Marc's Messages

Why men hate going to church (2)

Rudolf Roos commented on my earlier posting that "the whole man-issue might very much be wired to the clergy-laity problem and the meeting-based way we do church." He linked to this article by Neil Carter who says:

These are the ingredients for the church where men are men. A man has a need to act with freedom and determination. He must function where he is in order to satisfy his need to do something other than just sitting and listening. He also must serve an overarching purpose which gives meaning to his day-to-day existence. He will search for significance in his life until he finds something that lifts him out of himself. The church he seeks does something of eternal significance.

An inspiring week

Looking back on a week with inspiring meetings and conversations. On Monday Ton Kasteleijn, talking through some issues related to coaching young people. On Wednesday a group of five emerging leaders from Utrecht, conspiring about an organic church planting training for young people. In the afternoon Maurits Roose, who has a similar vision and loves to combine the supernatural with solid Navigator-style discipleship. On Thursday a Joel Ministries board meeting, which should be serious accountability time, but always ends in lots of laughter. On Friday Matthijs Vlaardingerbroek, talking through the development of Connect Netherlands. A question that we haven't been able to settle yet is how you develop a quite diverse network in a pro-active, inspiring way. Today we had family time with the Gresham's in Kortenhoef. Great food and fellowship.

Why men hate going to church

Two years ago in Norway I posted a contribution on 'the gospel for men', or why we should make the church more 'man-sensitive'. Now Martin Winter mailed me a link to this article by David Murrow at pastors.com. Murrow states that "Christianity's primary delivery system, the local church, is perfectly designed to reach women and older folks. That's why our pews are filled with them. But this church system fails to stir men's hearts, so men (especially masculine ones) stay away." And: "Men and young adults are drawn to risk, challenge, and daring. While our official mission is one of adventure, the actual mission of most congregations is making people feel comfortable and safe." He gives seven principles for creating man-friendly churches.

Also check out the website churchformen.com with some crazy statistics on male church attendance. This site claims that of the world’s great religions, only Christianity has a consistent, nagging shortage of male practitioners. "Jesus had no trouble captivating men. Fishermen dropped nets full of fish to follow Him, but today’s church can’t convince men to drop their TV remote controls for a couple of hours a week." Another spicy article, 'Mild at Heart', appeared in Ministries Today.

Cheney plays God on intercom

Some conservative Christians in America believe that Bush is being led by God in his strategic decision making. But actually it is vice-president Cheney's voice on the Oval Office intercom, says satirical newspaper The Onion. Telephone logs recorded by the NSA seem to confirm this. A voice positively identified as Cheney's identifies himself as "the Lord thy God" and promotes the invasion of Iraq, as well as the use of torture in prisoner interrogations. This also explains Bush's slow response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Bush was praying in the Oval Office, but received no direction from God, because Cheney was on a fly-fishing trip. Full story here.

Osama Bin-Santa and soccer

Dutch missions organisation Agapè launched a website and campaign to point people to the real meaning of Christmas. As part of their viral marketing strategy they spread little Santa Claus movies, like this one with Osama Bin-Santa.

In the meantime Stefan Lingott of EPIC in Münster is preparing for the world championship soccer in 2006. I think he's already quite nervous about a possible confrontation between Holland and Germany. Check out this funny movie on his weblog.

Funny pictures from Berlin

Gabi mailed me some of the pictures she made in Berlin. On the left Chris and Marja, Dutch missionaries to Romania. Then the German architecture that Gabi admires but doesn't make me tick, a cup a glühwein in the local Kneipe, and a bread with pork meat and onion on the Christkindlmarkt. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

My DAWN homies

Andrew blogged about the DAWN team meeting in Zürich: "We meet at least 3x a year and its always a great time of talking mission-geek stuff - strategy, numbers, trends, research, challenges, books... I just love it and my mind goes into hyper drive. Here are some images of the DAWN Europe team that met together last week in Zürich. I know these photos are hard to see, but I don't like the artificial nature of flash photography and most of our strategic discussions and decision-making happen late at night in places with bad lighting. We did have a conference room in Zurich last week but most of my memories are from our times in dank, dark pubs and restaurants."

Full description of the team according to TSK here.

The Joseph Hour

Heard some cool stories of radio ministry in the Arab world. One program is called 'The Joseph Hour', where people can call in to share their dreams, and receive interpretation. Many muslims have dreams about Jesus, and the program makers explain these to them. There is also a program called 'Radio Church' to which people are encouraged to listen in their living room together with their friends. In six episodes they are being taught how to form a Jesus-centered house church that can start other house churches.

House church movements

Staying with the Simsons in their megahouse in Feuerbach, Black Forest. Wolfgang just returned from Turkey where he worked on his new book 'Hearing Prophetically, Building Apostolically', which deals with what he calls 'the other side of house church' (city church, apostolic teams, laying new foundations), and a smaller book titled 'Messianic Funding Principles'.

Yesterday we had a long talk on developments in the house church movement in Europe. Question: is there really a movement, or are many house churches still in a prototype or experimental phase? Mercy is quite outspoken on this issue: "I wouldn't call a group of friends meeting in a house a house church. A group is only a house church when there is a clear focus to multiply, and when that group is part of a network of house churches with an apostolic team functioning." Fair enough, you can only speak of a movement when there is multiplication and a focus on the harvest. So how many house church movements are there in Europe then? Wolfgang estimates 15-20, which is sobering.

TSK invents creditcard

Andrew, our team plant, always comes up with unexpected ideas. Sometimes he's brilliant, other times lame. This time he designed a T-shirt for all the DAWN associates with a VISA card logo. His explanation: "The idea is that DAWN is to the church what Visa is to the banking industry. Visa did not set up to be another bank but rather accomplished its goals by working inside and alongside existing financial structures. Which is why Visa is a part of so many transactions. Kinda like Dawn Ministries and our low profile, high impact way of leveraging ministry through mission groups and denominations."