Marc's Messages 3.0

Please note: new rss feed !!!

Please note that I moved my weblog. If you currently pick up my rss feed, make sure you change the feed's address to: http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/msm/index.rdf. Also when you're used to receive my updates by e-mail you have to give in this new address on the RSS-FWD site, which means resubscribe.

Marc's Messages goes 4.0

I'm committed to improve my effectiveness and efficiency this year, developing a more healthy and sustainable pace of life and work. Therefore I will stop blogging as I've been doing over the past six years and move into moblogging, short for mobile blogging, or blogging sms-style. This means no long, intelligent reflections on life, but really short logs on what I'm up to. This will keep friends, supporters and colleagues enough in the loop of what I'm doing, with the possibility to contact me if they want to speak in or join, but frees me up from producing content (or engaging in discussions) that I don't have too much inspiration for at the moment.

PLEASE NOTE: If you link to my new blog Marc's Short Messages, then make sure you point to the main domain: http://marcsmessages.typepad.com. If you pick up my RSS feed, make sure you change the feed's address to: http://marcsmessages.typepad.com/msm/index.rdf.

God sends revival

This week in Joel News International a clip of the revival in Meghalaya, India, where the churches are experiencing a move of God among the children and young people.

Less blogging these days

If you're a regular reader of this blog you surely noticed that I'm blogging much less these days. After a quite intense and rich blogging journey of five years, during which I processed a lot of issues related to emerging church, reformation, global prayer and innovation in missions, I decided to take a slower pace of life and reflection at my blog 3.0. While other - mostly younger - friends go through their own journey of 'rediscovering church and ministry as Jesus intended it', I feel more the need to chill out for a while and hear God afresh for myself.

Most of the active discussions I see on the web feel like repetitions to me. At the moment I'm trying to simplify my life and focus on the assignments God gave me. This might at some point in the future lead to a new, fresh season of blogging (or whatever platform is 'hot' at that moment), who knows.

If you want to draw inspiration from my five-year journey, check out the archives of my blog 1.0, my blog 2.0 (the most interesting period, where you can click on 'ministry' and 'emerging church' for the hot stuff) or the full text search option for all blogs.

Why Europe, Why Now?

A bit over two years ago a video team of The Caleb Project visited me for a long interview on the state of the Church in Europe and the missional challenges of our continent. It's always interesting to see that out of such a lengthy interview only a few spicy quotes make it to the ultimate DVD. But the good thing is that they did the same with the interviews of around fifty other pioneers all over Europe, generating a rich and inspiring picture of what's happening in our continent. The DVD covers both the huge transition/reformation the church in Europe is going through, and the real stories of real people praying and planting churches. This Fall we're distributing this unique DVD, and you can order your copy here.

September wrap-up

Some highlights of the past ten days:

- Started weekly publication of a simplified version of Shiftzine, a short inspiration newsletter for (potential) innovators and reformers in the Netherlands.
- Joined the first 'Prinsjesdagontbijt' of the GIDS Network in Utrecht, a first get-together of church and ministry leaders with Christian and non-Christian professionals in the fields of government, business and society, for (of course) the benefit of the city.
- Had an interesting catch-up with Cris van Dusseldorp who pastors a church in Arnhem that is slowly developing into a multi-shaped 'network church' that incorporates both organic DNA and projects to serve the city.

Researching Europe

In this week's edition of Joel News International I focused on the question: how many people in Europe follow Jesus? Three different studies, using different definitions of 'committed Christian' and varying methodologies, came up with multiple indications: 1.1% (GEM), 3.5% (OW) and 4.2% (emRG). My colleague Andreas Wolf from Germany says he has most confidence in the higher percentage, and suggests that in God's Book of Life it might well be 10%. Wolfgang Simson disagrees with him and stresses that the issue is not about what people profess, but whether they really live surrendered lives and take their orders from Christ the King. He estimates the number of 'real Jesus followers' at just 0.1%. What is certainly clear though is that Europe is probably one of the most needy places in the world today.

The emRG wizards regularly come up with innovative new ways to apply research to missions and church planting. Paul Dzubinski from Spain developed a quite interesting approach to prioritize which area(s) in a region offer(s) the best opportunity for church planting. It recognizes the need to be led by the Spirit with intelligent leadership. Check out his post here and his Powerpoint explanation here. Yes, God even uses mathematicians. ;-)

Subject to parody

Dutch satirical website Goedgelovig.nl played a little parody on Joel News. In our Dutch edition we published a story of a lady who prayed for her dog who was incurably ill, and the dog got healed. Goedgelovig.nl picked it up and asked when the stories would start pouring in of the miraculous healing of rabbits, parrots and other domestic animals. And would Dutch healing evangelist Jan Zijlstra soon start a prayer campaign for animals? Quite funny. Interestingly, praying for sick animals seems to be a quite normal practice for many Christians. We have testimonies pouring in daily.

I've been following Goedgelovig.nl for some time now, and think they're quite on top of the ball with their satirical view on developments in the Christian subculture. A few weeks ago they started a photo cartoon series titled 'Knevel & Van den Brink', starring the two best-known Christian television journalists, ascribing them dry tongue-in-cheek and sometimes quite absurd quotes. In the one below Andries says: "Breaking news: Dr. James Kennedy passed away." And Tijs comments: "He died in an evangelism explosion." Then, because in their real show they also had five female side-kicks, one of them, a Musllim lady called Esmaa makes a very polically uncorrect remark: "That sounds familiar. I didn't know Christians also did that stuff."

