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RescueNet Europe deploys in Indonesia
On Monday Oct 5 five European RescueNet members left from the Netherlands to join with other international RescueNet (RN) members in disaster response in Padang, Sumatra. Over the next 2 - 3 weeks this team will try to meet some of the overwhelming needs of those directly suffering from the disaster which destroyed a large part of the city and has probably killed over 5 thousand people
S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d in Exile
Daniel the exile had a remarkable political career. He survived and prospered during the reigns of four of the most powerful men in the ancient world. His story offers great inspiration and encouragement for 21st century believers. His life is a lesson in living in a post-Christian world, stretching our faith to full potential.
That's the view unpacked by Gerard Kelly in a creative and thought-provoking study on Daniel called 'Stretch' (Authentic Media).
At our annual Caleb Forum last weekend by Lake Thun in Switzerland, fifteen older YWAM couples met to encourage each other to 'finish strongly'. We shared, prayed, laughed and cried together. And we read excerpts from Kelly's book.
Until a few weeks ago, Gerard was pastor of Crossroads International Church in Amsterdam, which doubled under his colourful preaching style, sprinkled with poetic and artistic allusions.
Gerard is a wordsmith and writes like he talks. His chapters hang on a series of adjectives describing Daniel's faith in exile-a faith both 'stretched and stretching'.
Intrinsic
Daniel's faith was so fully internalised and deeply rooted, it shaped everything. It was not dependent on external conditions, outward symbols and familiar rituals. It could survive the journey into exile because it was portable. We need his type of carry-anywhere, intrinsic faith-in-exile in our mobile, shape-shifting world, suggests Kelly.
The church has suffered major losses in recent years, and has been moved from the centre to the margins of society; from majority culture to minority; from a privileged role to being one community among many in a plural society.
The mood for Daniel and his fellow Jews became the minor key. Yet minor keys are not by definition melancholic, Gerard explains. They can also express hope in the midst of lament.
Acoustic
Daniel's faith was grounded in the art of listening. He engaged fully with the culture around him, taking on a pagan education and learning a pagan tongue. Yet he learnt the skill of 'double listening': to God and to the world. I've heard Gerard describe that elsewhere as being bi-textual.
The call of the prophet is double-edged, listening to God and the world in order to bring God's Word into the world to change the world. For the whole earth is the Lord's. Yes, Daniel and his friends were exiles in a foreign land, but even Babylon was God's. Yes, they-like us today-were 'resident aliens'. And we too look forward to when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God (Rev. 11: 15).
Elastic
Like Daniel and his friends, we also need a faith that is stretched but not broken by the trials of life. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told the king that God was able to save them in the fiery furnace, but that even if he didn't, he was still the true God. Their faith was not destroyed by adversity. It was rooted in who God was, not who or where they were. It was rooted not so much in the power of God as in his goodness. It liberated them to love God for his person, not his performance. It embraced God in the familiar and unfamiliar, the easy and the hard.
Kenotic
We needed the dictionary definition at the start of the chapter for this one! Kenotic faith is expressed in servanthood and self-emptying. Daniel's power contrasted with that of the kings-a power that came from knowing God, accessed through prayer, administered in weakness and maintained through trust This kind of power, ignored by historians, truly shapes history.
Poetic
Faith that opens the imagination to God's beauty shaped the way Daniel communicated with the rulers he served. His dreams and visions expressed metaphor and mystery. Our times too resonate with metaphor and mystery.
Eccentric
To be centred in another reality is the meaning of this kind of faith. Daniel listened to another drummer. He was rooted elsewhere. Living in creation, he was Creator-centred. This gave him courage that transformed kings.
Panoramic
Lastly, Daniel's faith was panoramic, viewing the future in the light of God's plan. Behind the events of his age, he knew the sovereign God was at work. Here was a key to finishing strongly, we read in the last verse of Daniel:
'Go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.'
Till next week,
That's the view unpacked by Gerard Kelly in a creative and thought-provoking study on Daniel called 'Stretch' (Authentic Media).
At our annual Caleb Forum last weekend by Lake Thun in Switzerland, fifteen older YWAM couples met to encourage each other to 'finish strongly'. We shared, prayed, laughed and cried together. And we read excerpts from Kelly's book.
Until a few weeks ago, Gerard was pastor of Crossroads International Church in Amsterdam, which doubled under his colourful preaching style, sprinkled with poetic and artistic allusions.
Gerard is a wordsmith and writes like he talks. His chapters hang on a series of adjectives describing Daniel's faith in exile-a faith both 'stretched and stretching'.
Intrinsic
Daniel's faith was so fully internalised and deeply rooted, it shaped everything. It was not dependent on external conditions, outward symbols and familiar rituals. It could survive the journey into exile because it was portable. We need his type of carry-anywhere, intrinsic faith-in-exile in our mobile, shape-shifting world, suggests Kelly.
The church has suffered major losses in recent years, and has been moved from the centre to the margins of society; from majority culture to minority; from a privileged role to being one community among many in a plural society.
The mood for Daniel and his fellow Jews became the minor key. Yet minor keys are not by definition melancholic, Gerard explains. They can also express hope in the midst of lament.
Acoustic
Daniel's faith was grounded in the art of listening. He engaged fully with the culture around him, taking on a pagan education and learning a pagan tongue. Yet he learnt the skill of 'double listening': to God and to the world. I've heard Gerard describe that elsewhere as being bi-textual.
The call of the prophet is double-edged, listening to God and the world in order to bring God's Word into the world to change the world. For the whole earth is the Lord's. Yes, Daniel and his friends were exiles in a foreign land, but even Babylon was God's. Yes, they-like us today-were 'resident aliens'. And we too look forward to when the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God (Rev. 11: 15).
Elastic
Like Daniel and his friends, we also need a faith that is stretched but not broken by the trials of life. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told the king that God was able to save them in the fiery furnace, but that even if he didn't, he was still the true God. Their faith was not destroyed by adversity. It was rooted in who God was, not who or where they were. It was rooted not so much in the power of God as in his goodness. It liberated them to love God for his person, not his performance. It embraced God in the familiar and unfamiliar, the easy and the hard.
Kenotic
We needed the dictionary definition at the start of the chapter for this one! Kenotic faith is expressed in servanthood and self-emptying. Daniel's power contrasted with that of the kings-a power that came from knowing God, accessed through prayer, administered in weakness and maintained through trust This kind of power, ignored by historians, truly shapes history.
Poetic
Faith that opens the imagination to God's beauty shaped the way Daniel communicated with the rulers he served. His dreams and visions expressed metaphor and mystery. Our times too resonate with metaphor and mystery.
Eccentric
To be centred in another reality is the meaning of this kind of faith. Daniel listened to another drummer. He was rooted elsewhere. Living in creation, he was Creator-centred. This gave him courage that transformed kings.
Panoramic
Lastly, Daniel's faith was panoramic, viewing the future in the light of God's plan. Behind the events of his age, he knew the sovereign God was at work. Here was a key to finishing strongly, we read in the last verse of Daniel:
'Go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.'
Till next week,
Faith among the ruins
At the recent Global Cities consulation in New York, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a vigorous church planting movement was well under way among Reformed churches in Amsterdam. Several pastors from these churches shared in a breakout session about the inspiration and support they were receiving from Pastor Tim Keller's Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York.
I also discovered I had been scheduled on the plenary programme, sandwiched between main speakers Tim Keller and Vishal Mangalwadi, to present reflections on Europe's urban churches.
My first reflection was on the irony of travelling across the Atlantic to learn what God was doing in Amsterdam.
Stereotypes
I then shared some of the stereotypes many have about Europe-of empty and dying churches, a European Union with no room for God, a prodigal continent in pursuit of materialism and hedonistic pleasure.
Yes, Europe had indeed become a continent of spiritual pygmies, when compared to the dynamic, growing churches on other continents.
As often quoted, there were more spiritist healers in France than doctors, lawyers and priests combined. There were more members of the Assemblies of God in Brazil than all the evangelicals in Europe; and more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England and the US together. There were more believers in China than Germans in Germany. One church in Korea had a membership as large as the population of Amsterdam. (The evening before a Nigerian pastor had told us about his church that was a mile long and half a mile wide and seated one million!)
And now, of course, Europe was being flooded by Muslim migrants and was well on the way to becoming 'Eurabia'.
Ah, but wait! That's not the full picture, I warned. It may be too soon to conclude that God had written Europe off.
Death... & Resurrection
Europe's historic churches were perhaps in ruins, as historian Philip Jenkins concedes in his book, God's Continent. But, as he hastens to add, there was still faith to be discovered among the ruins. Like a dying white dwarf star that shrinks in size but increases in intensity, so too as nominal believers have left the church in large numbers, those who remain or join were much more committed and genuine.
Renewed interest in pilgrimages and spiritual retreats, and large turnouts of youth to Taizé and World Youth Days indicated renewed Christian faith in Europe. After all, Jenkins argues, Christianity is all about death and resurrection.
The history of the church reflected a pattern of decline and renewal, I said. It resembled more the fluctuations of the market on a busy day at the stock exchange, than the trajectory of a cannon ball disappearing over the horizon.
This was the moment to throw in the quote from Odon Vallet, cited in Jenkins' book: if you are the type of person who likes to buy stocks and bonds, I'd buy Christianity; the price is low; it has to go up.
Fresh Expressions
Among the signs of resurrection were the fresh expressions of church emerging all over the continent, resembling new shoots stemming out of the trunk of an old tree that had lost its branches. The church planting movement in Amsterdam was one example of the new coming out of the old. Cells, house groups, simple churches, churches in pubs, groups for new age seekers and Alpha groups were further expressions, I proposed.
Migration in Europe was not all about Islam, I continued. Half of all the immigrants entering the EU were already church members. Less than a third were Muslim.
Migrants were bringing colour and vitality to Europe's urban churches, often creating megachurches as in Kiev (where an African pastors Europe's largest church) or in London where four of the biggest ten churches are African-led. Many churches were engaging with urban social issues. University research had shown, for example, that in Rotterdam church-based social services saved the city €130 million annually.
