THE JOURNEY

Young people with spiritual passion

Back in April I did a photoshoot with some young people who had no interest or awareness of spirituality. When I asked them to adopt a spiritual pose, their eyes went blank.

Yesterday I did a photoshoot for Youth For Christ. I was asked to photograph a group of young guys who have become Christians through YFC's youth-alpha. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was great. They posed willingly, waited patiently while I set up my gear and just had fun. And they were singing the whole time: christian worship songs. Of course, most guys age 16-18 can't really hold a tune, and these guys were no Placido Domingo either. But it was obvious what was filling their heart.

Here is the last picture they wanted me to take of them.

Some of the other images are here. YFC will use these pictures in a national advertising campaign: for starters these images will be used in a leaflet that will be inserted into the TV guide of the Evangelical Broadcasting Company (EO) - 180.000 copies. I guess for one week that is a good reason to be a member.

What 'major trends' do you see?

I have been invited to speak to the staff of a small Christian Publishing company on major trends in the world in general, and among Christians in particular.

This company publishes 7 Christian magazines in The Netherlands. In recent years it has not done so well, but they are trying hard to understand their context and to make necessary changes.

What major trends do you see? What do you think I should highlight? They want me to speak on Church, the influence of Postmodernism and what PostChristendom is. They also want me to speak about what it is consumers/readers/Christians want and need these days. Do you have input for me? I thought it would be fun to collect input from a variety of people and sources. Will you shoot me an email or leave a comment?

My thinking at this stage to centre my presentation around the idea of 'the current Christian identity-crisis.' My sense is that Christians are having a hard time figuring out who they are and what they believe and how this relates to every-day life now that we find ourselves in a PostChristian world.

It would be helpful to have your thoughts by Wednesday June 17th. Your input is warmly invited!

Business is too slow!

For the past three weeks my business has been too slow. Is it the recession? The start of summer? Do I need to do yet more marketing? Whatever the case, my phone is not ringing much. This is starting to get difficult...

I sent out a newsletter with some of my better images on Friday and comments some of my clients made (Dutch). Click here to have a look.

Also interesing: did you know I maintain another blog - all about photography? It's in Dutch, but it consists mostly of images. Click here to have a look.

If anybody is looking a photographer, let me know...

End of an era: closing the office

This summer it will be 10 years ago that we came back to The Netherlands after living in the U.S. We had joined Christian Associates and came to The Hague, where our friend and then-Europe Director had just secured an office space on Bezuidenhoutseweg. Sophie and I helped Brian decorate the office, together with our other staff members.

Last Tuesday we closed the office. CA is doing well: 10 years ago there were maybe 7 projects in Europe; these days there are 42 projects world-wide, mostly in Europe. But in wanting to become a movement we are pushing the ministry out to the edge and are trying to minimize our operational cost.

Linus Morris (founder and president) was here and with our current staff we had a time of thanksgiving for what has happened and prayer for the future.

For me it was bitter-sweet. There are a lot of good memories attached to this building. I think mostly of the CA staff who served there: Dan & Ann Steigerwald, Paul & Lori Hart, Tom Boeger, Lammert Vrieling, Al and Deela and later Elisabeth Dyck, Eric and Jeannie Folbrecht, Tessa, Caroline, Bernhard — I am sure I am forgetting a few.
The bitter part is that this summer many CA people will leave Holland for different locations. That's another reason we are closing this office now: after the summer there will be less need for it.

My hope is that the work of CA will continue and that in a few years we will need office-space in a number of European cities.

Collumn: teaching my kidz to love nature? (Dutch)

...and speaking of walking in the woods (last post), I wrote a collumn for the Dutch newsletter of A Rocha about that experience.

Pictures of the fam

As the saying goes 'the cobbler's kids have no shoes' — or whatever the saying is. I discovered recently that I have way too few pictures of my boys. Joshua and Joel don't really like to pose. So during a recent walk in the woods near Driebergen I brought a camera and flash. Here are my favourite shots...

SCO - Staff Candidate Orientation

Wow — can’t believe it’s been a month since I posted last. So here are three posts in a row. We had a fantastic SCO two weekends ago. SCO is short for Staff Candidate Orientation: a four-day training weekend for people with an interest in joining Christian Associates.

What made it so good?

• the participants: 4 Dutch people from Holland (good friends of mine); 2 Dutch people living in Belgium; a Dutch/Canadian couple living in Holland but with an interest of doing ministry in France; and an American guy from Dallas, living in Munich, Germany and working with our Citychurch project there. A wonderful crowd!
• Working with Al and Elisabeth Dyck, Phil and Laina Graf and Jeannie Folbrecht. Great teamwork. Oh… and of course Sophie too!

On Sunday we visited the Graf’s in Amsterdam. Phil and Laina taught on missional living (pictured above). They did a great job — nice to have them do this before they move to Portugal (their house is for sale here | pictures by yours truly here)

After it was all over I thought it would be a whole year before we would have another SCO. But already we have a number of people who want to go through one sooner than that. Right now we are planning for one in the fall.

