Marc's Messages

Where do we go from here?

In the last meeting I shared some of the development plans for Connect Europe. In the first place we want to be a network of friends. Connect's role is to bring together emerging leaders with a reformational mindset all across Europe, to form one stick in God's hand (Ez. 37). Secondly we are committed to hear prophetically, which means we want to embrace God's plans (not our own insights) and act based on that. In the third place we intentionally want to develop teams that will break open new ground for the Kingdom in different areas (geographically and socially). And finally we want to run with God-given strategies for this season.

Some questions to help define one's role are:
1. Which area did God call you for? (e.g. local/regional impact, apostolic teams, finance/support)
2. What is your anointing? (the specific way God uses you to bless others)
3. With whom does He call you to partner?

We pencilled in a few plans for the coming season:
- Connect meetings (like this one in Prague) with the specific purpose to enlarge people's vision and build friendship;
- developing a hands-on DNA training for mobile apostolic teams (including outreach);
- small-scale, focused consultations to develop strategies into (at this moment) three areas: finances/funding of apostolic teams, wicca/neopaganism/new age, and media.

Feel free to drop me an e-mail if you have a specific interest in one of these areas.

The financial guys

How to support mobile apostolic teams? This morning Tim and Lucas (insert) shared some input and ideas, and we heard some great stories of God's provision, and people getting ideas for 'apostolic funding strategies' (though I haven't figured out yet what the difference is between an apostolic funding strategy and just having good ideas on how to make money in such a way that you can provide for others). Anyway, the money issue was on the top of most people's evaluation sheet. We didn't really dig into 'how to handle finances without getting tight up by Mammon', which is even more important if you ask me. But hey, it's an ongoing journey.

Charles Bridge by night

In the evening Sasa and Hannah took us to a restaurant in the old town, close to Charles Bridge, the top 'must-see' attraction for tourists. The Czech food is interesting. A typical meal would be bread dumplings with meat sauce and cream, accompanied by a 0.5 liter pint of light Czech beer.

Tobi's baptism

Tobias from Germany got baptised in the fountain in his 'Satan hates me' t-shirt. For Gabi and Martin it was the first time they baptised someone. Cool.

Disciple-making movements

Today we tried to get a handle on the start of 'organic' disciple-making movements. Jeff and David from Germany shared from their experiences with Luke 9 and 10, finding 'people of peace' around which a community can be formed.



In the afternoon I led the group through several basic steps, in which several people feeded their testimonies and stories.

1. Reaching people. Forget everything you have been taught on evangelism. Even bury the term itself. What Jesus taught his disciples is to simply ask God to lead them to the right people, so called 'people or houses of peace' who are ready to receive the Kingdom. Not everyone is ripe to be harvested, so don't force yourself or others into an artificial approach. Rather 'gossip' the gospel ("hey, listen to this") and bring God into the conversation in a low-key way by sharing a story of what happend to you or a friend of yours. If something resonates with them, they will pursue the conversation, otherwise drop it. Ask God for prophetic impressions, like words of knowledge, that will speak destiny in a person's life. If he/she is sick, pray for healing. If he/she is hungry, provide a meal. Be Jesus to them.

2. The conversion thing. When people want to follow Jesus, then don't give them a cheap deal. It's not just about forgiveness of sins, but about surrendering your life to Christ, which means that He is now in charge. It will provide destiny, but also requires costly obedience. Three things to do right away: get the person baptised, filled with the Holy Spirit, and delivered from any remaining demons.

3. Discipling. It's amazing how few Christians know how to disciple others. You don't need to be an expert to disciple others, just share the basic things, so people know how to pray, read the Bible, hear and obey God's voice, build friendship with other Christians, and share Jesus with others. If they get the basics, Jesus will reveal more of himself on the way and draw them deeper.

4. Forming community. Basically a small group of people who seek Jesus and his Kingdom together. Start with 2-3 people, and if there's life it will grow. The focus should never be coffee with doughnuts, but sharing Christ with others and discipling them. Either open your own house (hospitality) or - even better - meet in other people's house, so a Kingdom seed is planted in another social network. You can meet anywhere: on the tram, in a pub or at your school or workplace. The more embedded in ordinary life, the better.

5. Multiplication. Everything that contains life will multiply. The fruit of an apple tree is not an apple, but other apple trees. The ideal size of small group is 6-12 people. Beyond that number it's time to multiply by either splitting up, or intentionally forming new groups.

