Brian McLaren is coming to Sweden in a couple of weeks (May 17-18). He is speaking at SALT in Malmö, at Örebro Missionskola and at Immanuelskyrkan in Stockholm.

Be there and get inspired. For you who are new to the emerging church this is a great opportunity to hear one of the most respected and influential EC-voices. Marcus Förlag has recently translated his book “A New Kind of Christian” into Swedish.

Talking about EC, my friend JR in Hollywood recently shared his thoughts on the emerging church.

I just want to say that I’m still alive, I’m settled down in Stockholm, and I’m excited about the new year.

This is the last blog post from me for a longer period. I like the idea of blogging and I am definitely a blog reader but my own blogging will be on ice for some time. TSK once said something that might be true in my journey right now: blogging less, living more.

All the old posts of this blog can be found here or using the Google search function to the right.

I want to thank all my readers, for all your input, thoughts and support so far. Time will tell when I’m back, but until then… Merry Christmas to everyone!

[UPDATE!] While surfing… you just have to check THIS OUT! This man is crazy…

Fika is a Swedish word for having a coffee/tea with someone/somebody. That’s what I have been doing the last days/weeks. That’s the only thing people do here in Stockholm. It’s a part of the culture. Some days you just go around from coffee shop to coffee shop and just - fika. During the fika there’s plenty of time for conversations and discussions. So, I have had really interesting talks with a lot of my real friends, new friends, old friends, or just - friends. Some of the people I’ve met lately are… Simon, Ida, Kjelle, Frida, Isabel, Linda, Niklas, Magnus, Marcus, Fredric, Susie, Jenny, Linus, Louise, Michaela and more…. I have also been to a lot of parties and christmas parties (julglögg). Yes, Christmas is actually getting closer!

Well, I don’t just hang out doing nothing. Last week I began working as an IT-consultant at one of Sweden’s biggest and most successful companies. So I’m actually having a full-time job now!

Found this pic at Tommy’s Danish blog Viasacro. Thought the image was pretty cool…

I will here try to clarify what some people call the emerging church or the emerging church conversation. The points I write here are just some of many more perspectives of what I see the emerging church is all about. Important is also that I’m always on the move, meaning that what I say today might be different from what I say tomorrow as what I said yesterday may be different from what I said today.

• The emerging church conversation accepts, connects and identifies with all Christians from all times, both in the past and in the future. It realizes that Christianity didn’t start in 1906 with the Pentecostal movement or that God was dead between the first century church and Luther.
• People that are ‘emerging’ are found in all kinds of areas, from traditional denominations to mega churches, small churches or relational networks. For me it is more about a mindset, attitude and openness than a worship style, specific structure or a certain kind of church. It also spans through all generations, from younger to older.
• The emerging conversation tries to understand the times. The questions the church has to deal with today are different than they were 10 or 20 years ago. The modern era is being replaced as we enter the postmodern era with its worldview, lifestyle and thougths. This change is seen in many cities, groups and individuals.
• Emerging people don’t fear postmodernity. Instead it is seen as a fresh opportunity to get real, to deal and interact with people living in today’s culture. Tough questions are raised that the church didn’t want to (or wasn’t allowed to) ask before.
• Evangelism as a missional living. Mission has often been seen as a ‘you come to us’ model where the church gradually drew people away from the secular world. Emergent leaders seem to change the thinking of evangelism into a ‘we come to you’ approach. Christians should go out to the people and serve God instead of isolating themselves into like-minded communities.
• The emerging church doesn’t say that there is no absolute truth (which it often gets critized for) but it might have problems when you or anybody else (than God) affirms to have it.
• People who call themselves emerging are often deconstructing the elements of their faith experience and reassembling it into their unique journey of deconstruction and reconstruction.
• The emergent church conversation often brings into light the importance of the social gospel (e.g. social and economic justice, poverty, racism) along with a concern for the good of the world. The idea here is that God loves the whole creation. There is more in the Bible than just a salvation message, not saying that would be less important.

We’re just in the beginning of the new era that is emerging after the modern era, meaning that the whole conversation about doing ministry in a postmodern matrix is in many ways only a conversation so far. We may have one version of it today but we have to keep in mind that many more versions of it are to come as we are finding a way forward together. Therefore, don’t dismiss the whole conversation if you encounter strange ideas from one of us. Instead try to listen and understand others and also share your own story, struggles and experiences.

