Marc's Messages 3.0

We are the church

Last weekend I taught at Soul Survivor's Mini Festival. I used a loop of Joshua Longbrake's photo series 'I Am The Church' and started with a new presentation I'm currently developing on what God is doing in Europe. In this presentation we base jump from Rio's Christ statue and then hoover over several nations in Europe. Because we had only one hour, I sticked to North-West Europe, but of course there are also exciting developments in the South and East of our continent. The weekend was also good to reconnect with the Soul Survivor board and team, and with Jim Yost from Indonesia who taught on simple church, Luke 10 and out-of-the-box organic ministry among the poor, prisoners, prostitutes, Muslims, and what else.

Btw, today I found the 'I Am The Church' series on YouTube, put on a Sigur Ros track. Check it out. And here's another version.

A new breed of evangelists

Today Mattheus van der Steen of Touch, Reach and Impact the Nations (TRIN) paid me a visit. Mattheus is an exponent of what you could call 'a new breed of faith and charity evangelists' that is emerging from the Netherlands. TRIN started nearly two years ago and quickly developed into an international hub, based in Harderwijk, where young people can realize their God-given dreams related to reaching the world for Christ and bringing hope to the poor and oppressed.

Mattheus' philosophy on development is quite simple: anyone can join TRIN if they commit to relationship and values, and make their projects self-supporting. The key words are 'Spirit-led', 'empowerment' and 'decentral responsibility'. TRIN currently has 17 fulltimers and a budget of well over a million euro. The ministry is holding massive gospel & healing campaigns in Pakistan, supporting 1200 orphans in various countries in Africa and Latin America, throwing 'fire nights' to impact (mainly young) people in the Netherlands, setting up a 24-7 prayer center, and has advanced plans to launch 30 house churches.

Having said this, and appreciating Mattheus' faith to think big and jump in stormy rivers, I also have some concerns about the personality culture I see and the way some things are being handled. People with a persuasive personality tend to overlook the relational side of things and can by their activism easily burn people out. Charismatic evangelistic pioneers are good in kick-starting things, but pretty bad in getting organized and leading organisations. The future will tell how things will work out.

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.

New life in Overvecht

After having lived in Overvecht, one of the Dutch government's 40 'social hotspots' or 'problem areas', for 13 years, we sense it's time for us to move on. At first we were a bit hesitant - why leave an area without seeing a Christian community planted as we envisioned? - but two recent developments give us more peace about this decision.

First of all we realize that our prayers and initial steps (though sometimes it felt more like stumbling our way forward) to see Kingdom come to this area are paying off. Over the past year God led a new generation, a group of around 20-30 recently graduated students in their twenties, to intentionally move to Overvecht with the vision to start communities and provide social care. Today we had a picknick with a number of them, and it was encouraging to hear about their plans, contacts and ideas.

Secondly, what happened to my office a few months ago, is now also happening to our apartment: we are more or less being kicked out. Plans for a large-scale renovation are currently being discussed, and if this takes place, we have to move out by 2008. The good thing is that we know God has new things prepared for us, and we can look back on a period in which we were able to sow destiny into our city and neighborhood. I guess in God's Kingdom the sowers are not necessarily also the harvesters. We all have our role to play. And if we leave and 20-30 others emerge to take our place, that's a pretty good deal.

Floyd on simple church

Floyc McClung, who pioneered YWAM in Amsterdam, and currently trains simple church planters in Cape Town, South Africa, returned to the Netherlands for a seminar on 'the future of the church'. He did a pretty good job in pointing out the paradigm shifts we need to become a truly missional Kingdom movement. He quoted a lot from Hirsch and Frost's 'The Shaping of Things to Come', illustrated with stories from his own experience.

Not sure though whether the evangelical leaders who turned up got the real reformation message. Floyd is so kind and generously embracing (which is why we all love him), that he tends to just rub the surface.

The most striking example though came in reply to a question asked: "How did you turn a prophetic megachurch like Metro Christian Fellowship in Kansas City to a missional movement?" The answer was clear: in the five years that he pastored this church he wasn't able to really change the set-up or DNA, apart from impacting a few individuals. He said most Christians didn't want their kids to go into missions (too dangerous), and one lady remarked: "Are you serious about inviting non-Christians into our house and thus defiling our home that we just dedicated in prayer to the Lord?"

Simple church pioneers

Had lunch with David Schaefer, German simple church planter, author and T-shirt print wizard, and Efraim & Ruben Meulenberg, twin brothers, multimedia innovators and kid's ministry pioneers.

