Marc's Messages

Blog fast till 8 February

After nearly five years of blogging (I know, this really sounds as if I'm getting old, and in blogosphere terms I probably am) it's time for a break, a so-called blog fast. I will not post on this blog for the next three weeks. Yes, that's a bloody long time. Likely it will take me more discipline to refrain from blogging, then it took me to blog daily. But it's good to take some distance from a place that has become so familiar. Let's see how I fare and what new inspiration will come for the next stretch of my life online. In case you were wondering - I might even join the 12 step program of Bloggers Anonymous. ;-)



My next post will be on February 8 2007, and this is a special day, because I will treat three blog friends on a cool dinner in the historic city of Utrecht that very evening. That is to say, if you can make it to Utrecht and give the best answer to at least one of these three questions:

1. How many posts did I publish on Marcs Messages in the period of five years?
2. How many pageviews did that generate?
3. And how many times did I mention the word 'reformation'?

Whoever comes closest to one of these three figures wins, so no need to get it exactly right. Please don't mail me (after all I have a fast :-), but put your answer in a comment to this post, so everyone can check on you. And watch this space on February 8. If you want to receive a notice by e-mail, then sign up for the daily update in the sidebar on your right hand. See ya later.

The Blogger's Prayer 1.2

Andrew Jones upgraded the Blogger's Prayer he wrote five years ago:

Our Father
who lives above and beyond the blogosphere

Give us this day a life worth blogging,
The access to words and images that express our journey with passion and integrity,
And a secure connection to publish your daily mercies.

Your Kingdom come into new spaces today,
As we make known your mysteries,
Posting by posting,
Blog by blog.

Angry about church 0.5

My German friend Andreas says he's angry about 'church 0.5' and can't stand 'nice' church services anymore. I can sympathize with that. When you've experienced God at work in all sorts of contexts and live beyond the reality of the average-sized church box, there's no way you can ever be satisfied with church as we know it (church 1.0), let alone a shallow or slightly improved version of it (church 0.5 or 1.5). You yearn for church 2.0 and pursue this reality whatever it takes. Andreas also quotes an observation that Alan Hirsch shared with us last week after his visit to Norway:

"I'm worried about the lack of fire in the young people I met. The lack of youthful rebellion is worrying! All revolutions are fired up by young people. If the young are 'nice' something is wrong."

When I shared this with Niina, who visited us last week, she said: "Oh that's typical for Scandinavia. It's the Jante Law. Come to Finland for an even 'nicer' version." But hey, if our Nordic friends shake off this state of slumber, watch out - the apostolic 'going where no man has gone before' comes out. Reinhold calls this the 'Viking spirit'. I don't especially like that term, as these guys ransacked Holland several times. Easy talk for Reinhold, the Vikings never made it to Switzerland on their looting trips. ;-)

Is SCP still a valid approach?

In our interaction with Alan (insert), Reinhold raised the question whether Saturation Church Planting (SCP), the classical DAWN method (mobilize all the churches in a give area to 'saturate' their area with new churches, in order to have a church in walking distance of every inhabitant) still is a valid approach. Certainly SCP in the sense of cloning existing (overall non-missional churches) is not the way forward. Besides, the terms 'church' and also 'church planting' are quite loaded, and not very helpful in a post-Christian context. Oivind said that in Norway they adopted the term 'multiplying communities' instead of 'church planting'.

Dangerous stories

Today, while Alan Hirsch was teaching at the Salt Academy on his latest book 'The Forgotten Ways', we had a valuable conversation in the DAWN team on training organic/missional church planters in Europe, a project I'm working on, and the question "what exactly is good news in our culture?". Around dinnertime I met up with Torben Søndergaard, a young evangelist and organic church planter who also heals people on the street (and trains young Christians to do the same). Danish national television found this remarkable, so they followed Torben and his family for several weeks to make a real-life "healing with Jesus" soap. Cool. In the evening Alan joined us for a sigar and he explained the set-up of the Forge training, and the incarnational strategy of a large 'cafe community' in Melbourne.

Missional church in Denmark

I'm two days in Copenhagen with the DAWN team. In Cafe Retro I met Thomas Willer, who started a house church network for young people in the city, and Rie Frilund Skårhøj (always funny, these Viking names), who sort of runs the cafe. It was good to get a picture of how young people in Denmark pursue organic and missional church.

A nomadic journey

Just heard that we have to move office again. Feel a bit like a nomad. Perhaps I should buy a bigger car, like a Ford Transit, and rebuild it into a mobile office. What d'ya think? Of course the ideal solution would be that we find affordable office space in the centre of the Netherlands that is flexible, but available more long term... or would that settle me too much? Anyway moving office bores me, as every move costs me at least one-and-a-half week and full month without internet access.

House churches 'more satisfying'

According to Barna's latest research "house churches are more satisfying to attenders than are conventional churches". The difference is about 15-20 percent. Barna describes a "house church" as "a group of believers that meets regularly in a home or place other than a church building. These groups are not part of a typical church; they meet independently, are self-governed and consider themselves to be a complete church on their own... not associated in any way with a local, congregational type of church."

Spelling at five

Peter developed chickenpox. For consolation and to stimulate him in learning to read and write, I brought him a spelling pad. Click to enlarge the picture to see his progress so far. In the meantime David is playing a computer game in which he has to beat up pizza monsters. It's amazing how fast he is, and he figured it out himself.

Evaluating church in 2006

"One New Year's Eve I asked my pastor a very straight forward question: 'How many adults came to faith in Christ at our church this year?' The pastor, a very diplomatic man, said, 'I am not sure. I'll have to get back to you on that.' But he and I knew the answer. It was zero. I added it up. That year our church conducted 104 regularly scheduled worship services, 7 special services, some 250 adult classes, 600 committee meetings and 1,000 small-group meetings and ran through a $750,000 budget to produce exactly zero new adult followers of Jesus Christ. We gathered. We worshiped. We loved each other. But we produced no crop. Our church was a contraption worthy of Rube Goldberg: lots of sound, motion, fury to produce a tiny amount of fruit."