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Kees van Velzen hosted our second gathering of young media pioneers in his apartment in Bosch en Duin. This time we showcased our work, and I must say I was impressed with the quality of these projects. Kees is working on an online diagnostic toolkit and consulting environment for psychologists, Sjoerd makes fancy promotional movies for broadcasting company SBS6, Martijn writes for Touch Communications' glossy flash website, and Mark designs corporate house styles and brochures.
I came across some interesting blog posts and articles on organic/emerging church: Recentering on Christ (Steve Hill), Barna's Bungle (Scott Friderich), Apostolic migration (Simson at Simplechurch), Ancient voices (Neil Young), Ough! (Mirko Sander), Sorry (Philip de Cavel), Speak up or shut up (Andreas Wolf), Monologue or dialogue? (Gijs van der Neut). Websites/blogs: The Crowded House (UK missional church), Male Spirituality (Richard Rohr), Let's put the kettle on (Lisa Borden).
And here's a collection of some other, not really emerging, but still intesting links. Websites: DeadChristiansSociety, Web 2.0 companies, PersonalDNA. Articles: The top-50 books that shaped Evangelicals, The Borat Show, Homeschoolers jailed in Germany, Thou shall not share Christ. Movies: 911 Revisited, Gabrielle (spiritual experiences in film, scroll down for the movie), Kash (a Christian becomes Muslim for 30 days), Islam vs Christianity, Imperial history of the Middle East. Photography: Gold.
Yesterday our local SHIFT-team met at Douwe & Jiska's place in De Bilt to evaluate the pilot training we did this Autumn. Overall on the content, operational and relational level it went well, but more foundationally we decided not to have a second training in this format. The match between what we envisioned and the diversity of the group was not optimal. In 2007 we will start with a series of local dreaming/envisionig nights, that could develop into a hub for innovators and pioneers in the city (Utrecht and surrounding towns). Based on getting to know people, we can help in forming teams and a simple coaching structure. So the vision continues, but the vehicle changes.
Looks like the various teams and networks I'm part of in the Netherlands are overlapping more and more. The team of the Dutch house church network gradually and partially flowed over in the SHIFT group, of which there are in fact two (one national and one local). Three organic SHIFT guys have been asked by Soul Survivor to speak at their upcoming young leaders conference in february on 'organic church and leadership'. Martijn Moens, who is also part of SHIFT and Soul Survivor just redesigned Indehuizen.nl, while Lucas Vos started a local initiative in Arnhem called Shifttank. Some call this synergy, others confusion. At least it's efficient - there are short relational lines between the various emerging networks - and it shows the growing momentum for 'all things organic'.
Lucas Vos, our Excel wizard, came up with a schedule (in Dutch) in which he explains four worldviews, and how this corresponds with four different church paradigms. People who are wired ecologically are most able to creatively apply elements of the other paradigms, dependent on the context. This all sounds very abstract, but it's also very insightful. Enjoy!
Download paradigmas_oude_kerk___nieuwe_kerk.xls
We had an interesting Shift meeting last week, and I just realized I forgot to blog about it. Bram Flippo gave a presentation on 'The Enneagram and the New Reformation', stating that 70% of humanity is a type SIX (loyalist), and in his experience this percentage is even higher in the church. He explained the interaction of the SIX with some of the other Enneagram types, and this sheds new light on leadership, group dynamics and change processes in the church. In Bram's view reformational leaders have to be very aware of these deeper dynamics if they want to take people through a foundational paradigm shift. I'm attaching his handout in Dutch.
Download enneagram_kerk.pdf
Today in the news: the Swedes have more trust in IKEA than in the church. Not really surprising. Although I would suggest it's still easier to plant an emerging church (especially without definition) than to assemble an average piece of IKEA furniture. But that's another story. In Copenhagen, in the light of Martin Robinson's missional challenges, I pondered on the question what we should do with our church buildings as we won't be needing them in a post-christendom age. This is what I came up with, again in a simplified PPT slide.
Download what_to_do_with_your_church_building.ppt
OK, continuing my last post - maybe we can safe some time here. For the 'emerging church' newbies and wannabees: Andrew Jones, aka Tallskinnykiwi (because he's from New Zealand and only one micro-inch shorter than me), is probably the emergent guru around, at least in Europe (well, on verge that is, when you take the second street left after Orkney Islands, you fall off the continent). He's so cool and innovative that everyone who wants to appear trendy puts him on their bloglist.