David told me that he's translating some of Neil Cole's material ('Organic Church' and 'Life Transformation Groups') to the German/European context. He differentiates between 'apostolic context' - going to places to establish a beachhead for the Gospel - where the Luke 10 principles (looking for people of peace and kicking the dust off when there's no openness) apply, and an everyday missional organic church lifestyle, where your life is an 'open letter' of God's work, and relationships normally need time and persistence/faithfulness to develop. He sees the Life Transformation Groups as well suited for Jesus followers and 'people of peace' who want to become 'self-feeding', cheer each other on and keep each other accountable to a missional lifestyle.

Efraim and Ruben set up the web architecture for Rick Warren's P.E.A.C.E. plan and also developed IMPACT DVD's, a tool to equip children in their relationship with God and ministry. Their focus is to help children who know Jesus disciple their non-Christian friends, and even form small groups/teams.

The church in transition

Today I taught at a prophetic training in Gorinchem, hosted by Jefferie Lammers, on the topic 'Five marks of the Church in transition'. These are:

1. A revival of prayer, seeking God, abiding in His presence.
2. Getting detached/delivered from 'organized religion', and growing up to maturity.
3. We can be the Church/the Body of Christ anywhere, and as a result we see a myriad of so-called 'new expressions'.
4. A Spirit-led, apostolic lifestyle of breaking open new ground for the Gospel, similar to what we see in the book of Acts; and to move in this dimension God is taking us out of our comfort-zones.
5. A new reformation is taking place, God is challenging us in foundational areas; we need a revival of the heart, a renewal of thinking and a reformation of structures (one cannot do without the other).

Simple church developments

Caught up by skype with DAWN colleague Alexander Campbell, who just published a progress report on organic church planting in the UK, and returned from a trip to Denver. In his view the situation in Europe is quite similar to the States. Several years ago Mike Steele of 'Organic DAWN' looked to Europe "to discover where things would head in America," but now simple church is already becoming a grassroots movement over there, while Europe is still in the beginning stages.

While we were in Germany for the Connect communities weekend, Alexander joined Steve Hill's training on simple church and apostolic ministry in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He told me that at the time they were there, God led two of the Bible school students into a divine encounter with the President of Romania, who just got suspended, to speak prophetically into his life. That's walking in things prepared, hey?

Btw, talking about simple church, Guy Muse from Guayaquil, Ecuador, posted some useful church planting lessons learned along the way.

Sharing prayers, stories and pictures

I really enjoyed the past few days. We could have dug deeper in terms of content and practice of community, but there were many stories, friendships, prayers, activities, movies and barbecue sausages to share as well. We also talked with the Connect group about joining the Order of the Mustard Seed, which is something we will explore more over the next months. Make sure to check out my review of Bonhoeffer's 'Life Together', and Barbara's post on community life. She is currently pioneering a new community in Portugal and has good insights to share. Because five people also shared their cameras with me, there are loads of pictures of the weekend on my Flickr site.

The Council of Elrond

Yesterday I showed this movie clip of the Council of Elrond (Lord of the Rings), that speaks about how community is being formed.

Intentional communities in Europe

Greetings from Klostergut Gronau near Wiesbaden, Germany, where we're having an inspiring time of learning and friendship with 40 or so Connect Europe friends, Jesus Freaks, SLOT guys, 24-7 folks and the team of Traumhaus community. The topic is starting and developing intentional (missional) communities. A number of people are already into this, others are just starting. Today we explored the Kingdom potential of communities, why we would want to pursue it, what some of the main challenges and problems are, and our personal hick-ups or fears.

In the afternoon we divided into four interest groups. The one I participated in, and of which Phil Anderson wrote an outline in Powerpoint, was on the foundations of community life. What are some good forms/models we see emerge in Europe? Do you need a Common Rule or agreement on lifestyle and values? How does leadership function in a community? How are finances best dealt with? Other groups discussed the social challenges of community, developing missional impact, and how to get started.

Download communities_mindmap_text_version.rtf
Download structures_of_community.ppt

Apostolic church planting

The main contribution to the conference came yesterday night from Florian Bärtsch, an apostolic evangelist from the Luzern area. There are not many organic church networks that are apostolic in the sense that they incorporate three elements:
1. a supernatural dimension of signs and wonders, and Spirit-led risk-taking (like we read in the book of Acts); 2. strategic focus and planning; and 3. a relaxed team learning attitude. Florian is a zealous speaker, and really got our attention. Alexander Campbell was so good to list the key lessons learnt, and also Andreas and Gabi blogged their reflections.

This morning I joined a focus group on identifying apostles, which was also quite interesting. My take is that most people with an apostolic calling either already left the church, because they don't thrive in a pastor-teacher environment, but rather look for another context to use their entrepreneurial skils, or they are not yet Christians. The people to look for think holistically (see the whole and how the different parts fit together) and act entrepreneurially (explore and take new ground).

