It's unbelievable: over 90% of the e-mails I receive these days contain SPAM, though I have a spam filter. Just a year ago it was just 30%, and when I entered the cyberworld, it was close to non-existent. So now before downloading my e-mail I go to the server to delete the 90%, so I can keep my inbox relatively clean.

Pubchurch: 'Another beer, please!'

For the first Christians, recorded in the New Testament, the actual time or place getting together didn't matter. To them no building was sacred - just a space to be used.

Jesus had said before he left that whenever two or three gathered in His name he would be there. People would eat and drink, both socially and as a symbol (sometimes called the Lord's Supper or Communion) they would worship God and tell stories about Jesus. As a marginalised and persecuted group they had to depend on each other for everything - possessions were shared and the weak were protected by the stronger. It was a genuine community. It was church.

So why not start a 'pubchurch', like Bar None in Wales. They say: "Our aim at Bar None is to plant ourselves back in the heart of a community, to bar none that are looking for answers or a place to ask questions. Pubs by definition are public space, they feel inhabitable and unpretentious, a quality that, unfortunately, is not shared by many churches."

We just finished our quarterly ministry newsletter with a special focus on what God is doing among the emerging generation in Europe. To improve on quality and safe on costs, we decided to send it out by e-mail in PDF format. We included 24-7News as a supplement.

Santa and the shoe issue

The Dutch Santa Claus is back in town. Last year the Van der Woude brothers didn't bother at all about his arrival - they went to bed without strategically positioning their shoes at the front door. This year they were more aware of the issue: if you want to get 'pepernoten' or a little present, don't forget to bring your shoe before going to bed. But when they woke up in the morning, they had completely forgotten about it and I had to remind them to check their shoes. Well, maybe it's good they are not committed Santa Clause believers...

For the non-Dutchies: the Dutch Santa Claus is quite different from the American one. He arrives halfway November by steamship from Spain and doesn't stay till Christmas, but leaves on 6 December. Instead of a reindeer sleigh he rides a white horse and brings with him thousands of black slaves called 'Black Petes' (he's not politically correct, really). Another difference is that the Dutch Santa is catholic, more specifically a bishop, while the American one is... well, he could be late John Wimber's brother, only less charismatic because people don't get healed on his lap. The only thing the two Santa's have in common is that they bring PRESENTS. So the most pragmatic thing you can do is put you faith in TWO Santa's: believe in the Dutch one from half November until 6 December, and in the American one from 6 until 26 December.

At the moment Christians in Holland are circulating e-mails telling people to take a stand for the reference of God in the EU constitution by referring to a little poll on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But of course such a poll, often part of a website for cosmetic reasons, has no formal status or impact whatsoever. What happens is that the whole thing gets hyped up: 'Go to this website to keep God in the EU constitution'. And because the Christian crowd hits the poll (even more than once to manipulate the outcome), it is by no way representative for the Dutch public.

Now if this was just the action of one naive Christian, I could understand it. But I'm getting these e-mails from prayer leaders and pastors and even some journalists and politicians. Has clear thinking left Holland or what? Pieter & Helene Bos took up the baton to inform Christians about how to pray strategically and take relevant action for this foundational issue. Yesterday I sent out a press release to the media to support this initiative, after the EA decided it was not their responsibility...

I thought we were the NoLogo generation, but still I really like the 24-7prayer logo's and pay-off.

The (re-)emergence of the monasteries

Andrew Jones blogged down some thoughts about modern-day monasteries:

"The idea of a monastic model of church instead of an ecclesiastic model is something that is given serious consideration by the next generation of people creating new church structures. A monastic model (intentional, residential community for the purpose of mission, church, training, sending, counseling, etc) has actually been in existence through most of the church's history. Obviously, the Roman Catholic Church has allowed monastic orders to emerge and some of the best things they have ever done has been through these orders.

"In fact, for 1500 years, almost anything good that was done by the global church(Catholic/Protestant/Whatever) was done through monks. The early Celtic church is a great example of monastic and ecclesiastic models working together. In the case of the Celtic church, the monasteries were the primary structure (modality in mission-speak) and the small cells or churches that they spun off were the secondary (sodality) structures. This was reversed in previous times, with prominence given to the ecclesiastic (gathering) structure as what we define as 'church' and secondary status assigned to monastic structures which, in the evangelical/protestant world, were the seminaries, 'parachurch' organizations, missions agencies, outreach centers, etc.

BUT NOW...