Had an interesting thought about the SCO during the weekend. We should not think about the SCO as a giant sales-pitch, but rather as a time during which we talk about the mission we are on – and for which we are looking for fellow mountain-climbers. Our desire is to see a new church planting movement spread all over Europe. That’s a bit like climbing a really tall and somewhat dangerous mountain. Not everyone can participate in that: it’s sometimes dangerous, requires skill and it certainly is difficult. So during SCO we talk about ‘our mountain’ and this effort — and then we carefully select who we want to work with. Sounds exclusive? Well, it is a little bit. I’ve never done any physical mountain-climbing, but I’m told accidents do happen. As they do in church planting. Better we protect ourselves and each other by moving forward carefully and strategically.

Good stuff happening in Brussels and Utrecht!

Yesterday was a good day. I had the privilige of celebrating with the community of The Well in Brussels. The Well is CA's church plant in Brussels - except that the word church plant no longer applies. The Well is now officially recognized as a church by a Belgium network of churches, A-net.

It's like a 'coming-of-age' for a church plant. CA plants churches that we hope will one day become mature, self-governing and self-funding entities. We are not a denomination in the sense that we maintain a level of control; we are an association based on friendship.

The Well is really not even just one church: it is a network of smaller churches ('expressions') that meet in a variety of places. In the picture above Carlton (team-leader on the right) is introducing the leaders of these different expressions (picture taken with iPhone).

I visited Brussels with a research team many years ago to investigate if CA should plant in Brussels - and what such a church plant should look like. Then Carlton and Shannon moved there and started The Well. So exciting to see that The Well is now running and impacting the city - and I really mean impact: from Brussels Serve The City has now spread to 43 cities world-wide!

UTRECHT
But there was more that excited me. Some of you will remember that last year I had the privilige of assisting the Dutch Reformed Church of the Netherlands in a church planting project. That project actually resulted in two church planting projects. One of those projects was already off to a good start, but the other was was struggling and for a long time I was not sure it would get off the ground. But yesterday it too had it's first event - and reports were good!

Below is a video (in Dutch) they put together for it. In it, various people from the city of Utrecht are asked what they expect of the future. Well done to Charissa, Egbert, Theo, Jenny and many others: you were in my prayers. I am excited to hear good news from you!

Vulnerable and out-of control

It seems to me that right now the human race is being confronted with a strong sense of vulnerability. We feel out of control: there are things happening to us that we have no control over. These things remind us that we live in a big universe where strong forces are at play — and, try as we might, we don't really have a whole lot of influence.

Here are some stories in the news that create this sense of vulnerability.

• The economic crisis: strong forces of supply and demand, greed and power. We think we understand how it all started, but no one seems to know how it will all end.

• The Mexican-flu virus, spreading around the world. OK, right now it does not seem to move as fast as experts predicted earlier this week — but that was scary! And what if it mutates?

• This week an unemployed security-guard in The Netherlands drove his small black vehicle into a crowd, killing 7 including himself, in an attempt to attack the royal family on our annual Queen's Day. When asked why the Royal Family and the onlookers had not been better protected, the mayor of the city where this took place said: "It did not even enter our minds that someone would run a car into a crowd at high speed. Who would do such a thing?" For the past three days my little country has been trying to make sense of this.

But the truth is we can't. We don't understand all these economic forces, these organic principles, or the motivations of a mad-man. We live in a universe far bigger than us and far more complicated than we can understand. We are finite beings — no matter what we like to tell ourselves.

If only...
When asked if she understood the motivations of this mad-man, and if she thought there was some kind of terrorist agenda behind, our secretary of State, Guusje Ter Horst, answered that she didn't understand the motivation. She exclaimed 'if only this had been an attack by Muslim Terrorists — than we could have understood it." Ironic, because for the longest time Dutch politicians have stated they could not understand the motivation of a muslim terrorists for suicide attacks. Now a Dutch madman commits an attack we really don't understand, and suddenly we feel we understand Muslim Terrorists. Go figure...

Fear
Personnally I struggle with fear when I hear these things. I don't fear the madman so much as I fear the crisis and the flu. You hear these things in the news and you think 'what if ...? Would I be hurt?' Several times this week I have had to remind myself of Jesus' words: do not fear! Words he repeats over and over and over. It's like he understands that there is much to be afraid of. Then he adds: "I am with you." He doesn't say these things won't affect me (or you). But he says he will be with us. I find that quite comforting.

How do you do 'spiritual'?

Did a great photoshoot last Friday. Just too much fun. One of my clients, an event-organizer, is launching a new concept into the club-scene and needed a photographer. My job: to photograph 9 beautiful young people in various poses for a poster. So I took my strobes (flash-equipment) and set up a small studio on the top-floor of an office building.

