Marc's Short Messages

The economic recession is also affecting the income base of churches and ministries. Our support base for the European projects is decreasing. A good thing though of scarcity is that it forces us to rethink more foundationally what we do, stimulates creativity and helps us to live a more simple lifestyle. As my emerging church colleague Andrew points out, this also means simpler ways of meeting internationally.

Met with the board and board of advisors of Soul Survivor yesterday to evaluate how things are going with the new organisational set-up. Liz from the British HQ was also there.

For various reasons I'm not a big fan of 'the sinner's prayer', but I find Agapè's internet evangelism approach quite interesting. Their international site has a Google map where you can see both real-time 'decisions' and who is praying for the site. They claim a 10% conversion rate. More in one of the next editions of Joel News.

In today's edition of Joel News International five encouraging accounts of how churches are being planted in Africa in the midst of opposition. Last week we reported on how Jesus is healing people in pubs in the Netherlands. Btw, I love the combination of church planting and pubs. ;-)

Last week I mailed a number of people in my network this question: who from your point of view are the trendwatchers in the (wider) church in the Netherlands who understand the times and can point a way forward? I won't list the names people came up with, but I realized that we don't really have an innovative thinktank in the church, that could help us engage with the various global and local challenges and pro-actively shape the future.

Joined a meeting of the Emerging Network in Utrecht. Johan gave an introduction on 'rediscovering the historical Jesus', and Rik and Geerard shared how their alternative worship lab is functioning. Liked their perspective on creating Kingdom spaces in secular urban enviroments, like turning telephone booths into places of prayer.

Two well-known Brethern leaders openly state in the media that their church network left their simple Christ-centered roots and is being overtaken left and right by various emerging expressions of church. I find their openness refreshing. I left a comment here.

Matthijs and I reviewd Peter E. Vlug's book on 'biblical house parties' as an expression of simple church. In short: the idea is worth exploring, but how he presented it is not very helpful. Full review (in Dutch) here.

Next month another handbook on church planting will be published, that claims to be the first comprehensive overview of cp in the Netherlands. It's written by Stefan Paas and three colleagues and has almost 400 pages.

The Protestant churches in Utrecht appointed three 'street pastors', people who minister to the homeless, the poor, the disabled. Gert Jan explains this initiative on his weblog, and introduces Melia, one of the new street pastors who is also Karolien's prayer companion in Overvecht. Btw, Frank Mulder set up a simple website for the Overvecht network titled 'Living in Overvecht'.

David & Debora of 24-7prayer in France are over for the weekend. Today I took them to the Soul Survivor mini festival in Emmen to meet some Dutch simple church planters. Also had the opportunity to catch up with Floyd McClung.

Our Czech Connect friends The Mudriks are retreating to the USA for a season of rest before proceeding with the Rivenhill project, a community and training centre in Prague.

The Joel News feeds were temporarily down, but up and running again. Check out the orange RSS button on our site.

My friends at Novavox, the (new) German network for missional church innovation, facilitated a meeting in Wuppertal last week with Floyd McClung. Rogier made the picture and posted a small report. These kind of networks are emerging in various nations in Europe, and in February we'll host a connecting weekend in Münster, Germany.

Met with John Fenn of Church Without Walls and Wil & Ank Kleinmeulman who develop the Dutch branch of this simple church network. Good inspiration.

Today in the Dutch edition of Joel News: Pete Greig's 'The Vision' in pdf and mp3. Johan den Hartogh came with a free interpretation for the Dutch 24-7prayer network.

As a family we were in Venlo for the national meeting of prayer houses. It's encouraging to see new places of prayer start as Kingdom 'hubs' in a city or region. I also gave a short input for development.

Our Joel Ministries board meetings are never boring, it's always interesting and we have fun together. Today we agreed on our policy plan for 2009, and explored possible steps towards a community & training centre.

Tony Dale mailed me that they launched a new version of the House2House resource site for simple churches. Check it out.

I realize that with just over 200 Facebook friends I'm quite a loser on the internet. But I only accept the requests of people that I really know and want to stay in touch with, so that might explain it. ;-)

The ministry of Youth for Christ among young people in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of Utrecht is growing. Tonight I shared some prophetic-historic vision for the city with a group of 25 missional workers. It was quite encouraging!

I read in the paper today that nearly 90 percent of the Dutchies would vote for Obama, while I know that 90 percent of my American (ministry-related) friends are voting for McCain. I won't try to reconcile the two, they both have good arguments. And probably the question 'What Would Jesus Do' isn't going to help much either. On Dutch satirical website Goedgelovig.nl I saw two provoking cartoons, one of Jesus' position in the American elections, and one on Jesus as a politician.

If you can handle German, this input by my friend Andreas on 'organic church' and the authority of two's and three's, provides good inspiration.

We made a long Autumn walk in the Speulderbos, between Ermelo and Stroe. More pics here. David also renewed his weblog.