Marc's Messages

Important: read this carefully!

In case you are subscribed to Marc's Messages with RSSfwd (http://www.rssfwd.com), which means you receive my updates by e-mail, then please note that you have to resubscribe to my new blog if you want to stay in the loop. Go to http://marcsmessages.typepad.com and submit your e-mail address in the right margin. This is the ONLY way to stay updated on new posts as I won't be publishing anymore on my old blog!

Please also update your links. The best url to link to is the main one: http://marcsmessages.typepad.com (not with /mm/ at the end).

A new season, a new blog

Today is the last day I'm posting on this blog. Tomorrow I will launch a new weblog (version 3.0), where I will post less frequently - let's say three times a week instead of daily - but certainly with interesting perspectives on the new season we're in. If Typepad cooperates well, the url remains the same. If not, I will tell you.

OK, I moved over. If you still see this blog instead of my new one, make sure you use the url http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/ instead of http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/mm/. If necessary adapt your links.

And the winner is...

Who are the three blog friends that will join me for a cool dinner tonight in the historic city of Utrecht? Will there be anyone at all? First the correct answers to the three questions:

1. How many posts did I publish on Marcs Messages in the period of five years?
Answer: 531 on my old Blogspot + 1137 at Typepad (including today's posts) brings the total number on 1668.
Winner: Neck-to-neck between Heidi and Karolien, but Heidi wins with a difference of just 6 posts.

2. How many pageviews did that generate?
Answer: as I can only access the Typepad statistics of the past three years, I had to 'approach' this one myself, and my realistic estimation is 280,000 pageviews.
Winner: Gabi was way too optimistic, but still wins with a difference of 220,000 pageviews.

3. And how many times did I mention the word 'reformation'?
Answer: 6 times on my Blogspot + 195 times on Typepad, brings the total on 201.
Winner: Heidi (or is this one for Stuart?)

As likely none of you can make it to Utrecht tonight, I will invite Karolien to join me on your behalf. As a compensation I will pay a meal for you next time we meet somewhere in the world, ok?

Wrap-up of the past 3 weeks

Yes friends, I'm back in the blogosphere. Of course lots of blog-worthy things happened over the past three weeks, but I disciplined myself not to touch my keyboard (at least not for regular blogging), which was a helpful exercise to prove to my wife that I'm still normal. On the other hand my conscience as a historian says I can't leave extended 'white spots' in the chronicles, causing later generations to guess what happened, and reconstruct a picture in retrospect, which might be completely wrong. Something like praising Constantine for the birth of the house church movement. So here we go, a helicopter overview of the past three weeks:

- this month it has been 10 years since I started Joel News, which was a good reason to throw a party and unmodestly interview myself, as well as being interviewed by several media.
- on the family side we finished our cleaning-up house project, David broke a little bone in his wrist and can't use his right hand for a few weeks, and Karolien and I booked our flights to Trondheim;
- interacted with several organic church planting trainers on the development of a European training concept that can easily be implemented in different nations;
- met up with people of the GIDS network in Utrecht, paid a visit to Ellel Ministries' new base in Baak, and taught for experimenting young people in Delft on 'church as a movement';
- spent two days consulting with 15 organic church planters from Europe in Basel, Switzerland;
- developed a new collaborative e-zine in Dutch about the 'shift that happens' (more about this later);
- had ongoing interactions with Connect friends in several parts of Europe to get some overview of what God is saying to us corporately.

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.

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.