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It's becoming a tradition: the five postings on this weblog that provoked most comments in 2006. This time they're quite diverse. Earlier episodes: 2005, 2004.
1. My unpublished April 1 report
My fake Joel News report on the spreading of a 'judgement virus' in the Netherlands stirred a lot of response, especially from Dutch readers, and proved once again that in John Calvin's own country pagans tend to have a better sense of humor than Christians.
"Christ of the Wilderness, hear our confession.
We are MacDonald's, we confess our sin,
This is our temple, where we eat our fast feasts,
We are ready to enjoy a happy meal, but not to eat a meal of sadness for injustice.
HUNGRY GOD - HAVE MERCY ON US."
Andrew Jones explains what a 'Cruelty-free Christmas' is all about, and why Jesus followers should support a standard of animal welfare. He will be happy to know that the Netherlands now has an Animal Party in Parliament, of which the leader was elected 'political animal talent of the year'.
Bob Bakke pointed me to this article by Dutch media commentator Joshua Livestro in 'The Weekly Standard', assessing the development of Christianity and Islam in the Netherlands. It's an interesting read. He even quotes Kees Westhuis and Henk Vink of the Dutch house church movement. Livestro also has an interesting article evaluating the gay marriage practice in Holland.
Is Paul's approach to forming communities universally prescriptive or inspirational? Did Jesus in his life model the 'DNA' of Church as He intended it, or not? To what extent do the Kingdom and Church overlap? Important questions, and I posted a few comments addressing this on Matthijs' blog (here and here), partly responding to Youth for Christ missional workers, who seem to be a bit hesitant to call their communities 'church'. Roland Allan also has some good things to say in this classic work 'Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours?'.
Btw, over Christmas I read Daniël de Wolf's excellent book 'Jesus in the Millinx. Words and Actions in a Poor Neighborhood in Rotterdam' (Dutch only) in which he challenges the existing church by applying an unconventional incarnational approach in one of the most notorious city areas in the Netherlands.
"Do you know how difficult it is to be a pastor in a traditional church?" asks John White, who works as a house church coach with Dawn Ministries. "I do. I was one for over 25 years." Consider these statistics from Resurgence:
- In the US 1500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches.
- Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
- Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
God is back. This week Intermediair, the magazine for highly educated professionals, runs a special edition on 'Who is God. Getting to know him'. And trendwatcher Adjiedj Bakas published a well-received book titled 'The future of God (and the music he likes)' in which he describes European reli-trends. In fact, he recently bashed the liberal political parties for excluding religion from their campaigns, because the undercurrent in society is religious, and ignoring that will cost you seats in Parliament.
This was also the topic for a brainstorm with our group of young media professionals today. How can we get a Kingdom message across in such a way that it creates momentum for societal change?
Last Summer at Freakstock, Bob Beltz (insert), who looks a bit like Steven Spielberg and works for Walden Media (producer of the Narnia movie), showed us the trailer of 'Amazing Grace', the upcoming movie on William Wilberforce, the Christian reformer who fought against all odds for the abolishment of slavery. The trailer is now also on YouTube, and the movie will be released on 23 February.
But it's not just a movie, there will also be a campaign titled 'Amazing Change', fighting for the abolishment of modern-day global slave trade. Be the change! Like Niina remarked recently in a Skype conversation: "We need to EMBODY the spiritual things we want to see happen. We need to carry, incarnate, materialize them in creative ways in us... so we live wherever in a different spirit, and smuggle the fire into places carrying it WITHIN us." Merry Xmas.
I've been interacting with various friends in the Netherlands about a possible new 'hub' for innovation and reformation. It also came up today when we met with a number of Shift'ers at the local Chinese restaurant. If there is a growing momentum for change, how can we create synergy and steward it well?
Had lunch with Steve Hill, who just returned from Central Asia. Assessing the organic church landscape in Europe and the need to train 'simple church' planters, we came to the conclusion that those 'simple church' networks that seem to thrive all have a missional DNA, and this is mainly imparted when the person who carries the vision is an apostle or an evangelist. So when aiming to train 'simple church' planters, it's likely most effective to select those that are clearly apostolic or evangelistic in their calling or ministry, and already see the fruit of that in their lives. These people create the missional 'flow' that others (prophets, teachers, pastors) can hook up with.
