Marc's Messages

Global Day of Prayer

A full day of meetings. Talked with Theo Aerts of Highway Media about publishing several books (including a few titles I'm working on myself). The team of Transformations.NL met to refocus for this year. Joop Gankema of Opwekking joined us to discuss the details of the upcoming Global Day of Prayer. On Pentecost Sunday we will have 40.000 people worship and pray in the open air, while worldwide some 100 million will join in. Should be fun.

BTW, we compiled a video cd about what God is doing worldwide in the prayer movement. It's free for people who send a donation for our ministry this month. Check out the Dutch information. English info will come soon.

Lost in Translation

We rented two dvd's for the weekend: Lost in Translation and Rosenstrasse. The first movie is a quite bizarre comic melodrama about two dislocated Americans in Tokyo discovering how alive they are when they can barely keep their eyes open. The ideal movie for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Rosenstrasse is a street in Berlin where in 1943 Jewish men were rounded up for deportation to concentration camps and certain death. Based on a true story, their Aryan wives fought to save their lives. A moving and heroic story, told from a German perspective.

Fast, faster, fastest

LEGO is great stuff. This weekend we built a fast train track in our living room. David is the engineer, Peter operates the trains. The art is to build it in such a way that the trains make real speed, but don't crash out of the track.

Over dinner I told the boys that I own a pet flee called Little Pete. I keep him in a little box in my wardrobe. This flee is so small you can barely see him, but he can do little saltos in the air. When I showed it to them, they were impressed. Then I acted that the flee suddenly jumped out of the box into Peter's shirt, and I had to catch him again. Peter said: "I felt him tickle me, dad."

Stick to the vision

Today I met up with one of our contacts who carries a vision for a prayer/retreat/training centre in the Netherlands. It was good to share hearts and ideas. Over the past few years we've visited and come alongside several similar projects, and we found that it's quite important to stick to the vision God has given. It's easy to let the vision be compromised or sidetracked by people or money. But then we miss out on God's best - his grace, anointing and provision.

Keirsey Temperament Awards

The people at AdvisorTeam gave out their Annual Keirsey Temperament Awards to famous individuals who exemplify their respective temperaments. Donald Trump, Lance Armstrong and Mel Gibson are among the 2004 recipients.

I did the Keirsey version of the Myers-Briggs personality test several years ago and found it quite useful. It helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses, which can be releasing. There is a lot of information on the 16 personality types (temperaments) on the internet, from career advice to learning styles and raising kids. Also the temperaments in Star Trek and Sex in the City have been analysed. More here.

The eagles are coming!

Do you remember the giant eagles in 'The Return of the King'? Barbara Leite mailed me an encouraging report from their first Connect Portugal meeting. Maaike and Heidi were there and talked about eagles and revelation, the emerging generation bringing Portugal into her destiny. It was a stirring meeting in many ways.



Talking about eagles: today I've been working on the Joel News website, and a new nicely designed e-mail newsletter we will send out soon. Click here for a sneak preview.

Justice the Dutch way

This is only possible in the Netherlands: a bank robber was sentenced to four years in prison and (of course) had to restitute the money he had stolen from the bank. But the judge said he could detract the 'investment' he made to do the bank robbery: a gun that according to the suspect had cost him 2,000 euro.

The art of fungagement

Read an interesting interview in Intermediair with Elena Simons, social inventor, out-of-the-box lady and author of 'Fun with Muslims'. She coined the term fungagement, which basically means: be socially engaged and improve society, but please do it lighheartedly, without pushing strong opinions.

A few examples: at Saint Nicholas she went to a mosque to put presents in the shoes of the muslims while they were praying. In Amsterdam she put up boxes where rich people could put money in, and poor people take money out (where have I heard this before?)

What I also liked is that she intentionally hangs out with people that are completely different from her. While a social environmenalist by conviction, she joined the liberal conservative party. Why? Adventure, staying intellectually sharp, the challenge of reconciling paradoxes. At the moment she's working on a book with crazy flashmobbing-type ideas for social engagement.

The new Moszkowicz

It's probably derived from Donald Trump's The Apprentice - Dutch reality tv series The new Moszkowicz, where top lawyer Bram Moszkowicz selects a potential successor out of a group of ten young wannabees. Every week they face a new challenge, from court sessions and digging into judicial cases to personal presentations and handling the media.

When watching a few episodes I had missed, I realised that one of the reasons I like this program is that the young candidates are taken seriously, receive a quality experience and are being challenged to excell.



I wondered how this would look like in a church setting. Could we give young people a series of serious challenges and high quality coaching, so that new leaders will emerge? It bugs me that there's so much potential, and it's not being released, nor trained properly.

George W.'s reelection

Dutch daily De Telegraaf published a funny movie of George W.'s reelection. One of my good intentions for this year was to stop bush bashing on my weblog. But this was pretty unrealistic I guess... ;-)