EPL in Brussels

Went to Brussels today to hang out with the EPL team, who just finished 48 hours of prayer and worship in the EU capital. It was good to catch up and evaluate developments in the global prayer movement. We also decided on several changes in the EPL setup:

1. A new name: IPC Europe, positioning EPL as the European segment of the International Prayer Council.
2. A replacement of the current leadership team and 'working group' with a small core team of people who can reasonably commit more time to EPL and will be operationally responsible.
3. A realistic scaling down of EPL plans to a once-a-year prayer and worship event in a key city in Europe, as part of the vision to form an 'altar of prayer and worship to the Lord' in Europe, linking prayer leaders from different nations.

Because my focus for this year is more on Connect Europe and DAWN, I will end my operational commitment to the EPL leadership team. We will stay friends and hang out now and then, but I'm not responsible anymore to organise and provide leadership to events, which is a relief.

Looking back over the past five years of my involvement with EPL, there were several highlights:

1. Every time EPL met in a nation, there was (unknown to us beforehand) a significant political, social and/or spiritual development going on. Apparently God gathered his prophets and intercessors 'for such a time as this' to accomplish his purposes. It was and still is wonderful to be part of this spiritual dynamic, as history (His-story) is often being shaped by the intercessors.

2. I learned to appriate and work with people with different personalities and backgrounds, which was sometime strugglesome, but always great learning.

The big frustration for me with EPL were the unrealistic ambitions versus the inability to properly process things. Often plans got stuck on the level of organisation, implementation and communication. This tends to be a problem when you put prophets and prayer leaders together in a leadership role: they hear from God and have big visions, but they're not very able to 'earth' things, which also means they often need significantly more time than 'normal' people to process an agenda. With DAWN I see the opposite: the strategic down-to-earth approach tends to undervalue prayer and the prophetic. In Connect Europe, with the younger leaders, there's a more balanced approach, synergizing the intercessory, prophetic and strategic building components.

On the picture EPL friends Warren and Anneli praying over icy Vienna, when we met there two years ago.

Comments

[Ron Z.]

Marc,

I found your comments about EPL most insightful:

"The big frustration for me with EPL were the unrealistic ambitions versus the inability to properly process things. Often plans got stuck on the level of organisation, implementation and communication. This tends to be a problem when you put prophets and prayer leaders together in a leadership role: they hear from God and have big visions, but they're not very able to 'earth' things, which also means they often need significantly more time than 'normal' people to process an agenda."

The exact same thing happens on this side of the Atlantic as well--lot's of wonderful visions and big dreams, and little-to-no ability to implement these dreams & visions! The standard applause line in the American prophetic & charismatic movements is that "God will do it." Which means we can go home, watch TV, play on the Internet, and stay by the phone and wait for God to call so we can participate in what He's already done...

Like you, I see the future of the church amongst the emergining generation, specifically the 16 to 25 year-olds. Many of these talented ones are getting involved in the prayer movement, and are doing all those things that the rest of us don't have the time and energy to do. (Usually because we are too involved in the distractions of life.)

We could really use a "Connect America." Or, better yet, a "Connect World."