Marc's Messages

Catching up with Branko

Today I caught up with my Serbian friend and former Joel News colleague Branko, who currently works with Trans World Radio in Bratislava, Slovakia. It was good to hear his perpective on developments in the Balkan area. We made a walk along the stormy North Sea beach where a group of people was kitesurfing. "Would these people be interested in following Jesus?" Branko wondered. "Probably only if that would involve risk and adventure," I replied. I guess even just walking on water would be boring for these guys. :-)

Turkish keý-board

In Istanbul I wrote Phil Anderson (who just renewed his website and added a nice movie of his airplane) a quick e-mail from a local internet cafe: "Hý Phýl, greetýngs from ýstanbul. as you can see the typýng ýs not optýmal turkýsh keybord usee." It's always funny to use indigenous keyboards when abroad.

Istanbul photo albums

I made way too many pictures in Istanbul, so for convenience ordered them in seven categories: the historic city, the Aya Sofia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi, art details, the Bosporus and sunsets.

Connect goes Oriental

It's official: the next Connect Europe gathering for emerging reformation-wired leaders will take place in Istanbul, October 6-9. We reserved two youth hostels in the old town, on walking distance of the Aya Sofia and the Topkapi. The official invitation will be sent out in a few weeks time. As a team we had an inspiring time preparing for this event, and look forward to what God will do. Below a few pictures of us to get into the mood. :-) Also check out Niina's impressions here and here, and Gabi's posting here.

The Constantinian legacy

Istanbul is the city of Constantine (Constantinopel), the Roman emperor that - after three centuries of persecution of the church - officially recognized Christianity, launching an era in which church and empire (political power) became so interrelated, that it altered the fundamental mode (or DNA) of church. Up to this day we face the disastrous consequences of Constantinian thinking, and the call to conformism that comes with it.

As Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost point out in 'The Shaping of Things to Come', this mindset is marked by an attractional ecclesiology (come-to-us mentality, church buildings and services becoming the primary place to encounter Jesus), a dualistic spirituality (a division of the sacred and the profane, leading to an inability to effectively bring God's Kingdom into the culture) and a hierarchical mode of leadership (clergy-laity divide, church leaders primarily being pastors and teachers).

When we talk about reformation, we call for an intentional break with this Constantinian mindset in order to see the church become what Jesus - the real Founder - intended it to be: incarnational (bringing Jesus where the people are, forming community in all kinds of places), messianic (seeing the world and God's place in it as more holistic and integrated), and apostolic (five-fold ministry teamwork serving the church's mission).

When the Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmet II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Aya Sofia, the symbol of Eastern Christianity was turned into a mosque. I'm getting more and more convinced that if we continue drinking out of Constantine's cup, and fail to turn the church back into a vital missional movement, Islam might eventually take over Europe, and the church will be forced underground.

If you're interested to explore this topic more in-depth, then check out Wiki's entries on Constantine, and the (first) Council of Nicea, as well as the history of Constantinople before and after 1453.

A captivating city

Istanbul is a truly captivating city. It's the only city in the world that is built on two continents, with a population of 12 million people (much bigger than I thought), and a history that dates back nearly 3,000 years, comprising four world empires (Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman).



We had a wonderful time here, wandering the lively streets and quiet alleys of Sultanahmed, visiting the sultan's harem and tulip gardens in Topkapi, avoiding collisions with beeping cars and yellow cabs, negotiating with persistant rug and pottery sellers, drinking Turkish tea on Kindergarten-size chairs, crossing the Bosporus over and over again by steamship, smoking waterpipe under the bridges of the Golden Horn, doing 'carpet time' in a mosque, being impressed with the hugeness of the Aya Sofia, prayer walking on the old walls of the city, and enjoying amazing oriental sunsets.

On my way to Istanbul

Ascension Day. So a good time to fly, this time to Istanbul for a preparation meeting of Connect Europe. Back on Tuesday.

