Marc's Messages

Top-5 postings of 2005

It's becoming a tradition: the five postings on this weblog that provoked most comments in 2005. All of them are related to this year's buzz word - reformation.

1. Changing life on the planet
"Apostles are there to change life on the planet," said Anderson Williams from Trinidad, speaking on an 'apostolic symposium' in Switzerland. But he had difficulty giving clear examples of how apostles build in practice. It sparked an interesting discussion on the so-called 'New Apostolic Reformation'.

2. A learning community
The Connect Europe network is committed to intentionally evaluate and learn all the time. Big question: is there leadership in the 'organic' church? And how does it function?

3. A bit more radical, please
When I facilitated an interactive teaching session for young leaders on church and reformation, the organiser came up to me and asked if I could increase the 'radicality factor' a bit more. So I talked about why religious systems can be demonic and keep people in bondage.

4. Multiplying John Maxwell
Evangelical management guru John Maxwell wants to train 5,000 leaders in the Netherlands and for some reason I was asked to join the steering committee for this mega leadership development program. I politely declined the invitation. God didn't call me to multiply John Maxwell in others. Why would an apple tree join a pear tree development program?

5. What is God doing in Holland?
How I was invited to give a vision seminar for Agapè (the Dutch branch of Campus Crusade for Christ) on what God is doing in Holland, and ended up being called a heretic because I baptise people without first consulting a pastor.

More top-5's from the blogging community here, with thanks to Bob Carlton.

Going organic in Istanbul?

Jeff, an organic church planter from Cologne, paid me a visit. "When you want to be effective, start discipling non-Christians," he said. "If possible choose disenfranchised people." In February he will organise a Greenhouse seminar with Neil Cole, to give people a handle on organic church planting movements. We talked about a training for Connect, and a possible next European gathering in Istanbul. "Let's not meet in a church building this time. How about the Hagia Sophia?" Back to the roots of Emperor Constantine...

The Chronicles of Narnia

Karolien and I went to see 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' in the Cinestar theatre. Great movie, wonderful scenery (filmed in New Zealand and the Elbe Sandstone Region of the Czech Republic), an epic Lord-of-the-Ring-type battle with all kinds of mythological creatures and special effects, and a highly impacting scene where Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) sacrifices himself and rises to victory, breaking the rule of the ice queen.

Mid-winter morning

Went for a morning walk and made some pictures on the way. Winter sun, reed, trees and water. Saxonian farms, meadows and forests.

Walking in Hof Espelo

We're spending Christmas with my parents in Twente. Today we went for a walk on the grounds of Hof Espelo.

Blessed Xmas!

No more blogging this week, I'm calling it a day. Wishing you a blessed Xmas!

Prophetic or pathetic?

Often when I'm working on articles for Joel News, I find prophetic friends in my network raising the exact same issue. This time it's Carl Brettle from Wales, who just started blogging. He speaks out on prophetic conferences that are more focused on the latest revelation from 'big names', then on hearing God's voice for yourself and doing what He says.

"About a year ago I made a determined move to stand back from promoting and encouraging conferences, which I felt were in some way contributing to distracting people from living out a life which helps them connect with the lost," says Carl. "Believe me it's not been the easiest decision to work out. Some 'friends' distanced themselves from me, I haven't heard from most people since, my fall into oblivion really demonstrated to me that people aren't important in this part of God's field. What was important was the next big revelation, the new terminology and of course the latest book or tape series." More here.

Lounging in church

I mentioned it earlier on my blog: more and more church buildings are turned into pubs and restaurants. Stefan pointed me to this new churchy restaurant in Bielefeld, Germany, called 'Happiness and Soulfulness'. They did an excellent job in redesigning the building into a place where you love to lounge with your friends (click on the gallery for pictures). Interesting that non-believers seem to realize more than Christians that church could/should be a place of food, friendship and fascination with a creative God.

Living dangerously: Sophie Scholl

Had pizza with a friend and we watched the German movie 'Sophie Scholl. The Last Days'. Summary: In February 1943, three students from the White Rose, a resistance group in Munich, were arrested, sentenced to death and summarily beheaded. One of them was 21-year-old Sophie Scholl. Sophie and her brother Hans courageously stood up against the lies and brutality of nazism, and were ready to sow their own lives for justice and freedom. This quote marks their spirit:

"The real damage is done by those millions who want to 'survive.' The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves - or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn."

