More Christmas pics ...

A few more Christmas pictures ...

Christmas Party at 'The Place' - coffee shop for international students

Christmas dinner

Christmas dinner

Merry Christmas Pictures

Merry Christmas from Nicosia! We had about 40 at our Christmas lunch on Monday. Less than last year, but it was still nice to be able to provide a meal and fellowship for many who are separated from their families over the holidays. Here are some other pictures ...

Christmas Eve with the boys

Christmas Eve party for international students

Downtown Nicosia

Climbing in the Troodos Mountains the day before Christmas (phone camera - low resolution)

Passion and Compassion

‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.’ - Antoine de Saint Exupery

We can't 'manage' the Great Commission. We can't franchise it through the latest ministry fad. Instead we must have a passion for God and a vision for his glory that leads us to guide others in finding and following Christ. It's a vision for a kingdom that comes from outside us, but lies within us. It's a kingdom of light that conquers darkness. It's a vision that sees the glory of Light, but also feels the dispair of darkness. Our lives and ministries are then fueled by a passion for God and compassion for the lost. The best way I've found to cultivate the passion and compassion is to take a few minutes each day to pray, meditate on scripture, and bring my life back under the reign of God. And then I go out to be with my friends, coworkers, and family with spiritual eyes awake to what God is doing and wants to do in their lives. I don't think it needs to be much more complicated than that ...

Worship Diversity

A week ago Sunday we hosted our second 'Africa Worship! Night' at NIC. It was a great night of drums, dancing and praising God in a traditionally African way. Groups from the Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe led a multi-cultural, interdenominational congregation that filled the Anglican Cathedral.


Contrast that with our leadership retreat, which we held two days ago at an Anglican retreat center in the foothills of the Troodos mountain range. The day was led by an Anglican spiritual director who guided 16 NIC leaders through periods of silence, meditation, and Scripture reading. We finished the day with communion and a fellowship dinner.


While NIC leadership was responsible for both events, they couldn't have been more different. One was loud, the other quiet. One was big, the other small. And yet God spoke in both. The diversity has been a great way for us to grow spiritually, and it is one of the things I love about this church. It isn't an easy church to be a part of precisely because worshiping with such diversity requires work, but I think it's important.


In some sense, NIC is a revelation of the mystery Paul wrote of in Ephesians 3:6 -


This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.


This type of unity in diversity is also a powerful witness to the world and an answer to Jesus' prayer found in John 17:23 -


May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.


Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the Africa Worship! Night, but I do have one from the leadership retreat. The countries represented were Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, England, Ghana, Lebanon, the Cameroon, United States, Cyprus, Latvia, and Nigeria.

More on St. George

Most of the eastern icons of St. George depict him with a little guy sitting on the back of the horse. I've asked priests and monks who he is, but no one ever seems to know. But DeAnn Hertzog did some reading and here's what she discovered:

I did some research about the guy sitting behind St. George in Eastern Orthodox icons. I googled him and asked someone. That didn't give me any answers so I got a book from the library. Here's what it said:

"The most intriguing of these additional figures is a young boy whom we sometimes find perched on the crupper on George's charger. He is a specialty of eastern European art from quite on early period. We cannot be at all sure, however, whom this mysterious little figure is meant to represent. He may be George's servant, his 'coffee boy', as Osbert Lancaster calls him, perhaps even Pasicrates himself. But there have been a number of other interpretations. George Every, for example calls him 'a figure of Christ'. He has also been described as 'a young Paphlagonian rescued by St George when he was being carried away into slavery'. There seems to be no knowing. All we can really say is that for Byzantine painters the boy evidently provided an oppurtunity for introducing a lighter touch, almost an element of comic relief, into a subject which was otherwise so highly charged with emotion."

The book is called "Saint George:the saint with three faces" by David Scott Fox.

If you know who Pasicrates is let me know. From what I can find there were a few. It could be refering to the man who wrote down the story of George and claimed to be a contemporary of his, but actually lived much later. I don't know if this is the same Pasicrates who was a martyr from Cyprus.

I don't know who Pasicrates is. Any ideas?

