Marc's Messages

The grounds of Fort Vechten

Saved a little bird from drowning today. It had a wound on its leg and could barely keep its head above the water. Always nice to play the hero. ;-)

My brother and sister were over from Enschede and we spent the afternoon on the grounds of Fort Vechten. This fortress is part of the 19th century 'New Dutch Water Line' defense system. A very nice 17 acre area with bulwarks, narrow paths through the grassland, and quiet waters. David was wearing shorts and picking flowers and leaves along the path. I told him to beware of the nettles. He said: "Yes, dad, I will take care. When I touch a plant and it hurts, I know it's a nettle, and I won't pick it." You can't beat a child's logic.

On the road leading to the fortress they just finished a replica of a Roman watchtower (burgus) as could be found all along the Limes, the northern border of the Roman empire. Complete with a Late Roman re-enactment group. When Karolien explained to David that "the Romans were wearing dresses instead of pants", the 'priest' of the group remarked, a little insulted: "No, madam, this is called a toga!"

Come, Holy Spirit

It's Pentecost. We told the kids the story of Jesus' ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. To help them process it we did a simple role play. David wanted to play Jesus. Peter said he wanted to be Caleb, but that was of course another story. So he ended up being God, hiding behind the curtain in an imaginative heaven. At the actual moment of ascension David also disappeared behind the curtain, and somehow, noticing the activity going on, Jesus and God ended up fighting in heaven. Happily, the Holy Spirit in the guise of Karolien, appeared on stage and saved the situation. We ended up blessing each other with the Holy Spirit.

When thinking of Holland...

When thinking of Holland,
I see wide rivers wind slowly through a boundless lowland.
Unthinkable rows of barren poplars, like large feathers standing end upon end...
And sunken within its fantastic spaces, the farms...
And spread through the country: the groups of trees, the villages, the clipped towers, the churches and elms, merged into one giant whole.
The air hangs lowly there and the sun slows itself - smeared in the clouds of multicolored gray.
And in all of its west the voice of the water, with its eternal disasters, is feared and heard.

These are the opening words of Marsman's famous poem about Holland. And the area that really meets this description is the 'River Region' of Gelderland. Today the sky was not grey, but blue, and we made a family cycling trip between Aalst, Nederhemert and Heusden. Wide rivers, vast river forelands, high dikes and, beyond them, quaint little dike houses and small villages. We crossed the rivers with three little ferries, and ended up in one of the windmills, that was in operation and open to the public. Top of the bill for our engineer David. Peter was most impressed with his new Miffy sunglasses.

Time to pray

Today prayer and fasting with several leaders in Utrecht. This period, between Ascension Day and Pentecost, is also the '10 Days for Holland', a time in which Christians and churches all over the country seek God for a deeper work of the Holy Spirit.

The fire lady and the vicar

Tonight our friends Corien and Jeroen paid us a visit. We got to know them in the mid-nineties when the Holy Spirit paid a visit to a small group of theology students in Utrecht. The good old times when the presence of God was the main program. Often just mentioning the word FIRE would make Corien take off into higher spheres.

Nowadays she's more normal, and I still haven't figured out whether that's a good or a bad thing. Corien lives and works in London, and is going through an interesting paradigm shift in relation to 'church'. She's 'emerging' so to speak, something like a gazelle with a turbo engine.

Jeroen is more 'diplomatic' in church matters. He has a pastoral heart and loves people and worship meetings. Unlike most of the original group, he still studies theology in Utrecht and is being coached to make sure he graduates before he retires. Next year he will be a vicar, some sort of assistant-pastor, in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.

Thanks, guys - we really enjoyed the evening and your friendship. I included a picture of the famous vicar of Dibley.