When I veejayed for him when we did our seminar in Copenhagen last week, I summarized his whole teaching on just ONE PowerPoint slide. Yes, I'm using that modernistic up-dressed piece of software now and then, and readily admit that it was Rick Warren who inspired me to simplify the complexity of all this emerging stuff to just ONE slide. I offer it as a free download. No credits please. Intellectual property TSK, images courtesy to Tim Berners-Lee.
On Matthijs' weblog a whole discussion is going on about 'emerging church'. The one who comes up with the best definition (in Dutch) will get the incredible reward of 12,50 euro, and not even in cash. That's peanuts for a lot of brainwork that has to satisfy even outspoken critics like Bram Krol; a typically Dutch kind-of-prize if you ask me.
I already suggested that 'emerging church' is undefinable anyway, so why waste time on a description. If you're really postmodern, you're not bothered by lack of definition, are you. To be honest, i find these discussions quite boring. Yes, I've been there, seen it, bought the t-shirt. Now let's move on. Let's look at the fruit of the various new expressions of church. Perhaps the essence of 'emerging' is that we stay sensitive to what the Spirit is saying and doing, and the cultural context in which we live and work. That's all. Nothing new. And if we do this well, we'll keep on 'emerging' until Christ returns. Amen.
Some years ago I had a prophetic dream about Trondheim, a city in Norway. I still owe you the full story, but will keep that to a later date. In Connect 'Going to Trondheim' has become a code word for unexpected divine assignments. It's interesting that yesterday I happened to share the evening meal with Terje Dahle of Kristent Nettverk and Ministries Without Borders (their apostolic team). He moved from Bergen to Trondheim a year ago to pioneer a new 'organic' initiative. When he heard my story, he extended an invitation for Karolien and me to come over. Cool. To get in the mood, check out this inspiring movie about Trondheim.
Andrew and I gave a seminar this afternoon on church planting among the emerging generation. And did I mention the great buffet we had over lunch, with all kinds of fish and even caviar? That's what the Scandinavians specialize in. Here are some pictures of today's meeting - from left to right: Anders Michael Hansen of SALT Academy in Copenhagen, who works on a shared learning project of the 10-20 the best church plants in Europe, with Oivind, the DAWN coordinator for Scandinavia; a group picture of the new DAWN team (extended with Paulo Pascoal for the Latin countries and Martin for the British Isles); Andrew and me talking to Peter Madsen (Svend's dad, who works with messianic churches in Israel, and Svend is the house church coordinator for Denmark); and a picture of the plenary meeting.
Martin Robinson (on the picture right with Andrew Jones) is now teaching on the challenges we face in Europe. Let me share my notes with you, for what it's worth. He mentions four:
1. Demographic: a declining population.
2. A militant, intolerant secularism, that refuses to acknowledge the contribution of Christianity, while overstating the validity of her own 'secular story'. Christianity is only recognized as a kind of chaplain to society: a place of honour, but not a powerful movement.
3. New spiritual realities, of which Islam is the most visible. But at the same time: for every person in Europe that converts to Islam, ten turn to Buddhism. For secularists Buddhism is much more attractive: it's a spirituality without much compromise to the secular perspective, but without ethics as well.
4. Christians have to learn to live as creative minorities, because the time of Christendom is over and will not return. Monastic disciplines like dialogue and accountability help to model a Jesus-centered spirituality and discipleship. The hermeneutic of images: telling the Story in a way that's convincing to visually-oriented people. Practical action is needed, especially in restoring family life.
A church planter from Denmark comments: over the past few years 150 new churches have been planted in Denmark, but all of these are immigrant churches, who are not really reaching/discipling Danish culture. Vision among Christians is weak on the local and national level, because there's not much imagination to envision the impact of the Gospel in our culture, it's still easier to lend on tradition, even when this will eventually die out.
Reinhold also presents five challenges of Europe from a strategic missions and church planting perspective:
1. Overcoming Christendom-thinking and becoming a missional-incarnational movement.
2. Seeing multiplicative church planting movements (several generations).
3. Finding ways as Evangelicals to join with Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
4. The need to see apostolic leaders emerge who see beyond the church and see whole regions.
5. Igniting Jesus-centered community-forming movements in the cultural context of Islam.
Martin raises a question: what are the deep values that have to be re-established in society, to see a true re-christianisation of our continent? In the Celtic times it was that the warriors needed to work instead of loot. The monks fed themselves, and in so doing gave testimony to the dignity of work. We have to mobilise the capacity of the church to create social capital, and build into society (instead of 'playing church').