Examples of city-wide expressions of unity among Christians of all confessions, from Vienna, Stockholm and Berlin, helped convince at least some of my audience of 300 delegates from global cities that God was not finished with Europe yet.
People from literally every continent thanked me over the following days for giving them fresh hope for Europe.
Till next week,
I also discovered I had been scheduled on the plenary programme, sandwiched between main speakers Tim Keller and Vishal Mangalwadi, to present reflections on Europe's urban churches.
My first reflection was on the irony of travelling across the Atlantic to learn what God was doing in Amsterdam.
Stereotypes
I then shared some of the stereotypes many have about Europe-of empty and dying churches, a European Union with no room for God, a prodigal continent in pursuit of materialism and hedonistic pleasure.
Yes, Europe had indeed become a continent of spiritual pygmies, when compared to the dynamic, growing churches on other continents.
As often quoted, there were more spiritist healers in France than doctors, lawyers and priests combined. There were more members of the Assemblies of God in Brazil than all the evangelicals in Europe; and more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England and the US together. There were more believers in China than Germans in Germany. One church in Korea had a membership as large as the population of Amsterdam. (The evening before a Nigerian pastor had told us about his church that was a mile long and half a mile wide and seated one million!)
And now, of course, Europe was being flooded by Muslim migrants and was well on the way to becoming 'Eurabia'.
Ah, but wait! That's not the full picture, I warned. It may be too soon to conclude that God had written Europe off.
Death... & Resurrection
Europe's historic churches were perhaps in ruins, as historian Philip Jenkins concedes in his book, God's Continent. But, as he hastens to add, there was still faith to be discovered among the ruins. Like a dying white dwarf star that shrinks in size but increases in intensity, so too as nominal believers have left the church in large numbers, those who remain or join were much more committed and genuine.
Renewed interest in pilgrimages and spiritual retreats, and large turnouts of youth to Taizé and World Youth Days indicated renewed Christian faith in Europe. After all, Jenkins argues, Christianity is all about death and resurrection.
The history of the church reflected a pattern of decline and renewal, I said. It resembled more the fluctuations of the market on a busy day at the stock exchange, than the trajectory of a cannon ball disappearing over the horizon.
This was the moment to throw in the quote from Odon Vallet, cited in Jenkins' book: if you are the type of person who likes to buy stocks and bonds, I'd buy Christianity; the price is low; it has to go up.
Fresh Expressions
Among the signs of resurrection were the fresh expressions of church emerging all over the continent, resembling new shoots stemming out of the trunk of an old tree that had lost its branches. The church planting movement in Amsterdam was one example of the new coming out of the old. Cells, house groups, simple churches, churches in pubs, groups for new age seekers and Alpha groups were further expressions, I proposed.
Migration in Europe was not all about Islam, I continued. Half of all the immigrants entering the EU were already church members. Less than a third were Muslim.
Migrants were bringing colour and vitality to Europe's urban churches, often creating megachurches as in Kiev (where an African pastors Europe's largest church) or in London where four of the biggest ten churches are African-led. Many churches were engaging with urban social issues. University research had shown, for example, that in Rotterdam church-based social services saved the city €130 million annually.
Examples of city-wide expressions of unity among Christians of all confessions, from Vienna, Stockholm and Berlin, helped convince at least some of my audience of 300 delegates from global cities that God was not finished with Europe yet.
People from literally every continent thanked me over the following days for giving them fresh hope for Europe.
Till next week,
Prayer on the streets
New York commemorated two anniversaries last week while I was there attending a Global Cities consulation. The first was the discovery of the Hudson River exactly 400 years ago by Henry Hudson on his fruitless search for a passage to the East, sponsored by the City of Amsterdam. This led to the founding of New Amsterdam as a Dutch trading settlement, later to be taken over by the British and renamed New York.
The Empire State Building was appropriately floodlit in orange, and later in the red-white-and-blue of the Dutch flag. A range of cultural events and exhibitions was held in lower Manhattan, some attended by Crown Prince Willem-Alexander. Classic Dutch sailing boats sailed out on to the Hudson River and around the Statue of Liberty, giving New Yorkers a rare flashback to the pioneering days.
The second commemoration, on Friday, was the eight anniversary of 9/11, the day that transformed the city's skyline in 2001.
Flags everywhere were at half-mast, in memory of the three thousand crushed in the rubble of the twin towers before a live global television audience.
Nick Savoca, director of YWAM New York, was forty miles away on Long Island at the YWAM training centre when word came through of the first phase of the tragedy. Like millions of others around the world, he and his staff were watching in helpless horror when the second plane struck.
Staff members began crying and praying, not knowing what would come next. Nick went to his office and began receiving a stream of emails from other YWAM centres offering to send relief teams.
Confused
Nick and his staff asked God together how they should get involved. They felt God say, 'through prayer'. Yes, of course they would pray, but how practically could they serve? Through prayer, came the answer again. The people of New York were hurting, confused, disorientated, grieving, shocked and fearful. They needed people to pray with, people who would pray for them.
Quickly Nick realised what they should do. Since 1992, he and his staff had been setting up prayer stations around the city, with portable tables for literature, and bright red banners and aprons for the workers, each with 'Prayer Station' in bold white letters. If you need gas, explains Nick, you go to a gas station. So why not a prayer station?
Nick and his colleagues had developed a regular ritual of travelling to downtown Manhattan, setting up stations in up to a dozen locations, and being available to pray for passers-by. Right from the start people had responded positively, even lining up for prayer.
As we travelled together out from the city to Long Island this weekend, Nick shared story after story of healings and transformed lives after prayer at a station. Many had asked for prayer for employment, returning the very next day reporting great excitement that they had found a job after months of looking. One woman was on her way home to commit suicide when her life was changed for ever after receiving prayer.
'Tell us more about this God of yours,' was the common response after people had experience answered prayer, said Nick. A Muslim imam, carrying a large Koran, had even agreed to prayer for his wife to find a job. The next day the imam sought the prayer team out to thank them for answered prayer.
After 9/11, Nick realised the trauma would last for months, and he and his team would need commit for at least a year of regular presence downtown. The smell of the carnage hung over the downtown area for months, he said. People didn't come for answers, just support, and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be prayed for for a few minutes.
Peter Jennings of ABC television sent a camera crew to report nation-wide on these 'Christians whom some accuse of exploiting a disaster to spread their religion'. After three hours of following up passers-by who had received prayer, they found none with complaints of any manipulation, but many with compliments and appreciation.
Over the year following 9/11, Nick reported, some 50,000 people had been prayed for. And three thousand had become believers-about the same number killed in the Twin Towers tragedy.
Till next week,
The Empire State Building was appropriately floodlit in orange, and later in the red-white-and-blue of the Dutch flag. A range of cultural events and exhibitions was held in lower Manhattan, some attended by Crown Prince Willem-Alexander. Classic Dutch sailing boats sailed out on to the Hudson River and around the Statue of Liberty, giving New Yorkers a rare flashback to the pioneering days.
The second commemoration, on Friday, was the eight anniversary of 9/11, the day that transformed the city's skyline in 2001.
Flags everywhere were at half-mast, in memory of the three thousand crushed in the rubble of the twin towers before a live global television audience.
Nick Savoca, director of YWAM New York, was forty miles away on Long Island at the YWAM training centre when word came through of the first phase of the tragedy. Like millions of others around the world, he and his staff were watching in helpless horror when the second plane struck.
Staff members began crying and praying, not knowing what would come next. Nick went to his office and began receiving a stream of emails from other YWAM centres offering to send relief teams.
Confused
Nick and his staff asked God together how they should get involved. They felt God say, 'through prayer'. Yes, of course they would pray, but how practically could they serve? Through prayer, came the answer again. The people of New York were hurting, confused, disorientated, grieving, shocked and fearful. They needed people to pray with, people who would pray for them.
Quickly Nick realised what they should do. Since 1992, he and his staff had been setting up prayer stations around the city, with portable tables for literature, and bright red banners and aprons for the workers, each with 'Prayer Station' in bold white letters. If you need gas, explains Nick, you go to a gas station. So why not a prayer station?
Nick and his colleagues had developed a regular ritual of travelling to downtown Manhattan, setting up stations in up to a dozen locations, and being available to pray for passers-by. Right from the start people had responded positively, even lining up for prayer.
As we travelled together out from the city to Long Island this weekend, Nick shared story after story of healings and transformed lives after prayer at a station. Many had asked for prayer for employment, returning the very next day reporting great excitement that they had found a job after months of looking. One woman was on her way home to commit suicide when her life was changed for ever after receiving prayer.
'Tell us more about this God of yours,' was the common response after people had experience answered prayer, said Nick. A Muslim imam, carrying a large Koran, had even agreed to prayer for his wife to find a job. The next day the imam sought the prayer team out to thank them for answered prayer.
After 9/11, Nick realised the trauma would last for months, and he and his team would need commit for at least a year of regular presence downtown. The smell of the carnage hung over the downtown area for months, he said. People didn't come for answers, just support, and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be prayed for for a few minutes.
Peter Jennings of ABC television sent a camera crew to report nation-wide on these 'Christians whom some accuse of exploiting a disaster to spread their religion'. After three hours of following up passers-by who had received prayer, they found none with complaints of any manipulation, but many with compliments and appreciation.
Over the year following 9/11, Nick reported, some 50,000 people had been prayed for. And three thousand had become believers-about the same number killed in the Twin Towers tragedy.
Till next week,
GLT 2009 day1
More than fifty YWAM leaders have gathered together in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the annual Global Leadership Team meetings.
On becoming a guru
Sometimes our language builds barriers rather than bridges when it comes to relating to those outside our own 'spiritual' circles. I recently heard Shirley tell the following story and asked her to write it up for a Weekly Word:
"Why did you choose to come to Switzerland?" my new neighbour asked me.
"To work with a missionary organisation", I replied.
"You're a missionary?" she asked. "Yes," I responded.