Mission congress bankrupt

Just heard that TEMA-Mission, the ministry that hosted the big European missions congresses for youth, went bankrupt. The last congress in Bad Salzuflen, Germany, drew just up to 5,500 youth, which pushed TEMA several hundredthousand euros in the red records. It's a pity - over the last 30 years the Mission congresses have been a blessing to around 50,000 young people who wanted to find God's direction for their lives.

I remember the first Mission congress I attended in Utrecht at the start of 1987, which gave me a strong vision for world missions. The 'kingdom songs' of Graham Kendrick and radical appeals from 'oldies' like George Verwer (insert) and Brother Andrew gripped my heart. I started praying and giving for world missions, and joined the first Love Europe outreach of Operation Mobilisation.

In 1990 and 1993 I visited the congress as a journalist for Music & Art magazine, which was a good excuse to have in-depth talks with inspiring people like Peter Kuzmic, Carlos Ortiz, Brother Andrew, Carlos Martinez, and Steve Chalke, and participants who were moving in the field of creativity.

Somehow the 1996 congress is a white spot in my memory. The last time I joined was in Zuid-Laren in 1999, where Wout Bouwman and I ran the prayer department. The first and also last time there was a 24-hour prayer cover for the congress and hands-on prayer training. Communications went bad, and TEMA felt we were too charismatic. A guy was spontaneously healed in the prayer room, the Holy Spirit knocked some people down in the isles while they received prayer, and an unplanned reconciliation meeting took place - called for by the German participants. Later it turned out that TEMA had a different perception of prayer. They wanted us to pray for the program, not to hear from God and allow spontaneous action.

Nevertheless we are thankful for the many blessings of the Mission congresses. No doubt other ministries will continue to run with the mandate to challenge young people in Europe to pray, give and go.

Emerging Church update (4)

I'm catching up with developments and blogs on the emerging church. Here's a fourth selection of what I liked (click on the headings for the full report):

The Jonny Baker collection: Jonny Baker collected a number of articles on emerging church and relevant trends in society. He also compiled a list of 'worship tricks' and contributed to a new book on ritual in contemporary Christian worship and mission: 'The Rite Stuff'.

Labyrinth: An interactive installation for spiritual journeys. "Creative and reflective, restful and searching, a walk through the labyrinth will refresh your senses and your spirit. A 12th-century ritual for the 21st century."

Life Creates a Bridge: An inspiring articly by Mark Yaconelli on youth ministry. "In youth ministry we set up programs to help control, manipulate, and manage young people. We buy into the conventional wisdom within the Church that young people are problems that must be solved. They need converting. We don't have time to be 'amazed' by young people. We have no space in our lives to stop and notice how God is alive in youth."

Forward Slash: Andrew Jones developed 'A Narrative Missiology for the Emerging Culture', a media-rich immersive learning environment in which we can appreciate part of the life and teaching of Jesus in Luke 8-10, and draw from it some insight into contextual missional practice among the emerging culture and new media minds.

Experiential Storytelling: Mark Miller helps us (re)discover narrative to communicate God's Message. Chapter 2 in the book is introduced with the following jewish teaching story: "Truth, naked and cold, had been turned away from every door in the village. Her nakedness frightened the people. When Parable found her, she was huddled in a corner, shivering and hungry. Taking pity on her, Parable gathered her up and took her home. There, she dressed Truth in story, warmed her and sent her out again. Clothed in story, Truth knocked again at the villagers doors and was readily welcomed into peoples houses. They invited her to eat at their table and warm herself by their fire."

Why I blog and Goooooogle

Will blogging and other forms of internet participation change the church? Several people responded to this question in my posting of 18 May.

A year ago I posted seven reasons why I blog:

1. It helps me to reflect on what I'm thinking and doing.
2. It's a good way to keep family, friends and sponsors in the loop of what's happening (goodbye missionary newsletter, welcome Marc's Messages).
3. It helps me to not take myself too serious.
4. It saves time when I have to write reports and ministry updates, because the only thing I have to do is go through my blog to refresh my memory.
5. It gives me an opportunity to inspire friends with the good things of God.
6. I like the counter-culture of blogging: push-button publishing in the hands of the people.
7. My wife likes to read my blog.