You may ask: Is all this stuff about emergent church something that I have to care about? My simple answer is: Not necessarily. I think and believe that God will lead you on this journey if he wants you to go there. This is new territory for most Christians and some of us has to be the first ones over to the other side. Many of us on a journey of deconstruction might feel that we are between two worlds, not knowing or seeing where we are going. It’s like Abraham when he left Egypt for a better world. Not until we have a bridge that is strong enough can we let the rest over.

I’ve spent the last week in Finland. First at my parents’ house in Vasa and then with my sister in Helsinki. It was soo great to meet my mum and my dad, my two sisters with their husbands, and my brother and his family. They all made me feel very very welcome home from the US! I was kind of used to the cold weather in Stockholm but Vasa was even colder. Luckily I found my winter jacket so I could hide in it during the dark and chilly evenings up there.

I was glad to meet and hang out with some of my friends during my stay in Finland. Besides my family and sibilings, I had sauna with Linus and Samppa (Samuel) and met Mathias, Johan and a lot of more people at Predikantveckan (a week-long gathering for ministers in the Swedish-Finnish Pentecostal movement), held outside of Helsinki . On the boat cruise from Helsinki to Stockholm I also had a nice chat about the emerging church with Kenneth, the new pastor of Filadelfiakyrkan in Helsinki.

Now I’m back in Stockholm, sitting at the IT-University in Kista. I’ve registered for some classes. It’s time to get back to the daily routines like studies and work after three months of travelling, experiencing, and meeting new people.

I came to think about a conversation I had some weeks ago with one of my friends in LA. We were mostly talking about faith, church and our daily life, how we view them, and whether we are comfortable with them or not. After a while he pointed out to me that he is not as much an out-of-the-box thinker that I am. He is pretty comfortable with the mainstream and how things are. He hadn’t given so much thought of trying to find new ways of doing things or reflected over the needs of a possible change. Even though he wasn’t a revolutioner he told me about some of his friends that were more like that.

I found the conversation very interesting. The fact that other people don’t think the same way as I do, or believe in the same things as I do, is something I shouldn’t be suprised over at the age of 25. But still I get suprised. How can you not have thought about this? Or that? What kind of life are you living? But thank God that we are so different. I think I learned to listen to him and things that I hadn’t given as much of a thought. We learned from each other and we ended the night hopefully with a piece of more wisdom, about each other and about God.

I realize I am an out-of-the-box thinker (and doer) but I must realize that all people aren’t like me, or actually I think most people are not (!). I like to break new territories, explore new ideas, cross borders, challenge and question the mainstream/status que, not afraid being uncomfortable or radical. Maybe it’s a gift, I don’t know, but that’s how I am. But I do respect those who are completely different! But I have to be better on that.

Rumours tells that Freddy recently took over the role of Nicolas Cage in The Weather Man. Btw, I noticed that it takes about four weeks for the American movies to reach Sweden (!)

I don’t know why I’ve been writing down a list of my recent watched movies, but here goes…

…about a boy, notting hill, dodgeball, the matrix, matrix reloaded, matrix revolution, oceans 11 old version, oceans 11 new version, oceans 12 , catch me if you can, closer, the terminal, the mummy, dancing with wolves, war of the worlds, hitch, the sixth sense, boys don’t cry, zorro, crash, the exorcism of emilie rose, just like heaven, miss congeniality 2, the criminal, napoelon dynamite, the murder of orient express, the wedding crashers, the fantastic four, the young frankenstein, species 2, the weather man, signs, hitchershikers guide to the galaxy, the last samurai, good morning vietnam, the manchurian candidate, sahara

My first phone was a Nokia. During the years I have had Siemens, SonyEricsson and Samsung, but now I’m back with Finnish Nokia again. This one is really cool. I’m downloading music videos and checking my email… it feels more like a computer than a phone…

The jet lag is a fact. Time is 7 am in the morning and I can’t sleep, so I thought this would be a perfect time to write a blog post.

I’m back in Scandinavia! I’ve settled down at my friend Marcus’ place in Stockholm. It feels strange. It is a big change. The weather, the people, the society, the daily routines, the friends, the thinking, the experiences, the past, the future.. I’m trying to adjust myself into peoples lives here. It really felt like moving to the land of the North. People cover themselves with thick jackets and they have hip Nordic haircuts. Also, here is not as many Hispanic and Asian as in LA, even though Stockholm is a many cultural society.

I’m glad to meet my friends again. Besides Marcus I have already met Fredric, Kjell-Olof, Frida and Carita, my aunt. I’m planning to stay here for some more days meeting more people and trying see what kind of housing is out there. I need to find a place to live and this time I will do everything to get something as close to the city as possible. I’m a city person. I love living in the middle of traffic, noise, people and high pulse.

