Thursday, April 09, 2015

Loftstofan

One of the things we do when we can while traveling is to visit a local church. If you are like us, it's a great way to understand more of the subtleties of a given culture. So when Katie and I were in Reykjavik, we visited Loftstofan. Their gathering met in the early afternoon, perfect timing for us after staying up late chasing the Lights, and gathered at a local school about a ten minute drive outside of the city center.

Iceland seems pretty postmodern, both in thinking and in visual cues, like with art and architecture. They talk about elves and fairies as real beings and give lots of value to having the first openly gay Prime Minister. We saw a handful of state run church buildings that looked similar in design and layout. Most church planting and missions readings on the spiritual state of Iceland says that less than 1% of the population attend a church.

Loftstofan was the kind of place people like us would end up at. Emerging and organic, Gospel based, and culturally engaged, it seems to also have the DNA of reproduction and catalytic and movement thinking. Although the lead pastor was away during our visit, one of the elders taught. He had spent sometime in grad school in Richmond, but didn't stay there during the summers because it was 'way too hot.' Yup.

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