The aspect of community would be number eight, because through blogging I met a lot of interesting people that I would never have met in a local church, who share my passion to see the Church revived and become more innovative. We link, and share ideas and experiences. It's an open source: anyone can contribute and improve.

But a weblog is also an open window. Anyone can peek inside and observe what's going on. The Google search results show that visitors who were looking for 'passion of christ tattoos', 'young teenage models', 'queen juliana's bicycle' and 'buying tents in norway' also end up on Marc's Messages. Welcome everyone, please feel at home. You won't find here what you were looking for initially, but perhaps you will find something of worth.

Emerging Church update (3)

I'm catching up with developments and blogs on the emerging church. Here's a third selection of what I liked (click on the headings for the full report):

Apostles Church: A new faith community on a spiritual journey. "Our cause and deepest passion is to attend to the kingdom within community, as friends of God and followers of Jesus Christ."

The shape of Future Church: An interesting article by Pete Phillips in which he questions the role of church buildings. The future shape of church then has to be fundamentally community, or even better - family.

Motivation or manipulation?: A passionate post from Mark Barkaway on how engaging in community transformation can become manipulative if it's just the clothes hiding an agenda to convert people... Some folks act as 'Vampire Christians' (a Dallas Willard phrase - Christians who are only interested in the blood of Jesus). They are involved in their communities in order to see their churches increase. Good quote: "Our faith is our motivation, not our hidden agenda."

The Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project: Mark Yaconelli and his team have experimented in introducing spiritual practices to youth ministers and groups in North America, and the results unsurprisingly have been transformative. A great resource site.

Network Logic: A collection of essays by leading thinkers on networks.

Emerging Church update (2)

I'm catching up with developments and blogs on the emerging church. Here's a second selection of what I liked (click on the headings for the full report):

Training on ministry: "To me ministry is simply this: giving God what He wants," says Dutch Traveller Ronald. "It is about seeing yourself (who you are - your abilities, gifts, personality, talents and experiences) as a gift. Your life as a gift to God, serving the people around you as He leads you. Walking in the good works God has prepared for you."

Benedictine values: Karen of OneHouse blogs about the contemplative life. She reflects on the Benedictine values, and is trying to figure out how the value to 'Receive each guest as Christ' works out practically.

Magna Carta / Asking for less: The act of asking for less is a radical act. Simplicity is prophetically subversive. Ask for less and you free yourself from the things and programs and obligations that monopolize your time. Good food for thought from Dan Hughes.

The WiFi enabled church: Andrew Jones believes that WiFi will change the way of teaching in traditional churches over the next few years. It may also affect house churches, since much of the new growth in WiFi will be in the homes.

Church of the masses: Barbara Nicolosi is executive director of Act One, an organisation that provides formation, training, mentorships and Christian fellowship for writers and executives who are (looking to become) part of the mainstream entertainment industry. She has good things to say about the spiritual role of movies in general and 'The Passion of the Christ' in particular.

Obelink or Obelix?

Karolien and I paid a visit to Obelink in Winterswijk, an immense camping shop with loads and loads of tents and camping accessories. We bought a simple tent called 'Boreas 5' (insert), which should do for single nights, a weekend or other forms of simple camping. The tent looks small, but Obelix could easily fit in, leaving place for four boars as well.

Emerging Church update (1)

I'm catching up with developments and blogs on the emerging church. Here's a first selection of what I liked (click on the headings for the full report):

A to Z of emerging church: Emergent Kiwi Steve lists characteristics of the emerging church. It's artistic, blogging, culturally sensitive and much more. He still needs some suggestions for the X, Y and Z.