The shoot was just a lot of fun. I instructed them and they responded really well. The theme of the poster was 'City Madness' so I got them to act out various parts: "ok, now everybody act like you a rock musicians... Very good (click, click), OK, now everybody act like you are scared (click, click)..." We went through various poses and they all had a keen instinct for what pose to adopt.

Which is when I said: "OK, now everyone act like you are spiritual...'

You should have seen the look on their faces. 'Spiritual'? How do you do that? What is that? I tried: "well, act like you're a monk... or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or practice Yoga...' Still, blank stares. It was like I was speaking a language they didn't understand. They had no vocabulary for it.

I ended up posing them individually one by one. The picture above was the final result (Click on the image for a larger view). All things considered I'm pretty happy with the result!

[See the final poster here - and see more pictures from the shoot on my Flickr-page.]

Brilliant weekend away with journey-friends

Sophie and I were away this weekend. We attended the Emerging Network Retreat. 'Emerging Church' in all its forms has been a growing phenomenon in the US and the UK for over a decade now, but in The Netherlands this conversation is just getting going. I believe this conversation is asking the right questions about church and faith. I know that some of the answers that are being proposed are outside of the evangelical box and may feel to liberal — but trust me when I say that the people who attended this weekend love Jesus, have a passion for his kingdom and are devoting their lives to worshipping God. All in all deeply refreshing.

I attended this weekend last year as well and blogged about it here. That was such a good weekend that I made a commitment to bring Sophie along this year. It took some doing, but in the end it all worked out (thanks to Jason Cutshall!). We had a great time.

Highlights:

• Meeting together for evening-prayer in a small catholic chapel (picture above)
• Experiencing Rick van Zutphen's worship lab. Very meaningful experience for me.
• Nature-walk through one of the most beautiful forests in Holland. We meditated and prayed as we pondered the beauty of God's creation (picture below).
• Deepening friendship with some amazing pioneers, deep thinkers, and lovable characters.

[Picture-gallery]

Cars, cars, cars (and buttons)

Man, I haven't posted in like forever. And not because I have nothing to tell - I do. But it's been too busy, too busy. 

Truth is I have been working hard in finding new business. I am really feeling the economic crisis: I do not have enough work (a little scary) and am working really hard to find more work!

But I do have a few things I want to tell, and hopefully in the next few days I get to tell them. 

Like this one. I took Judah and Joel to the 'Autorai' a few weeks ago. The Autorai s the largest car-show in Holland. I remember going there as a child and loving it (and I was never really into cars). So a dad's duty to take his kids, right?

Truth is, it's become apparent I need to spend some more time with the kids. Joshua and Judah are growing up and really doing the 'teenager-thing'. A year ago I thought parenting teenagers wasn't so hard after all. Boy, was I wrong.

So, of to the Autorai. Which proved to be a lot of fun. Right from the get-go Judah and Joel were enthusiastic. Especially when they discovered they could sit in the cars and play with all the buttons! They even got to sit in a Maybach and play with all the controls (and that car is 1,8 million dollars in Holland). The sales-people were looking the other way - and so was I. Joel was playing with waaay to many buttons for my taste.

Of course I was looking for a car for myself. Personally I think the Mercedes CLS is just about the most beautiful car out there. And I got to sit in it, where Judah made this picture of me. I liked it so much I bought three. PInk color. To be delivered with a ribbon around it. Real soon.

And then there were the motorbikes. Judah had to sit on every single one.

All pictures made on my iphone. I decided not to bring any other camera and concentrate on being a dad. Which was very satisfying!

Pictures from Sophie's restaurant

After the summer Sophie began working in her favorite restaurant in Rotterdam. This small place called 'Proef' (english: 'taste') had a reall original style. Sophie quickly bonded with two of the main driving forces, and together they ran the restaurant.

Until today. Unfortunately Proef will close its doors today. A new restaurant will open their supposedly in the near future - and supposedly Sophie can keep working. But things are a little shaky...

Anyways, thought you'd like to see some pictures...

Our team in Gothenburg

I have just come back from spending a weekend in Gothenburg with our CA church planting team. I had such a great time. So good to see a team that is functioning well and pushing out the boundaries of the kingdom of God.

One thing I particularly like about this team is that it is led by a German couple, Marcus and Karen Fritsch.  Europeans sometimes think CA is an 'American' organisation, but the truth is that more and more Europeans are joining us and more and more of our leaders are European.
Also on the team are Erwin and Maria (Dutch/Swedish), Luke and Kirsten Meisel (US) and Judy Hardin (US). The whole team either speaks Swedish fluently, or is well in its way to doing so. They work they are doing is almost entirely in Swedish.

The Gothenburg project is our first project in Scandinavia. May there be many to follow!

Sharing what you believe

Many of us struggle to share what we believe. It can seem like not many people like it when we share our faith in Jesus. 'Religion is a private thing — keep it to yourself' seems to be the message we get.
Or perhaps the message we tell ourselves.

In this clip Las Vegas magician Penn (of Penn & Teller fame), a self-confessed atheist, gives us a different perspective.