The Via Affirmativa Gathering of 2009 is now history in the making. By this I mean that what we began will now take root and grow into a flower of transforming beauty. The event was such a good time as we enjoyed several outstanding messages from Donald McGilchrist on “being free to flourish and another on risking in hope. ”

Over 90 art friends from around the world attended and no one wanted to go home at the end. It seems to me that the Via Affirmativa Gatherings have moved from being events to having a life of their own and we can now see the signs of a movement of the gospel.

On Saturday morning I described what I see happening with the movement of Via Affirmativa. There were three points:

We are: Rehumanizing our world through the making of art by releasing our friends to the creative gifts given to them by God and refreshing their hearts and minds with the full expression of God at work in our world. We further believe that in living such a life the world itself will be rehumanized.

By using the word rehumanize, I am saying that the brokenness of people, systems and environments can be restored. Anyone can see that the world is broken. Just observe people, systems, and the environment. It is through the beauty of God that we can see this brokenness restored. Psalm 149:4 NASV captures this beautifully.

I hope that these ideas will give you a way of expressing to others what it means to be connected to the via movement. They were well received and I was thankful to be able to share these ideas. From my experience over the past 30 plus years in launching new missions I have seen that it takes about 7 years for the ideas to take root. So pray that we are on the way.

The weekend before the Gathering we hosted a two paint event at Glenn Eyrie Castle. There were around 30 painters in attendance and it was a smashing success. We had a bear wandering around scaring everyone, that was cool. One artist on leaving said, “Today was the best day of my life.” Wow. As I look back on the time I see that the big thing that happened was that people experienced being served. Imagine that!

We have already planned a reunion of these artists for Sept 26th. I hope that this will begin to build a community of friends with whom we can develop closer communications.

Warmly and In Christ,

Gary & Julia

Gary Bradley
Via Affirmativa , Director
gary@viaaffirmativa.com

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 2:45 pm and is filed under The Gathering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.