Outphasing prayer websites

Maarten Pijnacker Hordijk of the Dutch company prayer network and Frank Smid of the government prayer network visited my office to discuss the transfer of their websites. We're currently outphasing the prayer-related websites we set up, so the coordinators can host and maintain the sites themselves. For bedrijfsgebed.nl we set up a website in Typepad, where you can download the new promotion posters. I downsized and restyled gebedsbeweging.nl to a simple webpage with fast links to national prayer initiatives. The extensive page with all prayer initiatives is currently being reviewed by the Evangelical Alliance and will be maintained by them.

Why men hate going to church (2)

Rudolf Roos commented on my earlier posting that "the whole man-issue might very much be wired to the clergy-laity problem and the meeting-based way we do church." He linked to this article by Neil Carter who says:

These are the ingredients for the church where men are men. A man has a need to act with freedom and determination. He must function where he is in order to satisfy his need to do something other than just sitting and listening. He also must serve an overarching purpose which gives meaning to his day-to-day existence. He will search for significance in his life until he finds something that lifts him out of himself. The church he seeks does something of eternal significance.

In the process, he will find a brotherhood to which he may belong and from which he may draw his identity. He needs men who know him well, who will fight with him, and who can be his comrades along the journey he is on. And finally, through various and often unexpected means, the Church of Jesus Christ will be a place where the sacrificial dying of Jesus can manifest itself for the sake of His Bride. When a man has found Her, he will suffer the loss of everything for Her just as Christ did in the beginning. Man, this is what you want.

I personally have found only one place where Christian men are free to be men in the body of Christ. I found a (very loose) network of churches planted by men who know that no one should stand in the way of the functioning of the brothers (and sisters) in each fellowship. These men make it their job to produce churches that do not require their presence for daily functioning.

An inspiring week

Looking back on a week with inspiring meetings and conversations. On Monday Ton Kasteleijn, talking through some issues related to coaching young people. On Wednesday a group of five emerging leaders from Utrecht, conspiring about an organic church planting training for young people. In the afternoon Maurits Roose, who has a similar vision and loves to combine the supernatural with solid Navigator-style discipleship. On Thursday a Joel Ministries board meeting, which should be serious accountability time, but always ends in lots of laughter. On Friday Matthijs Vlaardingerbroek, talking through the development of Connect Netherlands. A question that we haven't been able to settle yet is how you develop a quite diverse network in a pro-active, inspiring way. Today we had family time with the Gresham's in Kortenhoef. Great food and fellowship.

Why men hate going to church

Two years ago in Norway I posted a contribution on 'the gospel for men', or why we should make the church more 'man-sensitive'. Now Martin Winter mailed me a link to this article by David Murrow at pastors.com. Murrow states that "Christianity's primary delivery system, the local church, is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks. That's why our pews are filled with them. But this church system fails to stir men's hearts, so men (especially masculine ones) stay away." And: "Men and young adults are drawn to risk, challenge, and daring. While our official mission is one of adventure, the actual mission of most congregations is making people feel comfortable and safe." He gives seven principles for creating man-friendly churches.

Also check out the website churchformen.com with some crazy statistics on male church attendance. This site claims that of the world’s great religions, only Christianity has a consistent, nagging shortage of male practitioners. "Jesus had no trouble captivating men. Fishermen dropped nets full of fish to follow Him, but today’s church can’t convince men to drop their TV remote controls for a couple of hours a week." Another spicy article, 'Mild at Heart', appeared in Ministries Today.

Cheney plays God on intercom

Some conservative Christians in America believe that Bush is being led by God in his strategic decision making. But actually it is vice-president Cheney's voice on the Oval Office intercom, says satirical newspaper The Onion. Telephone logs recorded by the NSA seem to confirm this. A voice positively identified as Cheney's identifies himself as "the Lord thy God" and promotes the invasion of Iraq, as well as the use of torture in prisoner interrogations. This also explains Bush's slow response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Bush was praying in the Oval Office, but received no direction from God, because Cheney was on a fly-fishing trip. Full story here.

Osama Bin-Santa and soccer

Dutch missions organisation Agapè launched a website and campaign to point people to the real meaning of Christmas. As part of their viral marketing strategy they spread little Santa Claus movies, like this one with Osama Bin-Santa.

In the meantime Stefan Lingott of EPIC in Münster is preparing for the world championship soccer in 2006. I think he's already quite nervous about a possible confrontation between Holland and Germany. Check out this funny movie on his weblog.

