Marc's Messages

Joel News on Ukraine

Because we regularly receive interesting contributions and comments related to what we just published in Joel News, I set up a simple weblog for these letters and articles.

In today's international edition we asked prayer for the political crisis in Ukraine. We received several impressing day-to-day reports from Ukrainian, Russian and American missionaries on the ground, including pictures. The ongoing demonstrations in Kyiv breathe the atmosphere of an outreach. Tents, field kitchens, a free sharing of soup, soap and (a hope of) salvation. Check out Joel News Blog for the full story. It's also possible to post your own comments.

Five love languages

Just finished Gary Chapman's book 'The Five Love Languages'. In his practice as a counselor he found that people feel most loved in a marriage in one of five ways: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. The essence is that we learn the primary love language of our partner, so the relationship thrives. Liked the book as it's very down-to-earth.

Good news to the poor

Read an interesting interview with British 'antiglobalist' Noreena Hertz about her new book 'I.O.U. The Debt Threat and Why We Must Defuse It'. She wants to free Third World countries from 'illegal debts', resulting from loans granted to undemocratic regimes, that haven't been used to develop the nation, but often went straight into the dictator's bank account in Switzerland.

Just imagine: the total debt of Africa south of the Sahara is 170 billion dollar, as much as the costs of the American intervention in Iraq. And for the price of four Stealth airplanes, you can send 150 million children to school. Also Christians are calling for a 'year of jubilee' for the Third World and joined forces in The Micah Challenge.

Connect Netherlands

How about relationally connecting young leaders in the Netherlands and Flanders who carry a call from God for their nation and Europe? This afternoon Maaike, Rebecca and I prepared for a first 'Connect Netherlands' meeting, to be planned in early 2005, and in the evening we shared the vision with a first group of 11 emerging leaders (8 from the Netherlands, 3 from Flanders) to find out whether this resonates with them and what God has been showing them. It was very encouraging, God is challenging us to enlarge the place of our tents and not hold back (Is. 54).

Life is communication (5)

The fourth day of my training in communication and personal effectiveness (earlier episodes: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4). My presentation went well, as expected. Hans used the interaction in the group to introduce and illustrate the principles of Transactional Analysis. It's basically learning to recognize and break with dysfunctional parent and child roles, so we can communicate as adults who take responsibility for their own thoughts, emotions and actions.

After lunch I asked Hans about his plans to emigrate to Canada, where he wants to join TACF, and we ended up talking in the group about communication with God, prophecy and the work of the Holy Spirit. One of the participants shared that she had experienced a dream or vision of Jesus and recognized He was the 'real deal', but is still trying to grasp it. Interesting and encouraging.

We also practiced giving proper feedback in three steps: describing what you see/hear (or asking an informative question), describing the effect a person or situation has on yourself (or asking understanding for your feelings/position), and suggesting a solution/agreement (or asking a procedural question). Very helpful.

Africans take the lead

Made some initial connections for the Global Day of Prayer, scheduled for 15 May 2005. Last Sunday Ioan Peia, a prayer leader friend from Bucharest, Romania, told me that already a year before this initiative was being launched, the Lord had shown him in a vision 500 million (!) people uniting in prayer all over the world.

The Global Day of Prayer started with a business man in Capetown, South Africa, who decided to rent a stadium to gather people for prayer. In just three years it spread over the whole African continent and beyond. Hosting the IPC and the Global Day of Prayer, the South Africans are now providing leadership to the prayer movement at large.

Another interesting development comes from Dawn Ministries, one of our partner ministries, that just appointed an African leader as their new president, supported by a Latino and an Asian leader. It's the expression of a new reality in the worldwide church: leadership is shifting from America and Europe to the non-western world. Exciting.

Board meeting

Meeting with the board of Joel Ministries today (the guys that keep me on the right track). It was good to pray into and discuss our goals for 2005. There will be a stronger focus on prophetic writing, training younger leaders, and catalysing new things God wants to do in Europe. I will not take on operational responsibilities in platforms and strongly cut down on my workload. Let's see how that works out as I experiment with my new style of 'organic planning'.

The 60 Minute Dad

Just finished Rob Parsons' book 'The 60 Minute Father', a book for busy dads who should spend more time with their kids. Not much revelation, as I already practice most of it, but I really loved the anecdotes.

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.

This week in Joel News

This week in Joel News International: Prime-Minister of Vanuatu dedicates his nation to Jesus. In the Dutch edition a special on spiritual warfare in the context of reaching cities and nations.