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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.