Discipleship and Discipline

The root of the word discipline is disciple. You can’t be a disciple – or make disciples – without discipline. Engaging in spiritual disciplines creates an atmosphere in the heart where the Spirit of God gives birth to the fruit of the Spirit. It is through spiritual disciplines that we become strong in our spirits and learn to live by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 9:27). Spiritual disciplines include systematic Bible study, meditation, scripture memorization, disciplined prayer, fasting, rest, etc.
Sometimes we equate effort with works or the flesh. I’ve been influenced once again by Dallas Willard in this regard, but he says that while we cannot earn grace, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take effort. By taking the time away from our regular ministry activity to practice spiritual disciplines we are demonstrating our faith in God. Spiritual disciplines and intentional discipleship may be the primary way we show that we are ministering by faith in the power of the Spirit because there isn’t always an immediate, tangible result. We wouldn’t take the time to memorize scripture or take a Sabbath rest unless we believed that what God does is more important than all the stuff we are able to do for Him. We want more of God and less of us. But it takes work to stop working in order to let God work! That’s where spiritual disciplines help us.

But just as discipline is essential to our own personal life of discipleship, discipline is also necessary if we are to make disciples. Making disciples doesn’t just happen. We need a plan (a strategy), and then we need to be disciplined to stick to the plan. Being disciplined means not only having a ‘to do’ list, but having a ‘not to do’ list as well. Are there things that you’re going to have to stop doing in order to make time for the discipling God has called you to do?

The energizing of the Holy Spirit, the guidance and teaching of the Scriptures, the will to be obedient, and a plan. These are the ingredients for a disciplined – and fruitful – life. What spiritual disciplines can you practice more deliberately this week?

We put up our Christmas tree this week ...

Thanksgiving Turkey and Christ the King Sunday

For all those who were wondering, yes, the turkey was fine. Actually, the turkey was dead - but it cooked up fine! It even looked like a Thanksgiving turkey! I was quite proud of myself considering I had never even cooked a chicken before.

This past Sunday was Christ the King Sunday according to the church calendar. The lectionary reading was the account of Jesus before Pilate found in John 18. It seemed a bit strange to be preaching from a text associated more with Holy Week, yet Jesus' comments about his kingdom not being of this world made it appropriate. The passage is a visual picture of two kingdoms coming face to face with each other - one kingdom represented by Pilate and the other by Jesus. I think Jesus gives us a clear picture of how we are to respond to evil people and evil systems. What he taught in Matthew 5 he lived in the closing pages of John.

At least twice the people tried to make Jesus their political messiah or king (John 6 and 12). In both cases it says that Jesus withdrew and hid himself. Apparantly he felt that there was a better way to deal with evil than occupying positions of power. I think that's what he calls the Church to as well. The Church - and only the Church - can confront evil the way Jesus did. He stopped the cycle of evil not by punishing it, but by forgiving it. When we punish we put the consequences of someone's sin back on them. When we forgive we let the consequences of their sin rest on us. This is why it is harder to forgive than to punish.

As I pictured Jesus standing silent before Pilate I was reminded of Paul's words in Ephesians 6:13 -

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

That is what Jesus did. He did not conquer ('My kingdom is not of this world') and he did not resist. He stood. And three days later he demonstrated that the way of mercy, grace and forgiveness is the way of victory. In fact, it is the only way that death and all the related evil could finally be destroyed.

Where is the church that is willing to live by the Sermon on the Mount? Where is the church that has the courage to proactively confront the evil of the world by inviting the world to live under the reign of God? Where is the church that, having done all, will stand?

Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. The reading will be taken from Luke 21 where Jesus' speaks about his future return. I find it facinating that the Christian calendar begins not with the first coming of Jesus, but with his second coming! The call is to watch and pray. More about that next week ...

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wrote a post that got lost in cyberspace, but I'm not going to try to recreate it. However, I can still paste the Dallas Willard quote here:

‘I do not know of a denomination or local church in existence that has as its goal to teach its people to do everything Jesus said. I’m not talking about a whim or a wish, but a plan. I ask you sincerely, is this on your agenda?’

I could honestly tell Dr. Willard that those who just completed the Keystone Project have vision statements and specific strategies to do just this!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in America and so I will be trying to cook a turkey for the first time!