"I hate God!" she declared, and quickly changed the subject.
I was used to conversation drying up when I said I was a missionary, so I didn't react.
The second time we met, my neighbour brought up the subject of God again and asked how I could work for someone who allowed terrible things to happen to people. I spoke of His goodness, His loving-kindness and His justice and suggested that perhaps it wasn't God she hated but a misrepresentation of Him by others.
"You're right," she said, "It's catholic priests I hate!"
As our friendship grew my neighbour became more interested in God and bought the "Left Behind" series of books on the internet. I read them as well in order to answer her questions about the end times using scripture to back it up.
Over time she also bought a Bible and started reading it regularly, writing all her questions in a book. Once a week we would get together and look for answers and she got to know God and fell in love with his son Jesus, and committed her life to him.
We did an Alpha course together so that she could get to know the basics of the Christian faith and make friends. During the weekend away I prayed for her to receive the Holy Spirit and sat back and watched her face change as she prayed and received from God.
When she opened her eyes she said , "Thank you for your placing your hands on me and helping me to pray." I had not touched her at all during her prayer yet she said that she felt comforting hands on her shoulders encouraging her. She also said that she saw Jesus take her by the hand into the centre of a river and scoop up water and say to her, '"when you're thirsty, come drink from me, when you're hungry eat for free"; then he took her to a place where he put armour on her and told her it was for the battles in life.
She was amazed when I showed her the passages from Isaiah 55 and Ephesians 6.
On her birthday I turned up late to her party and she introduced me to everyone saying, "This is Shirley; she's my spiritual guru!"
Suddenly I was popular and not short of company all evening .
I was asked for advice on the best way to introduce children to God, on whether God really heals today and also on how to pray.
During the months the years since then she has faced many challenges and one of those was the desire to have a baby. We spent time praying over possible spiritual hindrances and she was released from sins linked to past unhealthy relationships and also from the spiritual influences of New Age healing techniques esp. Reiki.
When she had trained in Reiki she was so good at helping people to tune in to their 'life force energy' that when she laid hands on people they felt a powerful force flow through them. The problem was that once she was finished she could not 'turn off' that force and she said that it followed her around the house like a presence and she would feel oppressed by it. We prayed release from ungodly spirit forces and invited the Holy Spirit into her and her home and she was freed.
Three years ago last week I had the joy of baptising her and her unborn baby together. Four months later she had a beautiful baby daughter and they both are doing well in their journey with Jesus.
Being a spiritual guru is certainly a lot more interesting and rewarding than being a 'missionary', writes Shirley. She is learning to present herself in a way that doesn't put people off but gives them an opportunity to get to know God.
Till next week,
"Why did you choose to come to Switzerland?" my new neighbour asked me.
"To work with a missionary organisation", I replied.
"You're a missionary?" she asked. "Yes," I responded.
"I hate God!" she declared, and quickly changed the subject.
I was used to conversation drying up when I said I was a missionary, so I didn't react.
The second time we met, my neighbour brought up the subject of God again and asked how I could work for someone who allowed terrible things to happen to people. I spoke of His goodness, His loving-kindness and His justice and suggested that perhaps it wasn't God she hated but a misrepresentation of Him by others.
"You're right," she said, "It's catholic priests I hate!"
As our friendship grew my neighbour became more interested in God and bought the "Left Behind" series of books on the internet. I read them as well in order to answer her questions about the end times using scripture to back it up.
Over time she also bought a Bible and started reading it regularly, writing all her questions in a book. Once a week we would get together and look for answers and she got to know God and fell in love with his son Jesus, and committed her life to him.
We did an Alpha course together so that she could get to know the basics of the Christian faith and make friends. During the weekend away I prayed for her to receive the Holy Spirit and sat back and watched her face change as she prayed and received from God.
When she opened her eyes she said , "Thank you for your placing your hands on me and helping me to pray." I had not touched her at all during her prayer yet she said that she felt comforting hands on her shoulders encouraging her. She also said that she saw Jesus take her by the hand into the centre of a river and scoop up water and say to her, '"when you're thirsty, come drink from me, when you're hungry eat for free"; then he took her to a place where he put armour on her and told her it was for the battles in life.
She was amazed when I showed her the passages from Isaiah 55 and Ephesians 6.
On her birthday I turned up late to her party and she introduced me to everyone saying, "This is Shirley; she's my spiritual guru!"
Suddenly I was popular and not short of company all evening .
I was asked for advice on the best way to introduce children to God, on whether God really heals today and also on how to pray.
During the months the years since then she has faced many challenges and one of those was the desire to have a baby. We spent time praying over possible spiritual hindrances and she was released from sins linked to past unhealthy relationships and also from the spiritual influences of New Age healing techniques esp. Reiki.
When she had trained in Reiki she was so good at helping people to tune in to their 'life force energy' that when she laid hands on people they felt a powerful force flow through them. The problem was that once she was finished she could not 'turn off' that force and she said that it followed her around the house like a presence and she would feel oppressed by it. We prayed release from ungodly spirit forces and invited the Holy Spirit into her and her home and she was freed.
Three years ago last week I had the joy of baptising her and her unborn baby together. Four months later she had a beautiful baby daughter and they both are doing well in their journey with Jesus.
Being a spiritual guru is certainly a lot more interesting and rewarding than being a 'missionary', writes Shirley. She is learning to present herself in a way that doesn't put people off but gives them an opportunity to get to know God.
Till next week,
YWAM's Global Leadership Team Meets: Day 1
By Tim Heathcote
More than fifty YWAM leaders have gathered together in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the annual Global Leadership Team meetings. Tonight they enjoyed a welcome dinner, eating outside, whilst enjoying a beautifully warm Swiss summer evening.
More than fifty YWAM leaders have gathered together in Lausanne, Switzerland, for the annual Global Leadership Team meetings. Tonight they enjoyed a welcome dinner, eating outside, whilst enjoying a beautifully warm Swiss summer evening.
Family Truths
Children living with single mothers are more likely to drop out of school and to become teen parents, and are five times more likely to be poor, than children in two-parent households. And the evidence suggests that children who live with their biological mother and father do better than those who live in step-families or with cohabiting partners.
That's not simply the conclusion of the so-called 'fundamentalistic Christians' who gathered in Amsterdam recently at the Fifth World Congress of Families.
These are family truths as expressed in Barack Obama's (inspirational) book, Audacity of Hope (Crown, NY, 2006, p334).
Obama concludes: 'In the light of these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who choose it and that discourage unintended births outside of marriage are sensible goals to pursue.'
Yet as 700 delegates from 60 nations, including Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Catholics, prepared to gather with academics and politicians in Amsterdam a few days ago to promote a pro-family message, activists attacked the congress office with paintbombs and sprayed slogans such as 'Christian-fundis go home!'.
Objections were raised in parliament to Dutch Vice-Premier Rouvoet's plans to address the congress. The media branded the 'ultra-conservative' event 'controversial'. The mayor of Amsterdam required the organisers to increase security four-fold, at their own expense.
Broad
At the same time, the mayor conceded that if Amsterdam could host a Gay Pride parade, as it did the weekend before, then surely the city had room for a conservative congress as well.
The protest sputtered out after the first day. The original dozen noisy demonstrators, including one member of parliament, gave way to a lone placard-bearing woman on the second.
Because of her involvement in promoting National Marriage Week in Holland, my wife registered to attend. Yes, she reported, there were a disporportionate number of very conservative American groups represented in the exhibition hall.
But the range of speakers included Holland's Chief Rabbi, the Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, a former Australian cabinet minister, a Ghanaian prince, a Dutch professor who advises the UN on children and armed conflict, the deputy secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, a Hindi professor who heads the Centre for Women's Studies at Hyderabad University in India, a Morman professor from Utah, and the vice-president of the synod of the Protestant Churches of the Netherlands (among many others)-hardly 'Christian fundis'.
Goal
Of course, the range could have been much broader-to include advocates of the sixteen alternative forms of family officially recognised in Holland: two male parents, two female parents, one female parent, etc. Yet the whole point of this event was to argue that a natural family of father, mother and children was, by all standards (educational achievement, career success, income level, alcohol and drug problems), simply the best option for a child's upbringing.
The congress-preceded in earlier years by events in Prague, Geneva, Mexico City and Warsaw-underscored Article 16, paragraph 3, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: 'the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, and is entitled to protection by society and the State.'
The Declaration of Amsterdam read out in the closing session (see www.worldcongress.org) affirmed that the future of nations rested on families that were spiritually grounded; and that public policy must respect that the natural family existed prior to the state.
It called for laws and policies supporting the natural institution of marriage; discouraging divorce, especially where children were involved; encouraging couples to commit themselves to the rearing of children; protecting the primary right of parents to guide their children's moral and practical education; and guarding vulnerable human life, especially at the beginning and end of the life cycle.
Which sounds like arguing for motherhood, doesn't it?
Till next week,
That's not simply the conclusion of the so-called 'fundamentalistic Christians' who gathered in Amsterdam recently at the Fifth World Congress of Families.
These are family truths as expressed in Barack Obama's (inspirational) book, Audacity of Hope (Crown, NY, 2006, p334).
Obama concludes: 'In the light of these facts, policies that strengthen marriage for those who choose it and that discourage unintended births outside of marriage are sensible goals to pursue.'
Yet as 700 delegates from 60 nations, including Jews, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and Catholics, prepared to gather with academics and politicians in Amsterdam a few days ago to promote a pro-family message, activists attacked the congress office with paintbombs and sprayed slogans such as 'Christian-fundis go home!'.
Objections were raised in parliament to Dutch Vice-Premier Rouvoet's plans to address the congress. The media branded the 'ultra-conservative' event 'controversial'. The mayor of Amsterdam required the organisers to increase security four-fold, at their own expense.
Broad
At the same time, the mayor conceded that if Amsterdam could host a Gay Pride parade, as it did the weekend before, then surely the city had room for a conservative congress as well.
The protest sputtered out after the first day. The original dozen noisy demonstrators, including one member of parliament, gave way to a lone placard-bearing woman on the second.