6. Apostolic teams. Basically a group of Christians in itinerant ministry, committed to break open new areas for the Kingdom. They also apply the 'people of peace' principle, and from communities around them. Their primary role is to impart DNA and lay foundations.

Creative Chris

What do you do when you're a percussionist, but can't bring your whole equipment to a meeting? You simply create something out of what is available. And so the amazing Chris Hogben from London worshipped and drummed with a fire extinguisher, two empty beer bottles, a dustbin, a garbage can, and an empty paintbox. Cool.

Key issues for reformation

What is reformation and why do we need it? What are the key areas for reformation in today's church? How can we develop a reformational lifestyle? To kickstart the discussion, I wrote a basic paper on reformation, that we used in one of the workshops this afternoon.

Download ce_reformation_sheet.doc

Henk and Carla facilitated a workshop on 'how to get rid of a religious mindset and really live in Godly freedom', and Lucas and Kevin kicked off 'key issues for reformation in the marketplace and apostolic funding strategies'.

It's all about following

Tim and Simon kicked-off the morning session with an input on Jesus' ministry and his message of the Kingdom. Because Simon produced a whole CD with studies on the 'Kingdom DNA', I only wrote down a few key words of this session:

- It's not about a church that we are building, but about the church that Christ is building.
- Jesus is not asking us to do things for Him, but simply to follow Him and obey his teaching.
- Jesus did not preach the gospel of the church, but the gospel of the Kingdom. Wherever the Kingdom comes, church happens, not the other way around.
- The church will be reformed/refounded on Christ if we do what Jesus tells us to do and first seek the Kingdom.
- We have to learn to be intimate not just with Jesus' presence, but also with his will.
- Do we worship a carved image or a dynamic Christ? Jesus is not static, but a moving target.

It's all about recentering our lives on Christ. I also wrote down a quote from Lucas (the Netherlands): "Too often we google-fy Jesus. We take in loads of interesting information, while lacking true knowledge of God that comes from revelation and obedience."

50 faces, 150 keywords

What a blessing to connect and interact with 50 emerging leaders from 13 nations on the dna of Jesus' ministry and God's plans with Europe. Everyone brings his/her own personality and story into the mix. Andreas suggested we would use three keywords to introduce ourselves. A good way to get to know one another, and sometimes quite hilarious.

The Hus excursion

Today we went on an excursion to the Hus statue in Prague, and to Tabor, the Hussite 'model town' south of Prague. If you're interested in some background information and lessons we can learn from the early reformation, then check out the articles section on the Connect website. Jan Inge posted a good report on his weblog in four episodes: Jan Hus, the Hussite church, Czech prayer and Tabor. Click on the pictures below to enlarge. Charis compiled an insightful 'tale of two cities' tree structure, showing how the Hussite seed grew in Tabor and Herrnhut:

Download the_seed___its_growth.jpg

Team preparation

Yesterday and today we took time to pray, process team dynamics, review the concept 'program', and talk through some last-minute logistics. Although we are better organised for this gathering than last year in Geneva, I'm not sure we are also more in the flow. Some of us have been pretty busy (and disconnected) over the Summer, so I guess we need some extra grace here. It's good that some participants came earlier to pray into the gathering. Although it's cloudy and rainy now, I trust that by Friday we will have bright Summer weather, an open heaven like in the earlier meetings in Herrnhut and Geneva.

Jesus and the Rainbow people

Barbara Leite from Portugal posted an interesting report of her ministry among the (new age) Rainbow People in Germany. Today she suddenlty showed up in Prague, and it was a blessing to reconnect. Jesus-centered worship and organic community is the way to go to reach and disciple the Rainbow People, she said.

Connect Europe in Prague

I'm in Prague now, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. A city where three cultures meet: Czech, German and Jewish. A city or artisans, intellectuals and magicians. A centre of the early reformation. A special place to 'connect Europe'.

Pastor, feed me!

If you weren't convinced yet that the church needs a reformation: this cartoon says it all. With permission from Churchlaughs.com.

Preparing for Connect

Tomorrow I'll travel to Prague to prepare for our Connect Europe gathering next weekend. As Andreas wrote on his blog:

Looks like it will be a most exciting time! 50 reformation-wired hearts and minds from the emerging generations across 13 nations will seek the Lord and His way forward towards reformation and missions. Subjects range from reformational basics (historic lessons via Jan Hus - tour, issues for church and society) over emerging practice (organic church-planting movements, mobile apostolic teams, street-prophetics) to missions into wicca/neo-paganism, arts&media, and new funding strategies. Priority though will clearly be on joint prayer, open prophetic flow and new friendships. IT WILL BE ACE! :)

Papal photo album

I created a photo album of our trip to the World Youth Days in Cologne. You may also want to check out the video reports of the RKK (Dutch) and WDR (German).

