This past weekend I had a one-night trip out to Denver to further some work I am doing with the CRM Missio team. I really enjoy these guys and I love being back near the mountains of Colorado. Hugh and Matt who lead Missio have a book coming to market in April, entitled The Tangible Kingdom. You can pre-order at Amazon.

These photos are our working on extending this book into an online presence by creating a meeting place for Tangible Kingdom practitioners to share learning and life - easy to write in a sentence but a bit more complicated to execute, thus all the drawing and talking going on!

It has been a busy few weeks with visits to Hungary, Serbia, Chicago, Denver and this weekend - Seattle. The travel is often a drag but I pinch myself that I get to help influence and shape CRM teams and their amazing people - from those living with the poor to others developing new forms of church in the West.

This weekend I am attending Off The Map with a team from 3 tribes within CRM. I am looking forward to listening some more, learning some more and enjoying the company of some great people. The primary purpose for CRM is to further this relationship with the audience set that attends an event like this, some of whom may be well suited to participating further with one of our teams.

I have been home for a day and I am now in Chicago to spend 2-3 days with the InnerCHANGE recruiting team who are here developing relationships on a couple of campuses and holding their recruiting summit. It really is a privilege to hang with these guys - they are a different breed in their service amongst the poor of the world.
Peter Schrock, our photographer and whom I just worked with in Hungary has posted a great blog post featuring some of the images from the first half of his trip - to CRM’s work with Russian orphans in St Petersburg. Great images. Amazing stories.

As I write this I have just returned from Serbia, specifically Novi Sad. A fascinating experience of meeting Serbian church leaders, listening to their needs and understanding just a fraction of Serbian culture. In a population of approximately 8 million, only 10,000 - 15,000 are evangelical Christians. Traditionally to be Serbian is to be Orthodox.

As I walked along a dusty, bumpy street full of early morning traffic I was struck by the great need of this wonderful people. We drove along the Danube where bridges destroyed by the NATO bombing have only just been replaced - it is the general populace who suffers the effects of war.

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Click below to see more photos of Jen leading worship at our recent US Staff Conference and other pics. (more…)

Follow this link to Peter’s African odyssey - he is our art director, photographer, designer, guru. The images illustrate some of the people our CRM teams serve. Thanks Peter for your dedication and being our eyes.

Follow this link for a short film recently completed by our Peter Schrock, one of our very talented in-house designers (and a great guy!) It illustrates the recent venture begun by CRM’s Enterprise International team in South Africa.

Great interview by Guy Kawasaki with Richard Stearns of World Vision. Guy’s blog is a good one - everything from venture capitalism to changing the world. This interview is particularly good.

See ShapeVine for some very cool sharing of knowledge - everything from house churches, emerging networks and The Starfish and The Spider. Seems like great use of technology - here’s hoping the content matches the bells and whistles.

I have now been in my role as VP of Communications with CRM for almost 4 weeks. It is an interesting environment that is free-flowing and very decentralised. This is not a place where direction comes by dictate. Rather it comes through trust and influence - neither of which can be bought or rushed.

So I am taking lots of time to listen, ask questions and hopefully be a little provocative in that process. This is in many ways a green fields position so as I step out this way and that, things come into focus. New opportunites show themselves - those to seize now and those which should wait for a later date.

It is demanding lots of intuition.