Marc's Messages 3.0

Here I am to worship

On YouTube I found this clip of musician Kees Kraayenoord doing a duet with our fresh Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Family and Youth Affairs André Rouvoet. He's probably the first politician to be caught in an 'intimate act' like this, and in my unlimited imagination I can see him lead the whole Dutch Parliament in worship: "Here I am to bow down, here I am to say that you're my God." Cool.

Writing in tongues

A few months ago a friend of mine asked me to register a Dutch domain for him (Goedgelovig.nl), so he could start a satirical website without being traced by the Calvinists. He pulled together a few columnists who are well-known in Christian circles in the Netherlands and who (anonymously) publish their humoristic and subversive posts to this site. One of these posts is about 'Glossie's Secret', the world's first novel in tongues, that was released during the National Book Week 2007.

I've been thinking about launching a satirical website myself, but didn't pursue it because of lack of time. Also, my fake April 1 news report of last year still gets all kinds of comments from Christians who don't really appreciate the genre, and probably think that Heaven is the most serious place in the universe (I truly hope not!). So I'm happy that someone else is running with the idea. After all, as my friend writes on his site, it was Erasmus' 'Praise of Folly' that paved the way for the Reformation in the Low Lands.

Shift day in Rhenen

Today we had a first get-together of the various Shift groups in Rhenen. Shift is an informal relational network of people who carry a vision for reformation. More pictures here.

The Orton files

Over the past week I spent some time with Ozzies David Orton and John Clements from Melbourne, and Richard & Anna Holloway from Tasmania. They're in the Netherlands to build connections, as God has been impressing on them that the Netherlands, together with Switzerland, will fulfil a forerunner role in the coming reformation. I made some notes of their inputs:

- There will be an increasing dividing line in the Body of Christ between those who want to maintain a 'synagogue system' (man-made church boxes) and those who really seek God's presence and reach out to the 'gentiles' (those outside the church).
- Parallel to the story of the emergence of king David, God is building a new spiritual government (leadership) under the surface (in the desert or Adullam's cave) that carries His hand to replace the carnal (Saul-type) leadership that is so prevalent in today's church.
- The process God is taking many people through (death to self) is the (reformation) message.
- Reformation is more about the (pursuit of the) presence of God than about reconstructing church.
- David published a book called 'Snakes in the Temple. Unmasking idolatry in today's church and pointing the way to spiritual breakthrough', that deals with strongholds and anti-Christ elements in the church that seem to withhold God's presence.
- The Netherlands is pregnant in the Spirit, there's electricity in the air. But also discouragement and rationalism, that we need to overcome. David believes that God will use the Netherlands to bring reformation to the UK. Perhaps God might use Australia to reawaken the pioneering (exploring and resourcing) spirit in the Netherlands, and activate faith for the supernatural. He senses that there will be a swift work of God, a catalysation and a transfer of resources internationally (a bit like the swift code you need to wire money).
- There's not a resident gift of apostle. Apostles are prophets and teachers sent out.

I appreciated spending some time with David and his team. It's clear that God is establishing more connections between Europe and Australia (also the link with Alan and Donny), that could grow into more intentional teamwork. I don't have the impression that the Ozzies are much ahead of Europe, in fact Europe might be slightly ahead of Australia when it comes to reformation. David's message is likely more electrifying for pastors than it is for our Shift group that meets tomorrow.

Band of brothers

Peter caught a flu and has to stay in bed. David makes sure his little brother gets his daily dosis of hugs.

The Forgotten Ways

Lots of emerging and organic traffic between Australia, Europe and America these days. Ozzies Alan and Debra Hirsch are throwing a big farewell party in their hometown Melbourne before lauching out to chase their 'American dream'. Alan won't be off the radar though, as from April through to June we (DAWN Europe) are facilitating an experimental online training with 15 Europeans on Alan's book 'The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church'.

The training includes interative sessions with Alan and fellow church planters in a high-tech virtual 'classroom' on the web. We're running this pilot to find out to what extent this kind of 'education-by-extension' software could help us train and coach church planters in Europe. For a peek into the content of 'The Forgotten Ways', see my earlier posts titled 'The apostolic genius' and 'Quotes from the fringes'.

The mixed bag of 'church'

A week ago I taught a whole day for Soul Impact, the one-year leadership development track of Soul Survivor Netherlands. I asked them: what is your first association with the word 'church'? It's always interesting to hear what young people come up with.

