Marc's Messages

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."

Holland's post-secular future

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.

The future of God

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?

Be the 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.

Cannonball baptism

Found this funny video on YouTube. Reminds me of my own baptism. I also jumped in, but this one is more spectacular for sure. And how about baptizing people by bungee-jumping from a bridge?

Member registration system

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.

Come, Holy Spirit

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.

Tumbling down the pyramid

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."

Carrying your dad's dumbbell

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.

When leaders implode

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.