Elly & Rikkert in concert

We took the boys to an Elly & Rikkert concert in the Zinzendorf Park of Slot Zeist. They really enjoyed it, an excellent performance with a lot of action for and with kids.

An unexpected ride

We decided not to stay for the prayer vigil, but hitchhike back to Cologne. Don't know what your experience is with hitchhiking, but I found over the years that saying a quick prayer for a 'car of peace' (my heretic interpretation of Luke 10) always pays off. No, we didn't get a ride in the popemobile, but it's as close as we could get: an expensive Volkswagen with the spokesman of the WYD on his way to the Holy Father.

"What a coincidence! So this means you could arrange a personal interview for us with the pope." (Of course this is beyond reality, not even CNN and the WDR got their interview, but hey it was funny to ask anyway.)

"No, obviously I can't do that. Of the 8,000 journalists here many applied for an interview with the pope, and we had to turn them all down."

What followed was a quite interesting conversation about the challenges of the WYD in terms of communication and security. I have to say I'm even more impressed with the logistics, how every detail has been thought through. Except for the indulgences...

"The media reported that the pope would hand out indulgences during the WYD. What does that mean in practice?"

"Oh yes, those indulgences! Impossible to explain this to the media, and to people anyway. I studied theology myself, and can't tell you the exact ins and outs. But it has to do with the sacrament of reconciliation, the forgiveness of sins."

"Is it a piece of paper or something?"

"No, when the pilgrims confess to a priest, the priest speaks out this special form of forgiveness in behalf of the pope. That's it basically."

"Is it a regular practice in the Roman Catholic church?"

"No, it's very exceptional."

"Then why did the pope decide to do this on the WYD? A German pope handing out indulgences on such a massive scale on his first official trip, in what is also the homeland of the reformation, is not without symbolic meaning."

"I don't know, but I will ask the pope when I see him. One day before the Vatican published this news, they gave me notice. It was a decision of the Holy See. But I immediately realized this was an impossible thing to explain in the media."

To the Marienfeld

Today all pilgrims leave Cologne for the 20 km walk to the Marienfeld, a huge agricultural field outside the city, specially prepared to host one million people for the final prayer vigil and mass with the pope. Because Rob and I registered as journalists, we can take the press bus up there, which nevertheless takes us two hours and another 30 minute walk across the field. Again, this is a place of superlatives: 100 blocks equivalent in size to 92 soccer fields, 50 kilometers of paths, 100 loudspeaker towers, 1600 tap connections for 5 million litres of water, 80,000 cubic meters of earth piled up for the Altar Mount, 6500 candles, and an enormous platform in the shape of a flying saucer ready for take-off. This gig costs millions of euros and is highly sponsored by the German government and big companies like Audi and Volkswagen.

It's hard to imagine one million people in one place. The vigil tonight, with all these young people praying and singing until dawn, the whole field lit with candles, must be completely cool. Let's hope it will not rain.

Putting Luke 10 in practice

We spent the night with friends of Jeff, who describes himself as 'a global-local missional organic-minded guy' who is training young people based on Luke 9 and 10: being led by God to 'people of peace', around which a self-multiplying community can be formed. Radical and at the same time so simple! If only the 500,000 young people in Cologne would be trained in this - it could change the world! But then the church would have to let go of control...

Waiting for the pope

Pope Benedict XVI has a busy schedule. Today he visited the local synagogue, a quite significant meeting. Because of the high security measures, every time the popemobile drives through the inner city, whole roads are being blocked, with impressive police presence. And of course everyone is eager to get a glimpse of the new pope. It's a weird experience, everyone is cheering "Benedicto, Benedicto" and trying to get a good shot, some are crying. The guy standing besides me says that seeing the pope is the absolute high of his trip to Cologne. "He's a man of such a high morale, the head of our church." Looks like the 'successor of Peter' is getting more attention than the true Head of the church.

Celebrating Catholicism

Why do 500,000 young Catholics from all over the world go on a pilgrimage? What is it that attracts them in the Roman Catholic church? I don't have a full answer to this question, but this is what I picked up:

1. The WYD provides a place where young people encounter and celebrate the rich diversity of the universal church, which strengthens them in their faith.

