Soul Khaya

In search of a spa as a birthday treat for my wife, I stumbled upon a little spa called The Soul Khaya. In the Zulu language Khaya means home.

In the book "The Irresistible Revolution that I am blogging about for the next few weeks, Shane Claiborne speaks of Christians forming hospitality houses as a new way of living in community.
Tonight our home became a hospitality house, or a Soul Khaya if you will. Strangers became new friends when a group of Jesus Followers from Mozambique joined us for a very simple but soulful dinner.

Religion taught me that church happens in a big building on a sunday, or when Christians pray and read the Bible together.

But recently new voices are helping me to find a Third Way of living with faith. This Third Way is neither religion, nor anti-faith. Rather it's that thing that happens when humans transform their ordinary personal day to day life into little Soul Khayas so that weary travelers can find rest and strangers can become good friends.

Soul Khaya, it's what happened when two friends invited a stranger on their journey into their home, just to discover that the stranger was their old friend Jesus.

Soul Khaya happened this week when a group of Jesus friends took a detour in their daily life to visit a few police stations in the area, taking with them grace in the form doughnuts and good coffee.

Soul Khaya happened around our dinner table tonight.

Soul Khaya, I call debs on the name for the church/community I hope to belong to one of these days.

Resurrecting Church

“...at that moment we decided to stop complaining about the church we saw, and set our hearts on becoming the church we dreamed of.” (Irresistible Revolution, Chapter 2, p.64)

When I lived in Cape Town I was part of a group of friends who spent every Wednesday in the company of homeless people living in the city centre. It started as a failed attempt to “plant” a church for the young and rich living in the city, but it ended up as something very meaningful and life changing. We called ourselves: Street People Church. There I saw a glimpse of what Shane and his student friends saw while living life in an abandoned Catholic Church with homeless people who found their refuge there.

The church I dream of.

Somewhere down the line I have lost that dream; a place where anyone is always welcome, a way of life that creates deep friendships out of an honest interdependent community living.

But recently this dream started to flicker, just a tiny little light. I am actually too scared to say it out loud in fear that I might blow it out.

Two nights ago my wife and I came home from a weekend away. It was late and the gate of the church (we live on the premises) was closed. We waited for 20 minutes before the security opened the gate. While waited (very impatiently) I had this feeling of standing outside a building called church, but that being church is something completely different. The dream and the reality is far removed.

But then I hear the stories Shane tells of life in the so-called Badlands of Philly, or my friend and his brother in law who are helping people living in poverty to start their own veggie gardens, or my wife who spends extra time each night to help a little girl with her homework, or the brother I came across cleaning the men’s restrooms at the airport; at the door he greets everyone coming in for a pee or a poop with the words: “Welcome to my office”, classic!

Suddenly the dream is not that far away...

Breaking out

"I learned in confirmation classes about the fiery beginnings op the Methodist Church and its signature symbol of the cross wrapped in the flame of the Spirit. Where had the fire gone? I learned about John Wesley, who said that if they didn't kick him out of town after he spoke, he wondered if he had really preached the gospel. I remember Wesley's old saying, "If I should die with more than ten pounds, may every man call me a liar and a thief," for he would have betrayed the gospel. Then I watched as one of the Methodist congregations I attended built a $120 000 stained-glassed window. I stared at that window...longing for Jesus to break out of it, to free himself, to come to rise from the dead...again." (taking form Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne, page 43)

Christianity in the rich suburbs of Jozi is a dangerous activity. Before you know it it can get you into a lot of trouble. Around here, as in most rich areas around the world, life and faith tend revolve around stuff. And stuff tend to revolve around money.

Last night we looked at our church's monthly budget. It's probably more than the collective earnings of most poor communities around our suburb.

Being rich and a follower of Jesus is a tough tension to balance.

Mostly I find it's easier to ignore Jesus and just try to be a good, civilized modern human being, it goes down well in church, cause mostly people relate that type of living to Christianity.

But since I have encoutered the Ordinary Radicals of The Simple Way and the way Shane tells their story, I was forced to take another look at Christianity, but this time with Jesus.

Now, all I see is stained glass windows I long for Jesus to break out of.

How did we end up like this? How did the church move from a Way to a Religion, from a community of nobodies to an exclusive club of lookalikes?

We need a new kind of ressurection again, then hopefully all we'll see and hear is the shattering of glass.

"When Christianity was still safe"

"It's what always happens to the saints and prophets who are dangerous: we bronze them, we drain them of their passion and life and trap them in stained-glass windows and icons, confining them safely in memories of the past. St. Francis becomes a birdbath, Malcoml X is put on a stamp, and Martin Luther King gets a holiday. And Jesus gets commercialized...It becomes hard to know who Jesus really is, much less to imagine Jesus ever laughed, cried, or had poop that smelled."


In the first chapter of Irrisitible Revolution, Shane remembers his life when it was still comfy and cozy, before Jesus wrecked him.

Jesus wrecking people, that just does not sound like the Jesus of Suburbia I got used to. My Jesus never confronts, never challenge, never speaks his mind. He is too a softy to do that.

Man, but am I bored with my Jesus.

So last night I spoke to a big group of friends. I told them that maybe Jesus was more of a bad ass than we make him out to be. The Jesus I grew up with and the Jesus I now try to believe looks more like a pale face, red cheeks, goodie two shoes whity than the radical rebel of Love that guys like Mathew, Luke and Mark remembered him to be.

The more I read the stories of Jesus as told by his friends and the friends of his friends, the more I realise that the Jesus I grew up with is so much different than the one of 1st century AD. I am getting this dreadful feeling that the Jesus I have been praying to the last few years is still lying, wrapped up in the grave. Very convenient though, cause this Jesus will never be able to challenge my consuming, suburbian lifestyle that I so often translate into Civilised Christianity.

But the Jesus I am encoutering in the Scriptures and the Jesus Shane and his friends at The Simple Way speaks of has the nack of pulling the rug from underneath your feet, turning your whole life upside down.

Shane is helping me to see that it is time to de-commercialize Jesus, to stop with the sugur coating, marketing bullshit and start telling the real stories of the life, death and resurrection of a Rebel Prophet who took on the oppressive systems of his day for the cause of the coming Kingdom of God.

No wonder I avoided reading this book, the rug I am standing on is just to damn comfy.

The Irresistible Revolution

There is a book, no rather a movement, a simple way called The Irresistible Revolution that I have been avoiding like a plague. A year ago or so a good friend told me about a guy called Shane Claiborne and this book that he wrote that broke and changed her life. Ever since I had this freakish fear of reading it.

But now I have come to that dreaded point of no return. A friend who also read it gave me his copy and said: "Good luck, see you on the other side."

I am scared shitless.

So I decided to take, whoever is following this blog, on this irrisistible journey.

Starting Monday, the 17th of August I will do one chapter a week and blog about my journey with Shane and his community called The Simple Way.