Most times it's a mix of divine notions like 'God, the people who follow Christ, a house of prayer and sharing life' with human notions like 'church building, traditions and rules, offerings, pastor, pulpit and wetticism'. They discern pretty well between what is God and what is man, though they struggle in real-life with the mixed bag we've come to call 'church'.

For their non-Christian friends the picture is worse. They associate 'church' with 'boring, rules, have-to's, organ, traditional dress-up, candles, Christmas, a building with a cock on top, lack of freedom, no sex before marriage, rejection, strange language, only on Sunday, hypocrisy, sectarian, old-fashioned, empty, a crucifix, and Mary.' Although this is a one-sided picture, it shows that the 'church' has a serious image problem among young people.

The big question that pops up is of course: why lead your friends into something you know is a mixed bag, and that you're not passionate about yourself? In order to see what God is doing and to move with Him, it's helpful to clearly differentiate between 'church as Jesus intended it' (the life) and 'man-made church systems' (the form). We are not called to sustain religious systems or forms, but to follow Christ. The realisation that you can follow Jesus and create 'places of life' pretty much anywhere, that church is not something you go to, but something you are (as our kids know pretty well by now), is quite liberating. Only in this way we will be able to wholeheartedly draw our not-yet-Christian friends 'into church', which is into community with Jesus followers, wherever and whenever.

Connect Europe 2007

This year there will be no 'big' Connect Europe gathering. However, several more focused and regional events and trips are shaping up, which is exciting! These will provide excellent opportunities for emerging visionaries and pioneers in Europe to (re)connect, develop friendship and grow in teamwork. I believe this will be a year to step out of our comfort-zones and get going with the dreams and visions God put in our hearts.

This is the agenda for 2007:

[For privacy reasons I removed the contact persons' email addresses, but you can send an e-mail to info@connecteurope.org if you're interested.]

OCTOBER

12-14: Connect Portugal weekend with emerging leaders from across this nation, held in the Lisbon area. Contact: Nuno Soares.

19-21: International Gathering 24-7prayer in Seville, Spain. A connection point for those in the Connect network who also work with 24-7prayer. Information here.

29-1: A Europe-wide consultation on ministry among new agers and neopagans, and a training in the supernatural, held in Basel, Switzerland. We cooperate in this effort with Hope for Europe. This network is pulling thinkers and practitioners from various nations together, and several people from Connect Europe will provide hands-on training. Information here and in this brochure (pdf), registration here.

DECEMBER

5-9: Pioneer trip to Iceland, to pray and connect with emerging pioneers there. Contact: Petra Karilainen.

JANUARY 2008

11-13: A prayer and connection gathering for the Nordic nations in Turku, Finland. Contact: Petra Karilainen.

NOT YET FINALIZED / TO BE CONFIRMED:

- A possible Connect Europe core team meeting, in combination with a community meeting around the Mustard Seed Order (November or Winter)
- A conversation on church planting in a postmodern context in Germany (April 08)
- Pioneer trip to France to pray into this nation and connect with emerging pioneers (April 08)
- A Global Connect gathering in Sydney, Australia, before or during the Catholic World Youth Days (15-20 July 08)

If you are organizing a Connect-type event in your region, go on a pioneer trip yourself, or want people to visit you with specific encouragement, help or training, then let us know.

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ALREADY PASSED ACTIVITIES IN 2007:

APRIL

12-15: Pioneer trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. To pray into this nation, and connect with younger visionaries and pioneers. A combined Norwegian-Swedish-Finnish initiative. Contact: Petra Karilainen.

MAY

3-5: A training on organic church and the apostolic dimension in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Steve Hill from the Netherlands, who helps start organic churches and apostolic teams in several nations in Europe, will be teaching on a Bible school, and this meeting is also open for Connect Europe friends in the region. Contact: Lucas Vos.

3-6: Learning weekend on communities, Frankfurt, Germany, for those who want to start and develop intentional communities (living together). This weekend we will bring practitioners and learners together for a time of envisioning and friendship. Please note that registration for this weekend is now closed, we're fully booked. Contact: Marc van der Woude.

18-27: Pioneer trip to Lappland to meet with a local 24-7 team in Ouluand and make other connections in the arctic north of Europe. Contact: Petra Karilainen.

26-2: Pioneer trip to Greece and Macedonia. To pray into these nations, and connect with younger visionaries and pioneers. This one-week trip will comprise the Global Day of Prayer at Pentecost with young people from Greece, and a road-trip via Thessaloniki to Skopje and Lake Ohrid, where we visit our Macedonian friends Alek, Pálma and Alpin. Contact: Gabi Nagy.