2. The aspect of pilgrimage - being on a journey together, appeals strongly to young people. Also liturgic celebrations with candlelights and symbols are making a strong comeback in postmodern spirituality. Check out this posting on the secret of Taizé.

 

3. And very mondane: it's fun to hang out with other young people, and pick up a boyfriend or girlfriend on the way.

Like any event, the WYD is a small world in itself, and hugely diverges from the reality back home. Many young people who come here are not regular churchgoers at all. But they are looking for a spiritual experience and a more youthful expression of church. This brings me to an essential point: you can have a religious experience anywhere, but still now know how to follow Christ. The talks, the masses and concerts restate the general dogma's of the church and a general notion of love, peace and joy in God, but are - in my view - not truely discipling young people.

This event is mega huge

What most impresses me is the enormity of this event. Everywhere in Cologne you come across groups of young people from all together 160 nations, carrying flags, singing songs and blocking traffic. Every church building and school has been occupied by pilgrims, and another 80,000 stay in private homes. And not just in Cologne - also Bonn, Düsseldorf and most towns in a circle of 100 km around Cologne are involved. The opening celebration took place in 250 different venues, including the soccer stadiums of these cities.



This gig is 30 times Opwekking (the biggest Christian conference in Holland) and logistically beyond anything I have encountered so far. It's good that the Germans organised it, with their eye for detail. From the complexity of public transport and media relations to hostings hundreds of activities and baking 2,8 million communion wafers. Because of the pope's visit security is extremely high. There's police everywhere - over 4,000 cops were brought in from other cities in Germany - and ambulances drive on an off. Not visible are 25 highly trained commando's on strategic positions in the city. Welcome to the World Youth Days 2005.

Pilgrimage to Cologne

Rob and I are on our way to Cologne, Germany, to taste and see the more youthful side of the Roman Catholic Church. Will we return in the arms of the mother church? Will we see the pope and get our personal interview? Watch this space for first-hand impressions of hanging out with half a million pilgrims, and exclusive shots of the popemobile.

Suffering for the Lord (3)

HELP! Can somebody pinch my arm, is this really happening?! I was just planning to book my trip to South Africa, to get an e-mail from DAWN saying they postponed the international associates' meeting in Johannesburg. I'm not happy. Looks like rescheduling meetings and loosing money on tickets is becoming a new trend. Not really my view on planning and stewardship.

Taizé founder killed

Trouw reports that frère Roger, the 90 year old founder of the ecumenical Taizé community in France, has been stabbed to death during one of the services. Taizé is the most populair prayer retreat centre among young people in Europe, drawing 800,000 visitors annually.

Peter 4 years

Today is Peter's birthday, and guess what - we'll have pie with strawberries, and French fries, and lots of presents, and the grandmas and granddads are coming. And because he's 'big' now, he will go to real school next week.

What is Jesus saying to YOU?

"I wanted to add just a thought to what John has already sent you," writes Organic DAWN colleague Mike Steele from America.

Both community and mission are vital but they are by-products of something else. They grow out of intimacy with Jesus - living from your heart. Living from your heart and hearing God's personal call to me produces passion that comes from the inside (internal motivation). If you see a lack of mission (or community) in people, it tells you that intimate conversation with Jesus is not yet at the center of their lives. This is the place to focus - this is what they need help with (how could a person who is intimate with Jesus not have His heart for the world?).

To focus on mission (or community) is the wrong solution to the problem. To focus there may produce some short term activity but in the long run it results in guilt and burnout and requires ever increasing pressure (external motivation) to keep people motivated.

One more comment. It strikes me that focusing on the heart relationship with Jesus (learning to hear His voice and do what He says) is truly organic and reproducible. That is, once a person 'gets' this, they don't need other voices to continually exhort them to be missional. And, once they 'get' it, it's easy to infect others with the same thing. There is an important place for missional stories but those should always point back to "this is what Jesus told me to do." And then, "what is He telling you to do?"

Developing a regional strategy

John White, one of the house church facilitators in the States, mailed me some of his preparation notes for a workshop on 'developing a regional strategy'.

Is your heart burning for your neighborhood, your city, your state, your province? In this workshop we will talk about how to go about discipling the region that God has put on your heart. We'll discuss the DAWN vision and strategy, the concept of the 'John Knoxer' and what we have learned about praying Luke 10:2b.