Funny pictures from Berlin

Gabi mailed me some of the pictures she made in Berlin. On the left Chris and Marja, Dutch missionaries to Romania. Then the German architecture that Gabi admires but doesn't make me tick, a cup a glühwein in the local Kneipe, and a bread with pork meat and onion on the Christkindlmarkt. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

My DAWN homies

Andrew blogged about the DAWN team meeting in Zürich: "We meet at least 3x a year and its always a great time of talking mission-geek stuff - strategy, numbers, trends, research, challenges, books... I just love it and my mind goes into hyper drive. Here are some images of the DAWN Europe team that met together last week in Zürich. I know these photos are hard to see, but I don't like the artificial nature of flash photography and most of our strategic discussions and decision-making happen late at night in places with bad lighting. We did have a conference room in Zurich last week but most of my memories are from our times in dank, dark pubs and restaurants."

Full description of the team according to TSK here.

The Joseph Hour

Heard some cool stories of radio ministry in the Arab world. One program is called 'The Joseph Hour', where people can call in to share their dreams, and receive interpretation. Many muslims have dreams about Jesus, and the program makers explain these to them. There is also a program called 'Radio Church' to which people are encouraged to listen in their living room together with their friends. In six episodes they are being taught how to form a Jesus-centered house church that can start other house churches.

House church movements

Staying with the Simsons in their megahouse in Feuerbach, Black Forest. Wolfgang just returned from Turkey where he worked on his new book 'Hearing Prophetically, Building Apostolically', which deals with what he calls 'the other side of house church' (city church, apostolic teams, laying new foundations), and a smaller book titled 'Messianic Funding Principles'.

Yesterday we had a long talk on developments in the house church movement in Europe. Question: is there really a movement, or are many house churches still in a prototype or experimental phase? Mercy is quite outspoken on this issue: "I wouldn't call a group of friends meeting in a house a house church. A group is only a house church when there is a clear focus to multiply, and when that group is part of a network of house churches with an apostolic team functioning." Fair enough, you can only speak of a movement when there is multiplication and a focus on the harvest. So how many house church movements are there in Europe then? Wolfgang estimates 15-20, which is sobering.

We also explored to what extent the ground is ready for a simple church movement in the Roman Catholic Church, and the need for a stronger confrontation with religion and a return to prophetic-apostolic foundations. "Apostles are the architects, prophets the navigation system of the church." Here Wolf's uneasiness with the emerging church scene comes up: "Culture cannot be the change agent for the church, culture is not the prophet. We have to change the church because of God." And about the UK: "The prophets there seem to be turning in circles, even resisting apostolic implementation outside the existing church system." A breaker mentality is needed.

TSK invents creditcard

Andrew, our team plant, always comes up with unexpected ideas. Sometimes he's brilliant, other times lame. This time he designed a T-shirt for all the DAWN associates with a VISA card logo. His explanation: "The idea is that DAWN is to the church what Visa is to the banking industry. Visa did not set up to be another bank but rather accomplished its goals by working inside and alongside existing financial structures. Which is why Visa is a part of so many transactions. Kinda like Dawn Ministries and our low profile, high impact way of leveraging ministry through mission groups and denominations."

How fundable is ministry?

Today we talked about the fundability of ministry. Location: Starbucks in Zürich. Participants: the DAWN team, my friend Eno who ministers in the Turkish world, and Steve and David of the MacLellan Foundation in the USA. Now it gets interesting, at least for a guy who never gave fundraising much thought as I assumed God would pay my bills anyway. But hey, we can always learn, right?

Reinhold already briefed us to "speak the languague of the donors", which basically means we explain what we do in church planting terms, are intentional about the direction, and make sure we find a way to measure progress. Andi, who has some experience with proposals for EU subsidies, said I should get myself some business cards. "No, don't say you're a connector, that's too vague. You're a developer of new prototype communities. Or even better, take two buzz words to compile so-called emerging job profiles. How about strategy developer or community facilitator? That describes very well what you do." Great. Missionary is out, strategy consultant for community processes is in. Wondering what Jesus would have put on his business card. Something like: The Kingdom of God Inc. Jesus Christ. CEO, field strategist and manager of training and development. PO Box 7 in Nazareth. Local branches in Kafarnaum and Betsaida. Think the pharisees would have been impressed. But would it have generated more funds? Is this God's way of funding anyway?

It gets even more interesting. Steve of MacLellan explains how the funding business works in the States. Rich people put their money in tax-free foundations (of which there are around 600,000 in America) and then distribute it to projects they think are worthy of funding. MacLellan has a special interest in church planting and leadership development, and prefers to invest in models that are reproducible and can accellarate. The buzz word here is leverage (write that down, could come in handy), or in more human terms: how can I invest in people of influence who in turn influence others and accellerate movement?