He mentions five key components for Emerging Mission:
- training/recruitment/imagination;
- team: the five-fold debate, apostolic genius;
- cells as the initial goals;
- people of peace: to deeply influence society you need indigenous leaders;
- multiplication DNA.
And five fluid groups that need Fluid Mission:
- youth;
- immigrants;
- the marginalized;
- professional/business groups;
- temporary communities.
And finally three components of training:
- character;
- specific skills;
- missiology for western europe.
Excellent Mexican food and a beer yesterday with the European DAWN team, and two brothers from Latvia - Peter, the bishop of the Baptist Union (on the picture left with Oivind from Norway), and Vadim, president of the Evangelical Alliance. In the evening social time with two Swedish brothers, talking about Så som i Himmelen and Winter depression. Don't know why I fell asleep at some point, but I guess I have a reputation to keep up here. ;-)
The political landscape is shifting again. The most remarkable thing is that most established and/or middle-of-the-road parties lost seats, while the outspoken parties (SP, Wilders/Party for Freedom, CU and the Animal Farm Party) won. Looks like this time is asking for clear convictions. Of course with more outspokenness on the both the left and right, it's not easy to form a workable coalition. The most likely (but still difficult) option at this moment is CDA-PvdA (centre right and centre left) with the Christian Union, which would be historical because it gives the Evangelicals (who doubled their seats) a first-time leverage influence in the coalition talks.
Election Day. I'm on my way to Copenhagen, but Karolien will vote for me. Over the past five years every election in Holland has been quite uncommon, so I'm curious to see how things will turn out today. To get in the mood, check out this funny movie on YouTube.
Last weekend 70 Connect and 24-7prayer folks from the nordic nations (Scandinavia and the Balticum) got together in Stockholm. Petra skyped enthousiastically that a new friendship-based ministry network is forming there. Tomorrow I will travel to Copenhagen with the European DAWN team for a consultation with saturation church planters from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Latvia. New streams of life are coming from the north.
The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) is developing a new, national 'member registration system' that costs 5.2 million euro. Makes you wonder why a church that looses 100,000 members every year wants to invest in something that will render itself useless in a few years. According to Paul in 1 Cor. 3 it's even idolatrous (replacing Christ with man-made systems) to enlist membership denominationally. There's only one form of membership in the Body: you're either in Christ or you're not, and that settles it. If there is an overarching registration system at all, it's being kept in Heaven, not down here.
Willemijn, who joined us in the SHIFT training, is one of the mail women of passiepost.nl ('passion mail'), a mobile mail service for creative, personal snail mail. Don't you dare to type a Word-letter in Times Roman on your PC, print it and put it in an envelope. Real passion is expressed in a different way, it should be a surprise for the person who receives it. An interesting website where even the menu is different on every page.
Saint Nicholas is back in town and the boys put every shoe they could find in front of the door, expecting a big harvest. I hope they won't be too disappointed tomorrow. Several weeks ago, when I faked I had Saint Nicholas on the phone, calling from Spain, Peter said: "I know you're playing a joke on me, dad. Saint Nicholas doesn't really exisit, only Jesus does." Guess that settles the issue then. May Jesus fill all the shoes tonight.
We just finished the third (and last) episode of our SHIFT training for young pioneers, this time facilitated by Dirk-Jan and Koen. Last night I gave a teaching on 'seven steps in the shaping of disciple-making movements', today Koen talked about 'making your dreams reality', and Evert Jan painted a 'Christian worldview of hope'. I guess the three key elements of this training were IFP - Inspiration, Food and Pool. Enjoy some of the pictures (click to enlarge).
I experienced a spontaneous creative flow this morning, generating a lot of ideas. Sometimes you need that to get stuff going. According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi "flow is a mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity." His book is a great read.
For several years I've been on the outlook for a CMS that could combine the graphic quality and non-techie user-friendliness of Typepad with the functionality features of open-source software like Typo3, Mambo or Joomla. It looks like Squarespace is coming very close to what I'm looking for. I just set up an experimental website for the international and Dutch versions of Joel News, with rss feeds for the weekly headlines.
We're currently also transferring Joel News to a new database and mail platform. This will not only save us maintenance time, but also help us to send out html and pdf formatted editions.
Grace Valley Baptist church has been losing a dozen members per year. But according to a recent measure, the church is expanding 7 percent annually. The reason: They now measure attendance by weight rather than per person. "We may be shrinking numerically, but in sheer mass we're growing fast," says pastor Sam Winter. A hilarious story from satirical e-zine Lark News.