I thinking of uploading some pictures from my USA stay… from Las Vegas, San Fransisco, Hawaii, LA etc… I do have a lot of pics in my computer but they are not only there for me. I want to share them with others too!

In a couple of hours I’m taking off from the Los Angeles International Airport (again). This time I won’t go back to LA, at least for a while! I’m transferring in London after 10 hours and continuing to Stockholm for about 3 more hours.

I spended my last night in LA in Hollywood, had dinner with JR Woodward and we took some pictures of the Hollywood sign. Later that night I met up with my roommate Jeremy, also in Hollywood. We had a nice time remembering all the fun stuff we have done together the last 6 months.

My Taiwanese friend Haolin opened his apartment for me the last two days as I had to move out of mine the last of October. We are gonna have lunch soon and then he will drive me to the airport. I have so much stuff to bring home and I have had some serious troubles not having overweight. I bought a third bag and rearranged everything but now I probably have to pay $125 for checking in a third bag. I’m up in totally 5 bags! I have the tendency to buy fancy things that I don’t really need.

Adios LA! See you guys soon in Scandinavia!

When I’m writing this I’m laying at the 30th floor of a hotel apartment in Hawaii looking out over the ocean. I can’t complain about the view. My friend Ramin and his girlfriend Mie has been so friendly and hospitable to me. They gave me a air matress and placed it close by the window so I could enjoy the amazing view during my days here. They live in one of the skycrapers in the main city Honolulu. It is really great here I can tell.

Hawaii is hot! I thought LA was warm when I left from there today. The temperature right now is 28 celsius degrees. No need for socks.

Btw, San Fransisco was great. I hanged out with my friend Mike and his friends from Nothern Cal. We couldn’t see so much of the Golden Gate bridge because it was very foggy, but we did a adventurous trolley tour through the city. I also spent a lot of time in the surfer town Santa Cruz and went to a worship service to Vintage Faith Church with Dan Kimball speaking. More on that when I have more time.

GodBlogCon2005

Andrew recommended me to try the desktop blogging tool Ecto. It seems very easy to use. I’m trying to get it to work with Wordpress 1.5. I’m having some problems with the character sets. A nice feature is automatic thumbnail creation.

I’m off to San Fransisco tomorrow, will be back on Sunday night. Is there anything special I can’t miss seeing in San Fran? The Alcatraz? Once again, my furniture is out on sale. Not too long since last time. And next week Hawaii is coming up. Also, my trip LAX-HEATHROW-ARLANDA is booked on Nov 3th. I’m looking forward spending the weekend in Stockholm!

I wish myself a nice trip!

CLICK HERE to check out my 106 images from the Emergent gathering!

People are starting to share their reflections… here’s just a pick:
- Michael Kruse: Emergent (Part 1).
- kellyvickers.com: Church is relationship
- Rick Bennett: Back from Glorietta, New Mexico
- Ryan Sharp: Initial Reflections
- Darren Davenport: In New Mexico
- Chris Kirk: Back. Pictures here .
- Fredrik Hellström: Emergent Gathering 2005. Pics here.

[UPDATE 19 oct]
- Dave Berge summarizes the conversation “Saving Dying Mainline Congregations”
- Andrew Jones steered church life back into kitchen and homes by throwing a pizza party at the gathering which was highly appreciated!
- Will Samson listed all the Glorieta bloggers here

One of my friends wondered how things are with me nowadays and pointed out that my blog hasn’t told so much about me and my daily life lately. I suppose he’s right. Well there are reasons why I haven’t said so much. Sometimes I just don’t have anything to say. But I do have a picture share. This Laugh Factory guy tried to be funny. And he was.

I’m enjoying the last weeks of LA and I am preparing my home trip. Today was the first day I’ve ever seen it raining here. Maybe that’s a sign to leave? I think so. It is gonna be a shift from summer to fall in one day. I don’t know what to wear when I arrive in Stockholm. It is probaby very cold and dark. I can always use three layers of sweaters and two pair of pants! I’ve tried to keep up with my friends back home as good as I can, but there’s always somebody I’ve forgot. I’m really looking forward to meet my family, my siblings and all my friends both in Finland and in Sweden. What a joy it will be to see everybody again!

I do have some plans for the last 2-3 weeks here in LA. Continue reading…

I have so much to say about the Emergent gathering in Glorieta, New Mexico, but I’m still processing the experiences and the conversations we had. However, I will try to point out some of the highlights from the 4-day retreat held by Emergent Village at the Southern Baptist campground, New Mexico, sixteen miles east of Santa Fe.