The art of Googlism

Googlism.com will find out what Google thinks of you. This is a small selection of what came up when I typed in my name:

marc is boring
marc is a new york city based professional magician
marc is baptised
marc is not a mainstream format
marc is set to make millions all over again and he’s still just 28
marc is entirely cognizant of how the laws of the universe and those of human nature are unrelentingly intertwined
marc is a coach and leader of those committed to making a significant difference
marc is a fussy retentive who researches history and religion for relaxation
marc is the publisher of cannabis culture magazine
marc is the largest provider of community and center

Full list here.

Son of Man

Jesus is black and lives in the townships of Capetown. British director Mark Dornford-May won a Golden Bear for his out-of-the-churchy-box interpretation of the Christian message titled 'Son of Man', released over Easter this year. Another black Jesus we find in 'Color of the Cross', launched several weeks ago, very symbolically, at the centennial celebrations of the Azusa Street Revival. By the end of this year we will see another alternative Gospel movie titled 'Nativity' with 15-year old Maori actress Keisha Castle-Hughes as the virgin Mary. Talking about incarnation.

Jesus at the esoteric fair

In Joel News I published several stories of Christians who minister at esoteric fairs in the Netherlands. They have a booth and give lectures on 'the healing power of Jesus Christ', and people get healed, receive revelations of Jesus, and decide to center their lives on Him. See also my earlier posting titled 'Jesus among the wiccans' and Swiss pastor Daniel Hari's website. Hari published two books for new agers that received good reviews in esoteric magazines: 'Heilen wie Jesus' (Healing like Jesus) and 'Lieben wie Jesus' (Loving like Jesus).

The Church is meant to fly

"The Body of Christ is going through a paradigm shift like the caterpillar who turns into a butterfly," says DAWN colleague Reinhold. "Tell a caterpillar that it will be able to fly in two weeks, and it will laugh at you. The Church is meant to fly, not only to creep. And the way is not to develop some more legs that she may creep a bit faster, but to wait patiently. It is in our DNA that we might fly one day, that we might become a movement."

And to church leaders who think it's possible to fly within the structures I would say: this picture is NOT how it will look like. ;-)

Mississippi Squirrel Revival

My unconventional prophetic friend Dolf mailed me this report by Ray Stevens of a spontaneous revival in a little sleepy town in Mississippi that started with a squirrel. Seven deacons and the pastor got saved, 500 people rededicated their lives and got rebaptized, 20,000 dollars got raised and 50 people volunteered for missions in the Congo.

No need to pray endlessly for revival, just order a squirrel and let it loose in church next Sunday morning. ;-)

Apostolic the Russian way

The Russians have always amazed me. When I visited this vast nation for the first time in the Summer of 1999 (Moscow, Togliatti and Irkutsk), and then again in November of that year, and February the year after, I met some incredibly dedicated workers, who wouldn't mind travelling long distances on snowy roads in incomfortable Ladas and unheated trains to bring Jesus to people. Years of economic hardship, bureaucratic pressure, discrimination, stalking by the secret police, and (in the communist times) persecution made them extremely resourceful.

I was reminded of this when Yevgeny, a blogger from Murmansk, mailed me. He works in arctic Russia (see some stories by late Eric Olson here), where on 14 May it was still snowing. His passion is to raise up and equip servant leaders in Russia, the Barents sea region and Arctic Europe.

Steve, an apostolic guy who regularly travels to Russia, mailed me an interesting anecdote this week, that illustrates the Russian perseverance in unlikely circumstances:

"When we went to Central Asia I asked how the gospel had first come to them. They replied that it had come courtesy of 'Apostle' Stalin. The phrase startled me and I asked them what they meant. They said that Stalin had sent out the first missionaries. He had arrested Christians around Moscow and sent them to Central Asia. About one third died on the journey. Another third died once they arrived since there were absolutely no provisions made for them. The remaining third survived and shared their faith with those around them. Did they suffer? Yes! Did Stalin have the last word? No! Jesus had the last word!"