Because of her involvement in promoting National Marriage Week in Holland, my wife registered to attend. Yes, she reported, there were a disporportionate number of very conservative American groups represented in the exhibition hall.
But the range of speakers included Holland's Chief Rabbi, the Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, a former Australian cabinet minister, a Ghanaian prince, a Dutch professor who advises the UN on children and armed conflict, the deputy secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, a Hindi professor who heads the Centre for Women's Studies at Hyderabad University in India, a Morman professor from Utah, and the vice-president of the synod of the Protestant Churches of the Netherlands (among many others)-hardly 'Christian fundis'.
Goal
Of course, the range could have been much broader-to include advocates of the sixteen alternative forms of family officially recognised in Holland: two male parents, two female parents, one female parent, etc. Yet the whole point of this event was to argue that a natural family of father, mother and children was, by all standards (educational achievement, career success, income level, alcohol and drug problems), simply the best option for a child's upbringing.
The congress-preceded in earlier years by events in Prague, Geneva, Mexico City and Warsaw-underscored Article 16, paragraph 3, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: 'the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society, and is entitled to protection by society and the State.'
The Declaration of Amsterdam read out in the closing session (see www.worldcongress.org) affirmed that the future of nations rested on families that were spiritually grounded; and that public policy must respect that the natural family existed prior to the state.
It called for laws and policies supporting the natural institution of marriage; discouraging divorce, especially where children were involved; encouraging couples to commit themselves to the rearing of children; protecting the primary right of parents to guide their children's moral and practical education; and guarding vulnerable human life, especially at the beginning and end of the life cycle.
Which sounds like arguing for motherhood, doesn't it?
Till next week,
The Pan-European Picnic
A sign on the unpaved road leading to a red-and-white boom marking the border between Austria and Hungary, just outside Sopron, carries the words of Helmut Kohl, former German Chancellor: "History has been written on this forest road."
A large grassy field stretches out to the left. Rising above the trees is the ominous silhouette of a border tower. Here, on August 19, 1989, over 10,000 people responded to an invitation to attend a picnic to celebrate a future Europe 'without borders'.
The idea had been born in May that year over a dinner in Debreçen, eastern Hungary. Members of the Hungarian Democratic Forum opposition party had met with Otto von Hapsburg of the European Parliament to discuss their plan.
Change was already in the air and, on this spot near Sopron, the barbed wire of the Iron Curtain had already been partially cut through on June 27 by the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary. The rusty barrier had been in poor repair, and often the electronic alarm was set off by birds. Rather than replace it, the Hungarian authorities had decided to liquidate the obsolete Curtain, making it a 'green border' with patrols.
The picnic celebrated this step but also aimed to demand an open border and free travel.
Jubilee
An air of jubilee prevailed as the thousands-both Hungarians and vacationing East Germans-streamed towards this border crossing. They began to help pull down the barbed wire, some stuffing it in the trunks of their Trabants to take home as souvenirs. "Baue ab und nimm mit!" (Break it down and take it with you) became the slogan of the picnic.
A symbolic opening of the border was planned, with a brief walk on the other side of the border by a delegation. A press conference seemed to delay proceedings too long for many of the East Germans, who had begun to gather in the thousands in Hungary where without visas they could often share holidays at Lake Balaton with their West German relatives.
At about 3.20pm, as the press conference was still dragging on, several hundred East Germans began to surge against the wooden border gate, suddenly breaking through and running towards Austria. The Hungarian guards were still under orders to shoot anyone attempting an illegal border crossing. Young people with only the summer clothes on their backs and clutching handbaggage, couples with young children, began to run with the crowd, tears streaming down their cheeks. Some jumped in ecstacy as they passed through the barbed-wire covered gate. Others stopped to kiss the Austrian soil. The moment of their dreams had unexpectedly become reality.
The guards held their fire. One stooped to pick up a small child dropped in the rush, and handed him back to his mother. Six hundred or so passed through before the guards managed to get the gate closed again.
Abandoned
East German Trabants, purchased after years of hard saving, were gladly abandoned in the picnic car park by their owners all too willing to pay the price of freedom. Smiling young people waved their newly acquired western passports issued by officials from Vienna. A steady stream of some 200 East Germans successfully crossed the 'green border' nightly in the weeks following the picnic. About the 60,000 refused to go back from Hungary to East Germany, choosing instead to endure the deprivations of refugee camps in the hope that Hungary would soon open her borders.
The Hungarian government now faced pressure from East Germany and Russia to tighten the border. Western governments urged her to continue her reforms.
Finally on September 11, 1989, the Hungarian government opened its borders for free travel. The thousands of East Germans in Hungary were allowed to cross into Austria and then into West Germany. In East Germany mass demonstrations, encouraged by events in Hungary, demanded freedom from Erich Honecker's government.
In October Honecker bravely declared that the Berlin Wall would last another hundred years. It didn't last another hundred days. On November 10, demonstrations involving several million finally pulled the Wall down.
When Germany celebrated her reunification, Helmut Kohl declared that "the soil under the Brandenburg Gate is Hungarian soil", referring to the pan-European Picnic.
It was said that this event was 'the pin-prick that burst the communist balloon'. History had indeed been written on that forest road, twenty years ago this week.
Till next week,
A large grassy field stretches out to the left. Rising above the trees is the ominous silhouette of a border tower. Here, on August 19, 1989, over 10,000 people responded to an invitation to attend a picnic to celebrate a future Europe 'without borders'.
The idea had been born in May that year over a dinner in Debreçen, eastern Hungary. Members of the Hungarian Democratic Forum opposition party had met with Otto von Hapsburg of the European Parliament to discuss their plan.
Change was already in the air and, on this spot near Sopron, the barbed wire of the Iron Curtain had already been partially cut through on June 27 by the foreign ministers of Austria and Hungary. The rusty barrier had been in poor repair, and often the electronic alarm was set off by birds. Rather than replace it, the Hungarian authorities had decided to liquidate the obsolete Curtain, making it a 'green border' with patrols.
The picnic celebrated this step but also aimed to demand an open border and free travel.
Jubilee
An air of jubilee prevailed as the thousands-both Hungarians and vacationing East Germans-streamed towards this border crossing. They began to help pull down the barbed wire, some stuffing it in the trunks of their Trabants to take home as souvenirs. "Baue ab und nimm mit!" (Break it down and take it with you) became the slogan of the picnic.
A symbolic opening of the border was planned, with a brief walk on the other side of the border by a delegation. A press conference seemed to delay proceedings too long for many of the East Germans, who had begun to gather in the thousands in Hungary where without visas they could often share holidays at Lake Balaton with their West German relatives.
At about 3.20pm, as the press conference was still dragging on, several hundred East Germans began to surge against the wooden border gate, suddenly breaking through and running towards Austria. The Hungarian guards were still under orders to shoot anyone attempting an illegal border crossing. Young people with only the summer clothes on their backs and clutching handbaggage, couples with young children, began to run with the crowd, tears streaming down their cheeks. Some jumped in ecstacy as they passed through the barbed-wire covered gate. Others stopped to kiss the Austrian soil. The moment of their dreams had unexpectedly become reality.
The guards held their fire. One stooped to pick up a small child dropped in the rush, and handed him back to his mother. Six hundred or so passed through before the guards managed to get the gate closed again.
Abandoned
East German Trabants, purchased after years of hard saving, were gladly abandoned in the picnic car park by their owners all too willing to pay the price of freedom. Smiling young people waved their newly acquired western passports issued by officials from Vienna. A steady stream of some 200 East Germans successfully crossed the 'green border' nightly in the weeks following the picnic. About the 60,000 refused to go back from Hungary to East Germany, choosing instead to endure the deprivations of refugee camps in the hope that Hungary would soon open her borders.
The Hungarian government now faced pressure from East Germany and Russia to tighten the border. Western governments urged her to continue her reforms.
Finally on September 11, 1989, the Hungarian government opened its borders for free travel. The thousands of East Germans in Hungary were allowed to cross into Austria and then into West Germany. In East Germany mass demonstrations, encouraged by events in Hungary, demanded freedom from Erich Honecker's government.
In October Honecker bravely declared that the Berlin Wall would last another hundred years. It didn't last another hundred days. On November 10, demonstrations involving several million finally pulled the Wall down.
When Germany celebrated her reunification, Helmut Kohl declared that "the soil under the Brandenburg Gate is Hungarian soil", referring to the pan-European Picnic.
It was said that this event was 'the pin-prick that burst the communist balloon'. History had indeed been written on that forest road, twenty years ago this week.
Till next week,
The Hill of Crosses
As we continue to remember the events in Central and Eastern Europe twenty years ago leading to the collapse of the communist system, stories of the courage of anonymous citizens add to an amazing picture of providential orchestration.
We have written earlier about the handful of faithful Romanian Baptists who formed a human guard around their threatened pastor's house in Timisoara, which swelled into a nation-wide revolution and overthrew the dictator within a matter of days, in December 1989.
We also looked at the prayer and peace movement of Eastern Germany, centred in the Nikolai Church in Leipzig, where hundreds of Stasis agents found themselves powerless to stem the peaceful and praying crowds from growing until 'the dam burst'.
Now let's visit Lithuania, the last country in Europe to 'capitulate' to Christianity-as late as the 14th century.
In a nasty postscript to the Crusades in the Holy Land, the Teutonic Knights led more crusades against the pagan Lithuanians to force them into submission to the Cross. Little wonder that many Lithuanians still hold on to pagan practises and beliefs.
Later, heavy-handed Tsarist rule in the 19th century brutally repressed a national uprising. Many rebels were executed. Some were secretly buried on an ancient sacred site, a hill in the countryside close to the Latvian border. Crosses were set up in memory of the rebels. A century ago, a hundred crosses marked their graves on the hill's horizon.
Deported
During mass repressions of Stalin's Soviet occupation, Lithuanians continued to suffer greatly. Hundreds of thousands were deported to Siberia between 1941 and 1952, leaving whole villages totally deserted.
