Marc's Messages 3.0

Connect Europe this Autumn

This Summer several Connect Europe friends hit the road. Krister & Resa blogged about the trip of the Nordic team to Latvia and Lithuania (pictures here), Gabi uploaded her pictures of the SLOT Arts Festival in Poland, and Marek reports about the first Czech Connect meeting that took place in the house of prayer in Senozaty (pictures here).

For this Autumn several focused and regional Connect Europe events and trips are shaping up, which provide excellent opportunities to (re)connect, develop friendship and grow in teamwork.

Of special interest is a Europe-wide consultation on ministry among new agers and neopagans, and a training in the supernatural, held in Basel, Switzerland. We cooperate in this effort with Hope for Europe. This network is pulling thinkers and practitioners from various nations together, and several people from Connect Europe will provide hands-on training. More information in this brochure (pdf).

Two pioneer trips (for prayer and connection with emerging pioneers) are planned to France and Iceland. If you're interested, check out the Connect Europe 2007 agenda.

Remember the kitchen table?

Herman Ketel (on the right) sent me this picture with a little note: "It was good to meet again and experience the bond that was forged in the early years of the house church movement in the Netherlands. So much has changed, and so much is still changing! 'Church at the Kitchen Table', Hans Groeneboer's book on simple church, recently struck a cord in me again. Glory to the Lord who is renewing His Church!" We reconnected shortly at Floyd McClung's seminar early July. On the left Henk Vos, who is probably now in his early eighties, and still coaches young people to plant simple churches.

David the builder

Our David (8) loves to build. For years he played with LEGO and created his own 'cabins'. Now he also develops his computer art skills and launched his own weblog. I promised to 'plug' it for him, so if you have a chance check it out: there's a cool Tom & Jerry clip, lots of smileys and pictures he likes, and also some of his own creations.

Babel the movie

A good illustration to Richard Rohr's claim that true change or transformation happens in a state liminality is the movie 'Babel' that we watched yesterday. Babel tells the unexpectedly interweaving story of a Moroccan, a Mexican, an American and a Japanese family. All of them are disconnected in communication and relationships, and it's a phase of liminality or crisis that reconnects them to their true self and each other.

Adam's Return: male spirituality

In the left margin of my blog you find links to some of the books I read recently. One I'd like to point out specifically is 'Adam's Return. The five promises of male initiation' by Franciscan author Richard Rohr. He touches on several issues related to shift/reformation that I raised on my blog before, like the need to 'rediscover' a male spirituality, and the role of liminality in our spiritual formation. You might want to check out Rohr's website and this excerpt of an interview with him for an Australian radio station. Some spicy quotes:

- Few transformations happen in church. The places where real transformation happens in our world are Alcoholics Anonymous, Ground Zero, the cancer ward, and of course the mountains of New Mexico.
- Church liturgies/programs are very much a confirmation of the present consciousness, the present politics, the present self-serving world view. To join the clergy is to join an establishment world view of status and security. And I think that's what my father St. Francis was trying to oppose. Churchyanity has far too often become a substitute for Christianity.
- Not secularisation is the big reason for the collapse of churchgoing, but the failure of the church and its leaders to use their imagination.

To move or not to move

Last month, just before we left for our four-week family trip, Connect friend Jeff and his colleague Cevin came by for a good Dutch pancake. Jeff then asked the inevitable question: "So how about your plans to move?"

I realize we've been talking about this for some time, and nevertheless are still sticking around in the Utrecht area. Things are going less fast than we hoped and anticipated (we already cleaned out our house and I phased myself out of local and national projects), but we are taking concrete steps based on our current state of 'seeing' in which direction God might lead us. Our trip to Germany, checking out potential places to live and possibly start a community and training base, was one of those steps. We even found two places that would fit our vision quite well, though they're quite beyond our budget, if you could even speak of a budget.

In a way I also envy my missionary friends who seem to move quite easily from one country to another. Jeff moved from America to Turkey, to Germany, and now lives in the Arab world with his family. I lived most of my life in two Dutch cities: Enschede and Utrecht, both for about 20 years, and as such am more rooted. Talking to missionary and multi-culture kids I know being rooted is not a bad thing. But at the same time I want to develop a more daring flexilibity in how we pursue Christ and his Kingdom.

Perhaps you could pray with us. We want to press into what God has prepared for us. We feel like Joshua and Caleb; after 40 years they knew it was time to take hold of the Promised Land.

Family trip - week four

The highlights of this week:
- An outing to Chamonix Mont Blanc, where we took a mountain train up to the Mer de Glace, where you can walk through the glacier. The glacier shrunk significantly, so maybe Al Gore was right after all.
- A stroll through Geneva's beautiful Botanic Gardens.
- Water cycling with the boys on Lake Annecy in the French alps.
- An overnight visit to Florian and Iris of the Dream House in Taunusstein, near Frankfurt.
- Spending a few days with my parents, where we celebrated Peter's 6th birthday.

More Chamonix Mont Blanc pictures here.
More Botanic Garden pictures here.

Family trip - week three

The highlights of this week:
- A few relaxing days at Lammert & Conny's place in Geneva. A country house close to the centre, which offers a good base for outings.
- Getting soaked at Geneva's impressive Jet d'Eau, with 140 meters, 200 km/h and 7,000 litres of water the largest fountain in Europe.
- Spending a day with the Mudriks on their way from Taize to Prague, catching up on plans to develop community.
- A visit to CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory, where the World Wide Web was born.

- Because it was raining for three days non-stop, we also spent an afternoon at the Museum of Natural History, which had an impressively extensive collection of animals, stones, and more.
- A stroll along the Rhone river to the old city with the Gallery of Reformers in the Parc des Bastions. Don't visit the International Museum of the Reformation; it's deadly boring, only portraits of John Calvin.
- A day-trip up to the Saleve range, from where you have an excellent view over Lake Geneva.
- Climbing the top of La Dole (1678m) in the Jura mountains.
- Swimming in Lake Geneva - quite cold, but refreshing.
- Watching 'The making of The Lord of the Rings', a story as impressive and epic as the movie itself.

More Geneva, Saleve and Jura pictures here.

Family trip - week two

The highlights of this week:
- Enjoying a few quiet days at Wolfgang & Mercy's place in Feuerbach, an idyllic village with fruit trees and vines in the Black Forest.
- The boys wanted to sleep on the balcony because they thought that would be more fun.
- Walks in the forest and a visit to the bird park in Steinen, where they do impressive shows with birds of prey.
- We also looked at some houses in this region.

More Black Forest pictures here.