Virtual island hopping

Blogger and colleague publisher Paul Abspoel, who last month granted me a Thinking Blogger Award that I haven't collected yet, started a virtual island hopping journey. He already visited many exotic islands, like Pathmos, and now arrived on Lindisfarne. Last year I visited this former Celtic missions base in Northumbria, and Paul asked me to write a contribution on why the Celtic missionaries operated from monasteries that were so much off the beaten track.

God's Spirit on children

Over the past few months I received remarkable reports of a fresh outpouring of God's Spirit on children. One of these reports is from the Poso district in Indonesia, where 18 months ago three Christian girls were brutally beheaded, and 15,000 houses and shops owned by Christians were razed to the ground. Now in the midst of this persecution three children - an 8-year old boy, an 8-year old girl, and an 11-year old girl - stood up under the anointing of the Holy Spirit and are conducting revival and healing meetings that draw up to 40,000 people, including many Muslims. If you want you can download this edition here. Make sure you sign up for Joel News directly, as we will publish more reports in the coming weeks. To also 'feed' Dutch children with Acts-type stories of what God is doing today in the world and how He is involving children, Karolien is working on a special Joel News Children's Edition.

Jesus has left the building

In Greece I read Paul Vieira's challenging book 'Jesus Has Left the Building'. Paul relates his own journey out of organized religion, and gives some excellent examples of biblical precendents where God is challenging and even destroying the organized religion of Israel (like the times of the exile). Overall it's a highly prophetic book that speaks to the heart of an emerging generation to really be the church where it matters most: right in society.

The good thing is that Paul is not bashing the existing churches, but paints a picture of how Jesus intended his Body to function, and that's a quite effective reformation message. The book will be published in Dutch by next Autumn, and I will write a little foreword or recommendation. As Paul is covering the basics of what I planned to cover in my own book on shift/reformation, I'm rethinking what would be a good angle to take. There's certainly more to say, and stories to tell from a European edge.

On my way to Greece

I'm on my way to Greece with the Connect crew to celebrate Pentecost and join the Global Day of Prayer in Athens. On Monday our team will split up: Gabi, Niina and Pálma will travel to Thessaloniki to meet with DAWN missionaries Alan and Whitney, and then move on to Skopje and Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, where they meet up with our Connect and 24-7prayer friends Alek and Alpin. I will be travelling in Greece for a few more days and have two purposes: praying in several key places and gaining a better understanding of how the Greek culture influenced Europe (and still does), and taking some reading and reflection time as a preparation for writing a Connect/Shift-flavored book on reformation.

Shift! webzine launched

This week I'm launching a new publication in Dutch called Shift! webzine, a weblog and newsletter focused on helping young people and (potential) innovators and pioneers to dream and act out-of-the-box, and start a Jesus-centered grassroots movement of prayer, community, missions and justice. There's a growing momentum in the Netherlands for organic church and reformation, and I believe an information/inspiration hub where Dutch writers contribute can help catalyze that process and create indigenous ownership.

Writing in tongues

A few months ago a friend of mine asked me to register a Dutch domain for him (Goedgelovig.nl), so he could start a satirical website without being traced by the Calvinists. He pulled together a few columnists who are well-known in Christian circles in the Netherlands and who (anonymously) publish their humoristic and subversive posts to this site. One of these posts is about 'Glossie's Secret', the world's first novel in tongues, that was released during the National Book Week 2007.

I've been thinking about launching a satirical website myself, but didn't pursue it because of lack of time. Also, my fake April 1 news report of last year still gets all kinds of comments from Christians who don't really appreciate the genre, and probably think that Heaven is the most serious place in the universe (I truly hope not!). So I'm happy that someone else is running with the idea. After all, as my friend writes on his site, it was Erasmus' 'Praise of Folly' that paved the way for the Reformation in the Low Lands.

Joel News in the media

Because Joel News celebrates its 10 year anniversary, I've been interviewed for several national media. Radio 5 did a live report from the Joel News 'headquarters' (scroll to 00:36:00). Uitdaging, the main evangelical newspaper, published a one-page interview titled 'Journalism after Acts'. And Visie, the largest Christian weekly, a personal profile.

A new season of blogging

Welcome to Marc's Messages version 3.0! I'm ready for a new season of blogging. The frequency of this blog will likely be a bit lower than version 2.0, around three times a week. But let's see, when I get in the flow of blogging again, I might accellerate slightly.

What's new? First of all the banner image, adapted from Sigur Ros' clip 'Glosoli', which for me is a prophetic picture of God's Spirit calling and connecting the emerging generation, leading them on a journey out of their safety-zone, into the unknown. The reformational faith dimension of the Kingdom for which we really have to rely on Him. As Winkie Pratney says, "The Kingdom of God is only bordered by unpredictability." God wants us to use our imagination, creativity, faith and pioneering spirit. His Kingdom is not for the faint-hearted!

I also used the opportunity to simplify the typelists in the margins of my blog. I personally dislike long small-font lists with blogsites and other 'service information' cramped into the margins, forcing you to scroll down with your eyes hitting the screen. So I decided to create a special bookmark page with all the links that I use on a more or less daily basis, and that I also use as my start-up page. It holds all my blogging friends, as well as most low-budget airlines in Europe. Like this blog it's designed with SNAP preview windows for external links.

Finally I also included an experimental del.icio.us 'link dump' and a better visibility of comments. Hope you enjoy this blog for a new season; look forward to hear from you!