"Many young people are giving prominence to monastic models as a viable alternative to ecclesiastic models. When I consult with mission organizations and denominations about starting new works in large alternative cities, I often recommend beginning with a monastic model - a house of prayer, a small community of people who can live in the downtown (or red-light) district and learn to love the city, embrace the people, pray for God to turn up, and send helpers, and figure out how God wants to bless the city. Often the first people to step into God's plan in a city have addictions or serious hangups and a live-in environement like a monastery is better equipped for discipleship than a once a week program offered by the churches. Monastic structures will be an accepted form of church in the emerging culture. Mark my words!

"I appreciate the writings of Patrick Johnstone in 'The Church is Bigger Than You Think'. He claims that the church has always existed in these two forms as well as an additional 'apostolic' or 'sending' model, i.e. church as a mobile band of believers on mission."

Relational Christianity

Some questions that can help you find out whether people are really passionate about God's Kingdom or whether they are mainly building their own:

1. Are they primarily talking about a HIM (Jesus, God, Holy Spirit) or about an IT (meeting, method, principle)?
2. Do they help us learn to listen to God together, or do they tell us what to do so we won't need to hear from God ourselves?
3. Do they leave us freer to trust Jesus more, or are we being overwhelmed with principles we need to apply?
4. Are we being brought together in our ability to love each other more, or are we being fragmented over methods and theologies?
5. Can they still affirm people who don't see things the same way they do, or are they defensive and distant when questioned?

More good stuff on the website of Relational Christianiy.

SheepComics is one of my favourite websites, because it's not just very funny, it's also bloody serious and like a prophetic two-edged sword. Like this one about money and (not) taking resposibility, or this one about church services for specific target groups, or this one about the Lord's Supper.

Doug Lucas of Brigada forwarded me a press release from Interdev announcing that this ministry is closing down. For those of you who don't know Interdev: they were the high-flying partnership-developing agency in the 80s. Then AD2000 & Beyond helped propel them into 'tons' of additional partnership conferences in the 90s. Interdev has invested time, energy and resources in almost 300 partnerships working to birth the Church among the world's least reached peoples.

Now they intentionally seem to break with the classic assumption that ministries are born to continue forever. The presumption that if its good for today, it must therefore be good in perpetuity. Interdev states: "In a unanimous decision taken recently, the International Board of Trustees of Interdev took its stand against such an assumption. Having analyzed the organization's vital signs, the Board moved prayerfully and courageously to hand off the partnering ministry to the next runners and to bring closure to the Interdev organization as we have known it."

Compliments to Interdev. Wondering who's next...

I still owe you a report of my trip to Switzerland, so here we go.

Why are there so few apostles?

On Thursday I met up with the Simsons for lunch. Talked with Wolfgang about issues like the nature of the apostolic, deliverance ministry, two new books he's writing, and mentoring young leaders.

His definition of an apostle: someone who builds according to a design from Heaven versus someone who recreates human structures. Big question: if this is a time in which God restores the apostolic dimension to the church, then why are there so few apostles in the sense of 'heavenly master builders'? Three possible reasons:

1. Many Christians are demonized and thus blocked (not yet released) in their God-given calling and ministry.
2. Many who are called as apostles, are not able or willing to break out of their existing church or ministry bubble.
3. We've lowered our standard compared to what God wants to do. Our mindset is formed by what is humanly possible instead of what is divinely possible.

EPL consultation: on our way to Beulah Land

The EPL consultation was also interesting. First of all it was confirming to hear that God's Spirit is obviously saying the same things to different people in different nations: we are entering a new season, in which the fires of God's Spirit will move fast and can change direction any time (like what happened with the California wildfire outbreak). And in order to be able to move with God's Spirit we need to come up higher (up to His level, Is. 55), receive fresh revelation and (re)align ourselves with the purposes of God for our nations and continent. Also: there will be a deeper shaking of the church, and only what is really birthed by God's Spirit will remain.

Ioan Peia from Romania challenged us with two insights: God wants us to think bigger then our part of the world, and the Holy Spirit seems to be no longer responding to the name Europe, because it is not the name God has given to our continent. Those of you who know a bit of Greek mythology might know that Europa was a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Jupiter (the main god = satan) in the shape of a bull, who took her to Crete (Greece), where he raped her. Years later it was Charlemagne who gave Europa's name to the 'nameless continent' he had just conquered. When praying into a new name, Ioan felt God impressed on him the word 'Beulah', which is a Hebrew word meaning 'married land', like a bridal continent being married to God (Is. 62,4).