An open letter to Lee Grady

A few weeks ago Charisma editor Lee Grady published a column titled 'Christian Dropouts and the Coming 'Revolution''. Like many other 'established' charismatic leaders he struggles to understand the megashift that's taking place from church-as-we-know-it to church as an organic network or movement (also see his earlier column on Barna here). Because he asked for a response, I wrote him a letter that I publish here as an open letter.

Dear Lee,

I appreciate your columns, but your take on Barna and also this week's column is quite biased (and dare I say short-sighted). It is not just an issue of religious burn-out. It goes much deeper, it's a cultural-historic megashift that's taking place.

Quite a number of people who left established (or system) churches, have started missional alternatives. I don't find it helpful to polarize the house churches against the megachurches, als both are valid expressions, but not necessarily a helpful format for everyone. You mix godly authority with the clergy system that Jesus did not introduce. There is godly authority, also in the more organic expressions of church, but not in a positional way. Could we please release some grace? History shows that some promising new movements got off-track because the established church persecuted them. The more inclusive we respond, the better it is for the future of the church and the Kingdom of God.

Yes, some people are wounded and therefore in a reactionary phase, but that's quite understandable looking at some of the rubbish (manipulative leadership, abuse, fraud, etc.) that's happening in charismatic churches. It's good that you spoke out on that issue too, some months ago. People who are wounded need to go through a restorative phase outside the context where they were wounded. But this is not the case with most church-leavers, as Alan Jamieson's sociological study shows, and which is also my experience. Most people leave the system church to follow Christ in a new way. Out of church for them does not mean out of fellowship or backsliding. In fact, most church leavers have been active and committed church members, and continue to passionately follow Christ. We better listen to them and learn from their journey, instead of throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

You might be interested in this posting, a summary of Alan Jamieson's study on the out-of-church phenomenon.

Marc van der Woude
joelnews.org

Trends in blogoland (2)

In a second article for Technorati on the state of the blogosphere Dave Sifry reports that most blog postings (37%) are in Japanese, followed by English (31%) and Chinese (25%). The rest of the languages is 3% or lower (Dutch and German each have a 1% market share). I hadn't expected the high percentage of Japanese and Chinese, it might mean we better learn these languages if we want to impact the blogosphere. According to Sifry Japanese bloggers write shorter posts more often, which could be a result of blogging from mobile phones. Also something to take note of is that half of the weblogs use tags or categories, which makes it easier to be found in search engines.

Trends in blogoland

Dave Sifry wrote an interesting article for Technorati about the state of the blogosphere. He points out that there are currently 35.3 million weblogs. The whole blogosphere doubles every six months; it's now over 60 times bigger than it was three years ago. So when I started blogging on February 9, 2002 (4.3 years ago), apparently I was an early adopter. Now the blogosphere gets really crowded, every second a new weblog is being 'birthed'.

Of these new weblogs 45% dies straight after birth, so there's a massive 'digital child starvation' going on, and what's worse - the parents of these babies just leave their 'bodies' on the web for everyone to see. That's quite rude. Realising that many of these are teenagers, I would say: "hey, don't have sex if you're not ready to raise a child."

Then there's also a substantial group that birthes a blog, without giving it proper attention. That creates its own set of problems; it means that several years from now we will see many psychologists specializing in 'weblog abandonment', and 'lack of parental attention for weblogs'.

This brings the real active (weekly) bloggers down to 3.9 million. And according to Sifry this group often rides the wave of world events (see the graph).

God is hot, church is not

God is hot, reports (secular) news show Editie NL, especially among young people. They feature 'youth churches', father Roderick's podcasting shows, religious fashion lines, and the annual EO Youth Day. An interesting item, though I would make two side-notes:

1. God may be hot, and there certainly is an increased interest in spirituality, but part of the God-trend is hype. It's often more about personal religious identity or taste than about radically following Jesus. I would love to see a bit more danger here, especially on the EO Youth Day.

2. God may be hot, but the church (or our concept of church) is still a limitation. The youth churches are already on the decline because it's mainly a come-to program for churched youth, not a place where non-Christians show up, and if they show up, they're not very interested to 'move on' to 'real church'. Church should become a go-to movement, but I assume this is too radical for most (youth) churches.

