Archive for June, 2008

Okay, I had to post a better list to be on than the one I posted earlier today. Another list that Prague is on is National Geographic Traveler’s list of the top 50 cities called Places of a Lifetime; the World’s Greatest Destinations. Prague is there! It makes sense, but it is really intriguing to me for some reason. I’m not sure why, but it is. Maybe because I know that even though this place is so beautiful there is so much more under the surface that no travel page will ever write about. I long for the Gospel to break into those dark places and bring life! I grabbed a screen shot of a few of the cities.

In all my talk about “cities”, and reaching them, this travel list could almost form a list of Places that need the Gospel because they are so influential. Reach the city, reach the region, reach the country, reach the continent, reach the hemisphere, reach the world… It all starts with the CITY. Let it start with these 50 cities, especially Prague (ok I’m a bit biased!)!

This morning I read one of my usual dailies (the Prague Monitor, which gets emailed to me) and there was one particular story title that didn’t surprise me – Survey: Prague 8th most expensive city in western world. Quite the contrast to the cheap city of the 90′s that every westerner thought they could live like a king in! Here is the top ten:

London

Moscow

Dublin

Paris

Sydney

Berlin

Zurich

Prague

Los Angeles

Brussels

This is one list I wish Prague wasn’t on. This survey enforces what the majority of us Westerners living here have been feeling. Especially with the fantastic dollar! Today it came at a dismal 15.4 Kc to the US Dollar. Ouch!

Not to long ago, my good friend, Jason, and I splurged a little bit and went to one of the more ex-pat/tourist friendly places downtown, and I had one of those moments of grace that I need to have every now and then when it come to learning this ridiculously hard language. The waitress, who was a Czech, said, “You speak good. My manager, an American, has been here 6 years and she couldn’t speak half of what you have spoken tonight. Keep studying because you will get it.”

Praise God! I need these moments every now and then. It would seem that I’ve received a couple of these as of late. A week ago I went to see a movie with a friend and well I was waiting a Czech man approached me, asking me about the tramline that was under construction and how to get somewhere. I respond, in Czech, with telling him that the tramline wasn’t running through there but there was a bus and then I told him where it was. He looked at me and asked, “Odkud jste?” (Where are you from?) I responded, “Jsem z Ameriky.” (I’m from America) He had a look of shock on his face. He said he didn’t think Americans would take the time to learn Czech as well as me. This encouraged me personally, but as far as “Missiology” is concerned it was deeply saddening. This is for another post and another time.

Now I have a long way to go, but these moments keep me on that journey! I have to start getting after the language again here this summer. Or I should stay I need to continue to press forward on this journey toward fluency of this seemingly impossible, at times (okay most of the time), language.

Here is my attempt to rewrite my post, that mysteriously disappeared yesterday. So as you probably can imagine from the title, the Prague Lions, suffered a heartbreaking loss to our cross-town rivals, the Prague Panthers, in the championship game on Friday night. The final score was 24-14, which doesn’t sound too bad, but it felt more crushing than it sounds. I think most of my teammates, including myself, would agree that the word “mediocre” would some up our team performance, and many of our individual performances too, on Friday night. Which is sad, because this was the biggest Czech League Championship contested yet. I say this because the Panthers have reestablished themselves at the top of the league, but in our last meeting we nearly pulled out an upset. If we could have had another couple of minutes of regulation before going into overtime I think we could have one, but we lost in overtime. Secondly, we played in the beautiful new Slavia Football (soccer) Stadium, here is a quick video I found:

New Slavia Prague Football Stadium EDEN 8 – Awesome video clips here
It was great! We enjoyed a great field, big locker rooms, jumbo-trons and more. Sadly, we couldn’t put things together for the upset win, as I (we) was (were) anticipating.

I was among the first ones in the locker room and I was the last one out (which is the preferred non-superstitious custom I’ve had since high school). I guess, I dragged my feet getting out of there hoping that there might be a different result when I exited. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. Instead of joining my teammates, for what we had hoped would have been our celebration after the game, I went home to get some alone time (I spent yesterday laying low as well, I’m thankful that my director, Billy, and his wife, Adrianne, invited me up for burgers. It was great having human contact and playing with the kids.) at home. I, of course, had to call my father, who has also doubled as my coach and biggest fan for quite some time, and fill him in on the disappointing loss. He listened. And listened some more. And listened some more. Then responded with his famous line I’ve heard delivered after each of his teams’ hard losses – “Well the sun will come up tomorrow men!” Or in this case, “Son.” I then had an email waiting in my mailbox yesterday entitled, “The sun came up/time to move on for tomorrow.” Well said father… So we are starting to move on. My body didn’t adjust to playing again very well this season; so I will let it heal up as I evaluate things for next season. Thanks for the encouragements and prayers I received last week before the game. You are a blessing!