JUNE

1-18: Paul Skinner from Connect Australia and Generation Fire will bring a team of Ozzies to Europe. They will come to pray, encourage, teach, and bring passion for Jesus from down-under. The first four days they will be in Norway, and the rest of the time in Finland. Contact: Jan Inge Saltskar (Norway) or Jussi Valkonen (Finland).

15-17: DNA-training for (potential) simple/organic church planters in the Netherlands and Flanders by Ronald van der Molen and team. The training will be held in Dutch in a central location in the Netherlands. Two criteria: you already led some people to Jesus over the past few years, and you have some (basic) experience with discipling people and/or (leading) small groups. This is a very practical training to increase your effectiveness and multiplication potential. Contact: Jonathan Fokker.

18-28: Healing and connection trip to Sweden, also meeting with the 24-7 team in Stockholm. Contact: Heidi Plympton.

JULY

7-14: A gathering "for prayer, worship, fellowship and celebration for our King Jesus in rural eastern Latvia. To draw near to Father and saints from more than a few countries. To seek His face, a prophetic spirit and inquire about David's Tabernacle (24-7 worship and prayer)." Please ask to be invited. Contact: Levi Graudins.

11-15: European roundtable for ministry among subcultural/underground tribes, held in an informal setting during the SLOT Arts Festival in Lubiaz, Poland (near Wroclaw). Contact: Mirko Sander.

19-21: First preparatory Connect meeting for the Czech Republic. Contact: Marek & Elaine Mudrik.

22-29: Pioneer trip with the Nordic team to Latvia and Lithuania to meet local visionaries and pioneers, and to pray for the Baltic nations. Contact: Petra Karilainen.

5-9: Pioneer-trip to Iceland, to pray and connect with emerging pioneers there. Contact: Petra Karilainen.

Revolutionary life together

I have to admit it's refreshingly uncomfortable to my western mindset and lifestyle - the way Gene Edwards and Dietrich Bonhoeffer describe genuine church life.

In 'Life Together. The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community' Bonhoeffer states that Christian brotherhood is not the same as an extraordinary social experience. "Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize, it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. It is a spiritual and not a psychic reality." Creating a community on human notions, picking the people you like, is not just creating a dreamworld, it's even a hindrance to genuine community in Christ.

How to cope then with 'difficult' people? "I must meet my brother only as the person that he already is in Christ's eyes," says Bonhoeffer. "Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men."

Living together physically and sharing resources was also a hallmark of the early church in Acts. In 'Revolution. The Story of the Early Church. The First Seventeen Years, 30-47 AD' Gene Edwards paints a picture of the Early Church that's quite alien to our church experience today. Edwards suggests that the 3,000 that started to follow Christ on Pentecost, of which a majority were visitors, did not return home, but stayed in Jerusalem. In this city they developed a revolutionary lifestyle that complety upset the social standards of that day - they sold what they owned, pooled their resources, and lived in community and charity, while sharing Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We know this of course on a rational level, but not many Jesus followers are living this kind of community today.

"The conforming element in men was dealt a mortal blow," says Edwards. "The very birth of the church smashed all past concepts man had ever held toward 'religion' in any form. This radical new beginning - touched off by living in common - set a very high standard of what it meant 'to be in the church'. It was unorthodox, informal, rambunctious, daring, elastic and glorious. It was a 'corporate experience'." In other words: Christ-centered church life embodied the heavenly reality of the Kingdom of God here and now.

"Look around!" says Edwards. "What is the church made up of? There are (1) twelve apostles, (2) three thousand people, (3) a huge shed, and (4) an awful lot of homes, plus a lot of self-giving and a lot of unleashed joy. This was the church. And Christ was real. He was being experienced."

Why I aim for a reformation

Over the past few weeks I've been interacting with a number of friends and fellow pioneers in the Netherlands about this question: should we take the structural reality of church as it is for granted and (within or out of that context) aim for maximum renewal and innovative missional experiments, or should we aim for a reformation that will shake the foundations of today's church, and re-defines and re-imagines church based on a deeper revelation of Christ and how He intended his Body to function?

Let me start to point out that I believe we need both, and both are valid aims to pursue. I believe it's unfruitful to polarize these two approaches. Innovators and reformers should stand side-by-side when it comes to pulling the church out of her comatic state of unfruitfulness. However, I decided (already a number of years ago) to bless the various expressions of much needed renewal, but aim for a deeper reformation of church. Yesterday, when sharing a meal with Matthijs and Martijn, I drew a picture to visualize the process we are in (click to enlarge).