Of course this needs some more prayer and consideration. And 'Beulah Prayer Link' and 'Connect Beulah' sounds less dynamic for sure. ;-)

On Saturday Jane Holloway, prayer coordinator of the British Evangelical Alliance, shared some of the things she learned during her 3-month sabbattical about 'Jesus' rhythm of life'. Then the EPL core team shared their vision for the coming years, which was received well, although the outworking needs to be reviewed in February. The big issue is: will EPL establish a centralistic support structure or invest in decentral apostolic hubs? I will keep pushing them for the latter. After all the European Union doesn't work either.

German prayer leader Ortwin Schweitzer was also with us. He wrote an excellent paper about the new European constitution in which he explains why it is important that a reference to God is included in the widely discussed Preamble. He presented his findings to us and called to serious prayer and action.

Finally: I learned that several prayer leaders received, independently from each other, a vision in which they saw God raise up 500 million watchmen all over the world. I guess He's preparing the stage for some sort of final harvest...

Connect Europe: rallying the tribes

Somehow the Connect Europe core team expanded to 18 people, and then shrunk again to 8, or even better: multiplied into different regions and nations. Anyway, we had a wonderful time together in God's presence, hearing from Him, praying and prophesying into Europe, building friendship, strategizing and just hanging out.

Kevin Davies reminded us that the tribes of Israel helped each other to conquer their share in the promised land (they were not allowed to just go for their own share or compromise their calling in any way). Likewise the emerging tribes in Europe should unite and conquer the continent together.

Tim Fellows introduced the Connect Europe vision and the way we expect the network will grow organically. He stressed: "It is not about bringing vision, but about connecting vision. It's not bringing in something foreign, but strengthening what is already there."

On Tuesday morning we took time for everyone to share how and where they connected with the vision. The leading questions were:

1. Try to define the area God is calling you to for the moment: the whole of Europe, a region of Europe (e.g. the nordic, the British isles, etc.), specific nations and/or specific people groups. Basically we will try to form the teams around this.
2. What is your specific role, gifting, ministry, anointing, etc. that the network could benefit from?
3. To what specifically would you commit yourself for the coming year in relation to Connect Europe?

Now how do you develop a network that is only partially in place? It's actually quite simple: if you know which area you are called to (e.g. Norway), you can do two things: firstly, pray into the nation and prophetically call forth connections with the key emerging leaders (especially young prophets and apostles) whom God already prepared, and secondly go and find them. Often when we go to places, we will have divine appointments. We just walk in the things God has already prepared for us. That's Gods way of networking, which links in to the 'man of peace' concept (Luke 10): key people who are prepared by God to open up an area. And as Winkey Pratney says: "The Kingdom of God is boundered (only) by unpredictability." So let God surprise you. :-)

Halfway our meeting Wolfgang Simson gave some input, related to three questions most of us have: How to intentionally multiply your ministry or movement? What exactly is the apostolic about, what are 'apostolic foundations', and how can we move in the apostolic dimension? What in your view will God do among the emerging generation, and how will they change the church and the world? No need to say these few hours were mind-stretching. If you can handle German: the main thoughts are available at simsonwolfgang.de.

It was encouraging to see that as Norway and Finland joined forces last Summer, the network in the nordic part of Europe is taking shape. Brydon Leslie from the Shetlands will connect the islands in the west (Faroer, Shetlands, Iceland, Greenland), and the Finnish folks will build relationships into the Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Together with the Norwegians they will also connect into Sweden and Denmark. Besides that we all felt there is a 'kairos moment' for Norway and the team has to speed up their efforts.

Other key nations are Switzerland and England/Wales. We also prayed into Slovakia and Serbia.

A documentary received in an open vision

Before flying out I met up with Stephanie Muzyka, a TV producer from Canada, who was working on an assignment in Switzerland, and asked my friend Patrick to join in the conversation. Stephanie worked on the first Transformations video and has started producing a series of prophetic videos on Canada's destiny for Watchmen for the Nations (David Damian's ministry).

She told me that God showed her these documentaries shot by shot in dreams and open visions during a period of three months she spent in God's presence in travailing prayer. As a result of this the documentaries were produced in just two weeks time, which is simply supernatural. Another interesting thing is that nothing was pre-planned. The (professional) team committed themselves to be available for God, have their cameras ready, and just produce whatever they felt God's Spirit was saying or doing. One of these video's (The Embrace, about reconciliation between Canada and the Jews) was showed to the Israeli ambassador to Canada, who was so touched that he got the video broadcasted on Israeli national television.

What this project shows is that the things that really impact a nation, are received from God, are carried and prayed into, and are birthed at the right time.