I don’t know if it is WordPress or wonderful people out there with malicious intentions to bring down zACHhARROD.com but I’m having issues with my blog, as you can still see. I can’t figure what has happened with my theme and my attempts to figure it out haven’t helped. I’ve also been getting hit hard by spam responses all over my blog, coupled with spam hits from my comment page. To top it off, I posted yesterday and it went up fine; however, when I looked at my blog later in the evening I realized my title was there but the post was gone. This means something – I have to learn how to do all this stuff. Sorry for the ugliness and the oddity of my blog as of late. I hope to get things taken care of soon.

Well its the morning of the big game. I’m excited! It will be a great experience for us to play in the biggest, newest and nicest stadium in the country, but what I’m more excited about is the opportunity before me today. The opportunity in the midst of everything that is, and has been, going to worship God through this sport. I recently sent out an email with some ways to pray for the game today and the week. They were:

Please pray that the game would be a window to God for me and not a door. I’ve struggled this season, in the midst of circumstance, with having a proper motivation out there. Which is even harder against the Prague Panthers, because let’s say they aren’t a shining example for fair play and good sportsmanship.

Pray that God would use this week and game in my teammates’ hearts and even the Panther’s hearts.

Please pray for my left leg. I’ve been playing with a quad strain and pulled hammy most of the season and now it has developed into a bit of groin deal too. Pray that it would hold up, if that is what God intends. Moreover, pray that it would be an opportunity to trust and see God whether it is fine or not.

With that email I received some amazing replies! Thank you to all of you who replied with prayers and words of encouragement! One friend and ministry partner reminded me of Hebrews 12:28-29;

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

So good to remember – A KINGDOM THAT CANNOT BE SHAKEN! I also received this email:

I’m praying for you…..I pray you will have an otherworldly game against the Panthers….that you will be so engrossed in the game itself and that Christ will be guiding and empowering your every move that you will not even notice the dirty nonsense the Panthers. In the end people will say, what in the world “got into” Zach….but it wont be anything from this world.

Amen… Well said. What do I even say after that? Nothing. Well, if you want to read a preview of the Championship game click here. GO LIONS!

I must apologize about the look of my blog yet, I know it is an eye sore, I’m hoping to get it fixed soon. However, I wanted to share something with you that I read on Scott Hodge’s blog, who grabbed this from Alan Hirsch’s blog.

In my opinion what is expressed through Emergent, the Alt-Worship movement, and what has been called Post-Evangelicalism, is not by-and-large a missionary movement, but is rather what I would call a renewal

As for me, I am happy to call the so-called “emergents” friends and fellow travelers, I personally do not feel the need to question the inherited theological tradition as many of its adherents do.

Emerging forms of the church must always be subservient to the missional purposes of the church. My advice to “emergents” is therefore, don’t emerge before you have a mission.

My advice to all you folks on both sides of the debate that mix up the term, be warned! What you are doing is only making it harder for the Church to come to grips with its deepest sense of call and purpose in this time and place, no less! For God’s sake, be clear in your use of the term or can I suggest that you stop using it.

To guard against a further degrading of the word, I want to suggest (as I did in The Forgotten Ways) that we combine the term “missional” with the associated term “incarnational” to come up with the term missional-incarnational.

If “missional” carries the sense of being “sent”, then “incarnational” gives definition to the nature of that “sentness.” If “missional” means being thrust into the world as witnesses to the redemption that is in Jesus, then “incarnational” shows us that we ought to engage the world in the same way that God did in and through the Incarnation of the Word in Jesus the Messiah.

Mission always sets our Agenda and Incarnation must always describe our Way.