- No prepared agenda. The days consisted mostly of conversations and activities and anybody could take the initiative for a conversation/activity about something that was relevant to them. May sound like a loose schedule but there was no lack of people signing up for everything from discussion of the future of Emergent, jam sessions, connecting with unchurched youth, to photo gallery trips and coffee tasting.

- No names. In this group of people everbody are friends. It doesn’t matter if you were new or been around for a while, young or old, famous or a nobody, it all felt like a big family. Here were pastors/ministers, artists, authors, bloggers, workers, students, kids etc. and we all hanged out with each other as a big family. What a experience. What a testimony!

- Serving atmosphere. Some people bought groceries, some other people prepared the food and some other people cleaned up. Just like a family. It was about helping where help was needed. I talked to Andrew about this and he also thought this part was a hit. This is church. We were sharing the life toghether, with pizza, kids, kitchen cleaning and the rest.

- Global. People came from all over the US and some from Europe as well. Guess who!

- Conversations. They happened not only during the days but also everywhere in between. At the breakfast tables, out in the nature and at the night parties. People were connecting and sharing their stories, struggles, new ideas, experiences, encouragement, prayers, and just loving and caring for each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. For me personally it meant so much to meet other people going through the same kind of processes as I have done the last years. I realize that I’m not alone in experiencing a deconstruction/reconstruction phase. Another 40-year old pastor told me what I’m experiencing is nothing new to Christianity either, and recommended me a book from many hundred years ago. I had so many talks with people and every conversation was unique, as if God put it all toghether in the end. I met a coffee house pastor, some other people doing house churches, a Lutheran pastor, a Presbyterian pastor, a Hawaiian minister, a poetry guy, some artists, a DJ-club-freak, theologians, youth workers, authors (I taught Brian McLaren some Swedish for his visit in May next year), conservatives, liberals and many more.

Names and titles doesn’t really matter here, what I’m trying to say is that I experienced a community where we were all on the same level. It was a friendly and loving, non-judgmental, cool, relaxed and layback atmosphere. A quote from the Emergent Village web site: “Emergent is a growing generative friendship among missional Christian leaders seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Our dream is to join in the activity of God in the world wherever we are able, so that God’s dreams for our world come true. In the process, the world can be healed and changed, and so can we.”

Michael Kruse, a Presbyterian pastor [UPDATE: elder] I met at the gathering, writes on his blog: “Many people have a difficult time understanding Emergent as they look for a charismatic leader or an institutional umbrella to define what is going on. The Emergent Village is not a Church or an umbrella organization for a movement. Emergent folks are connected by informal networks. Just like a computer network, there are nodes but there is no central unit. The Emergent Village is a node.”

I’m working on the over 100 pictures that I have from the gathering. They will be up soon.

My friend Kjell-Olof finally found a church for me.

“Welcome to the Unchurched church. Our services are: Mon-Sun: no meetings.”

I’m back from the retreat in Glorieta, New Mexico. I’m tired and need some sleep. The mornings were earlier than I’m used to and the nights were late as usual. But, the gathering was just awesome! I really enjoyed hanging out with all these emerging leaders of all ages! We had a great time and a lot of sharing and processing. Late last night I talked for hours with Darren, and it was one of the most meaningful conversations I ever had with a pastor/minister. He could truly communicate and make sense to me and to a postmodern mindset. I will try to share some more from the gathering soon.

- Tomorrow I’m off to the Emergent gathering in New Mexico. Four days I’m really looking forward to. More reports on that later.

- Last week I met up with a awesome guy Michael (can’t find his blog - [update: his blog is here]) who cooked some delicious pasta. He was one of the first guys part of the Kairos Los Angeles church plant when it started about two years ago. We had a great talk about life, church, ministry, books, blogging, school, music, girls and more.. he and his friends lives right across the street from me here in Westwood. Whenever you want some spaghetti and sausages, go to Mike!

- This weekend I also met up with my new friend JR Woodward, part of the team leadership of pastors at Kairos LA. This guy is totally a great man! He showed me his cozy apartment in Hollywood and his enormous book stack (they say he consumes over 100 books a year! impressive), and then we continued the conversation over some Indian food in Hollywood. It was nice to hear his thoughts about Kairos, theology, emerging, church structures, blogging, money, photography (he is a outstanding photgrapher), economic justice and more. JR has a big heart for the poor, and to bring economic justice into the world. I helped him to get the Blogmap on his blog dream awakener (they have translated the names of the five ministries into dream awakener, heart revealer, soul healer, light giver etc!) When we were surfing we also stumbled over the world values map which I blogged about here (so did JR and Marc).

