context in which women played a role in this call to arms).

Also, seriously could have done without the homo phobia and violent images. Yes, Paul uses soldier language, but the picture of the cocked handgun on the cover of the dvd that was handed out was a little much, especially the week after VTech. And yes, at least a few were handed out, (I got three handed to me, I guess because I'm a woman and REALLY needed to hear it) despite some belly aching and over-reaction (small note if you go read the over reaction, Wayne Cordeiro is half Asian, a quarter native Hawaiian and a quarter Portuguese. A least be accurate in your ranting and try not to show so obviously you weren't at the event you are blasting)

Then Bill Hybels, bless him, who I had never heard of before this conference and is apparently the church planting Billy Graham got up and said, "After that eight minute video, I would just like to affirm that women exist in the world, they have spiritual gifts and they are very useful to church planting" That's all. Some of the blogs say he "ripped into Mark" and that he shouldn't say anything because he's not on the front lines of church planting. Whatever. (Side note: the man cleaned up other people's vomit at 4 am on Sundays for 6 years so his church could meet in a movie theater that showed horror movies on Saturday night.) But in that very small statement, he told me that I did actually have worth as a human being.

So yeah, as an introduction to Mark Driscoll, I thought he was a jerk. But I don't want to leave it there, I want to find out more about him and what he is doing and hope to have a changed perspective

ok, on to the good stuff

did a pre-conference intensive with Mark Batterson and Brad Abare both very cool people I had to restrain myself from throwing resumes at. Learned a ton of practical stuff, but mostly was excited to see people excited about communicating God's message with integrity, passion and creativity. Quote of the session "There are ways to do church that no one has thought of yet".

Main sessions in the gigantor sanctuary of First Baptist Orlando, (it has its own zip code. I'm not kidding) Very, very cool. Good speakers, good worship, many different styles of both.

One brief interlude for snarky comment: The first worship guys were what I call nouveau punk for lack of a better term. See previous posts about architectural hair and skinny legged jeans. So you know that cool bell tone used so often by the likes of Coldplay? Usually done with a keyboard right? Well, I guess these guys decided to be more authentic and broke out what I can only call punk glockenspiel. You know the tiny xylophones we played in grade school? Yep those. But played by the lead singer with one mallet. He had two but the other was being waved around in what can only be described as a Mick Jagger marching glockenspiel dance. I couldn't help it. I laughed. Out loud. Everything he did it. Which was several. Smoking a turd in purgatory for that one.

If you go to the site, I did most of the workshops in the pre launch track, all very good with standouts being Jim Putman who has a phenomenal take on discipleship. It's a lot to say for a blog, but if you want the notes from the session, I'll be glad to email them. Quote from his session "That which is not intentional is irreproducible." I think that is such a small thing that is so key. At least for me, we did so much "relational discipleship" that in reality was just hanging out and that is REALLY important, but if it's all free form, how are our disciples supposed to learn how to make disciples? Food for thought.

Also Vince Antonucci totally couldn't do everything he does, but it works for his context. His was very practical. Best quote about setting up a church specifically targeted at people who hate church and are totally un churched :"Church is weird enough all ready. The Cross is weird. Communion is weird. Could we not set up the band like some kind of Chicago reunion tour and make it look like a real band? At least one thing would be less weird." You know what he's talking about. Line of 5 lady singers, three drum sets, a trumpet, all lined up across the stage. Also, if you get a chance, check out their videos, especially paco the disco gorilla. I'm serious. It's like church planting and campus ministry share a brain sometimes. They base a lot of their stuff on Letterman and Conan O'Brien, but that is the people they want to reach.

on the subject of cool videos, check out Community Christian Church Naperville. My favorite are the Christian/Christ follower, Mac/PC parodies. I don't think non-Christians get as wrapped around the axle about the term Christian as most "Christ-followers" do, but very very funny none the less.

A couple of the other speakers in the workshops gave great sermons, but not workshops and didn't necessarily talk about the subject they were slated to, so that was a little disappointing.

I was impressed with the overall message of the conference which was you can learn all the tips and tricks you want, but you've got to love God and love people or you will be an abysmal failure at church planting.

It was also very cool to spend time with Robert and Derlani and Rudolpho who would be part of the team if we decided to go to Portugal. And we stayed in a ROCKING house courtesy of Stadia. When they first said we could stay in the houses with their groups, I was picturing sacking out on someone's couch that they knew and I was totally grateful. But no, these were 4 bedroom rental houses with a pool. What a great surprise and blessing. Plus, since it had a kitchen we could cook ourselves and cut way down on the expense of eating. And Derlani cooked Brazilian food one night. Mmmmm... beans and rice *slobber*. So good.

So, to sum up: very very cool conference, totally worth going. I would recommend it to any one and I'm thinking about going back next year if we stay on this church-planting road that God seems to be leading us down.

conference-prequel

right, so went to the national new church conference last week, way too much cool stuff to post right now. I would have been all hip and tech savy and blogged through it, but when the church said they had wifi they meant they have wifi when 2000 tech savy church planters aren't visiting. Network wasn't big enough. Rats. Anyway, for those of you of the the church planted persuasion, peruse here and see who was there and what they were teaching on. They promise that several of the sessions and workshops will be there to download.

Seth's parents are in town, so we are going to hang out with them, but I promise more details later!

asheville

Seth and I went to Asheville this weekend, it was a ton of fun. I'm glad he talked me into it, a weekend out of town was a good thing. I don't really have any long stories, just some amusing tidbits, so I'll give the highlights:

We ate A LOT of good food. There is this one awesome seafood place that has lobster mac n' cheese. Honestly. It's the best idea in food ever. And we ate sushi and really good Italian. Fabulous.

Rachel Ray is not to be trusted. Tried two of the "$40 a day" places for lunch, seriously disappointing.

The hotel we stayed in rocked and we got it for a rocking rate. Hotwire is the coolest. The college volleyball tournament that stayed in the same hotel, not so cool. I mean I can understand being a little rowdy, but literally running up and down the hall screaming at the top of your lungs? Not screaming words mind you, just screaming. What are you 5? The thoughtful hotel provided ear plugs in a little kit of sleep things, however. I wonder if they only do that when they have college tournaments.

We felt very cosmopolitan walking around the little shops and boutiques and chatting with the very hip store owners. We got some very hip candle holders that were on clearance. Is clearance hip? I think so.

Favorite quote of the weekend: We were strolling around downtown and went past this little music store that had a ton of punk kids spilling out on the sidewalks. It was like of time warp from 1986, seriously, but they were all lounging casually feeling very original, looking exactly like all of their friends. So Seth and I overhear the following:

"St. Patrick's day is better than Christmas. You know, because it's not a religious holiday"

His friends nodded sagely and appreciated his damn-the-man view on the establishment.

It took a lot not to turn around point and laugh. I'm pretty sure that what Jesus would have done. But they could have flailed at me ineffectually with their skinny-jeaned legs and then stabbed me with their impressively architectural hair.

We went to the mecca of all grocery stores, Fresh Market. And yes, I am big enough dork to wander around a grocery store for fun. It was amazing. You really could spend hours in there. OK, I could. And they had watermelon Jelly Bellies, which I have been on a quest for for months.
So, overall, a very successful weekend away.