Church of Fools: With pews made from pixels, the congregation logging in from their home computers and the collection sent in by mobile phone, the world's first 3D online church is going to be church like never before. The House of God is set to become the Mouse of God. On May 11th, Ship of Fools opened Church of Fools as a three-month online experiment in interactive worship.

Riding the wave... or not: A tasty contribution from Mike Bishop on the Brian McLaren versus Rick Warren controverse over The Passion. But it goes deeper, he excavates the underlying dynamics of Evangelical hypes. "The peer pressure it is causing on particularly non-denominational churches who do not fill a niche is almost insurmountable, and you end up following someone else's vision who is smarter and more innovative than you. Hey, let's accept that not everyone loves to (and is gifted to) surf. How about golf or soccer?"

From hearts of stone to hearts of flesh: Pete Brierley digs into alternative worship, which is post-charismatic. A re-appreciation of the beauty of silence and old hymns, but most of all justice.

The nine lies of today's church: Kiwi Andrew Strom published his most hard-hitting article so far, and received over 500 responses. Heart-warming for prophets, but a sure heart-attack for pastors.

Sex, for God's sake

I came across two interesting reports about Christians who try to make a difference in the area of sex. An apology to everyone who uses Filternet or another internet filter - the use of the words sex, pornography and XXX in this posting probably means that my blog will be labeled as an 'adult' site. But I didn't want to ignore these reports, they're quite innovative.

'Good Sex': Christian late night television

"Sex sells. And the most conservative Anglican diocese in Australia is hoping it will sell God," The Australian reports. Sydney Anglican Media - which is under the control of the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen - has created a television show on the Ten Network. The program, titled 'Good Sex', features Christian panellists, including sexologist Patricia Weerakoon and advertising copywriter Janet Evans talking frankly with invited guests about all kinds of sex-related topics.

Mark Hadley, director of radio and TV for Anglican Media, said the church had the bright idea after Ten offered it an 11.30pm slot on Wednesday nights. "When we looked at the timeslot we said to ourselves there's no way a traditional Christian program is going to work well here," Hadley said. "Instead, we did what any producer does - we researched the demographic and looked at the carry-over audience from Sports Tonight. We were looking at men between the ages of 25 and 35. What is it that captures the attention of men in this age group? We thought, hey, we'll put on a program about sex."

Good Sex, which is garnering an average of 350 email responses a week, is now part of the diocese's evangelical strategy. Under Dr Jensen, the church aims to convert 10 percent of the population of Sydney to Christianity by 2012. Dr Jensen said he regarded the show as great fun with a serious underlying message. "God created sex. He created it to be very good and we should enjoy it in the right circumstances (read: inside marriage)." The response from parishioners has been good, but it is too early to tell if the program has increased church attendance.

Pete the anti-pornography puppet

Newsweek runs a story on the remarkable initiative of two pastors and a pornographer to create a Public Service Announcement to keep children sheltered from obscenity. The star in this not-for-profit TV advertorial is Pete, a scraggly haired skater boy puppet, who pops up onscreen and announces "I'm here today to talk to you about pornography… Have you gone into your daddy's closet and found a bunch of magazines with naked mommies in them? Did this make you feel yucky inside?"

The ad is cute, if a touch creepy. It's got a children's show flavor with a no-brainer message for adults: If you have kids in your home, get rid of your stash. And the fact that it was filmed by a pornographer for an anti-porn Christian group should make it a surefire hit with the media. But the PSA is meeting resistance at just about every network and local cable outlet. Nobody wants to air it as it was intended. The Christian Broadcasting Network's flagship program The 700 Club planned to run a segment on it last week, but it was killed at the last minute by evangelical host Pat Robertson who stated that "Jesus would not go into a porno shop.”

The two young pastors are convinced that if Jesus hang out with prostitutes, he would also hang out with men who are addicted to pornography. They created a website, XXXchurch.com, to minister to porn stars and pornography addicts.

