There is so much I could say about 2008. It has been, by far, the biggest growth year in terms of the Hollywood Church. And I don't mean primarily numbers (though the church grew by 20% this year). More people found faith, more connected to Christian community as something healthy and life-giving who never thought that would happen for them. We have more leaders in the church this year than last year. We've also had our setbacks: our mural project got stuck in the city-wide legal problems surrounding public art murals (it's a long story). We've had key people move out of town and some hit hard by financial and other life challenges. But I would say that overall, our life in the city as witnesses to God's reign is stronger than a year ago. More on this later, perhaps.
Our children are in a new school that is working out much better for them. We are all VERY pleased that Sophie started Kindergarten and Zoe is now in 3rd grade at Franklin Elementary.
In addition to this here are some other highlights of our year...
Travel
Obviously, the traveling Elysabeth and I have been privileged to do has been probably the #1 highlight of our year. In addition to traveling to Moscow (here, here and here) and St. Petersburg in October and Israel (here and here) in December, I went to
Community Beautification Grant
The Hollywood Adventist Church
received a $10,000 Community Beautification Grant from the City of Los
Angeles to paint an art mural on the wall of our church that faces the
freeway. (More here and here).
Interfaith work
2008 was the year I got deeply involved in interfaith work. Some of the highlights of this was participating in the Memorial Day Interfaith Service at All Saints in Pasadena, meeting Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad from the Parents Circle Families Form and being elected Treasurer of the Interreligious Council of Southern California (website).
Community Organizing with LA Voice/PICO
We have had another amazing year partnering with LA Voice in local community organizing, mostly around the crisis of affordable housing in Los Angeles. My participation in the national work really dwindled this year as I had so many other travel commitments, but I'm looking forward to getting back involved in early 2009.
Adventists Against Prop 8
I am so proud of the work our little group did in speaking out, as Christians, for the rights of gays and lesbians in California (website). This is a fight we temporarily lost, but our work united many good people who have either left the Adventist Church, have been on the fringes of the church, or who just never imagined that anyone in the church would stand for religious liberty and human rights in the way that we attempted to do. I am also very grateful to the leaders of the local Conferences and the Pacific Union who worked with us to allow a different voice to be heard in this debate. I'm glad my church can tolerate diverse viewpoints.
And of course, for me, one of the greatest highlights of the year was...
the election of Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States
BEST BOOKS I READ IN 2008
I've read a lot of books this year, as usual, but I really haven't read that many good ones. I'm not sure what that means. And I can't tell you how many I've started but never finished. Here are the cream of the crop from what I read this year, in no particular order. As usual, these are not books that necessarily came out in 2008 (though some are).
Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
The Fidelity of Betrayal, by Peter Rollins
Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, Joan Chittister, OSB
Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright
Evangelism After Christendom, Bryan Stone
Here's to a healthy and joyful New Year!
It's been a very different, but wonderful, Christmas for us this year. For starters, my wife's mother, Josiane, is with us. It's not rare for her to be with us, but this is the first time in a while she's been here for Christmas. It's made the holidays very special.
Secondly, as some of you know, we spent Christmas Day in Las Vegas with our dear friends Matt Taylor and Angie Kwik, where I performed their wedding and my girls were the flower girls. It was such a beatiful and classy affair. I've never encountered a more organized bride than Angie. Every detail was perfect. It was an absolutely beautiful day. You can see a short clip from the ceremony below (taken, by the way, by Elysabeth on my new toy I received for Christmas).
Angie Kwik/Matt Taylor Wedding from Ryan Bell on Vimeo.
The entire event was held in the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. We had the privilege of staying in the hotel for the two nights we were there and we felt so spoiled. We lived like royalty.
Contrast this with the news I received on Christmas Day, just hours before the wedding began. I received an email from another Hollywood member, Pierre Auguste, who shared that his wife Ruth's mother and brother were tragically killed that morning while driving to New Jersey from Boston, when a tree blew over and landed on their car. I can't imagine a more random and freak accident.
Once again I was struck by the contrasts that we live with in our world. Here I was, standing in a beautiful hotel suite at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas, watching my daughters get their hair done, just hours before one of the most beautiful weddings I've ever been a part of, when another friend emails to say his wife's mother and brother have tragically lost their life. All on one Christmas Day. It was so difficult for me to hold both of those events in my heart at the same time. I wanted to push away the bad news to make room from the event I was about to participate in. How could I experience both of these at the same time.
But this is life, isn't it? Full of both beauty and tragedy. Joy and pain. Life as well as death. For my friends Ruth and Pierre and their family, Christmas will always remind them of the tragic loss of their family members. For Matt and Angie it will be their wedding anniversary. We are called to live with both of these realities and be with people through both of these experiences.
I was also aware in that moment that these two events on one Christmas Day represented the range of people's experience of the holidays. Some have warm and wonderful memories. Others hope the season will pass quickly.
How can people of faith be present to people in both sets of circumstances? How do these two experiences call the church to live with and for these members of our community? I'll be thinking about these and other questions for some time to come.
UPDATE: Here is a news story about the tragic accident.
Just outside Church of the Savior on the Spilled blood in front of one of St. Petersburg's many beautiful canals.
See more pictures of our trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg here.
