Marc's Short Messages

Spent some time with 30 Jesus Freaks from across Europe and church planter Victor John, who says there are 3 million people in his simple church network in the north of India. In the evening we celebrated Karolien's birthday.

Last Sunday prophetic whistleblower and European Member of Parliament Paul van Buitenen, who over the past ten years has been calling for transparency on the highest government level in Europe, announced that he will not run for re-election. This week in Joel News International a report on Van Buitenen and his mission.

I took Peter for an outing to The Hague, because he wanted to see the Panorama Mesdag, with 14 by 120 meter the largest painting in the Netherlands. It's a sea/beach view from a dune top in Scheveningen (The Hague) around 1880 by Hendrik Willem Mesdag. The painting is completely circular; you have 'access' it from below. The following picture is only part of the painting; the full view can be seen here.

Nuno, a Portuguese web developer whom I met nine months ago in Geneva, considers himself an expert on failure. Even with the perfect vision, things often turn in a different direction than planned. How to deal with that in a way that keeps us humble and motivated to continue our journey with God?

While Karolien and I cleared up the kitchen David decorated Peter with clothes pins. Now he looks like an indian.

Nico Dirk of the Dutch Emerging Network posted some thoughts (in Dutch) on our weekend in Münster and the Europe Advance network that was launched that same weekend.

Andreas Wolf and the emRG team ran a pilot last Summer in Strasbourg, France, with a research method that combines prayer walking and GPS/Google based mapping. Check it out here.

Two days in Münster with the DAWN team and other church planting network leaders. Oivind produced an inspiring video on church planting in Norway, and we came up with some good ideas for intervision groups.

I'm preparing for a relational and interactive learning weekend with (emerging) church planting network leaders in Münster, Germany. There will be folks from Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, and together we'll strategize about starting and multiplying communities of faith, and what role our networks can play in this.

On a conference call with Graham Power, Dawie and Dion of the GDOP team in South Africa, Pete Greig (24-7prayer), Jason Mandryk (OW) and Jerome from the Philippines to talk about the global (and final) GDOP gathering in 2010. They asked me to convene the emerging generation track. Not sure about this, have to give it some serious thought.

We hosted an evening with the Overvecht community. Karolien had prepared a bibliodrama exercise about Abraham's journey to Moriah. A stimulating way to learn as a group.