Bush, desert and ocean

We took the kids to Burger's Zoo in Arnhem. It's not an ordinary zoo, because they (re)created three complete ecospheres: a bush (Amazon rainforest), a desert (New Mexico) and an ocean (Pacific barrier reef). Here are our highlights: for Peter the sharks, for David the waterfall in the bush, for Karolien the picknick in front of the penguins, and for me the desert.

Because Karolien wanted to have a bit more excitement, she lost her bag with passport, money, driving licence and car keys. Grrreat. Fortunately the bag was found with everything still in it.

In the evening I went to the reception of Loïs and Wim, who got married today. Nice to catch up with a former colleague and several folks from Ichthus, the student union we were involved in.

More on biochips

Dave Hund and Gert Jan Kole report that the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain, launched microchip implantation for its VIP members. This time it's not a hoax. Full story with translation from Spanish here. The first folks to get 'chipped' were ex-participants of 'Gran Hermano', the Spanish version of 'Big Brother'.

The most intriguing thing is that they introduce the chip as the 'latest trend' in youth culture. If you already have a tattoo and/or a piercing - a biochip will really finish it off. Of course, 666 also read Malcolm Gladwell's 'The Tipping Point' and will launch his mark as an idea virus, causing a social epidemic. As soon as the epidemic reaches a critical mass, he can make it the universal standard. How is that for a conspiracy theory, huh?

We know more than our pastors

Tim Bednar wrote an interesting and provoking paper titled 'We Know More Than Our Pastors: Why Bloggers Are the Vanguard of the Participatory Church'. He explores how Christians are using blogging for spiritual formation and how they are redefining the scope of Martin Luther's 'the priesthood of the believer'. Bednar states: "As a network, we know more than our pastors. Thousands of bloggers circumvent established hierarchies and relate unmediated with one another. We are part of a participatory phenomenon that is impacting mass media, technology, education, entertainment, politics, journalism, business - and the church."

Bloggers take an active role in their personal spiritual formation, and they expect to co-create the church, very much like an open-source operating system. When they blog and interact with other believers on the internet, they experience community. Blogging has become a spiritual practice that uniquely combines writing, learning, conversation, community and prayer with an abiding incarnational mission. Like blogger Jordon Cooper says: "There is a reason we flock online. There is people, interaction, and community here that in many ways is more real (authentic) than in the offline world."

In the cyberchurch there is no authority that determines what is 'in' and what is 'out'. Truth is discovered as we live, link and blog in community. Like Steve Collins explains: "Closed set churches and believers have a 'territorial' concept of God's kingdom, enclosed within a boundary. Membership comes through crossing the boundary in an act of conversion. Once inside Kingdom territory, care must be taken not to cross the boundary again. An open set on the other hand has no 'territorial' boundary, but is defined by relationship with a centre (Jesus): all that is moving towards the centre, seeking relationship, belongs; all that is moving away, abandoning relationship, does not."

Blogging is not (yet) Heaven. In his paper, Bednar also dedicates a chapter to warnings, pitfalls and hype related to blogging, like vanity and groupthink. And he addresses some of the issues pastors would be concerned about, like discord and orthodoxy.

What does the blogging phenomenon mean for the church? The key is Bednar's observation that the culture is shifting from passive consumerism to participative producerism. "44% of internet users have created content for the online world through building or posting to websites, creating blogs, and sharing files. Whether the existing church likes it or not, we are giving birth to a generation of people who view themselves as participants." Some of the consequences are:

- The traditional church conceives of itself as an exclusive community and determines who is 'saved' and 'unsaved'. It believes that it owns these definitions. This is no longer true. Christianity is an open conversation by those following Christ. Those involved in the conversation define the terms, not the church-as-we-know-it.

- Christians no longer pursue spiritual formation within the bounds of a single tradition, church, pastor or denomination. We are having hyperlinked conversations that subvert traditional hierarchies.

- Every Christian is a creator. We no longer have to wait for church authorization to think or act or speak in the name of Christ.