Now there's one word the foundations are pretty allergic for: dependency. So they rarely fund whole projects, don't do personal support, and prefer short-term investment. Which I think is a good thing, because it also raises the question to what extent ministry in Europe should be funded by America. It's healthy that we develop our own support structures.

One way to do this is to help house churches develop a good way of stewarding money. Over lunch Eno explained how he does this in his network in Switzerland. He basically teaches the house churches to take responsibility for five areas: 1. help all individuals and families in the house church to develop a healthy financial basis of living; 2. meet specific needs in the house church family; 3. meet specific needs of people in the neighborhood or direct social circle of the house church; 4. fund the celebrations (mostly food, sometimes rent); 5. fund missions and church planting (often a so-called 'apostolic fund' is created for this). The first three areas are the responsibility of the individual house churches, the fourth area is stewarded by the elders of the network, and the fifth area by the elders and apostles. "The resources are in the harvest," as Simson often says. And because house churches are cheap in maintenance (no buildings, no pastors, no programs) they can invest money where it really matters: the poor and apostolic advance.

Nevertheless in some cases it might be useful to apply with the foundations. So let me finish with five elements of a good funding proposal: a concise description of the vision, a plan of action, budget, how you measure success, and the expected impact for the Kingdom.

Out-of-church Christians

Sometime ago Evert-Jan Ouweneel asked me if it is true that half of the active Christians in Europe don't attend organised church anymore and have gone 'simple', 'organic' or 'liquid'. He had read this in an article on the internet, but couldn't trace down the source of this statement. So I asked my quite DAWN-to-earth colleagues to make a reasonable estimation of the percentage of out-of-church Christians in their own nation. This is what they came up with: Norway 65%, Germany 50%, UK 50%, Netherlands 40%, Switzerland 25%. American researcher George Barna predicts that in 2025 two-thirds of the active Christians will follow Jesus outside the organised church. Also see the articles of kiwis Andrew Strom and Alan Jamieson on this phenomenon.

One million new churches

The DAWN International Network set a goal of seeing 20 million new churches planted worldwide before the year 2020, and asked if Europe could handle one million. Wow, that's quite a challenge! This means one church on every 750 inhabitants. Any volunteers? Reinhold assured us that this is a motivational goal, not some target we have to reach in order to enter Heaven or get funding. It basically means that in order to see a living expression of Jesus' company of friends in direct reach of every European, our continent would need one million new churches. And the only way to see a mission like this fulfilled is by a multiplying movement of simple churches (small groups). The American house church movement sees this as a very realistic goal, and even dared to set a target of five million new churches in America.

DAWN Europe team meeting

The coming two days I'm hanging out in Kloten (near Zürich) with the DAWN Europe team, to discuss how we can advance the cause of a living church within reach of every European. On Saturday and Sunday I'll travel to Feuerbach in the Black Forest to meet up with Wolfgang Simson and Steve & Mary-Anne Bufton.

A prophet in Brussels (2)

Years ago a Finnish friend who worked in Brussels as a freelance journalist told me about Paul van Buitenen, at that time an official with the European Commission's Financial Control Directorate. A colleague had recently led him to Christ. "Watch this guy," my friend said, "he just published a report on systematic fraud and mismanagement in the European Commission. You will hear more of him." His findings took down the whole Commission, and he hit the headlines of almost every newspaper in the world. As a whistleblower he was suspended, had his salary halved, and was forced to leave Brussels. But last year he came back, this time as a Member of European Parliament (MEP) with his political party Europa Transparant. I wrote about this on my weblog here and here.



Today I joined a small busload of Christians on a trip to Brussels to meet with Paul and his team.

It was a quite interesting day. Paul told us about his conversion, gave insight in his work as a parliamentarian, and revealed some of the hidden dynamics at work in the centre of European power (demonic intimidation and control, as well as incredible intervention by God). I gained even more respect for this guy, who has the guts to stand up against a more and more undemocratic Babylonian power system, and prophetically call for transparancy and reform. And unlike any politician I know, he also openly shared about his weaknesses and struggles, and asked for prayer. May God raise up more people like him in the centres of European power, who as a Daniel stand their ground for integrity. More impressions (in Dutch) at Frank Mulder's weblog, who raises an important question: can power be broken by powerlessness?

Unity in two speeds?