In 1956, after Stalin's death, Lithuanians began returning home. They erected new crosses on the hill in gratitude for their return, in memory of their torture and suffering, and as memorials for those who would never return. The hill became a place of prayer for those still suffering. Passionate and openly anti-Soviet inscriptions often adorned the crosses, making the hill an open-air museum, a mirror of human suffering and inhumane oppression.
In 1961, the authorities came with bulldozers to raze the Hill of Crosses and erase it from human memory. Wooden crosses were burned. Iron crosses became scrap metal. Stone crosses were buried. The hill was declared a forbidden place, a place of "ignorance" and "fanaticism", and was kept under surveillance.
But somehow, new crosses kept appearing at night. At first they were small, but then became bigger and bigger.
The authorities tried more drastic measures. Projects to flood the area, block the roads, and turn the hill into an inaccessible island, all failed over time. More crosses just kept appearing.
Abandoned
Finally in 1985, the government abandoned their hopeless task. Peace came to the Hill of Crosses. Three years later the revolution was well under way to overthrow the Soviet oppression. And in 1991, independence came at last to Lithuania.
Today this 10-metre high hill is an unimaginable forest of hundreds of thousands of crosses; some even say millions! The Hill of Crosses is truly a powerful declaration of hope in the face of tyranny. Like a giant pin-cushion, it is a monument of folk art with many hand-carved crosses; some miniature, others five metres-high; some intricate and elaborate, others crude and simple. Most are anonymous, but one large wooden sculpture of Christ crucified is a treasured gift from Pope John Paul II.
There's even one there with my name on it.
Till next week, when we'll celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic!
We have written earlier about the handful of faithful Romanian Baptists who formed a human guard around their threatened pastor's house in Timisoara, which swelled into a nation-wide revolution and overthrew the dictator within a matter of days, in December 1989.
We also looked at the prayer and peace movement of Eastern Germany, centred in the Nikolai Church in Leipzig, where hundreds of Stasis agents found themselves powerless to stem the peaceful and praying crowds from growing until 'the dam burst'.
Now let's visit Lithuania, the last country in Europe to 'capitulate' to Christianity-as late as the 14th century.
In a nasty postscript to the Crusades in the Holy Land, the Teutonic Knights led more crusades against the pagan Lithuanians to force them into submission to the Cross. Little wonder that many Lithuanians still hold on to pagan practises and beliefs.
Later, heavy-handed Tsarist rule in the 19th century brutally repressed a national uprising. Many rebels were executed. Some were secretly buried on an ancient sacred site, a hill in the countryside close to the Latvian border. Crosses were set up in memory of the rebels. A century ago, a hundred crosses marked their graves on the hill's horizon.
Deported
During mass repressions of Stalin's Soviet occupation, Lithuanians continued to suffer greatly. Hundreds of thousands were deported to Siberia between 1941 and 1952, leaving whole villages totally deserted.
In 1956, after Stalin's death, Lithuanians began returning home. They erected new crosses on the hill in gratitude for their return, in memory of their torture and suffering, and as memorials for those who would never return. The hill became a place of prayer for those still suffering. Passionate and openly anti-Soviet inscriptions often adorned the crosses, making the hill an open-air museum, a mirror of human suffering and inhumane oppression.
In 1961, the authorities came with bulldozers to raze the Hill of Crosses and erase it from human memory. Wooden crosses were burned. Iron crosses became scrap metal. Stone crosses were buried. The hill was declared a forbidden place, a place of "ignorance" and "fanaticism", and was kept under surveillance.
But somehow, new crosses kept appearing at night. At first they were small, but then became bigger and bigger.
The authorities tried more drastic measures. Projects to flood the area, block the roads, and turn the hill into an inaccessible island, all failed over time. More crosses just kept appearing.
Abandoned
Finally in 1985, the government abandoned their hopeless task. Peace came to the Hill of Crosses. Three years later the revolution was well under way to overthrow the Soviet oppression. And in 1991, independence came at last to Lithuania.
Today this 10-metre high hill is an unimaginable forest of hundreds of thousands of crosses; some even say millions! The Hill of Crosses is truly a powerful declaration of hope in the face of tyranny. Like a giant pin-cushion, it is a monument of folk art with many hand-carved crosses; some miniature, others five metres-high; some intricate and elaborate, others crude and simple. Most are anonymous, but one large wooden sculpture of Christ crucified is a treasured gift from Pope John Paul II.
There's even one there with my name on it.
Till next week, when we'll celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic!
Breakfast surprises
Breakfast on Saturday morning turned out to be an extra session for the Summer School for European Studies. Officially we had finished the evening before, and the first participants were packed, ready to leave Le Rüdli, the Swiss schlössli which had been our home for the past two weeks. Then we discovered who was sharing our breakfast table.
An unassuming English couple named Bob and Mary Hopkins had arrived the day before for a few days' retreat. Bob and Mary are personal friends, old YWAMers, and pioneers of church-planting, Anglican-style.
According to the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Steve Croft, the Hopkins have played a significant and influential role in the dramatic revolution that has been taking place in Britain's churches over the past decade.
Even the Financial Times has noticed this revolution, called Fresh Expressions. Last December the paper observed: The Church seems to have found new ways of speaking to people, whether in a virtual meeting online or via a physical encounter at a café, an evening in the pub or at a cathedral service. Unlike other rescue packages, 'Fresh Expressions' is a grassroots movement and has never been imposed from above. It's simply a way for individual churches to work out their own ways to reach new people.
In our last week of the Summer School, we had asked what it would take to recover faith, hope and vision for tomorrow's Europe. One crucial element we had explored was the transplantation of churches into the cultures of the 21st century.
That is precisely what Fresh Expressions is all about.
Impossible
So now, over muesli and yoghurt, Bob and Mary took turns to tell us some of the beginnings of this 'grassroots movement', going back to the early nineties, to their time in YWAM in St Helens, near Liverpool. During intercession, they began to see the need for church planting within the Anglican tradition. For that to happen, however, major changes would be needed. In fact, it would require overturning 1300 years of church laws! But Bob and Mary were too young as Christians to realise such changes would be 'impossible'.
Never before in the English Church's history had initiatives outside of the parish system been legal. That system had been put in place by Theodore of Tarsus who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 669, and who first organised the whole country into dioceses and parishes.
Yet the Hopkins began to see the need for many new forms of church to be allowed to spring up alongside the existing traditional parish churches. In a world now being shaped by the internet, mobility and multi-culturalism, people now met in social and cultural communities as much as geographical parishes.
Working together on the DAWN-Europe team back in 1990, I remember asking Bob who he thought the new Archbishop of Canterbury would be. He answered that he knew who he wanted to be appointed, but that his choice-from humble, cockney origins-didn't stand the chance of 'a snowball in hell'. Bob and Mary had discovered that the Bishop of Bath and Wells, George Carey, was very receptive to their ideas for experimentation and innovation outside of a traditional parish structure.
Surprise
To everyone's surprise, it was indeed Carey who was appointed the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1994, he championed the first ever General Synod study of church planting, Breaking New Ground. Church-planting conferences, facilitated among others by the Hopkins, helped bring such activity into the mainstream of Anglican thought. The Methodists also came on board by publishing Stopping the Rot: planting new congregations.
When Rowan Williams succeeded Carey as Archbishop of Canterbury six years ago, he stressed the need for a 'mixed-economy church', in which parish structures coexisted side-by-side as 'equal partners' with alternative forms of being church. The phrase 'Fresh expressions' of church entered the church vocabulary in 2004, along with the concept of 'mission-shaped church'.
By 2005 a national movement was underway, with a dedicated website, www.freshexpressions.org.uk. Last year Bishop's Mission Orders were signed into the Church of England statute book by the queen, legalising fresh expressions of church alongside the parish system.
We finished our breakfast pondering what could happen across Europe if continental church leadership could learn from this radical British experiment.
Next week I'm on holiday in Ireland. So, till the 10th,
An unassuming English couple named Bob and Mary Hopkins had arrived the day before for a few days' retreat. Bob and Mary are personal friends, old YWAMers, and pioneers of church-planting, Anglican-style.
According to the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Steve Croft, the Hopkins have played a significant and influential role in the dramatic revolution that has been taking place in Britain's churches over the past decade.
Even the Financial Times has noticed this revolution, called Fresh Expressions. Last December the paper observed: The Church seems to have found new ways of speaking to people, whether in a virtual meeting online or via a physical encounter at a café, an evening in the pub or at a cathedral service. Unlike other rescue packages, 'Fresh Expressions' is a grassroots movement and has never been imposed from above. It's simply a way for individual churches to work out their own ways to reach new people.
In our last week of the Summer School, we had asked what it would take to recover faith, hope and vision for tomorrow's Europe. One crucial element we had explored was the transplantation of churches into the cultures of the 21st century.
That is precisely what Fresh Expressions is all about.
Impossible
So now, over muesli and yoghurt, Bob and Mary took turns to tell us some of the beginnings of this 'grassroots movement', going back to the early nineties, to their time in YWAM in St Helens, near Liverpool. During intercession, they began to see the need for church planting within the Anglican tradition. For that to happen, however, major changes would be needed. In fact, it would require overturning 1300 years of church laws! But Bob and Mary were too young as Christians to realise such changes would be 'impossible'.
Never before in the English Church's history had initiatives outside of the parish system been legal. That system had been put in place by Theodore of Tarsus who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 669, and who first organised the whole country into dioceses and parishes.
Yet the Hopkins began to see the need for many new forms of church to be allowed to spring up alongside the existing traditional parish churches. In a world now being shaped by the internet, mobility and multi-culturalism, people now met in social and cultural communities as much as geographical parishes.
Working together on the DAWN-Europe team back in 1990, I remember asking Bob who he thought the new Archbishop of Canterbury would be. He answered that he knew who he wanted to be appointed, but that his choice-from humble, cockney origins-didn't stand the chance of 'a snowball in hell'. Bob and Mary had discovered that the Bishop of Bath and Wells, George Carey, was very receptive to their ideas for experimentation and innovation outside of a traditional parish structure.