- Christians belong to multiple congregations.

- Pastors emerge by building a reputation from within the congregation based on consistency and transparency. Pastors add value to congregations as they add connectedness. Successful pastors and churches of the future will enter into co-creative covenants that help/enable Christians to embrace emergence and foster learning. They do not see themselves as gatekeepers or arbiters of membership in the church.

- Pastors are not primarily preachers. Sermons are no longer teachings, but learning experiences. The goal of preaching is to learn, not teach.

- Relational authenticity and longevity (not attendance) equals success in the participatory church.

- Congregations are their own watchdogs because they are the real stakeholders. Churches and pastors no longer need to screen their congregations for orthodoxy, arbitrate membership or filter their conversation. Orthodoxy will emerge. It is not determined by a single source, but is distributed throughout the congregation. Neil Cole, a leader in the organic church movement observes, "The best solution to heresy in the church is not to have better-trained leaders in 'the pulpits', but better-trained people in 'the pews'."

Will blogging and other forms of internet participation change the church? Feel free to comment on this posting.

A new category

I updated the categories section of this weblog (right column). Church General is a new category that covers all kinds of church and faith related developments. Emerging Church specifically deals with the organic and postmodern expressions of church. Family speaks for itself. Ministry covers everything related to my work. Various is anything else, like reflections on the news and internet developments.

Cycling in the Betuwe

It was nice weather, so we drove to the Betuwe with our bicycles, and enjoyed a ride through the river and dikes landscape between Leerdam and Enspijk. As usual I made some flower pictures.

Church as Jesus intended it

Tonight I had borek and pizza with several young people in my office, talking about 'church as Jesus intended it'. It was good to hear their stories and dreams, their longing for a real life with a real God. I shared a bit about my journey over the past few years, and addressed some questions. How come the 'founder' of the church never told his disciples to start churches? Why was He so furious about the farizees with their dead religion? What did Jesus model that is the heart of Christian community, worship and missions? How can you realize your dreams and fight intimidation?

Help, I'm in Friday Fax!

Wolf Simson included my blog posting on labels and denominations in his Friday Fax, and sent it out all over the world. Great - now everyone knows I'm an Evangeliformed Baptolic with a PenteBrethren background. ;-)

Introducing the Techno-Tithe

Scott told me that if you like satirical reports on churchianity, The Holy Observer can compete with Lark News. So I checked it out, and guess what: they report that "in a startling collision of modern technology and ministry, Crockett's Bluff Community Church is the first known church in America to use Logitech's biochip technology to receive its weekly tithes and offerings."

Of course, we could have suspected it - the mysterious 666 is not the Pope, the US President or the Secretary General of the UN, but your local pastor.

Circle of influence

This week's lesson from 'The 7 habits': the essence of proactivity is to focus on the things in our lives we can actually do something about. Like St. Francis wrote in his well-known 'Serenity Prayer':

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Covey illustrates this with two circles: the circle of concern (the areas we are concerned about) and the circle of influence (the areas that we can effectively influence). Proactive people focus on their circle of influence and gradually extend it. Reactive people focus on their circle of concern, and gradually loose influence. It's the difference between positive and negative energy. It's the realisation that we cannot change others, but we can change ourselves and the way we deal with people and situations.

Revolt in Utrecht

Just finished Dr. Van Hulzen's book 'Utrecht in Revolt. The end of the old bishops' city 1528-1580'. He deals with an interesting period in the history of Utrecht and the Netherlands: the religious battles following the Reformation, leading to the Iconoclasm, the Union of Utrecht, and ultimaltely the Calvinist take-over and deliverance from the Spanish yoke.

It sounds like the classical story of a fight for freedom, but the reality was mixed. Both Catholics and Calvinists had blood on their hands. The first constitution of the Netherlands was a covenant of disunity, denying a full expression of the Body of Christ. It introduced something we later exported to South Africa: Apartheid.