Also funny:
Dobson endorses family for president in '08
Man's prophetic actions offer lifestyle of fun
This week in Joel News the spicy parts of a 31 page transcript of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, where leading journalists engaged with Rick Warren, pastor of the largest church in North America and author of 'The Purpose Driven Life'. It's a really interesting read, in which Warren addresses five trends in the global evangelical movement, explains six myths of the modern mega-church, and openly shares how he handles money and influence.
A quote I didn't include in Joel News, but that made me laugh, came from David Brooks, columnist of the New York Times. He said: "The group of women in America that have most orgasms are evangelical women, according to the University of Chicago." While quickly adding: "Of course, at the University of Chicago an orgasm is a theoretical construct."
Any idea what links the Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal-Charismatic streams of church? Below the three logo's of (from left to right) the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, the national portal site Catholic Holland, and a Pentecostal course on miracles.
It's Monkey's birthday, so Karolien helped the boys to make an apple pie, and we sang him a birthday song. In the afternoon we watched the astonishing documentary 'The March of the Penguins'.
David discovered he can fold himself in three wooden storage boxes and turn himself into a table.
Six weeks ago Peter fell from his bicycle, and since then he resists giving it another go, no matter how hard we try. He's very creative in finding excuses. Today he said: "Dad, I'm willing to cycle, but only when it rains." (He knows that when it's raining, he can use that as an excuse not to cycle.) Then I tried the 'imagine you could do this' approach: "Close your eyes, and imagine/picture you take your bicycle, go the elevator, push the button, go down, etc." Peter interrupted me: "Dad, I don't have these pictures available in my memory, the space where they used to be stored is empty." Aaaargh....
Jim Rutz, author of Megashift, also wrote a column on the fall of Ted Haggard. "We can blame Ted for not seeking help. But there is a much greater blame in this case, and it must be aimed at the pastor-centered church system that does not and cannot provide ongoing help and correction. The fall of Ted Haggard can be a huge blessing if it opens our eyes to the flaws of the pyramid model. By eliminating the Holy Man-of-the-Cloth system, we can draw the entire church into a participatory family. Then holiness and accountability will be everyone's job, and we'll have 100 percent of the church doing the work instead of dumping everything onto the shoulders of one pastor-hero-father-king standing on a wobbly pedestal."
C. Peter Wagner must have a full-time job writing endorsements for new books that are being published. Jaeson Ma of Campus Church Networks (on the picture playing with a dangerous sword he got for his birthday) decided to give him a break and asked me (among others) to write a little recommendation for inclusion in his book 'The Blueprint. Igniting a passion to plant missional communities on campus'. I haven't read the whole book yet, but what I read already touched me to the core. So here's my little line to make you buy the book:
"This book needs no endorsement. It already carries the fingerprints of God all-over! It will fuel the hearts and minds of a generation called to take hold of Christ and his unshakable Kingdom. May universities all over the world be burning with the fire of ongoing prayer, and become vital hubs for a reformation of church and a transformation of society."
Cancao Nova in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is one of many thriving charismatic communities in the Catholic church. Tony Palmer was there several weeks ago for a national conference of the Catholic charismatic movement. He reports: "My words have no power to transmit what took place there. It was mindblowing to hear the bishops share their experiences of being baptized in the Holy Spirit and praying for the infilling afresh."
"When it was our time to speak, we (the ecumenical delegation) decided to wash the feet of the Catholic Church in Brazil. This set the meeting on fire with a love that was actually tangible. We asked for forgiveness on behalf of our non-Roman brothers and sisters. After we served them, they shocked us by getting on their knees, washing our feet and kissing them! No words can express the historic influence this may have on the Church in Brazil. And it was televised live to 83 different countries, including the Vatican."
How are Ted Haggard's kids coping with their dad's mistake and the fact that everyone at school knows about it? Andrew can relate to that personally, and shares: "We were scum. We felt guilty for what our dad did with those boys but we [or at least I] also felt guilty for destabilizing a Christian institution that had suddenly shifted into emergency gear and the ministry of damage control. We left without incident and no one waved goodbye. We vanished, just like they wanted it. It was our dad who committed the shameful act but we all bathed in that shame. No one wanted a part of it, or us. No one wanted to be contaminated. We were the fallout family." Full post here, comments closed.
Donny organised a little get-together on MSN with the Australian Connect/Generation Fire team to discuss developments. Cassandra copied one of my quotes to her weblog, where I also discovered some more pictures of our recent Connect Australia gathering, especially the worship times. Click on the pictures to enlarge.