Over the past few years we've seen quite a number of 'fresh expressions' emerge, that we label 'emerging church', 'missional projects', 'house church' or whatever name we prefer. Partly this was a reaction to traditionalism in the existing church, partly it was a genuine desire for the church to regain a missionary focus, partly it was a realisation that society is changing and therefore the church needs to change. All good and necessary. However, I believe that what we see so far is only the beginnings (the first 20 percent if you like) of a deeper reformation God wants to bring to the church.

Some people get nervous with that idea, because it means that some of the holy cows mentioned in my earlier post may have to die. Others, who are by nature more practically oriented (e.g. planting churches in real-life) look at reformation as highly idealistic, not really reachable, so why bother aiming at it, let's rather start where the opportunities are. As a practically oriented person I understand that hands-on approach, but as a prophet I'm also quite aware that God has a higher standard of maturity and fullness for the church than what the church (even the emerging church) functions in today.

Because of this higher standard I simply cannot aim lower. God wants us to come up to His level of seeing, understanding and acting, instead of expecting Him to descend to our level of 'doing church'. This is where I differ from my emerging comrades - I aim for a reformation (which is basically bridging the gap between where the church is now, and where God wants the church to be), while at the same time working in real-life with real people, real problems and - let's not forget that - a real God. It's quite well possible to be principled in what you aim for (and not lower that standard) and pragmatic in how to go about it (which should not be interpreted as combining the new with the old). Of course it's a tension, but it's a healthy tension, a tension we need to keep us holy dissatisfied, so that we continue to seek God for an Acts-type movement in our time.

Now practically, it looks like two initiatives are developing in the Netherlands. My friend Matthijs is forming a network for emerging/missional church planters, and I'm starting a webzine for reformation and innovation that pushes for 'more than meets the eye'. Also a relational 'Shift Network' is forming that connects the emerging reformers.

Joel News in the media

Because Joel News celebrates its 10 year anniversary, I've been interviewed for several national media. Radio 5 did a live report from the Joel News 'headquarters' (scroll to 00:36:00). Uitdaging, the main evangelical newspaper, published a one-page interview titled 'Journalism after Acts'. And Visie, the largest Christian weekly, a personal profile.

The Ten2b virus

If you want to pray an apostolic prayer, go for Luke 10:2b. Before Jesus sends out the 70 (this is where the disciples become apostles, sent ones), he teaches them (my interpretation) to go with multiplication in mind. "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

As a reminder to pray into the harvest, my cell phone alarm goes off at 10.02 am every day. Yesterday Peter (5) noticed and said: "Hey dad, your cell phone rings, you should pick it up." When I explained him it was a reminder to pray, he took me to his room to show me his 'prayer blanket'. "Dad, you can pray here if you want. It's nice and soft when you kneel down." After praying the Luke 10:2b prayer, Peter whispered: "Dad, God just spoke into my heart that He likes this prayer, and will work on it." Ah... that's good to know. Today Peter revisited the topic: "Dad, God spoke to my heart again, to let you know that He just sent the missionaries you asked for." Wow, that's even fast!

Simple church blogger Tim Pynes calls the Luke 10:2b prayer 'the leadership solution', and is intentionally infecting others with the Ten2bvirus.

Emmaschool revisited

Today I was in Enschede for a reunion of my primary school. Hadn't seen most people for 28 years. An interesting experience to 'jump' in time from age 12 to 40, and realize how fast life goes, how much we changed, and how much we're still the same too...

A liberating gospel

Yesterday we watched the Israeli movie 'Kadosh', the tragic story of two sisters raised and married in the orthodox quarter of Jerusalem. Every day the orthodox men pray: "Thank God I wasn't born a gentile, thank God I wasn't born a slave, thank God I wasn't born a woman." The women are predestined to have children (if possible every year), cook and clean, and earn money, so their husbands can study the Torah and Talmud. But what if you can't have kids? What if your husband rapes you because he's a fanatic and - apparently - never read the Song of Songs?

Often religion turns into an oppressive system that breeds pride in a few, and enslaves many. I can sympathize with Marx in this respect. How liberating that a Jewish man stood up to set the captives of legalistic religion free. In Him men and women, masters and slaves, Jews and gentiles are equal. What a revolutionary message, what a liberating gospel!