Video: Ed Stetzer Interviews Julien Bonnel in Marseille, France

Jet Set Vision Trip: Day 7, Marseille

Today was the last day of the trip. After all the walking, listening, and talking, the group was exhausted. We talked a lot about missiological concepts this morning, and considered how we had seen them being put into practice by the various teams we’ve connected with here. Here’s the short list:

• Segmentation- decide what people group/population segment you are working with.
• Contextualization- working to communicate/model the gospel in a way that is appropriate to cultural context.
• Indigenaity- the work is native to the soil in which it’s planted.
• Reproducibility- How easily can your people do what you’re doing in another place?
• Syncretism- avoid combining Christianity and other religions/beliefs.
• Laity vs. Clergy- is the distinction helpful?
• Oikos- people are already in groups. Those groups can be radically transformed by Jesus.
• Person of Peace/Goodwill- God prepares people beforehand to receive the message and help us engage people.

After saying goodbye to our French church planter friend, Jullian, we split up to get souvenirs and see what we hadn’t yet seen of Marseille. It’s a beautiful city, right on the Mediterranean. Remember the “Chateau D’if,” the island jail in the movie “The Count of Monte Cristo?” That’s in Marseille.

We spent a little while on the beach. Not too long, it was a French beach, and then walked the downtown area with the Marseille team. It was encouraging to hear their stories of successes and failures in ministry and church planting here.

We finished the day with a big dinner (crepes, of course!) and took some time to evaluate the trip. We decided the following:

In pre-trip communication, it would be helpful to have suggestions from Jet Set alumni.

Even after visiting with the teams in Rome and Marseille, it’s still difficult to imagine what a partnership with them would look like. It would be nice to have a few concrete examples to take home to the churches.

Videos of the teams sent out beforehand were extremely helpful. We might want to add some “in-flight” reading to the mix- something that would allow group members to prepare mentally and spiritually on the way.

We leave bright and early tomorrow morning. What a great group! We loved to visit with these guys, and to dream together of the day when churches truly start thinking like missionaries.

We’ll add some more thoughts about the trip as we have time to process all that we’ve seen and heard. Thanks for reading and praying for us.

Jet Set Vision Trip: Day 6, Marseille

Today we did something a little bit different. We met in the basement of a local evangelical church. This is pretty rare, because in France, evangelical churches can be hard to come by. This was the first time on the trip that we all sat down to talk in a private setting. Ed talked about the importance of “every tongue” to our mission. Here’s a great quote: “(The Book of) Acts is Acts 1:8 happening in the power of Acts 2.”

We also had a great opportunity to hear from a French church planter, Jullian. I’ve never met a Frenchman who told “French-surrendermonkey” jokes before. But then again, how many French nationals have I met that studied theology in an African-American church in inner-city Oakland, CA before returning to France to be a one-man emerging church movement? Watch for the interview soon.

We spent lots of time today with French students who are studying English. The team here set up a round table discussion for us to ask them questions about matters of faith, values, and spirituality. The essence of the conversation would be this: “I’m okay with Jesus being a way, I just can’t bring myself to believe that he is the Only Way.” It was all some of our people could do to keep from launching into a “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic” rant.

If you ever get the chance to eat authentic Indian food in a foreign country (other than, say, India), you should do it. We did that for dinner tonight, and it was great. Ordering chunks of meat in spicy reddish-brown sauce served over rice in a language you don’t speak is really living on the edge.