I feel quite a lot under pressure these weeks and struggle to find focus and motivation for the season ahead. Partly it's the unclarity of the transition we're in, which silently sucks away creative energy. Partly it's being structurally tied (and likely overburdened) into project coordination and admin tasks which don't make me tick. Partly it's my personal working style that is not the best expression of a healthy balance of family, work, friendship and relaxation. Partly it's personal discouragement of unmet expectations - or is it midlife crisis already, having reached the magical age of 40?
Anyway, a week ago I talked it through with my board, and they suggested I would more radically simplify my life and work towards a sabbatical period in 2008, which would also (hopefully) create 'vital space' for writing. I know a new season is coming, and I want to be able to receive and flow with what God has in store for us and for his Body in Europe and beyond. My prayer these weeks is for boldness to let go of things that limit instead of release. Or as Harold Eberle said yesterday, when we met with a group of Shift friends in Hilversum:
"We don't have a work-slave relationship with God in which we are being rewarded for our work. But God called us into sonship, to live out of our inheritance."
- Started weekly publication of a simplified version of 











