NEW WEBLOG!

This will be my last post this year, because I moved my weblog to Typepad.
The new url is http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/.
Please update your links page or favorites!

Merry Christmas!

We're spending Christmas at my parent's place in Enschede. This morning David sung a birthday song for Jesus, and Peter enjoys the Christmas cookies.

Friends of us really spoiled us with a big 'Christmas basket' with food, wine, sweets and other stuff. I love these kind of surprises. :-)

Since Tuesday night I've been down with flu, and still trying to recover.

Reinhold secretly decided to continue his journey at Typepad. He says it's more user-friendly than Blogger, so I might check it out for myself.

Met up with the support group of a friend who is ghostwriting for a well-known cabaret artist, working on his own theatre program and in-between giving esoteric people a prophetic massage. Really, a lot of interesting stuff is happening outside the Christian sub-culture. ;-)

The Whole Body

Met up with a small 'visionary team' of city leaders in Utrecht to pray, share hearts and plan. This was the first time we connected in a new setting, drawing several city-wide initiatives together. It's a pity that still some leaders decided not to join in, but I guess that's reality, there will always be people who have difficulty to embrace the whole Body of Christ in a city. But this is not a time for little kingdom-builders, but of spiritual fathers and mothers who nurture what God is doing.

It's interesting to see God's hand in timing things. Today three reformed denominations are also gathering in Utrecht to decide to dissolve themselves and unite in the 'Protestant Church of the Netherlands'. During prayer this morning the Lord reminded me that it's the 12th day of the 12th month, which is symbolic for God's perfect government. Jesus Himself wants to lead the Church - His Bride into her destiny.

Mirjam Croughs and Gert-Jan van der Tuuk of EO Visie interviewed me about my prayer life. It was an interesting talk, also for myself because I'm not used to analyse the way I'm praying. It will be published in the second week of January, the national week of prayer.

This week I'm meeting with several friends and younger leaders. One of the main topics was the destiny of our nation and the role we play in walking this destiny. Bert, a friend who is praying for and befriending the people we would call 'difficult', really stretched me tonight to demonstrate the character of Christ by going the extra mile.

Just heard that Antonie Fountain's band 'Eleven' won the 'Big Prize of the Netherlands', a top rock contest, held in Amsterdam's music centre Paradiso. This band is formed by YWAM and Soul Survivor folks who are convinced that Christians should excell in the secular music field. I love it.

In the meantime Michiel van Heusden made a Dutch worship album titled 'Prepare the Way'.

Princess of Orange

Yesterday evening when we watched the presentation of the new princess of Orange, an event that was clearly staged by the government's propaganda chief, we already guessed that the things they didn't want to say for PR reasons, would be public knowledge within a day.

Compliments to the journalists of De Telegraaf who found out that the poor child will be named 'Catharina Amalia'. How did they find out? They simply did a domain check on the Royal House's IP address and noticed that on 7 December they registered catharina-amalia.nl and princescatharina-amalia.nl.

Although I caught a cold, the weekend was fun. On Friday night we celebrated Dutch Santa Claus' birthday. When the 'Presents Pete' gave us a phone call to tell us he had just delivered the presents on our doorstep, the boys were very excited. They wanted to unpack everything at the same time.

All weekend they played with their new toys and we watched 'The Lion King' DVD together. On Sunday we heard about the birth of another royal child, a still nameless princess of Orange.

Don't be upset, be fed up

Andrew Jones is fed up with e-mails from Nigeria asking for money to realise church buildings, and wrote an open letter 'to all God's beautiful spammers'.

Personally I'm fed up today with people who intentionally build their own little exclusivist kingdoms. They think they serve God's purposes, but don't see that their character and style of operation hinders the very thing God wants to do. I still haven't figured out how to deal with these kind of situations. Should I just ignore it, pray for people and bless them, or speak out?

When I prayed about it, two Scriptures came to my mind: Matthew 13 about the good and the bad seed that grow together (lesson: relax, the fruit will show which seed was good and which was bad), and Jeremiah 1 which speaks about the assignment to uproot and to plant (lesson: there is a place to come against bad developments and replace them with God's plantings). Of course these Scriptures don't give a clear-cut answer. Perhaps God's wisdom is to speak out when there is a 'time of grace' to speak out, dissociate from people when they don't listen, but in everything: bless them and pray for Gods will to be done.

Website for innovators

How to battle the ten killer phrases for innovation? Whatagreatidea.com is a funny website with solid advice for innovators, including a creativity test.

BTW, according to an ongoing survey, the top ten places where we get our new ideas are:

01. Taking a bath or a shower.
02. Driving.
03. Sitting on the toilet.
04. Falling asleep or waking up.
05. During a boring meeting.
06. Reading.
07. Exercising.
08. Waking up in the middle of the night.
09. Listening to a church sermon.
10. Cutting the grass.

About number 09: realising that numbers 04 and 05 are higher on the list, it probably doesn't matter whether the sermon is interesting or boring. So thank your pastor for creating the context for your brightness. ;-)

Cleaning my desk

This week I'm trying to catch up with my administration, or as I use to say, "minister to the unreached paper groups on my desk". The idea is simple, but requires some discipline: when you pick up a piece of paper, you decide immediately what to do with it. There are only three options:

1. It's not relevant anymore -> throw it away.
2. It's relevant and can be dealt with within two minutes -> do it NOW.
3. It's relevant but takes more time -> file the paper and plan the action.

It's not allowed to pick up a paper an then put it back on your desk. You have to take one of these three actions, it's the only way you can beat the pile.

Of course it would be an option to just take the whole pile and throw it in the bin, but this might be a bit irresponsible. Last week I received a first-time 'warrant in name of the Queen' because I had overlooked a tax bill, and the reminder of that bill. So I decided to discipline myself, clean my desk and pay bills before they turn into a problem.

There is an island off the west coast of Britain, known as the Isle of Tides.
It was once a place of Christian pilgrimage - it held an abbey and it is said that a thousand saints are buried there.
Today the island is still, only the song of the sea birds will carry over the water to you as you approach.

If you like poetic Celtic songs and music, Eden's Bridge's latest album 'Isle of Tides' is excellent.