There are four things that we want to impart in our workshop:

1. Clarity about the end result
When we think about fulfilling the Great Commission (Mt. 28:19-20) we think about a church (a vibrant family of Jesus) within easy access of every human being in a particular region or people group.

2. Clarity about my assignment
What has God called me to? Is it a neighborhood or a county or a city or a province or a nation? Or a particular ethnic group?

3. Clarity about the starting point
We believe that the single most important thing we can do toward the objective is to be highly faithful in praying the prayer that Jesus commanded us to pray in Luke 10:2. Everything else grows out of this.

4. Clarity about my partner
Jesus paired people up and sent them out into the harvest by twos. I need a partner who has the same assignment I have with whom I can passionately and daily beseech the Lord of the harvest to thrust out (exballo - launch!) motivated and gifted harvest workers into our part of the harvest.

The priest and the fisherman

While cleaning out a wardrobe in our apartment, I found a box with over a hundred music cassettes with songs you can get really nostalgic about. Also a prophetic song from 1974 by 'Jesus People' Elly & Rikkert titled 'The priest and the fisherman'.

The church gets mobile

It's always fun to hang out with a group of emerging leaders, this time at Henk & Evelien's place in Heemstede. The topic: Luke 9 and 10, Jesus-style mobile community and teamwork. No, Jesus didn't rent a local synagogue to hold church services, let alone hold offerings to fund his own little temple building project. He traveled through the country with a team and taught his disciples to do the same. And remember: no extra equipment, no creditcards, no door-to-door ministry (did I hear AMEN from a Jehova's Witness?), but trusting God for divine appointments with people He has prepared. If only the church today would sell her property and get mobile again. That could change the world.

God's way of funding

Often when moving into new territory, we have to let go of certain securities, so God can provide in His quite unconventional way. And that's never boring! A Connect friend who thinks about selling house and moving in a more itinerant ministry, received direction from God to sell everything she had double on e-Bay. The moment she started doing that, she received e-mails from people saying they want to support her on a monthly basis. Now already 20 people in four days time. That's cool.

Inspecting the harvest force

Met up with Ed van Setten of our Utrecht city team to talk through a questionnaire he compiled. We will do a modest research among churches in Utrecht to find out to what extent they are reaching their city in evangelism and social care, and whether this is effective. We use the four-step DAWN approach, researching the harvest force (the church in the city), the harvest field (the neighborhoods and people groups in the city), the measure of receptivity for the Gospel, and the effectiveness of the various evangelistic approaches.

Connect baptisms continue

When I was in Finland last May I felt God wanted me to address the issue of baptism in following Christ. When a Luteran pastor friend heard this, he got a bit worried: "You can't do that. It will limit your ministry among the Lutherans." I remarked: "Yes, but Jesus told me to challenge people to get baptized instead of abiding to church politics."

Anyway, Niina was the first one to get baptized in a yacuzzi in the forest. A week later she baptized one of her friends in a coooooooold lake. Another friend was visiting Rome and got convicted to get baptized right on the spot. Now Jan Inge reports that also Hanna got baptized, and last week my Norwegian friend Anne-Maria. So the baptisms in Connect continue. We might have to find some water in Prague...

Pope hands out indulgences

Last Monday the Vatican announced that pope Benedict XVI will hand out indulgences to young people who attend the upcoming World Youth Days in Cologne, Germany. Not sure if the media picked this up, because the Vatican sends out press releases in Latin and Italian. The first is a dead languague, the second the language of the maffia, so that explains it. But the fact that a German pope on his first public appearance outside the Vatican, decides to hand out indulgences in what is also the homeland of the reformation, is quite incredible.

The deal is simple: you show you're a good Catholic by showing up on the WYD, and the church will grant you less time in purgatory. Who does the pope think he is - JESUS? ;-) Anyway, I told you this pope will bring us back to the reformation times. Germany is on God's agenda and a new reformation will start here that will once again shake the Roman empire.

The modern Screwtape Letters

Wayne Jacobsen, in his book entitled 'The Naked Church', has an interesting critique of the Boomer-driven church-growth ministry model. Using the writing genre of CS Lewis and the Screwtape Letters, he describes our growth-driven churches from the perspective of one of Satan’s henchmen….

"Trying to keep it small hasn't worked - let's make it big!"

All the other devils gasped, thinking that old Screwtape had finally bolted his sanity.

"Make it big? What do you think we've been working so hard to prevent?"