Surprise
To everyone's surprise, it was indeed Carey who was appointed the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1994, he championed the first ever General Synod study of church planting, Breaking New Ground. Church-planting conferences, facilitated among others by the Hopkins, helped bring such activity into the mainstream of Anglican thought. The Methodists also came on board by publishing Stopping the Rot: planting new congregations.
When Rowan Williams succeeded Carey as Archbishop of Canterbury six years ago, he stressed the need for a 'mixed-economy church', in which parish structures coexisted side-by-side as 'equal partners' with alternative forms of being church. The phrase 'Fresh expressions' of church entered the church vocabulary in 2004, along with the concept of 'mission-shaped church'.
By 2005 a national movement was underway, with a dedicated website, www.freshexpressions.org.uk. Last year Bishop's Mission Orders were signed into the Church of England statute book by the queen, legalising fresh expressions of church alongside the parish system.
We finished our breakfast pondering what could happen across Europe if continental church leadership could learn from this radical British experiment.
Next week I'm on holiday in Ireland. So, till the 10th,
Unintended consequences
After visiting such cradles of the Reformation as Wittenberg and Geneva, it was rather unsettling for our Summer School participants to read Alistair McGrath's suggestion that Protestantism may have unintentionally encouraged the rise of atheism in Europe, and ushered in the era of secularisation.
Wasn't Protestantism a renewal of long-lost biblical truths?!
Yes, admits, McGrath, to link Protestantism and atheism might well seem 'bizarre'.
Yet, in his book, The Twilight of Atheism: the rise and fall of disbelief in the modern world (Random House, 2004), McGrath, himself a former atheist turned Protestant, draws from a number of scholarly studies of the origins and development of Protestantism pointing to the divorce of the sacred and secular.
Reformers like Zwingli and Calvin helped 'desacralise' or 'disenchant' nature, such studies claim, by declaring that the natural world was not a spiritual, mysterious sacred realm inappropriate for prying human eyes. Rather, they taught, it was God's Book of Works which could be explored via the natural sciences.
Interestingly, the word 'secular' was given to us by the medieval Church. It described a call from God to serve outside of a monastery or religious rule. All of life was, nevertheless, to be lived in obedience to God, whether 'secular' or 'regular'.
Interlocked
Under medieval Catholicism, sacred and secular were often indistinguishable. The church calendar and the natural seasons were interwoven. There was a pervasive sense of the presence of the sacred in the world. Haymaking and harvesting went together with religious processions and rituals. The spiritual and the material, religion and everyday life, were interlocked and inseparable. The devout expected to encounter the spiritual in daily routines.
The Protestant Reformers understandably criticised a Catholicism that often degenerated into a folk religion of nature. They stressed God's revelation through His Word, and delivered through sermons. Church architecture reflected this emphasis with the pulpit replacing the altar as the focal point.
While the Catholic faith taught that God could be encountered in nature and through the sacraments, Protestant congregations learned that God's will and ways could be known through Bible-based sermons. Believers needed to learn the great foundational doctrines, and know their moral duties. But they should not expect spiritual realities to be known or experienced through the material world.
'Christ was in heaven; Christian worship was about recalling what Christ had done in the past and looking forward to his future return,' writes McGrath. 'But in the present-in the here and now-Christ was known only as an absence.'
The rise of Protestantism promoted an 'absent God' knowable only indirectly, through the mind, not the imagination, argues McGrath. God thus became an absence in the world. While the Catholic poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, might see the world being 'charged with the grandeur of God', Protestants saw God more as chief architect or mechanic. The divine was excluded from nature. Creation became 'disenchanted', as Max Weber described it.
It's a relatively small step conceptually, suggests McGrath, from an absentee God to a God who does not exist. He quotes Francis Fukuyama, that 'the generally accepted agent for this secularisation in the West was Protestantism'.
Dry and dusty
The Reformation also led to widespread 'secularisation' through the disestablishment of monasteries and marriage of monks and nuns, following Luther's own example. Many social functions previously conducted by the Church became state tasks.
By the end of the seventeenth century, after many religious wars, Protestant theology had become rigid and scholastic, dry and dusty. Puritanism, Pietism and Methodism however were important correcting influences in the Protestant stream, he notes. And today it is Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on direct, immediate experience of God, that has by far become the largest strand of Protestantism.
Western observers have not yet fully realised how much an experientially grounded and socially activist Pentecostalism is undermining the traditional appeal of atheism, writes McGrath. This is especially true in our western cities where many African, Asian and Latin American Christian migrants are settling today.
'Its sense of the immediacy of God's presence through the Holy Spirit is of immense importance in repairing the felt loss of the presence of the divine in everyday life in the West.'
Till next week,
Wasn't Protestantism a renewal of long-lost biblical truths?!
Yes, admits, McGrath, to link Protestantism and atheism might well seem 'bizarre'.
Yet, in his book, The Twilight of Atheism: the rise and fall of disbelief in the modern world (Random House, 2004), McGrath, himself a former atheist turned Protestant, draws from a number of scholarly studies of the origins and development of Protestantism pointing to the divorce of the sacred and secular.
Reformers like Zwingli and Calvin helped 'desacralise' or 'disenchant' nature, such studies claim, by declaring that the natural world was not a spiritual, mysterious sacred realm inappropriate for prying human eyes. Rather, they taught, it was God's Book of Works which could be explored via the natural sciences.
Interestingly, the word 'secular' was given to us by the medieval Church. It described a call from God to serve outside of a monastery or religious rule. All of life was, nevertheless, to be lived in obedience to God, whether 'secular' or 'regular'.
Interlocked
Under medieval Catholicism, sacred and secular were often indistinguishable. The church calendar and the natural seasons were interwoven. There was a pervasive sense of the presence of the sacred in the world. Haymaking and harvesting went together with religious processions and rituals. The spiritual and the material, religion and everyday life, were interlocked and inseparable. The devout expected to encounter the spiritual in daily routines.
The Protestant Reformers understandably criticised a Catholicism that often degenerated into a folk religion of nature. They stressed God's revelation through His Word, and delivered through sermons. Church architecture reflected this emphasis with the pulpit replacing the altar as the focal point.
While the Catholic faith taught that God could be encountered in nature and through the sacraments, Protestant congregations learned that God's will and ways could be known through Bible-based sermons. Believers needed to learn the great foundational doctrines, and know their moral duties. But they should not expect spiritual realities to be known or experienced through the material world.
'Christ was in heaven; Christian worship was about recalling what Christ had done in the past and looking forward to his future return,' writes McGrath. 'But in the present-in the here and now-Christ was known only as an absence.'
The rise of Protestantism promoted an 'absent God' knowable only indirectly, through the mind, not the imagination, argues McGrath. God thus became an absence in the world. While the Catholic poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, might see the world being 'charged with the grandeur of God', Protestants saw God more as chief architect or mechanic. The divine was excluded from nature. Creation became 'disenchanted', as Max Weber described it.
It's a relatively small step conceptually, suggests McGrath, from an absentee God to a God who does not exist. He quotes Francis Fukuyama, that 'the generally accepted agent for this secularisation in the West was Protestantism'.
Dry and dusty
The Reformation also led to widespread 'secularisation' through the disestablishment of monasteries and marriage of monks and nuns, following Luther's own example. Many social functions previously conducted by the Church became state tasks.
By the end of the seventeenth century, after many religious wars, Protestant theology had become rigid and scholastic, dry and dusty. Puritanism, Pietism and Methodism however were important correcting influences in the Protestant stream, he notes. And today it is Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on direct, immediate experience of God, that has by far become the largest strand of Protestantism.
Western observers have not yet fully realised how much an experientially grounded and socially activist Pentecostalism is undermining the traditional appeal of atheism, writes McGrath. This is especially true in our western cities where many African, Asian and Latin American Christian migrants are settling today.
'Its sense of the immediacy of God's presence through the Holy Spirit is of immense importance in repairing the felt loss of the presence of the divine in everyday life in the West.'
Till next week,
Walking the Ancient Paths
"Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.
"But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'"
Today's reading from the Moravian Daily Texts (Losungen), Jeremiah 6:16, was an apt beginning for the second module of the Summer School of European Studies.
Two weeks of intensive and stimulating travel through some thirty historical locations had brought us to Geneva last Friday, the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birthday.
Pageants, exhibitions, readings and concerts this summer recall the impact of this reluctant 27-year-old recruit on 'the smelliest city in Europe', as he taught daily from the scriptures how to walk in the ancient paths.
Turning to the Bible as the main source of inspiration for the ordering of society, Calvin applied God's law spiritually, socially and morally. He taught parents to teach their children, and children to honour parents. He taught citizens the importance of honesty and hard work. He taught public officials how to be servant leaders, accountable to God. He taught all to help the poor and to welcome the refugee.
He encouraged universal literacy, social responsibility, environmental concern and scientific development.
He urged citizens to put God first as the key to a just and peaceful society, to respect his name and to take a day each week for rest, reflection and renewal.
Transformation
Through these values, Geneva became the intellectual centre of Europe. It became known as a city of refuge, a safe place, for thousands escaping from religious persecution in France, Italy and other lands. Calvin's sermons were transcribed, printed and distributed throughout Europe, influencing social, political and moral developments in Scotland (via John Knox), England (Oliver Cromwell), Holland (William of Orange) and even the American colonies (Roger Williams).
Today, these figures stand alongside Calvin in the larger-than-life Reformation Wall commemorating the transformation of Geneva through this man's ministry.
A few metres from the Reformation Wall, our tour guide led us to a circle of ten bronze columns, seven metres tall. Unveiled just last week, this sculpture also commemorates Geneva's transformation through the influence of the Ten Commandments.
Romanian artist, Liviu Mocan, creator of the sculpture, accompanied us as we approached the columns with curiosity and wonder. Together with Liviu, our guide, Jonathan Tame, who has promoted the Geneva exhibition of the sculpture, explained its four metaphors.
