Charismissional Resource

Roger Helland, author of "The Revived Church", was perhaps the most encouraging and challenging speaker we've had in our DTS here at YWAM Okanagan. Roger spoke on "Gifts and Callings", and gave us the beach ball metaphor that I used in the previous post, Dreams in the Dirt.

Wendy & I first met Roger many moons ago when we were all still pastors in the Vineyard movement. We've always respected him as a man of the Word and of the Spirit, who has provided rare balance in the "radical middle" (although it eventually cost him his pastorate).

So, it was awesome to meet an old friend from our Vineyard days, and to listen to his thoughtful and encouraging teaching for a week. Roger and I talked a bit about my Post-Charismatic project, which he'd read and liked, and he gave me a copy of The Revived Church to read. I'm only part-way through it, and I LOVE IT.

So far, there are few resources for those of us who are exporing/pursuing a charismissional expression of the Body (HT to Emerging Grace for creating the phrase "charismissional"). Roger's book gets my vote as an excellent place to start. I highly recommend it.

An interesting discovery was that Len Hjalmarson was one of the editorial readers of Roger's manuscript, much as Jamie Arpin-Ricci and Brother Maynard were for Post-Charismatic. Small world, eh?

On another YWAM note, this is the t-shirt design for our group. Outreach started last weekend, which explains my posting-silence recently. We're mostly focused on local Kelowna ministries among the poor, the addicts, and disenfranchised. The team has become a fairly tight community, despite many cultural and language differences, and we're enjoying seeing God work among and through us, although there have been our fair share of difficulties and growth points as well!