Had lunch with the office and organisation team of Soul Survivor. They asked me to interact with them on the dynamics of movements, the tension between life and structure, and how to build wisely in the coming years. We talked about this article, this book, and the graphs below. The first is Roger's cycle of innovation (see explanation here), the second the BCG matrix on product life cycles and market development (explanation here).
The Germans have something with kickstarting movements. Mirko uploaded two cool historic movies on his weblog about the early beginnings of the Jesus Freaks, a fast growing alternative church planting movement, that now spills over the borders of Germany. Part one is about ministry in the red light district in Hamburg. Part two explains more about the vision of the Jesus Freaks.
Another German who aims to make history is Reinhard Bonnke, known for his mega evangelistic healing campaigns in Africa, who just released his Full Flame Film Series. He wants to use the power of story and cinematic experience to ignite a grassroots movement. "Picture what could happen if believers everywhere were truly inspired to share their faith in fresh, simple, and dynamic ways, out of their own experiences and Christ-like motivation!" Bonnke's slogan: "When you preach the Gospel, the Gospel happens!" Cool. C'mon Germany!
The Evangelical church in America has a new affair. Ted Haggard, a well known megachurch pastor who presided the National Association of Evangelicals, had to step down from his positions because he admitted having bought drugs and being involved in a relationship with a male prostitute. Today New Life Church released his official apology, and YouTube has most of the video material. It's a sad story, even more for his wife and five kids. Christianity Today published an article by Gordon MacDonald titled 'When Leaders Implode', addressing what Christians should learn from this affair.
What always puzzles me with issues like this is that there's often no public communication from the church involved. Although they released Haggard's apology (what else can you do when it's national news?), there's no mention at all on the New Life Church homepage - they simply changed the name of the pastor on their website, and life goes on. What does that tell us about the measure of openness in this church?
Related posts that also address this unspoken 'strategy of silence': History of the charismatic movement and Facing the real issues.
I enjoyed the second episode of our SHIFT training in Westbroek, this time facilitated by Douwe (Church21) and focused on the heart, what it means that Jesus calls us to follow Him.
Evert-Jan came up with some challenging insights on the Ten Commandments. He said Hebrew language doesn't know imperative, so the Big Ten is not about rules or laws, but actually Ten Promises. If we remember (keep focusing on) the God who delivered us, then we will not kill, steal, engage in idolatry, etc. Knowing God brings forth the desire to do good. It's amazing how much Roman judicial thinking influenced our perception of the Gospel, which can easily turn into legalism.
When explaining the message of Jesus, we often start with the concept of sin and that we need Jesus to legally get rid of that problem. But why not start with God's overall plan of restoration, and that Jesus is the Anointed One who can restore and bring to fulfillment. Makes you wonder what conversion is really about. Is it about getting rid of your sins and going to Heaven (the traditional Evangelical perception) or about living a restored life as truely loved sons and daughters of God and bringing restoration to others (see also this Methodist article). It's interesting that in the story of the prodigal son the father's attitude is not judicial (focused on the sin that might be in-between him and his son), but immediately confirms his identity as a son.
In Frisia, the most northern province of the Netherlands, a rescue operation is going on to save a herd of about 100 horses that stranded a few days ago on a tiny patch of ground when a fierce storm flooded the area outside the dikes. Many of the animals have spent two nights knee-deep in water, and 18 have drowned in the area outside Marrum. The owner of the horses will likely be persecuted for negligence, as animals have to be brought to the safe areas by October 15.
I just received news that Jim Montgomery, the founder of the DAWN movement, passed away. What started in the 1970s in the Philippines, kickstarted a whole new approach to missions: saturation church planting, a holistic strategy combining prayer, research, training and intentional planting of new churches, thus saturating whole areas with the presence of Jesus. Andrew Jones and Wolfgang Fernandez blogged about him, and for those interested: Jim's books can be downloaded for free on the DAWN website. I never met Jim personally, but I remember him as someone who always encouraged. One of his last e-mails said: "Blessings on your so-very-helpful ministry! Your news is much appreciated." Thx Jim, for all the inspiration you provided to so many people.
We don't have a proper internet connection yet, but our new office is now in operation. We moved from the historic centre of Jutphaas to the economic area of Nieuwegein. We have plenty of space here, because most of the building is empty (we rent anti-kraak). How nice to have a private parking place, a supersonic door monitor, a lounge room, a kitchen and three toilets...
