Andrew found out he has some Viking blood and announced this morning that he is actually a direct descendant of king Harald of Norway. Noralv Askeland, one of the pastors, wasn’t really impressed. He remarked that king Harald had a child in every house, so half Norway can be traced back to him. Poor Andrew. But he gave a good plenary introduction on churchplanting in the emerging culture.
He said the fastest growing church is that of the churchless Christians. Many people (and especially ‘cultural creatives’ like the new media folks) leave church because they want to grow spiritually and the church is limiting that. They rather connect and interact with people who see life as a journey with Jesus and each other. For the same reason new agers and other spiritual seekers don’t feel attracted to church. They think Christians are immature and unspiritual, and cannot really engage with their questions and pursuit of a relevant lifestyle. An MTV communications officer said that 99.7% percent of their viewers is interested in God and spirituality, and although they are very open for input, it never crossed their mind to ask the church.
A strategic issue for churchplanting in the emerging culture is: our house or their house? Most churches expect seekers to come to their meetings and adapt culturally, but it’s way better and more biblical to meet people in their own house and culture, where they can invite their own friends. Jesus said to Zaccheus: “Today I want to be in your house.” They trew a party, Zaccheus invited his friends and Jesus met them. A related issue is: do we start with purpose or fun? It’s way easier to start with a fun event and give it purpose, then the other way around. Jesus never described the Kingdom as a ‘temple experience’, but compared it with a party.
Over lunch we met with the leaders of the prayer conference, the Norwegian DAWN committee, and the European DAWN team, to talk about the question ‘what is God saying to the church in Norway?’ This was really interesting because the prophetic words and pictures of the intercessors matched exactly with the more down-to-earth observations of the DAWN leaders. Even Reinhold, who has a love-hate relationship with intercessors, was impressed.
Basically God is challenging the church in Norway to break out of her subculture by releasing the young people to do whatever God called them to do. Rachel Hickson, an intercessor-teacher from the UK said that in order for creativity to be realeased it is necessary to ‘colour outside the lines’. Oivind Augland, the DAWN coordinator for Norway, stressed that based on Malachi 4 the fathers should first turn their hearts to their children, before they can expect their children to turn their hearts to them. Gideon pulled down his father’s Baal altar, and when the critics came, his father protected him (although it was his altar). In the same way God is using the emerging generation to pull down idolatry and tradition in the church, and instead of criticizing them for it, the spiritual fathers should protect them. These impressions were shared in the early afternoon session, and were well received and responded to.
Overall the Norwegian DAWN team is doing a good job. Dagen, the Christian daily newspaper, reported that over the last year 60 new churches have been planted. The research statistics are available at dawnnorge.no.
In my bible Mal 4,6 does not contain the words 'first' and 'after that'. I have met many children who turned their hearts to their fathers and after that their fathers softened their hearts too! Be always responsible for your own life and never be dependent on other people's actings!
Posted by: Gerrit van Leeuwen | January 14, 2004 at 17:14
Well, regardless of the timeline of events, this sounds absolutely fantastic! Thanks for sharing Marc!
Jonah
Posted by: Jonah | January 14, 2004 at 19:12
Sounds like Andrew helped lead a powerful and enlightening discussion. I wish I could have stayed on for the DAWN Norway conference to experience this with you guys.
So, now that you're armed with this powerful (dangerous maybe?) knowledge, what do you want to do with it?
Posted by: Scott | January 14, 2004 at 20:59
Interesting concept.
This could be an old thing being made new by the Lord.
Bless you
Jake
Posted by: Jake van der Koogh | February 23, 2004 at 11:56
Please after giong through your web I have admired the miraculous direction revelation has taken you to. Are you ready to share with me your beliefs and build a church for us? If so what are the requirements? We are in Nairobi Kenya.
Yours in the Lord
Ogada JO.
Posted by: jared otieno ogada | October 13, 2005 at 11:26