For the past several days, I have had the privilege of joining a group of students studying leadership in global perspectives.  They come from a variety of backgrounds – both nationally and vocationally. It’s been a wonderful experience thus far, and one that has challenged our comfort levels, our categories of understanding, and how we interact with our home contexts. So far, our time has been in Nairobi, Kenya, but we’ll be heading to Ethiopia soon. One of the things we’ve done is spend time in a slum called Mathare. It’s not the biggest slum in Nairobi, but it is home to about 800,000 people. I’ve had previous experiences in slums here in Nairobi, in Dominican Republic, and in India (including the one on display in Slumdog Millionaire), so I was somewhat prepared for what I’d see. It’s pretty jarring, though – seeing children with little or no clothing, running [...]

The preparations for the big move to London continue. Most of our belongings are either gone now, or will be in the next couple of days. We’re trying to nail down housing, say goodbye to friends, and tie up all the loose ends. But what I haven’t mentioned much, whether on this blog, or on other social media outlets is that when I get on an airplane in four days, it won’t be London bound. First, I’m headed to Africa. I’ll be joining up with the cohort of students I help supervise through George Fox Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry in Global Missional Leadership. I’ve blogged about this program in the past. The cohort of students I work with met up for the first time about a year ago in the UK and Germany, and this time around, we’re going to be learning together in Nairobi, Kenya and Me’kele, Ethiopia. We’ll [...]

I write this from a café in London. I arrived in this amazing city less than 24 hours ago, and am going to be getting on a train out of town in just a couple hours. Not a lot of time for all things touristy, which is fine by me, because I’m a terrible tourist (and proud of that). Good tourists, though, use an array of guidebooks that can take you on a tour of any given city according to their favorite criteria – “London on $5 a Day!” or “Top Ten Restaurant Experiences in New York” or “The Two Day Guide to Copenhagen.” I haven’t ever read those guides, but I’m sure they’re fun ways of learning a city if you on a limited time frame and/or budget. As a blue collar missiologist/theologian, I’m much more interested in the process of “reading” a city than I am in seeing [...]

Regular readers of this blog are well aware of my affiliation with George Fox Evangelical Seminary, and the new Doctor of Ministry in Global Missional Leadership, which will launch on September 1. It will feature challenging content from our lead mentor, Dr. Jason Clark, who is a passionate learner, as well as a highly skilled practitioner. When the students meet up for face to face learning intensives (about once per year), it’ll be in really great, dynamic locations – London and Nuremburg for the first round; Nairobi, Kenya for the second; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the third. Guest lecturers from each of these locations will participate, which will give the students some amazing opportunities to learn from diverse theological, cultural, and experiential perspectives. The rest of the work the students do will be in online environments. I’ve had an opportunity to meet several members of our first cohort of students [...]