The ten columns represented the fingers of God, ten laws on which to build human society. Placed in a circle, they defined a 'safe space', suggesting relationship. To stand inside the circle is to be held in God's personal and inviting hands, enjoying relationship with him and with others.
Jesus summed up the whole law in the commands to love God and neighbour-love being the essence of relationship.
Consequences
The circle of pillars invites reflection on the consequences of living outside the circle. The outer edges of each column are sharp and rough, unlike the smooth, welcoming inside surfaces, with a small ledge inviting the visitor to sit, relax and rest. Obedience to the law brings reward; disregard reaps discord. Calvin taught that God's law was universal, for prince and pauper, aristocrat and artisan, a principle that was to promote democratic government in Europe and beyond.
Two views of freedom are suggested by the sculpture: individualistic on the one hand, and seeking the common good on the other. We are free to walk in and out of the circle pursuing our own goals, or we can choose limits to personal freedom, creating a space for interaction and commitment.
The weight and size of the columns reflect the stability and durability of the Ten Commandments, offering hope for wise, good and timeless foundations for society.
The Decalogue is the good way, the ancient paths offering rest for the soul. When we say 'We will not walk in it', we cannot escape the consequences, as our recent vists to Dachau, or to Point Alpha on the former Iron Curtain, have reminded us.
The second of the three modules of our Summer School looks at the challenges of secularism, Islam and new spirituality in Europe today. It was good to be reminded that God's ancient paths remain the good way for Europe.
Till next week,
"But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'"
Today's reading from the Moravian Daily Texts (Losungen), Jeremiah 6:16, was an apt beginning for the second module of the Summer School of European Studies.
Two weeks of intensive and stimulating travel through some thirty historical locations had brought us to Geneva last Friday, the 500th anniversary of John Calvin's birthday.
Pageants, exhibitions, readings and concerts this summer recall the impact of this reluctant 27-year-old recruit on 'the smelliest city in Europe', as he taught daily from the scriptures how to walk in the ancient paths.
Turning to the Bible as the main source of inspiration for the ordering of society, Calvin applied God's law spiritually, socially and morally. He taught parents to teach their children, and children to honour parents. He taught citizens the importance of honesty and hard work. He taught public officials how to be servant leaders, accountable to God. He taught all to help the poor and to welcome the refugee.
He encouraged universal literacy, social responsibility, environmental concern and scientific development.
He urged citizens to put God first as the key to a just and peaceful society, to respect his name and to take a day each week for rest, reflection and renewal.
Transformation
Through these values, Geneva became the intellectual centre of Europe. It became known as a city of refuge, a safe place, for thousands escaping from religious persecution in France, Italy and other lands. Calvin's sermons were transcribed, printed and distributed throughout Europe, influencing social, political and moral developments in Scotland (via John Knox), England (Oliver Cromwell), Holland (William of Orange) and even the American colonies (Roger Williams).
Today, these figures stand alongside Calvin in the larger-than-life Reformation Wall commemorating the transformation of Geneva through this man's ministry.
A few metres from the Reformation Wall, our tour guide led us to a circle of ten bronze columns, seven metres tall. Unveiled just last week, this sculpture also commemorates Geneva's transformation through the influence of the Ten Commandments.
Romanian artist, Liviu Mocan, creator of the sculpture, accompanied us as we approached the columns with curiosity and wonder. Together with Liviu, our guide, Jonathan Tame, who has promoted the Geneva exhibition of the sculpture, explained its four metaphors.
The ten columns represented the fingers of God, ten laws on which to build human society. Placed in a circle, they defined a 'safe space', suggesting relationship. To stand inside the circle is to be held in God's personal and inviting hands, enjoying relationship with him and with others.
Jesus summed up the whole law in the commands to love God and neighbour-love being the essence of relationship.
Consequences
The circle of pillars invites reflection on the consequences of living outside the circle. The outer edges of each column are sharp and rough, unlike the smooth, welcoming inside surfaces, with a small ledge inviting the visitor to sit, relax and rest. Obedience to the law brings reward; disregard reaps discord. Calvin taught that God's law was universal, for prince and pauper, aristocrat and artisan, a principle that was to promote democratic government in Europe and beyond.
Two views of freedom are suggested by the sculpture: individualistic on the one hand, and seeking the common good on the other. We are free to walk in and out of the circle pursuing our own goals, or we can choose limits to personal freedom, creating a space for interaction and commitment.
The weight and size of the columns reflect the stability and durability of the Ten Commandments, offering hope for wise, good and timeless foundations for society.
The Decalogue is the good way, the ancient paths offering rest for the soul. When we say 'We will not walk in it', we cannot escape the consequences, as our recent vists to Dachau, or to Point Alpha on the former Iron Curtain, have reminded us.
The second of the three modules of our Summer School looks at the challenges of secularism, Islam and new spirituality in Europe today. It was good to be reminded that God's ancient paths remain the good way for Europe.
Till next week,
Not by might
The large sign on the church tower of the St Nicholas Church in Leipzig, East Germany, recalled the 20th anniversary of the dramatic events of autumn 1989 leading to the fall of Communism.
Some of us in our Heritage Tour group, looking up at the tower, were too young to remember that night in November 1989, when cheering crowds attacked the Berlin Wall with hammers and chisels. For young and old, many chapters of the story of Communism's collapse still remain largely unknown.
Saint Nicholas Church represents one such little-known chapter, when prayer and candles trumped police power. Founded in about 1165 at the junction of two important trade routes, north-south and east-west, the church was named after the patron-saint of merchants. It soon became enveloped by the growing town of Leipzig, about 200 kilometres south of Berlin.
Accumulated architectural styles, including the original Romanesque, as well as Gothic, Baroque and Classical, testify to the layers of history this building has witnessed. That includes the Reformation which came to Leipzig in 1539. Luther is said to have preached here. Johan Sebastian Bach began his career as master and organist of the choir, from 1723 to 1750. Many of his compositions were heard for the first time in this church.
Angel of peace
The artist who painted an angel of peace above the altar centuries ago could never have known how prophetic his work would be. In the 1980's, young people began to hold peace prayer services in the church, with special ten-day gatherings each November. This was part of a growing protest movement in East Germany against the arms race, and for justice and human rights.
People began agitating for the right to emigrate, and the church became the location for the expression of such discontent. Christians and non-Christians alike met each Monday evening to pray, discuss and study the current relevance of the Old Testament prophets, or Jesus' teachings.
In the spring of 1989, the peace and prayer gatherings had grown to become a threat to the authorities. Access for cars to the church were blocked, and even the closest motorway exits were subjected to large-scale checks or closed off.
By the autumn of 1989, the movement was reaching its climax. Flowers decorated the church's windows; candles multiplied throughout the building as silent signs of hope. Throughout all a spirit of peace reigned. The Nicolaikirche continued to be open for all: true worshippers, the discontents, the curious, the Stasi (State Security Police) and their collaborators, all gathering beneath the outstretched arms of the crucified and resurrected Jesus.
As crowds continued to gather at the church, some participants demanding the freedom to leave the country, others declaring their commitment to stay, the police began to make arrests.
The authorities tried to pressure the church leaders to cancel the peace prayers. Each Monday more arrests were being made, yet more visitors flocked to the church, overflowing its 2000 seats.
Then on October 7, the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), uniformed police assailed defenseless and passive protesters, trucking them away to custody in horse stables. The official press declared that it was high time to put an end to this "counter-revolution, if necessary by armed forces."
Two days later, a thousand Stasi collaborators were ordered to go to the Nicolaikirche. By early afternoon, 600 of them had taken up positions inside the church. Stasi members attending earlier services had regularly been exposed to the preaching of the gospel of peace, especially messages from the Sermon on the Mount.
Provocation
On this occasion, after the bishop's blessing and a renewed call for non-violence, the two-thousand congregants, Stasis collaborators included, filed out of the building to be greeted by ten thous.and peace protestors praying and waiting outside-all holding candles in one hand and protecting their flame with the other.
Waiting soldiers, paramilitaries and police began to move into the crowd seeking provocation, but no-one allowed themselves to respond. Hands full with their candles, the protesters drew the collaborators and police into conversation. A spirit of peace and non-violence reigned and defused the ugly confrontation.
Eventually the government forces were peacefully withdrawn. One of the top communist officials said later on his death-bed, "We had planned everything, We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers."
Although hundreds of thousands had thronged the streets during the few weeks of the non-violence movement, not a single shop window had been shattered.
Holding on to the promise that it is "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit", the leaders of the prayer and peace movement soon saw the communist party collapse and the Berlin Wall itself come tumbling down just one month later.
Prayer services for peace continue weekly at St Nicolas, for the unemployed, for refugees and migrants, and for the world's crisis areas. Church leaders quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer's statement that Christian identity consists only of two things: prayer and just behaviour. Their prayer is that the Nicolaikirche continue to be a house of Jesus, a house of hope, a place of new beginnings.
Till next week,
Some of us in our Heritage Tour group, looking up at the tower, were too young to remember that night in November 1989, when cheering crowds attacked the Berlin Wall with hammers and chisels. For young and old, many chapters of the story of Communism's collapse still remain largely unknown.
Saint Nicholas Church represents one such little-known chapter, when prayer and candles trumped police power. Founded in about 1165 at the junction of two important trade routes, north-south and east-west, the church was named after the patron-saint of merchants. It soon became enveloped by the growing town of Leipzig, about 200 kilometres south of Berlin.
Accumulated architectural styles, including the original Romanesque, as well as Gothic, Baroque and Classical, testify to the layers of history this building has witnessed. That includes the Reformation which came to Leipzig in 1539. Luther is said to have preached here. Johan Sebastian Bach began his career as master and organist of the choir, from 1723 to 1750. Many of his compositions were heard for the first time in this church.
Angel of peace
The artist who painted an angel of peace above the altar centuries ago could never have known how prophetic his work would be. In the 1980's, young people began to hold peace prayer services in the church, with special ten-day gatherings each November. This was part of a growing protest movement in East Germany against the arms race, and for justice and human rights.