Churches and monasteries were desecrated, and the Catholics were treated as second-class citizens, both politically and economically. It took nearly 300 years before a new constitution made an end to this religious version of Apartheid. But it's still in our genes, and I believe we cannot ignore this historic root sin if we want to see unity and breakthrough in the present.

You're in the army now

Finally the Dutch are waking up to the reality of the occupation of Iraq: A Dutch soldier has been killed in an attack involving handgranades. Half of the newspaper headlines are dealing with this incident. The PM and the Defence Minister broke off their holidays and returned to The Hague. The leader of Labour said he was shocked: "You know there are risks involved in these kind of missions, but we weren't prepared for a catastrophe like this." How naive a nation can become.

The Dutch involvement in Iraq has been detached from reality right from the start. We didn't want to join the invasion, but were eager to send a 'peace keeping force' when the war was over. Several months later a political discussion broke out because one of the Dutchies fired his weapon during a riot and an Iraqi got killed. Apparently we hadn't realized that a mission like this could mean that someone would get hurt in the course of action. The newspaper headlines read: "Soldier not allowed to shoot." You wonder why we have an army if people are not allowed to use their weapons. This time a Dutchie got killed and the whole discussion starts again.

It's naive to be involved in peace keeping missions without being prepared to pay a price. We joined because we want to stay friends with America and because we think we have great peace keeping skills. A little nation who wants to play with the big guys. And like in Bosnia we get nervous when we encounter a real confrontation. In Srebrenica a genocide took place right under our nose because we didn't want to shoot or risk our lives.

Personally I'm not in favor of a Dutch military presence in Iraq, because the motives are too mixed. But if we decide to take part in a peace keeping mission, we should be willing to pay a price. If we just behave like social workers, we better stay home.

Charismatic label?

I have the bad habit of falling asleep in house church meetings. Last time Herman took a picture and creatively adapted it to fit my earlier posting on labels. More 'Ketel Art' here.

Pre-party for David

May 11 is David's fifth birthday. Today we had a pre-party with presents, family, and in the afternoon a 'fox hunt' in the forest. For Karolien it was of course Mother's Day. See our updated family photo album for the pictures.

Utrecht most creative city

According to recent research Utrecht is the most creative city in the Netherlands. Compared to other cities it has the highest percentage of inhabitants with a creative profession: 33 percent to a national average of 19 percent. Think of scientists, researchers, innovative ICT folks, engineers, architects, TV producers, journalists, musicians, designers, new media folks, writers, artists and creative managers. A large creative class is good for the economy, but it will also change the way we live and work.

You might be interested to check out Richard Florida's book 'The Rise of the Creative Class'. He traces the growing role of creativity in our economy and describes the fundamental shift that is taking place from an organizational ethos (that permeated every aspect of life during the second half of the last century) to a creative ethos that is changing our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time.

Leading the shift in many diverse fields is the population group that creates for a living - the creative class. The choices these people make already had a huge economic impact, states Florida, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.

My kidney belongs to Christ

Lark News, a monthly satirical newspaper on churchianity, reports that Aleta Smith, who donated her kidney to a 20-year-old college student last year, wants it back now that the student has changed religions. "I'm all for spiritual curiosity," she says, "but you've got to settle these things beforehand. My kidney belongs to Christ. It will never be Pagan."

Also nice: the Prayer Request Gossip Line. "Pray that the lady who prophesies in church will sit down and shut up." [239 people have prayed for this request.]

I wannabe a leader!

Visie's Ronald Koops is one of my favorite columnists. He has the gift to lightheartedly address all kinds of issues. In one of his latest columns he admits: "Sometimes I'd want to be a spiritual leader. An important one, you know. A guy that everyone knows, who has contacts everwhere and who is allowed to go to all kinds of important leaders' meetings."