Connecting into the Balcans

Over the past few months God has been drawing my attention to the Balcans. I talked with leaders in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece, and heard about encouraging developments in this needy (most unreached) part of Europe. Coming weekend my Connect friends Alek, Gabi, Laura and Petra will meet in Belgrade, Serbia, for one of the 24-7prayer conversations. The weekend after that I will travel to Istanbul, Turkey, with Jeff, Niina and Gabi to pray and prepare a weekend for emerging leaders.

The Hirsi Ali affair

A new affair in the Netherlands, this time around Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of the most outspoken proponents of free speech in the wake of increasing Islam intimidation, and under permanent government protection because of that. Last year she featured on TIME's 2005 list of the '100 most influential leaders and revolutionaries in the world', but a few days ago Dutch TV program Zembla tracked her record and confirmed that she intentionally lied when she applied for her refugee status in the Netherlands.

This is quite embarrassing in the ligth of her liberal party's harsh anti-immigration policy, so Rita Verdonk, our Minister of Immigration and Integration (yes, the same one that wants to send Christians back to 'safe' Iran) decided that she was not entitled to Dutch citizenship. As a result, Hirsi Ali stepped back from her position as MP and announced that she will move to America for her new job with the American Enterprise Institute, a thinktank that advices George W.

The affair is embarrassing on many fronts. First of all, Hirsi Ali intentionally lied about her story and was not entitled to Dutch citizenship. The current Dutch immigration policy is such that other people in the same situation as her would have been sent back. Interestingly, Hirsi Ali has always been open about the fact that she gave incorrect information at the immigration office. No-one bothered to care, until now. The leaders of her political party knew about it, but put her up for the parliamentary elections, because it was good for their results. Now their own minister is kicking the ball because she thinks it's good for her reputation in the run-up for party leadership (she's wrong on this one, and yesterday the Parliament strongly criticised her).

In the meantime Hirsi Ali's international audience doesn't understand the Dutch anymore; how can they withdraw citizenship from someone who displayed so much political courage, and is an international champion of freedom that the Dutch should be proud of? How will this end? It's a complicated mix of personal ambition, lack of integrity, administrative mistakes, political correctness, and pragmatism. Is there a healthy way out?

Integrity and image

Last weekend I watched the excellent German documentary 'Speer und Er' about the life of Albert Speer, Hitler's Third Reich architect and minister of ammunition, and his relationship with 'der Führer'. He spent 20 years in prison in Spandau for his role in the nazi regime. Because he cooperated with the Allies, and acknowledged that he could have known about Auschwitz if only he had pushed for it, he developed the image of 'the only honest nazi'. But the documentary uncovers that Speer played a key role in the persecution of the Jews, and that in fact he was as guilty as the others. What drove him was his ambition to 'make history' and become the architect of the 'new Berlin'. Because of this ambition he decided to ignore certain information, construct and believe in his own view of the truth, and compromised himself morally. Nevertheless his memoirs made big money and he ended his life in the spotlights.

Mother's Day 2006

It's still wonderful Spring weather, so we went for a walk in the polder area of Tienhoven. Afterwards I made some pictures of our favorite red-orange-yellow tulips, Karolien's present for Mother's Day (photo album here).

The gift of self-parody

Kudos to George W. Bush who displayed a good sense of humor by inviting impersonator Steve Bridges to the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, and join in a parody on himself. Most people in his position would probably not have done that, but it shows his ability to relativate. Btw, comedian Stephen Colbert also had a funny contribution.

David's birthday

David turned seven today, which we celebrated with a picknick party in Bolgerijen. And yesterday we had a handful of little pirates over from his school for a treasure hunt in the forest. Was fun, especially because dad jumped into a muddy ditch. Because David loves to do things on the computer, we bought him a Nemo PC game. The guy on the picture who looks so disturbed is his little brother Peter.