More promising developments from Switzerland: the Rhine Project is a long-term transformational process in the Rhine region between Buchs and Basel. There are three main phases: cleansing/healing of the land, forming a covenant of key leaders, and a holistic harvest strategy.

House church developments in Europe

The house church movement in Europe is growing steadily. Check out the European house church website and the networks in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands.

The Swiss and Germans are doing a good job with Luke10, a training course for radical house church planters, developed by Wolfgang Simson, and a follow-up training in healing and deliverance called the Liberty School.

Had extensive talks with Anthon van der Laak about training housechurch leaders and a new conference centre he is pursuing in Twente, and with Paul Geeve about training young people in the ministry of healing and deliverance.

Back in town. Will report on EPL and Connect Europe later. For now a thought from Andrew Jones' new Tallskinnykiwi blog (for some reason he keeps on changing blogs all the time):

"It might be better to have a party that is redemptive than having a boring service that has moments of drama/fun. Many of my friends start with a 'service' that is, in its kernal, BORING and then try to add the fun element. But house church people start with a party in the living room - that is indeed fun and relational, and make the party work, make it useful, add purpsose and direction to the party."

I'm off to Switzerland tomorrow for six days for the EPL consultation and our Connect Europe team meeting. This time we have a good Dutch representation with Pieter & Helene Bos (Serving the Nations), Carla Kwakkel (Lydia Fellowship), Lynette Kong (Fellowship of Intercessors, Amsterdam), Maaike Starreveld (The Call) and myself. Pray with us for an 'open heaven' and a catalysation of the work of God's Spirit in the prayer movement in Europe.

Like the sound of a mighty army... Greg Burnett from North Carolina blogs on 'night and day ministry to the Lord', non-stop prayer and worship until Jesus returns.

Miraculous power of God

Signs and wonders will follow those who believe. Over the last five days we experienced an 'open heaven' in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht, where Nigerian ministers Victor Emenike, Sunday Adelajah and Prince Gideon demonstrated how to heal the sick and deliver the oppressed.

God is turning the world upside down: Nigerians are coming to Europe to break open the so called 'hard soil' with an astounding easyness. Sunday Adelaja came to Kiev, Ukraine, around 10 years ago and launched a church with just 7 people. Now he has the largest church in Europe with 20,000 people in Kiev alone, not including the 30 satellite churches. Healing and deliverance are an integral part of his ministry (after all it's an integral part of the great commission, see Mark 16) and show the people that Jesus is alive and His Kingdom is breaking through. Victor Emenike (insert) keeps on stressing: "Isn't Jesus wonderful? And it is sooo eeeasy!"

During the course of the campaign I made some observations:

1. They take a lot of time to worship Jesus and focus on Him. Out of this 'ministry to the Lord' they flow with the prophetic anointing, and minister healing and deliverance. Even before or halfway the preaching they will take time to worship Jesus, call on Him, lift Him high. This leaves no room for demonic powers and releases the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

2. Based on revelation they would corporately address specific demonic forces at work in the people who had come to the campaign. While publicly rebuking these demons (of fear, depression, confusion, etc.), the people involved often started manifesting demonically and were delivered.

3. They were continually tuned in to Gods Spirit and acted based on revelation. They did what they saw God doing.

4. They did not pray for healing, but declared healing. They did not pray for deliverance, but commanded the demons to get out. They did not pray about God's will for people, but prophesied destiny. I believe this follows out of the revelation. If you know what God's will is, there's not need to ask Him to do it, just declare (prophesy) that it will happen. The Nigerians were very aware of the spiritual authority they carry in Christ Jesus.

5. There is a corporate anointing that is only released when people are one in the Spirit and move in the anointing together. This was the first time that these three pastors ministered together, but also the first time that a campaign was co-hosted by a charismatic and a traditional leader. Is God saying something to the Church here?

6. They stressed that every believer can move in the miraculous and imparted the anointing to everyone who wanted. Of course this is not an automatic thing; impartation only works when the people who receive the impartation start acting based on it.

7. The level of faith and expectation was high, even electric. And God moved powerfully. One time more than 10 people got our of their weelchairs and were healed on the spot. A deaf and dumb girl was completely healed. The first word she said was "JESUS!" Many people with artrosis, cancer, deafness, and other illnesses were healed. The higher the level of faith and expectation, the more God can and will do.

It was good to meet some long-time-no-see friends, like Patricia Blue who introduced me to Victor Emenike. Many people from the Utrecht region were involved in the pastoral care and follow-up. All together the campaign raised our level of faith and I'm looking forward to what God will do as a result of that.