Mapping simple church networks

The powerful notion that you can be church anywhere is inspiring more and more Christians in Europe to start and experiment with 'simple' or 'organic' expressions of church. Because most of these developments take place under the surface, we don't really have a good overview of what's happening in this area in Europe. Where are the thriving simple church networks? What is some of the best practice that's being developed? To what extent are they missional and multiplyable? How is leadership being developed, and do apostolic teams emerge?

To get a better overview of the European situation, Nico-Dirk van Loo (insert) is working on a research project, that is being supported by DAWN, Simple Church UK, emRG and several key people in the house church movement. He will try to map the simple church networks in Europe, so that by the end of 2007 we are better informed on the situation in our continent. The main aim is to cross-fertilize, learn and share training and resources, in order to help catalyze this new stream of church.

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.

Revolutionary life together

I have to admit it's refreshingly uncomfortable to my western mindset and lifestyle - the way Gene Edwards and Dietrich Bonhoeffer describe genuine church life.

In 'Life Together. The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community' Bonhoeffer states that Christian brotherhood is not the same as an extraordinary social experience. "Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize, it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. It is a spiritual and not a psychic reality." Creating a community on human notions, picking the people you like, is not just creating a dreamworld, it's even a hindrance to genuine community in Christ.

How to cope then with 'difficult' people? "I must meet my brother only as the person that he already is in Christ's eyes," says Bonhoeffer. "Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands. Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ; the image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men."

Living together physically and sharing resources was also a hallmark of the early church in Acts. In 'Revolution. The Story of the Early Church. The First Seventeen Years, 30-47 AD' Gene Edwards paints a picture of the Early Church that's quite alien to our church experience today. Edwards suggests that the 3,000 that started to follow Christ on Pentecost, of which a majority were visitors, did not return home, but stayed in Jerusalem. In this city they developed a revolutionary lifestyle that complety upset the social standards of that day - they sold what they owned, pooled their resources, and lived in community and charity, while sharing Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We know this of course on a rational level, but not many Jesus followers are living this kind of community today.

"The conforming element in men was dealt a mortal blow," says Edwards. "The very birth of the church smashed all past concepts man had ever held toward 'religion' in any form. This radical new beginning - touched off by living in common - set a very high standard of what it meant 'to be in the church'. It was unorthodox, informal, rambunctious, daring, elastic and glorious. It was a 'corporate experience'." In other words: Christ-centered church life embodied the heavenly reality of the Kingdom of God here and now.

"Look around!" says Edwards. "What is the church made up of? There are (1) twelve apostles, (2) three thousand people, (3) a huge shed, and (4) an awful lot of homes, plus a lot of self-giving and a lot of unleashed joy. This was the church. And Christ was real. He was being experienced."

The Ten2b virus

If you want to pray an apostolic prayer, go for Luke 10:2b. Before Jesus sends out the 70 (this is where the disciples become apostles, sent ones), he teaches them (my interpretation) to go with multiplication in mind. "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

As a reminder to pray into the harvest, my cell phone alarm goes off at 10.02 am every day. Yesterday Peter (5) noticed and said: "Hey dad, your cell phone rings, you should pick it up." When I explained him it was a reminder to pray, he took me to his room to show me his 'prayer blanket'. "Dad, you can pray here if you want. It's nice and soft when you kneel down." After praying the Luke 10:2b prayer, Peter whispered: "Dad, God just spoke into my heart that He likes this prayer, and will work on it." Ah... that's good to know. Today Peter revisited the topic: "Dad, God spoke to my heart again, to let you know that He just sent the missionaries you asked for." Wow, that's even fast!

Simple church blogger Tim Pynes calls the Luke 10:2b prayer 'the leadership solution', and is intentionally infecting others with the Ten2bvirus.

Being in Trondheim

As I write this, I'm overlooking Heimdal, a suburb of Trondheim. We're staying with Terje and Lise Dahle in their typically Norwegian wooden house. Terje leads the new board of DAWN in Norway and oversees the Norwegian churches of Kristent Nettverk, an apostolic network that originated in Bergen. Trondheim is quite similar to Utrecht: it's the birthplace of Christianity in the nation, has a cathedral right in the centre, and a rather large student population. If you're interested to update your knowledge of Trondheim, then check out this short introduction movie.

It has been a few years since the parachute dream. The good thing is that God has been speaking to more people about Trondheim. In fact, two Connect friends - Gabi and Heidi - had another prophetic story to add to the mix. When in November last year I met Terje at a DAWN Scandinavia meeting in Copenhagen, he said: "If God is speaking about my city, then you should come over and share." Which is the reason why I'm here. The Dahle's are very hospitable, in fact they're spoiling us with wonderful Norwegian food like salmon, caramel cheese and jarred berries.