A wineskin issue

Met up with Ross Rohde, an organic church planter from Madrid, who's on his way to start ministry among students in Cambridge. Ross used to blog here on his doctoral studies, but somehow stopped writing, and I forgot to ask him why. He told me of the 'divine encounters' over the past months, that even in 'hard ground' Spain people are coming to the Lord in unexpected ways. But his 'organic journey' did not really synergize with his missions organisation, that has a traditional hierarchical 'business-type' structure.

"I understand the model," Ross said, "but it has become incompatible with my personal convictions. In 1 Cor. 12 I see a very organic ecclesiology, where Jesus is the Head, making decisions, and we Christians are all in interdependent community following Christ. I also struggle with the time-bound, quantifiable way my missions organisation functions, while in the New Testament I see a more supernatural, Holy Spirit-led way of operating."

Ross is not the only missionary that struggles. I heard this same story over the past few weeks from six different people. My take on this is very simple: structures are there to serve what God is doing. If they start becoming limiting, then it's time to change them (if possible) or dispose of them. As most missions organisations have become quite inflexible, it's very natural, and the best step you can make from a spiritual development point of view, to lovingly and respectfully part ways. Now when I say this, I'm sure some friends will accuse me of disloyalty, but I believe that often in the name of loyalty we have become disloyal to Christ.

Baptisms at Soul Survivor

This year Soul Survivor took the bold step to throw a baptism party at the festival for people who decided to follow Jesus. No doubt they will be criticized for it, but I think it's right. Baptism was never intended to be an inner-church ritual, it's a simple act of obedience. More pictures here.

Reconciling with the Aboriginals

This year is the 400th anniversary of the first recorded landing of Europeans in Australia. The Dutch ship Duyfken (Little Dove) landed in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which led to a not so peaceful encounter with the Aboriginals, killing people on both sides. Today my colleague Rob Piket went to Australia to represent the Netherlands in a reconciliation ceremony in Cairns. Last month our Prime-Minister also visited Australia to celebrate the 400 year Dutch-Australian connection. May this be a time of restoration and purpose for the Dutch, the Aussies and the Aboriginals.

Springtime in Bolgerijen

It's wonderful Spring weather, so we made an excursion to the 'griend' forest Bolgerijen, a wetlands area south of Vianen, with a lot of birds. Photo album here.

The German-Swiss connection

One of the reasons I decided last-minute to go to the FGI for one day is that I believe that the Swiss-German connection is quite important for a new reformation in Europe. It's the old reformation countries who also carry some of the new seed. I sat down with Joel News distributors Peter and Oliver, reconnected with the Buftons from Basel, Stefan Lingott and his EPIC team from Münster, E. who works on a strategic media production for the Turkic world (a kind of house church soap or Acts-type reality TV series, really interesting concept), Tobias from Bremen, DAWN colleague Andrew Jones (who got a new job with the CMS), Down-to-Earth Kerstin from Berlin, and many more. Also glad I had the opportunity to interact with Andrea Xandry, a Swiss prophet who carries a strong message on the end of church as we know it.



Mike Bischoff from Basel blogged an excellent summary of Alan's input (part 1, 2, 3, 4, only in German) and Fluri's seminar on apostolic reformation. Christoph Schalk also reports on the event. Photo album here.

Forum for church innovation

Several key ministries in the German-speaking nations joined forces in the new 'Forum for Church Innovation' (FGI), that's having it's first conference in Romanshorn, Switzerland, on the sunny shores of the Bodensee. DAWN Europe colleagues Reinhold and Andreas are involved in this, together with church growth consultants Oliver Schippers (German house church network and distributor of Joel News), Christoph Schalk (Natural Church Development), and others. This is the first conference I attended that had free wireless internet access, and already on the first day they used four different formats, including a 'beer forum', tackling several key issues related to church innovation (mp3 here). What I also liked is that there were many emerging leaders who are experimenting with new expressions of church. And of course Alan Hirsch was here to give his input on 'the apostolic genius'.

