Marc's Messages

Bye-bye tonsils

Karolien spent the whole day in hospital with David, who needed to have his tonsils removed. Poor guy. So Peter and I decided to buy him a little present. When David came home, he looked a bit pale, but was as lively as ever. The next few days he will have to drink a lot of lemonade with ice cubes.

At the children's clinic something romantic happened. It turned out that Sanne, a girl from David's class, was also there for a small surgery. When he noticed her, David went up to her and said: "Sanne, I want to marry you," and she said "yes, I also want to marry you!" Later I asked David when the wedding will take place and he said: "When I'm a bit older, 36 or so." So this gives us some time to prepare...

Moving on

At a recent meeting of facilitators in the house church movement, after everyone had shared their story, and it was my turn to say something, I casually remarked: "Oh, I think we've already left the house church scene behind us and moved on." It was meant to be a funny and provocative remark, but when I said it, God immediately confirmed it in my spirit: "Yes, you moved on."

Later I started analyzing this, and I think the core issue is that I don't want to settle for one expression of church, but wish to celebrate and apply the good things of many streams and traditions, and have Jesus in the centre. It's fully organic and fluid, but also appreciates the historic church. It's reformational, but not in an exclusivistic way.

I love to be part of the house church movement, but there's more to (re)appreciate and (re)discover and apply. Some emerging expressions of church tend to be reactionary. As if our identity comes from 'being different from the mainstream'. I'm glad Andrew raised the issue in his weblog this week, and had several people hit him for it. "Well, excuuuuuuse me for getting healed! Excuuuuse me for loving the church!" See his posts 'Can't keep people happy' and 'Willow Creek and postmodern worship', and feel free to add your comments as well.

Cafe church ideas

Lots of newspapers, muffins, coffee, cafe tables. Open for about 2 hours on a Sunday am. Emergent kiwi Steve wants to start a cafe church. Justin Beader from Seattle comments on this idea. And Andrew Jones, who just moved his extensive family from Prague to London, where the first thing he did was find an internet cafe where he could blog, also has some good advice:

1. Go WiFi. Give people the option of surfing the net wirelessly during the event. You might want to think about what you want them to look at or track online that will enhance the theme.
2. Preaching is awkward. Open mike is better. Have lots of people give short stories, poems, readings, whatever. 5 minute limit.
3. Coffee shop dynamics and aesthetics mean that people can look if they want but they don’t have to. You have to win their attention. Don’t force everyone to give attention.
4. Obviously people will be getting their coffee and tea during the event. Make it easy for them to get it anytime without interrupting anything.
5. If you use an open mike, anyone is allowed to share. You will have non-Christians get up and read their poetry or thoughts as well, so be prepared for that. It sometimes helps to have a host who can guide the event and then have the final word.
6. Music. I would go for either a DJ who can create a relaxing background soundscape, or I would go for a guitarist who may lead some accoustic songs from a stool. No more than 2 or 3 musicians. Less is more. Don’t put a band up there - overkill!
7. If people are sitting around at tables, which I assume they are, you can create some exercises or table-based discussions that get them interacting and contributing.

A nice example of a pub church is BarNone in Cardiff, Wales.

A new kid on the block

This morning we welcomed a new colleague in the Joel Ministries team: Robert van Mierlo, who will make an inventory of local and regional prayer groups, networks and city reaching initiatives in the Netherlands, and develop a support structure for this work. He also works with Agape and leads the city prayer initiative in Nieuwegein, south of Utrecht.

Board meeting

Today we had our ministry board meeting. David really wanted to join us, because it was in dad's office and he guessed it would be more fun than going to school. I told him it would be a ve-ry bo-ring meeting, because we would talk all morning. "But dad, I really love talking all day!" Yeah... we already discovered that. Later he heard that Rob (insert) celebrated his birthday and had brought a big cake for us. "Oh", David said, "Didn't you know I also love parties?"