On Sunday we met with a group of 25-30 students that form a simple church network in the city, and I shared about 'seeing prophetically and acting apostolically'. On Monday we visited Trondheim, to see some of the historic city. Yesterday we drove up to Levanger for a meeting with Arne of the Nordic Prayer Center. He's one of those rare prayer guys that thinks prayer-community-missions-justice and he has a great sense of humor as well. They pray for the nordic region of Europe, but also for Trondheim, and several other key areas. The sky was clear - it's freezing minus 12 - so it was a beautiful trip along the coastline.

In the evening we met Havard and Katherina, a young couple that serves the network here, and we joined a house church in one of the student homes. Today I had lunch with the core group of the pastors' network, and tonight we'll have another house church meeting. Looks busy, but we also have some time to relax.

Now what is God up to in Trondheim? He has been speaking from Is. 43:16-21 and Job 14:7-9. The first Scripture speaks about not dwelling on military force and on the past, but looking at the new things God is doing. The second is about an old tree dying in the ground, and the promise that fresh new shoots will come up. On the road to Levanger I (prophetically) saw a military helmet that was turned upside down, and a new plant was growing in it. Realising that the Gospel was brought to Norway with the sword by the not-so-saintly Olav, and that the Lutheran state church - even though the life is dying out - is still dominantly present, I believe these Scriptures speak about a new movement that God wants to start in Trondheim that will be reformational in nature.

A key issue is that of allegiance. I encouraged the pastors and students to submit to the kingship/headship of Christ (not just in theory, but in reality), and in that to each other. Politics - power play and compromise - have corrupted the church in Trondheim more or less from the start. They say every innovation here is being battled. But this new move of God can't be controlled by little kings. There's only one way to move with Him, and that is to die to self and man-made structures we even dare to call 'church'. Only then a godly movement can break forth. May Springtime come to Trondheim. Can't wait to see the flowers.

The DNA+3 of house church

It has been a quite 'organic' week. On Saturday I drove to Brabant to hang out with the leadership group of 'Making Fishermen of Friends' (MFF), a house church network for 16-23 year olds. I taught on making disciples, multiplication and apostolic teams.

Jonathan asked me how I would define 'house church', and I responded with what you could call 'DNA+3'. D = Divine presence - Jesus tangibly in the centre, inspiring and leading us. N = Nurturing, committed relationships. A = Apostolic mission. With the DNA you're church as Jesus intended it. But healthy house churches are also marked by three 'plusses': +1 not stand-alone, but part of a network, +2 committed to see God move in their locality or region, +3 not just adding, but also multiplying.

On Saturday night the topic also popped up in a missional church planters meeting at Matthijs' place in The Hague. "What is the smallest version of church?" Matthijs asked, and it kick-started a passionate interaction. Henk provokingly stated that if Jesus is there when two Christians meet, then he and his wife are church. Of course there were others who said that more intentionality and shape are needed to call something church. Anyway, Matthijs compiled a report of this meeting, that might be interesting for the Dutchies.

Yesterday I was called by a journalist of Visie, with 120k subscribers the largest Christian magazine. He's working on an article about the house church movement. It showed once again that it's quite hard to paint an accurate picture of the status of 'all things organic'. We need to get a better grip on what is (and is not yet) happening, and likely we'll turn this into a research project. Up to now Indehuizen.nl has mainly functioned as an information point, and even the network team is not really functioning as an intentional development unit. So there's still some work to be done, especially in the 'A' and 'plus 3' area.

Organic church planters in Basel

Earlier this week I spent 1.5 days in Basel for a consultation with 15 organic church planters from Switzerland, Germany and the UK. All guys, yes, can you believe it. But it was really encouraging to hear what's happening in the various networks/movements, and share God-given vision and practical insights.



It was good to hear that Michael Girgis from Bülach (fourth guy standing from the right) who works with IGW, and David Schäfer from Essen (second from the right) plan to host regular get-togethers for pioneers in their area, and I could pass on some ideas how to go about this.

Simon Veigel of Nomal Generation (sitting on the right) facilitates a network of 50 'friendship groups' of young people in the Black Forest. Marcus Splitt from Meiningen (the guy in the red shirt) developed a local community that's fully organic in the sense of sharing life and goods, but also what he calls 'walking with the city', territorially committed to the place where they live.

Alexander Campbell from Bath (second tallest) develops an organic cp network in the UK. Daniël Hari, a former Salvation Army evangelist (not in the picture) has a healing ministry among new agers and Catholics and shared some of his dreams for the German-speaking nations. Wolfgang Simson (the guy right in the middle) gave me some good reflections on training, and later in the year we follow-up on this with several organic cp trainers.

The guy completely on the right is Reinhold Scharnowski of DAWN Europe. The three heads on my right side are from Marcus Bittner and bloggers Mike Bischoff and Dave Schlaginhaufen. Then sitting from left to right Adrian Staub, Peter Grossenbacher and Martin Enzner. The third guy standing from the right is Paul Kaak, an American missionary strategist who works with Neil Cole, and who helped facilitate our interactions.