Spirit of Collaboration

SAdams, Organizational Partnering Catalyst for Christian Associates, crashed at the international SPACE office earlier this week. He's been doing an East Coast tour building and strengthening relationships between CAI and churches and other like-minded organizations, including meeting some of the GCC MTF. S and I first connected when we were working out logistics for our Hungary 2007 team to serve at Connect, their annual staff conference. He's also been doing fun Shengri-La stuff, like going Ghosting; dinner at the Inner Harbor; and conversations that included processing this summer, leadership development, the apostolic and staffing a surf shack in Uruguay [Besides a focus on Europe, CAI is also doing a bit in Latin America.] If I was going to be a full time cross cultural worker, CAI would be on the very short list of organizations I would be applying to.

Collaboration is a big thing that S is working on for possibilities between churches and CAI and it could look something like:

: Short Term
- Serve the City teams - addressing practical needs in a city, particularly those of the poor and marginalized
- Discovery trips - exposure to the emerging culture of Europe, learning about the development of postmodernism and its implications for ministry
- Exploration teams - exploring new cities for potential church planting through demographic research, strategic contacts, and prayerwalking [I would *love* to take students on something like this.]
- Extension teams - extending the impact of an existing missional initiative or church through special projects, outreach events, training, etc.

: Cross Training
- leadership exchanges for training in spiritual formation, leadership development, impacting the city, church planting and more
- idea exchanges and dialogues on innovative missional practices
- mentoring, coaching and interning of emerging leaders

If you are interested in learning more about those opportunities in Europe or high impact churches in Europe's urban centers, email or comment and I can put you in direct contact with S. I don't have first dibs on the surf shack. Yet.

Photo: iChatting with his kids.