Orthonet Prayer Memo

I am writing from St. Vlash Monastery near Tirana, Albania.  This week Navigators Taylor Hostetter, Ralph Lee and I will be here participating in the 2nd Lausanne – Orthodox Initiative consultation.  You can read about it at http://www.loimission.net. 

I am here to learn, and to encourage Taylor and Ralph, and others with a heart to see the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom flourishing in countries where the Orthodox Church is deeply rooted.  The whole Orthodox culture is very stretching for me, like another planet!  But I sense that this is the sort of partnering that Jesus had in mind when He prayed:
The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me.  (John 17:22-23) 

I believe that this can be a taste participation in the Divine Nature, or theosis as my Orthodox friends say.  (2 Peter 1:4)

Unity in diversity and diversity in unity are stretching.  But that’s God’s way. And that’s one way that all men will recognize that we really are Jesus’ disciples.  (John 13:34-35)