It's Friday night here in Moscow and we have one more full day to go. Tomorrow I preach in the Moscow Central Church, which is just about to celebrate it's 100 year anniversary (CORRECTION: this church is already 103 years old). Imagine the history this congregation has seen in the past 100 years: the last years of the Czars, two world wars, the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Communism and the proscription of religion, Gorbachev, glasnost, perestroika and the eventual dismantling of the Soviet Union.
For the past couple of days we've had time to tour around. On Wednesday night, after my teaching assignment was finished, we took a train overnight to St. Petersburg. Upon arriving on Thursday morning we immediately visited several important places. First, we went to the Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood (which is not only one of those fantastical Russian cathedrals but has the most amazing mosaic covering the entire inside the church) and the Hermitage Museum (one of the greatest museums in the world where we saw some amazing Picasso and Matisse of the best Rembrandts, including my all-time favorite, The Return of the Prodigal. (My attempt at a photo of this painting at the right - and proof I really saw it. Click the link to see a much better picture). It drizzled all day long so we got pretty wet and tired, but it was so completely worth it.
Today, back in Moscow again, we visited the The Armory inside the Kremlin, which is a museum dedicated to the treasures of Russian History. The collection includes the carriages of Elizabeth and Catherine, two Empresses of Russia, crowns and thrones, and priceless gifts given by other countries to Russia throughout it's long history.
We also we to the State Tretyakov Museum where, among other amazing pieces of art, I got to see the original icon of Andrei Rublev, The Trinity (1410). Many of you know I have a print of this icon hanging in my office. To see this first hand was a very moving experience for me.
It's been a remarkable experience. To see more of our pictures, please click here for our Flickr site. We'll be back in Los Angeles on Sunday night.
Today was the first day we were able to get down to the center of Moscow. Paul Richardson, Elysabeth and I were accompanied by our friend Yaroslav Paliy. We traveled by bus and Metro to the Kremlin and Red Square. We didn't take the time to go inside the Kremlin today (hopefully in the next couple of days), but we did go inside St. Basil's Cathedral (pictured above). It has been very cloudy and overcast since we've been here but when we stepped outside I snapped this picture -the best of the day (click photo to enlarge).
This city is so impressive - all the buildings are massive and communicates so clearly the Soviet power. One observation I found humorous is that the tomb of Lenin, on one side of Red Square, faces GUM (formerly the State Department Store), the most impressive shopping mall I've ever seen. (Move over, Caruso!) Lenin must roll in his grave daily to look across at this monument to capitalism. Needless to say, a lot has changed in Moscow in the past 20-30 years.
For more pictures of our time in Moscow, click here.
It's one of those things you may not think of unless you live in Los Angeles. Yes, my 7 year old daughter just got head shots. And what's even cooler is that my brother, Robert Bell, was the photographer. My brother has been a high-tech guru for years, working for companies like IBM/Lotus doing stuff I can't even explain. But lately he's been getting in touch with his artistic side. Personally, since
I've known him for, oh...almost 34 years, I think he always was an artist inside. He was always creating something. Photography seems like the perfect intersection of technology and art.
So, he now has a photography studio that he mostly runs from his home, called R & J Photography. Please go and check it out. He does portraits, weddings, and he's done work for schools and Cub Scout troops. Basically anything you need! And he's very portable.
As you can see from the photo's in this post, we found some nice areas around where he lives in Canyon Country. You can read his description of this shoot at his blog, Captured Thoughts.
It was a pretty cold day so we had to try to get some shots in between warming up. Strange for late-May in Los Angeles. We did some other indoor photos later at the house. You can see the whole gallery here.
I'm not sure but I think Zoe enjoyed being doted over like this. She's going to be such a primadona no one is going to be able to live with her! You should see her with Rob's daughter, my niece, who is just a little older than Zoe. Talk about girlie-girls!
...Griffith Park was on fire and threatening the community of Los Feliz, including our apartment. Here's the picture I took 2:42 pm that day (10 minutes from the time of this typing, so literally one year ago).
Here are my posts from last year:
LIVE...from my driveway | May 8, 2007
We Survived! | May 9, 2007
What's Left | May 10, 2007
Aaron Beaumont at the Hotel Cafe
On Friday evening a large group gathered to hear Aaron Beaumont play his unique style of "piano rock" at the Hotel Cafe with proceeds going to ADRA to buy goats, as Aaron said, from the Really Useful Gift Catalog. Aaron's a great artist. You can hear some of his music at his MySpace page. But you really need to see him in concert to appreciate the music fully.
California Poppies galore
Here's my wife amidst the poppies at the Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, California.
It was just meant to be. My friend, Scott Arany, went on Sabbath. So, on Sunday morning I was thinking about what we could do with our kids. I looked at the front page of the Sunday LA Times and there were the poppies. We braved temperatures in the low 60s and winds gusting in the 30 mph range.
Steve Lopez: The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
Gary Gunderson: Deeply Woven Roots: Improving the Quality of Life in Your Community
This is a re-read, but I'm more struck this time by the importance of this book. If you want to help your congregation be a healing presence in your community you need to read this book.
Peter Rollins: The Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales
Miroslav Volf: After Our Likeness: The Church As the Image of the Trinity (Sacra Doctrina)
I'm re-reading this one.
George R. Knight: The Apocalyptic Vision and the Neutering of Adventism
Craig Van Gelder: Ministry of the Missional Church, The: A Community Led by the Spirit
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