Wild at heart guys

It was good to catch up with old and new friends around the Simson barbecue and campfire. David Schäfer handed me a personal copy of his just released book 'Die Jungen Wilden. Storys über Jugendkirchen, Emerging Churches und Gemeindegründer' (reviews here and here). Although the title is half-English, the book is in German and carries stories of emerging visionaries from the DACH nations (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). It was good to see Chris Daza, a prophet from Malawi, church planters Marco Gmür and Graziano Crepaldi from Switzerland, Jeff from Cologne, and 'Christian Associate' Phil Graf from Amsterdam. Talked till late at night with Florian Bärtsch and David Schlagis (see his report here and here) who started an organic church planting movement in the Luzern area. Pictures here.

Quotes from the fringes

Throughout the bible and church history godly innovations, revivals and movements have always started at the fringes, and not in the centre of the religious establishment. It's these fringe movements that account for most of the church growth. Interestingly most churches have a strong core and weak fringes, which ultimately renders them weak, while godly (church) movements cultivate a weak core and strong fringes. Centralisation of power and structure is alien to the church Jesus intended, it breeds a wrong, hierarchical spirit. I can't reproduce all my notes now, but selected a few spicy quotes from Alan's seminar:

- To really change society, we need to tell a different story. Stirring people's imagination is more important than transferring knowledge.

- Tell me about your Jesus, and I'll tell you who you are. Is your Jesus a tame, domesticated, religious man in a white dress, or is he wild at heart, dangerously unconventional and adventurous?

- Christology shapes missiology shapes ecclesiology. If we start with the church, we start on the wrong side of the spectrum.

- God created the orgasm. (in case you were looking for a topic for next Sunday ;-)

- The Eph. 4 ministries create different 'spaces' of truth and destiny. The apostolic paradigm is the most comprehensive, followed by the prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral, and teaching 'space'. This explains why most pastor/teacher-led churches are not able to fulfil their whole calling, because they operate with a limited wordview and operational space.

- We all carry the Eph. 4 ministries in different measure; all are needed to grow into maturity and can be developed intentionally. These ministries are creational by nature (which means that also non-believers function in these qualities, because they're part of how God created us), and are being redeemed in the church.

- The issue is not whether you believe in Jesus, but whether you follow Him. The lordship of Christ is often proclaimed (orthodoxy), but not often practiced (orthopraxy). Greek thinking is comprehending an idea, while Hebrew thinking is learning by incarnating thruth. In other words: you only really know what you apply in real-life.

- If you want to keep moving with God, then keep out the bureaucrats.

- Organic, emerging and missional church people have to synergize intentionally, because they all carry an important element of what is needed.

- Stretch yourself: go somewhere on a one-way ticket, then steward what God gives you there, find your way back and tell your story. This is basically an application of the Luke 9/10 principle. Not a quote from Alan, but from Wolfgang.

- We are confessing monotheists, but practising polytheists, because we've watered down Christ to the local church level to fit our politics and disobedience.

More resources from Alan Hirsch and other unconventional thinkers at www.idearipple.com.

The apostolic genius

I'm at Wolfgang Simson's place in Korntal in the Black Forest for an interactive seminar with Afrikaans-Jewish Aussie Alan Hirsch, national director of Forge and co-author of 'The Shaping of Things to Come', one of the best books on church innovation and mission. Alan is a non-assuming guy with some bright insights on what made catalytic, exponentional church growth happen in the first century, and still makes it happen in China today. He calls it 'the apostolic genius', which he presented as a kind of molecular structure consisting of five (indispensable) elements centering on Christ: missional-incarnational impulse, apostolic enviroment, disciple-making, organic systems, and communitas (not community). We interacted on his input with 25 apostolic thinkers and practitioners, which I found truly enriching. Most of these elements I've been teaching on, and Alan's input helped me to fine-tune that.

Movement in the mud

Visited the Soul Survivor festival to give a seminar on church as a movement. It was good to catch up with several team members and friends on the muddy grounds of Strand Nulde.