Kairos LA is a pretty new church plant in the metropol of Los Angeles. Some articles are published on Kairos in Religion Journal and Los Angeles Times.

People are really wild and crazy in the “black churches” in the US as I was told before. I really enjoyed a Sunday service some weeks ago at the West Angeles Cathedral with bishop Charles E. Blake. It is one of the huge churches in LA with over 30 000 members. The worship band started out with intense black gospel and all people were dancing and shaking…. The preacher was even worse, he was shouting after two minutes, and the people responded loudly! Short film clip here (3,7 MB)

The Azuza Street Revival (1906-1909) started in downtown Los Angeles and was led by William Seymor (1870-1922), an African American preacher. He was locked out of a church when he proclaimed that speaking in tongues was the “initial evidence” of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. Subsequently he was invited to stay in a home at 214 Bonnie Brae Street to hold services with a small group of interdenominational persons.

This is the home where they gathered. I went there with a friend to check the place out. So, it was actually here the expansion of the Pentecostal movement started! Click on the picture to enlarge!

The contributors of the new blog A New Kind of Conversation are now blogging towards a Postmodern Faith. Brian McLaren blogged on “Spiritual Formation in a Postmodern Context”, which is a post on how spiritual formation (common term in the emerging community) provides an alternative to or advancement beyond the terms of Christian education, Discipleship, and Follow-Up.

He points out how the holistic concept of spiritual formation has begun to emerge which questions the assumptions of institutional participation (which means attend the required Sunday and holiday services, participate in the expected rituals or program, and you will be spiritually fine –> institutional participation = spiritual health) and knowledge or experience acquistion (the more experiences or knowledge one acquires, the better off one will be –> knowledge + spiritual experiences = growth).

Instead McLaren shows how the spiritual formation, drawing both from Catholic and monastic sources, comtemporary philosophy and educational theory, proceeds from a more nuanced understanding that knowledge + experiences + relationships + practices + suffering +service + time = growth + health. This approach has several characteristics (the intro should be on the first page).

I think this relates somehow to a question recently asked (in Swedish) by Oskar on christian education (or as Brian puts it: one that generally mirrored modern public school education […] age-graded, teacher-focused, classroom-situated, and curriculum based… […] Often equivalent to “Sunday School for adults”)

I re-styled the blog a little bit. Much better so. As you can see - Brown is my color!

Wanna ride?

Btw, I fill the whole tank for $25 ! And they all complain about the gas prices… they don’t know what they’re talking about!

Two weeks ago I shared meal and fellowship with a lovely and friendly couple Ron and Cookie Boyer at a “house church” called The Topanga Gathering. Their home is a very cozy and beautiful house from the twenties. The drive there is curvy and it doesn’t feel like LA because it is located among the mountains, but still only 20 minutes from Santa Monica. The whole evening felt like being on a retreat. We had dinner, looked at some photos, enjoyed worship/prayer and had a nice conversation. With my 25 years I felt young among these fellows, who mostly were in their fifties, but I still felt connected to the body of Christ.

Ron showed some pictures from their stay at an art and music festival called Burning Man, which is held every year in the Nevada desert. For me it seemed to be a very postmodern culture and art festival. It gathers about 35 000 people and expresses an “do anything you want” atmosphere. “It is a Pagan, New Age, techno-rave experiment in temporary community”, writes Ron in the Spirit Wind Café newsletter. Ron and his wife were there giving away lattes, making connections and talking to people. He told us that they met other Christians as well, some of which were doing dream interpretation and prophetic gifting. They told us how people were so touched by the spririt during these days. Continue reading…

I haven’t blogged for a loong time! The reason is… I have been busy with other things! My RSS reader crashed as well and I lost all my feeds so I haven’t read any other blogs either… I do have some things to blog about and I will do it when I have the inspiration and time. Well, school is over now and I have two months of vacation!! I rented the convertible Mazda Miata for one more month so I really enjoy cruising around LA and exploring things! And I’m not doing it alone… because I have just met a girl that is taking all of my time. I won’t tell more than that for now. And yes, I do have some kind of a blog break right now. It’s my blog-vacation as well! Peace.

This new horror movie is now playing in theatres. “Scott Derrickson, co-writer and director of the upcoming film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, says horror movies are an excellent way for a Christian filmmaker to address things of faith.”. Read article here.