Good stuff, now I’m going to go to bed…

This is my dad:

I love him dearly! Dad, I wish you a Happy Daddy’s Day! I want to share a bit of how awesome my dad is with you, my faithful reader’s out there in zACHhARROD.com land! I remembered this yesterday, as I was swinging a pinch ax with my director, while we were doing some yard work, but I was reminded that my dad (and my mom) have always created situations to, or allowed me to, follow my dreams – no matter how crazy they might have been. There are landmarks of this craziness all over the Harrod property back in Southern Wisconsin – two of the larger landmarks of this are the remains of a large off-road race track for radio control vehicles and an 8-foot high quarter-pipe in the hayloft of my dad’s barn! I look back and laugh at these things and wonder, “What the heck were they thinking when they didn’t just say “no” to this stuff!” Because I’ll be honest, on this side of things I wouldn’t blame them for doing so. But they didn’t! My dad was always there in the midst of one fade, helping me pursue whatever current dream (fade) I was into.

As I’ve grown up, those fades of transitioned into real, concrete dreams and there you have been again dad – right by my side helping me chase them! My Dad has been incredible with helping me and encouraging me with what I now call work here in the Czech Republic. From personal support, to helping me raise support in anyway he can, to wearing my Lions jersey and giving big wigs my brochure at football clinics, to helping get the Lions a ton of new equipment/gear, to hooking me up with spiral mac and cheese you have been there! Thank you Dad (and Mom) for always helping me chase my dreams, even to this day, as the dreams are much bigger than we could have ever imagined! You have taught me what love is through this! Happy Daddy’s Day!

As you may know from past posts about “the city”, I’ve really developed a theology and passion for the city, especially Prague. As I live here I try to keep an ear to the ground of change and development of this city I love so much. This is for many reasons, but one of the larger ones is I believe Prague is, and will be, a vital player in the years to come in Europe and seeing the Gospel break through the hard soil here would be huge for all of Europe!

Yesterday, as I was enjoying my first day bez (without) school I did some surfing and found a couple interesting articles entitled, “Ever changing Prague: Bold visions, radical proposals,” and, “The richer Prague is, the greater decay it faces.” The first of the two articles describes some things to improve life here in Prague, ranging from rerouting streets, trying to help with the horrible traffic, to new metro stations and lines! It was encouraging to read, because it would seem that this is more than just talk. Talking about the problems and not being proactive is somewhat of a common problem here.

The second of the two articles had some interesting facts, like the “Czech capital occupies the 12th position among 270 European regions, other Czech regions are still in the third hundred.” I have seen, since I returned, how quickly things are changing and developing here, but here are some concrete numbers for it. I remember last September, when I moved back, and the short 15 minute drive from the airport to my flat was filled with statements like, “Wow that building is new!” The growth and development is great, but there is always a backside to it – that would be cost of living and a widening difference between other areas in the country.

The gap between Prague and its surroundings keeps growing though. A Prague citizen’s economic output is twice as great as the Czech average in the long run. Other regions range from 75 to 90 percent.

The difference between the output of regional economies grows each year. In 2001, a Prague citizen posted a production of CZK 475,000, i.e. by 259,000 more that the second most productive city, Plzeň.

In 2006, the difference was already 368,000.

The trend is not likely to stop as the investment gap is growing even faster. There are 2.5 times more investments coming to Prague than to the rest of the country. Against Jihlava and Pardubice, four times more investments flow through Prague per citizen.

As for those moving, more than a half of them head for Prague or its closest surroundings, one third of all new houses are built in Prague region.

According to politics expert Marek, this trend may not necessarily be bad. “Building mega-cities that lead other regions is counted upon in many European countries,” he reminds us saying that also the Poles and Hungarians embarked on this journey within the past years. As for Germany, especially Hamburg and Munich are successful centers.

Mega-cities? Interesting… What will the future bring? I’m not sure, but I will heed the words of Jeremiah 29:5-7, and, Lord-willing, live them out to Prague.

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

May you and I seek the welfare of the earthly cities that God has exiled us to.

Okay, I was raised by a football (the American kind) coach and thus I was raised to have a certain level of disdain for the sport us Americans call soccer. Well, I’ve had the walls pulled down that hindered me from loving the game and now I am a huge fan of following the Czech national team (can’t follow professional yet). While I watched the sad Czech loss to Portugal 1-3 on Wednesday night I saw this Nike Football commercial and it is amazing! I love when advertising is taken further and becomes more than just conveying information – it becomes art. This is too cool.