"Hear me out, colleagues: We can kill it with its own success. What would happen if the church suddenly became acceptable?"

"Lot's of people would go to it, you idiot."

"But what would all those people do to it?" Screwtape replied with a smirk, then, sat back as he watched their minds churn.

One-by-one the others began to see the brilliance of his scheme.

Full posting here.

Weblog restyling

I restyled my weblog a bit. Apart from a new header and a different lay-out of the columns, I added a movies category (left) and a humor category (right). I also restyled the Connect Europe weblog.

Rivers and pancakes

What would you do when you have only two days in Holland? "See the dikes and eat pancakes," Heidi said. So we went for a walk on one of the dikes of our typically Dutch river landscape, paid a quick visit to Slot Loevestein and ended up in a pancake restaurant where they served pancakes with goat cheese, mushrooms and fresh fruit.

We are one in the network

Our Scottish-American friend Heidi Campbell paid us a visit. She just moved to Texas to start her new job as a university professor. You might want to check out her new book 'Exploring Religious Community Online: We Are One In The Network'. Together with Mr. Liquid Church Pete Ward she's working on a publication on the spirituality of the emerging Scots. And she was so good to bring me 20 copies of The Scot Project, which I will bring with me to Prague.

Eliminating the laity

"My goal is not to eliminate the clergy. My goal is to eliminate the laity, so that all of us are priests." A nice quote from Neil Cole, one of the 'simple church' facilitators in the States. Freddy from Sweden recently joined one of his conferences and reports. Also check out the conference notes on the House Church Blog.

BTW, on 6-9 October there will be a European house church consultation in Spain. I was part of the team who started this four years ago. The first one was in the Netherlands, the second in the Czech Republic (picture), the third in Denmark, and now the fourth is in Spain. Drop my friend Henk Vink an e-mail if you're interested.

Reformation in the desert

This week I'm preparing for our upcoming Connect Europe gathering in Prague. While earlier Connect meetings mostly drew emerging leaders in their mid-twenties, this one about reformation pushes the average age into the thirties. How come?

My theory is this: most people I know who have started to incarnate a new reformation, have gone through a foundational reality-check in their lives and ministries that normally only happens when you go through a desert period and/or otherwise are forced to honestly evaluate your paradigm and effectiveness based on what Jesus taught and lived. When people are young and active in church or parachurch ministry and still believe it could work, they are not yet ready for reformation. Something has to 'break' or 'die' if you want. The encouraging thing though is that God seems to be leading people in a desert experience at a much younger age.

Will I visit the pope?

In my monthly report to the DAWN team I mentioned that I would pay a short visit to Germany to meet with the pope. Andreas mailed back: "YOU VISIT THE POPE? Cool - invite him to Prague to give a benedictum there!"

Actually I plan to hang out one or two days with one million Catholic youth on the WYD in Cologne. Although I got an official press accreditation (which means one can apply for interviews) the chance that I will be able to even get a glimpse of the new pope is rather small. But it would certainly be cool to talk with the guy who heads up the only country in Europe that is 100 percent saturated with churches. ;-)

Smartwings = Dumbwings

Smartwings sent me an e-mail that they cancelled both my inbound and outbound flght to Prague. As they gave no explanation, nor suggested a refund, I gave them a phone call. I can be pretty nasty and persistent when I encounter bureaucracy, so I ended up with the manager of customer care. He told me that basically 20 percent of Smartwings flights are being cancelled, because they don't generate enough profit to keep the owner happy.

I challenged them to put this information on their website, so their customers get a fair picture of the unreliability of their service. Of course they won't do that, but I will certainly never fly with Smartwings again. If I had known in time, I still could have booked a reasonable flight with KLM or Czech Airlines. Now I'm paying too much on a time I don't want to fly.

The bearable light

This Summer it's three years ago that - more or less by coincidence - I attended Derek & Amy Chapman's prophetic wedding party in Prague. It was prophetic because a group of artists had turned it into an expression of the Big Wedding to come. Since then the newly-weds have been blogging on 'The Bearable Light' (a name derived from the 1988 cult movie 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' with Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche).

Their most recent contributions on 'who is your church?' are really worth a read. I also appreciate their insights on leadership development, bringing it down to knowing God and being formed in Christ, so that we lead based on a revelation of who He is, and make way for the Son to lead his church, rather than be in the way with our programs and activities.

They also posted a prophetic dream of the Czech Republic as a 'huge, teeming playground of joy and family around a fountain of life'.