Practise of the Church in a Post . . .World

Visited the International Baptist Theological Seminary today (see photo) to give back my overdue books "Oh, you are Andrew Jones -dirty look - Ummmmm!) and to talk with Parush Parushev about our June event. Parush is a good thinker and we talked about the tendency for Westerners to build philosophical constructs for everything as opposed to just doing it. If postmodernity is just a construct, Parush argues, then people can dismiss it. We should treat it as a reality, not a thought. Parush prefers a more ethical, practical approach to the postmodern conversation. He believes it all happens in the holistic practise of following Jesus in The Way, and the philosophy is just an explanation that comes after. Parush also believes communism was the highest expression of modernism, where everything became one big institution. The church was forced to become a secular entity as a part of this institution. So I asked him if there were parallels between the West's struggle to come out of modernity and the East's struggle to shrug off communism. Because if there are, then we could both learn from each other.
He says they are completely different. I dont agree with him on this. But we will continue our conversation later, and in June, if you come to our event, then you can help pool your ignorance with ours and perhaps we can come up with a workable model for the way forward for all our countries.
"The Practise of the Church in a Post . . .World." will take place June 24-30 at The Castle in Prague. Leaders of the morning sessions from the West will be Brian MacLaren, Doug Pagitt and Andrew Kirk, (an Englishman who has written an excellent book on postmodern missiology) . Teachers from Eastern Europe include Nicolai Nedelchev (President of the Evangelical Alliance), Donitas Glodenes (Director of Religion Dept., Ministry of Culture, Lithuania) and Miroslav Patalon (teacher and church planter, Poland). Parush Parushev (IBTS) and myself (Total Loser from New Zealand) will guide the event.
The cost of US$280 includes 7 days and 6 nights at the castle, 3 meals a day, pick up and drop off at the airport, registration for the conference, a historical tour of Prague. We are limited to 34 people and most of them are accounted for. If you are thinking of being here for this event then you might want to register soon. Like really soon. Email me for registration details
The arts installation called Epicentrum will happen on Wednesday evening, June 26th. This will be a much larger event and many artists and muscians will be creating something here in Prague during the same week as the conference. Some of you arties out there (I know you are reading this) might be able to snag a ticket or two for a morning session at the Teaching conference but we cannot guarentee it. `There will also be a ministry leaders Roundtable headed up by Wolfgang Fernandez (DAWN), probably an International Go-Cart Race at the local track and more. Tell you about it later.