The board meeting was good. We meet three times a year to review the main developments Joel Ministries is involved in, and refocus where needed. Our calling is two-fold: (1) communicate what God is doing wordwide, especially the innovative, 'cutting edge' stories and trends (see Joel News and other publications); (2) help the church to 'hear prophetically and act apostolically' on a local and national level, in other words: receive God's vision and turn it into strategic action (very much the DAWN approach). To stay focused it's important that we don't get sidetracked by operational and tactical things, and other people's expectations and agenda's.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with the core team of Transformations.NL, a platform for prayer and revival. We talked in-depth about developments in the Dutch prayer movement. Not sure whether it was the two three-hour meetings today or just the lack of revelation, but at the end I felt quite drained. No real decisions made yet, we will continue next week.

Kidzcity

Family weekend. Took the boys to Kidzcity, a big playground in a sports complex in Utrecht. Real fun. Still feel my muscles after a jump from the castle glider.

The entrepreneurs are leaving

Somalian refugees and immigrants in the Netherlands are collectively moving to the United Kingdom. The reason: Dutch government is making life too easy for them. They get several payments and financial benefits, while not being encouraged (even restricted by complicated regulations) to start companies and shops and thus make a living for themselves. So they are kept in a position of passivity, which is not good for their self-respect and community life. Therefore they decided to collectively move to the UK, where government funding is much lower, but the 'entrepreneurial climate' is better, and so they work hard to start their own businesses. As a result the Somalian communities in the UK are thriving, and research shows that 70% of the Somalians who still live in the Netherlands plan to move to the UK as well.

In a way this situation is not much different from the church. At our city leaders meeting this morning a pastor remarked that we take so much of church life for granted. What will remain of our faith if persecution comes? I would take the question a bit further: aren't we keeping Christians in a position of passivity by offering endless easy-to-consume church programs? Shouldn't we encourage people to become entrepreneurs, to explore and launch out in new ways of community and missions, and not limit them by complicated regulations that we call 'theology', 'church program', or 'church structure'? I guess it's a retoric question. Already many 'entrepreneurs' are leaving conventional church to form their own communities, taking less support for granted.

Going Dutch?

A city alderman in Amsterdam had to resign from his position in the city council because he openly told a journalist about his addiction to pornography and his regular visits to prostitutes. The journalist published the story and a whole media hype developed, leading to the alderman's fall. Now the discussion of the day is primarily about the role of the media, not about the alderman's lifestyle. Most people seem to agree that visiting prostitutes is a private issue, and not relevant for the alderman's public office.

Where does this weird dualism and political correctness come from? If we cannot 'govern' ourselves, how can we govern a city? If we break a covenant with our husband or wife and even make it public knowledge, placing our family in a situation of extreme vulnerability, how can we enforce law and order, and offer protection to a city? I don't want to throw stones here, just reminding myself that the way I live can never be separated from public ministry. Jesus modelled a holistic lifestyle.

Norway wrap-up

Today and tomorrow I'm following up on my trip to Norway. I created a photo album and read through the stories of my fellow-bloggers Andrew, Reinhold, Kerstin, Scott and Erling. Erling (61) from Bergen is not only the oldest blogger we've met so far, he also created a special Norwegian poetry blog titled 'To be somebody'.

Winter in Oslo

We had breakfast at Geir's place, and came up with a lot of crazy media ideas that we could use to spread a 'connect' virus among young people. After that we went into the snowy mountains around Oslo, where Jan-Inge and Karl-Anders tried to convince me that it was a Norwegian custom to 'baptise visitors' in the snow. No way! In the course of the afternoon they dropped me at the airport and I flew back to Amsterdam.

BTW, when I arrived in Oslo something strange happened to my luggage. I was the first to get out of the plane, and went straight to the arrival hall to collect my luggage. Of course I was too early and had to wait 10-15 minutes before the carousel for my flight started to run. Everyone's luggage came out, except mine. I waited for another 20 minutes, but no luggage. I had a good look around in the hall, and decided to report my luggage was missing. Then I thought: "Hey, let's do at least a quick prayer, or rather a prophetic statement that my luggage will return to me in good order as soon as possible." When I turned around I saw my luggage right in front of the carousel. Now I'm wondering... was this a Philip-kind of experience or did I completely overlook my luggage? I think I go for the miracle.