Tall Skinny Kiwi in Amsterdam

Attended a meeting last night with Andrew Jones, also known as the Tall Skinny Kiwi (also the name of the blog). Andrew is one of the central leaders (inspirators) in this movement called Emergent, and has certainly always inspired me! I think of Andrew as a friend, even though we have only met a handful of times: he is just that kind of guy: warm, generous, fun-living, thoughtful and very inspirational. Andrew’s life motto (which I have stolen at times) is: I exist to make friends, give gifts, tell stories, and throw parties!

Last night our CA friends Phil and Laina Graf graciously opened up their home and hosted a meeting with Andrew. There were a bunch of really cool people, including my new friend Nico-Dirk (amazing guy) and two really cool guys (bottom picture) planting emergent churches in Soest and Utrecht (Johan ter Beek en Erik Zwart). Other cool people in the room were Gerard kelly (Crossroads Amsterdam), Andrew Perriman (of Open Source Theology), Marc vd Woude (Joel News), Eric Folbrecht, Martijn from Crossroads Amsterdam, Gea Gort from Rotterdam, Andrew Last – actually, everybody in the room was cool; I just didn’t know everybody.

We discussed a bunch of things and Andrew Jones said some really interesting things. Here is a brief recap of things I remember:

• Andrew talked about the work he is doing in Orkney, the small Scottish island where he lives. The island has about 20.000 people, and Andrew is staring 12 micro-businesses with friends he has made locally. Not all of them are Christian, and that is not the point. What Andrew is trying to do is just to have local, healthy, normal community – based on the way Jesus taught us to live.
• We talked about the need for a new community to replace the old system. Andrew referenced Jesus’ statement to the disciples they could have faith to tell a mountain to be moved.
• We talked about how God’s people are a nomadic tribe: they always leave one place and journey to the next. We seem to have lost that. Andrew encouraged us to find that again. This spoke to me.
• What he also really emphasized was the fact that he doesn’t want to ‘hype’ emerging church. If anything, he wants to de-hype it. It isn’t about emerging church; it’s about doing church they way Jesus taught us and the first Christians lived it – and treating that as if it is normal.

Comments

[Johnny Laird]

Hey Ro!

...just bounced over from TSK blog, and thought I'd say hello.

Peace & blessings

J