Yesterday I met up with the team in Utrecht to discuss the next steps in our city-reaching process. Sometimes I wonder how divided a city can be, even in a process towards more unity. Alongside the vision process we started, charismatic churches recently formed their own 'Christian Coalition' and threw a 'city-wide meeting' in the local stadium (using only a fraction of it's capacity, but with the vision to grow). I love city-wide celebrations, but am puzzled by the lack of opennes to effectively collaborate and synergize.

What do you do in such a situation? Back off, confront, bless? Anyway, we decided to just continue the journey we started, trusting God to sort out what has to be sorted out, while keeping open relationships and a focus on God's Kingdom. What do you think: would unity in two speeds ultimately bring us to our destination, or would we crash halfway at the foot of the cross?

Humor from Belgium

Belgian youth website Breeze has a cartoonist with a true gift of cynical humor. I think he (or is it a she?) is really funny. Check it out.

Saint Nicholas 2005

Saint Nicholas surprised us with presents today. The boys rejoiced in Bob the Builder socks, chocolate money, books and new pencils; Karolien in a CD with songs from Taizé and a candle, and I received a bottle of port and the latest edition of Asterix.

What is God doing in Holland?

Had an interesting day in Doorn. The leadership team of Agapè (the Dutch branch of Campus Crusade for Christ) is looking to the future and wants to get a better view on what God is doing in the Netherlands. So they invited Bram Krol (an expert on church growth), Arnold van Heusden (director of the Dutch EA) and myself to give our perspective on that.

I kicked it off by stating that the church in the Netherlands is in an existential crisis of the Loadicea-type, and that the only way out is a revival of the heart, a renewal of the mind and a reformation of structures, that will lead us back to a Jesus-centered disciple-making movement that impacts society. I challenged Agapè to become such a movement and train Christians in the basics of hearing God's voice, healing and deliverance, Christ-like character, discipling people and starting a movement of small groups. "Bill Bright is cheering you on from heaven, after all his vision was to see 10 million new small groups planted." You can download the 'light' version of my presentation here: Download wat_doet_god_in_nederland_light.ppt.

After me came Bram Krol who immediately stated there was likely "no bigger contrast imaginable" than his perspective and mine.

He gave some examples of renewal in the traditional churches (a bit more evangelicalism, a bit more of the Holy Spirit), and basically said the church was doing allright and was certainly not in need of drastic measures. He even named the Roman Catholic church as a bright example of countering church decline, "because the bishops restated their authority over the believers, and reconfirmed the church dogma's". Then Arnold came up and gave some inspiring examples of Christians who take the lead in relevant debates in society. I made a few notes of their presentations: Download visiedag_agape_2_dec_05.doc. Also see Mark de Boer's weblog for his perspective.

Then an interesting discussion unfolded. I commented that Bram basically confirmed my main point that bottom-up movements in the church bring new life, but that the real (missional) challenge is to bring Jesus to people outside the church and form new expressions of community around them. Bram said he didn't believe in those emerging and organic movements, because "everything that is not under control of the clergy tends to heresy and sectarianism." Now he got me triggered! I stated there is likely more heresy and sectarianism in the existing church, as most churches are not doing what Jesus taught and modelled - make disciples and bring the Kingdom. Then he came with the argument that emerging church is not structured, therefore cannot really retain its fruit. Interesting argument, as most traditional churches are overstructured and seem to have become infertile.

It became worse when Arnold 'mediated' by saying that in his experience the best form of church was a combination of small groups where believers pray and read the Bible, and bigger celebrations led by clergy for worship, communion and baptism. I replied that it seemed to me more true to the Gospel and the priesthood of all believers to do communion and baptism also in the small groups. They both fell silent and said that these things really needed to be under the authority of the church. I replied that I'm part of the church, so if people come to Christ, I feel free to baptise them immediately instead of bringing them to some formal church service. They said I was a heretic if I would do that. Well, I already knew that. ;-)

Well, you can imagine we had a great morning. I didn't mind the discussion, I stood my ground and believe open debate is essential for progress, but still find it hard to believe that two people who by the nature of their role in the evangelical movement should be visionaries, were so traditionalistic and un-missional in their view. I left the meeting with an even stronger conviction that it's really time to push for reformation, and see the church become a movement again, and not hold back.

The making of movements

The brochure is now circulating: I will be speaking at an upcoming conference titled 'The making of movements', 26-28 April 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic. It's being organised by Eurochurch.net, the former European Church Growth Association, now a network that 'connects missional visionaries shaping the future of Europe'. Sounds cool, and great that they raised the banner to see the church become a movement again.