People began agitating for the right to emigrate, and the church became the location for the expression of such discontent. Christians and non-Christians alike met each Monday evening to pray, discuss and study the current relevance of the Old Testament prophets, or Jesus' teachings.
In the spring of 1989, the peace and prayer gatherings had grown to become a threat to the authorities. Access for cars to the church were blocked, and even the closest motorway exits were subjected to large-scale checks or closed off.
By the autumn of 1989, the movement was reaching its climax. Flowers decorated the church's windows; candles multiplied throughout the building as silent signs of hope. Throughout all a spirit of peace reigned. The Nicolaikirche continued to be open for all: true worshippers, the discontents, the curious, the Stasi (State Security Police) and their collaborators, all gathering beneath the outstretched arms of the crucified and resurrected Jesus.
As crowds continued to gather at the church, some participants demanding the freedom to leave the country, others declaring their commitment to stay, the police began to make arrests.
The authorities tried to pressure the church leaders to cancel the peace prayers. Each Monday more arrests were being made, yet more visitors flocked to the church, overflowing its 2000 seats.
Then on October 7, the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), uniformed police assailed defenseless and passive protesters, trucking them away to custody in horse stables. The official press declared that it was high time to put an end to this "counter-revolution, if necessary by armed forces."
Two days later, a thousand Stasi collaborators were ordered to go to the Nicolaikirche. By early afternoon, 600 of them had taken up positions inside the church. Stasi members attending earlier services had regularly been exposed to the preaching of the gospel of peace, especially messages from the Sermon on the Mount.
Provocation
On this occasion, after the bishop's blessing and a renewed call for non-violence, the two-thousand congregants, Stasis collaborators included, filed out of the building to be greeted by ten thous.and peace protestors praying and waiting outside-all holding candles in one hand and protecting their flame with the other.
Waiting soldiers, paramilitaries and police began to move into the crowd seeking provocation, but no-one allowed themselves to respond. Hands full with their candles, the protesters drew the collaborators and police into conversation. A spirit of peace and non-violence reigned and defused the ugly confrontation.
Eventually the government forces were peacefully withdrawn. One of the top communist officials said later on his death-bed, "We had planned everything, We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers."
Although hundreds of thousands had thronged the streets during the few weeks of the non-violence movement, not a single shop window had been shattered.
Holding on to the promise that it is "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit", the leaders of the prayer and peace movement soon saw the communist party collapse and the Berlin Wall itself come tumbling down just one month later.
Prayer services for peace continue weekly at St Nicolas, for the unemployed, for refugees and migrants, and for the world's crisis areas. Church leaders quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer's statement that Christian identity consists only of two things: prayer and just behaviour. Their prayer is that the Nicolaikirche continue to be a house of Jesus, a house of hope, a place of new beginnings.
Till next week,
The Man with Ten Heads
A literal stone's throw from YWAM's training centre in Amsterdam, De Poort, is the house where, for twenty years, one of the fathers of modern Holland lived and worked to 'to carve as it were into the conscience of the nation the ordinances of the Lord, until the nation again pays homage to God'.
The impact of Abraham Kuyper on Holland in the late 19th century and the opening decade of the 20th century has left an indelible imprint on Dutch churches, schools, media and politics a full century later.
After the elections of 1901, the queen asked Dr Kuyper to form a cabinet and to become the prime minister. In his opening speech, the new premier declared his intention to continue to build the nation on Christian principles.
Holland's current prime minister, Jan-Peter Balkenende, describes himself as a true Kuyperian, and says he admires his faith-based vision of state and society. "Not that Kuyper's thinking is directly applicable to modern Holland," he adds, "but the core of his thinking is still of great significance for modern society."
This weekend, we started our annual Heritage Tour, as usual, in Amsterdam. Among the various locations we visited to learn about the city's rich layers of spiritual heritage, was the house where Kuyper lived between 1880 and 1900-at Prins Hendrikkade 173, just across the IJ Tunnel from De Poort. I have walked by this house dozens of times, but only recently discovered it's identity.
There is no plaque or other indication of the national significance of what took place behind this typical Amsterdam facade.
ProlificFor from this house, this prolifically productive man continued to edit De Standaard newspaper, Holland's most prestigious daily, write columns for De Heraut weekly, set up Holland's first modern political party, the Anti-Revolutionary Party, and start a new denomination, De Gereformeerde Kerk. It was in effect the first administrative centre for the Vrije Universiteit, today one of the city's two great universities. The premier and his two deputy premiers are all graduates of the VU.
Under Premier Kuyper, many progressive social laws were introduced, creating rights for the poor, minorities and workers. In the competition between capital and labour, liberalism and socialism, he defended the workers' rights to be organized.
While in America, Kuyper has a growing and enthusiastic following, and Princeton University has an Abraham Kuyper Institute, it's difficult to find an appropriate monument in Holland to this remarkable figure, who was theologian, philosopher, educationalist, journalist and politician all at once. The one exception is the statue of 'Abraham the Great' (Abraham de Geweldige), unveiled last year in Maassluis, his birthplace, by the prime minister.
On that occasion, Balkenende suggested that the most important lesson from Kuyper is that a society could not function well without a moral compass and a proper sharing of responsibilities. "Everything he achieved," he said of Kuyper, "rested on a few foundations: the anchor of faith, social engagement, the conviction that no-one lived for himself, and the readiness to bear social responsibility.
SecretWhat then was the secret of this man, once described by an opponent as having 'ten heads and a hundred arms'?! On the 25th anniversary of his editorship of De Standaard in 1897, Kuyper declared: "One desire has been the ruling passion of my life. One high motive has acted like a spur upon my mind and soul. It is this: That in spite of all worldly opposition, God's holy ordinances shall be established again in the home, in the school and in the State for the good of the people."
Kuyper's theology of diversity-'sphere sovereignty'-explained how Christ's lordship extended into the real world of politics, education and society in general. Kuyper saw five domains or spheres of government, each directly accountable to God, and each relating to the other domains within God-given limits of authority; self-government, family-government, church-government, civil-government (the state) and societal-government (voluntary associations-significant players in what is called the 'social midfield', necessary for healthy democracies.)
In 1898, he delivered the Stone Lectures at Princeton University, explaining 'sphere sovereignty' and stating: 'There is not one square inch of human life, over which Christ who is Sovereign over all, does not say, "Mine!"'
Surely Prins Hendrikkade 173 should be turned into a museum telling the neglected story of this man to a younger generation, and applying his ideas to today's challenges! But last week we learned that the house and the two next door have been merged in an apartment complex worth €9 million. Anyone with spare cash?
Till next week,
Reading God's Big Book
Over this past year, some seed thoughts have matured into a meditation garden inviting believer and doubter alike to read God's Big Book.
On our annual Heritage Trip (which begins again next weekend) we have come across Celtic prayer gardens, meditation parks with Stations of the Cross, and a trail commemorating the Swiss Anabaptists. These encouraged us to look with new eyes at the unused hectare of woods behind Centrum 's Heerenhof on our YWAM property in the Dutch countryside.
A concept began to grow of a nature trail through these woods, open to the public, who cycle by in the hundreds during the summer vacations on the bikepath bordering our property. Could this be a way of building contacts with the growing number of spiritual seekers disillusioned with Churchianity?
Prayer, discussion and, eventually, hard toil led to the official opening a few weeks ago-on Ascension Day-of the Thomas á Kempis Meditatie Hof.
Nature trailThe Meditatie Hof has four sections, the first being a Nature Trail that encourages 'pilgrims' to take the time to observe the lessons offered by the Creator in his creation to help us on our pilgrimage through life: with all its twists and turns, surprises and rewards, dangers and delights.
The trail leads past boards with texts prompting the reader to reflect on life's seasons, on the wonders of water, on the necessity of roots, on relationships as depicted in a row of interwoven trees, and on trees themselves, linking heaven and earth in ancient wisdom literatuur.
The last text on this trail refers to nature as God's Big Book, his Book of Works, which only he can hold. He also has a Small Book, which we all can hold, his Book of Words. This Small Book reveals his divine image in us all, men and women, the sole basis of human rights.
This same book also tells us of his special revelation in one man, which forms the theme of the next section:
The Alpha-Omega TrailStarting with straw-filled crib, this trail leads the 'pilgrim' past symbols and icons recalling incidents in the life of Jesus, provoking the question from bystanders, 'who is this man?': the wedding in Cana, Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman, the feeding of the 5000, walking on the water, and so on, eventually arriving at a rugged cross. There the reader can ponder C.S. Lewis' challenge to decide whether Jesus was liar, lunatic or Lord.
The trail continues beyond the resurrection and the ascension-with some natural wood sculptures from a local artist-to John's revelation of the Cosmic Christ in Revelation 1: 8-18, the Alpha and the Omega.
The Openair CathedralStephen, from Acts 7, invites us to realise that 'God does not live in buildings made by human hands', as we enter a glade formed by very tall beech trees. Their trunks, like the pillars of a gothic cathedral, force the gaze of both believer and doubter heavenward.
A ten-metre circle on the ground is laid out in red and white stones as two interwoven triangles, forming a six-pointed Star of Hope. Here we are led through a 'catechism of hope', as we walk from point to point reading about the grounds and the goals of our hope: in both cases, the Triune Godhead.
The CloistersFinally we come to a lane of tall beeches suggesting the 'cathedral's' cloisters. Here we are encouraged to imagine monks walking and meditating, as did Thomas á Kempis in his monastery near Zwolle. There he wrote his famous 'Imitation of Christ', next to the Bible perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional book ever. Quotations from this book are to be read at the foot of each tree, and by a small garden with a fountain.
So what has this fifteenth-century monk to do with YWAM, a curious local minister asked us as we invited him and his colleagues, Protestant and Catholic, to a lunch this past week, to introduce to them the 'Meditatie Hof'.
Imitating Christ, I explained, is what discipleship is all about. That was Thomas á Kempis' core business. It's our core business too.
Till next week,
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