Then he sums up a number of advantages of being a spiritual leader, culminating in "the greatest thing is that they only have success and never make mistakes. Where they preach, churches grow. Where they meet, miracles happen. They appear with big smiles in full-colour brochures. Their names are listed in important boards of reference."

And the conclusion: "Sometimes I get a bit fed-up with the terms 'spiritual leaders' and 'leadership conferences'. How about starting to serve each other again?"

On the Dom Square

It's a rainy day. Prayed with Ed, Jan Bernard and Carol on the Dom Square, where the rebuilding of the nave of the cathedral has started. After that we had a cappucino in La Place, and prepared for the upcoming city-wide pastors' meeting in June.

Soul Survivor revisited

The festival is over - 3,000 young people packed their tents and returned home, and the Soul Survivor team looks blessed but tired. The day-after there is traditionally a breakfast in the Mercury Hotel with the team and 'board of advisors'.

We evaluated the festival and it was encouraging to hear that the young people were so eager to move out in servant evangelism and bringing justice to the poor and oppressed. Other subjects were a leadership training the team is developing, a coaching structure, communications, organisation, missions and finances. And Mike Pilavachi was humorously dry as ever.

Prayer, research and planning

Berna helped us to re-root a bit with the classical DAWN vision and strategy, which automatically raised the question: to what extent does this (still) make sense in our European context?

DAWN offers a strategic approach to help churches multiply and saturate their nation, region or city with a variety of healthy Christian communities. The three key components of the DAWN approach are prayer, research and planning. We agreed that the vision and key components are still valid for Europe, but we have to become more intentional in planning, training and coaching teams on the implementation side.

DAWN Europe team training

Today until Wednesday I'm involved in a training session of the DAWN Europe team in the Willibrordus Home in The Hague. Berna Salcedo, the DAWN coordinator for Latin America, arrived yesterday. Hopefully his colleague Rick Escobar will be able to make it as well. And of course Reinhold, Tallskinnykiwi, Oivind, Kerstin and Andreas & Christine will be around. We should have a good time catching up and being challenged.

Soul Survivor Festival

Hang out with 3,000 young people today at the Soul Survivor Festival at Strand Nulde. Wesley Campell preached on 'praying the Bible'. Had lunch with Lammert Dekkers, who leads SoulNet, Soul Survivor's youth leaders network. A nice couple from Gorinchem gave me a lift back home.

His Story in Europe

Today the European Union will be extended to 25 member states. According to some commentators this happening marks 'the definite end of the Cold War' and 'a new dawn for Europe'. I don't share this unbridled europtimism, but I do have faith in God's plans. Let me share a little anecdote on the history of Europe.

When I was in highschool in the early eighties, I had to do an exam in contemporary European history. Answering one of the questions I wrote down that in 1949 'the world witnessed the definite division of Germany'. When my teacher returned the exam, I noticed he had placed a screaming red remark in the margin saying 'Mr. Van der Woude, in history NOTHING is definite!' It cost me one point, but I learned a valuable lesson.

Later, when I studied history at university, I decided to take on an advanced course in 'Pan-Russian Nationalism'. This was Autumn 1988. My professor, who was a specialist in East-European history, foresaw that communism would be the dominant force for at least another decade. Only nine months later history proved him wrong. Hungary allowed the first holes in the Iron Curtain, which led to a sudden escalation of events. The wall literally came down, one nation af the other tasted freedom, Germany was united again, and in Czechoslovakia the main dissident became the nation's president. We know that behind the scenes praying Christians have been a key influence in this historic turn-around in Europe.

Today marks a next historic step, though less dramatic: former communist Europe joins the European Union. I don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing. Will the EU develop towards a strong central government, or a weak federation that will sooner or later be torn apart by national interests? Whatever the course, I'm pretty sure the future of Europe is partly in the hands of the intercessors. If history is really His Story, and nothing is definite, God wants to use us to co-write it according to His redemptive purposes.