An important night in Utrecht!

I came back from Holiday and dove straight into the Utrecht project. Tonight was an important night! We are just past the half-way point in the process and it now looks like the project is going to result not in on, but in two church plants!

Here’s what has happened so far:

• We talked about ‘missional church planting’: what it is and how you do it.
• We then spent three evenings looking at inspiring examples of church planting: Matthijs and Lindsey’s work in The Hague; Redeemer in New York and Amsterdam, and Crossroads Rotterdam.
• All the while we have been talking about vision and trying to specify what it is that we want to see.

As I have interacted the 35-or so participants in the process it became clear there were really two visions that were emerging: one group of people have a vision for a church of 30-somethings (well-educated, tomorrow’s leaders, our friends and neighbors); the other group wants to see a church community come into existence in a specific neighborhood with lots of Turks and Moroccans.

Tonight we divided the whole group into these subgroups for the first time. For the rest of our time together they will work on vision, target-audience and strategy. By the end pf June this should result in two church planting proposals that will then be brought to the denomination for consideration.

I am excited about this process. Is it fragile? Yes, it is: very fragile. But I see lots of good things; I see passion and commitment; I see wisdom growing and insight being sought. I think these two projects have a real chance of both becoming a reality!

Comments

[Peter Jansen]

Yep!! Hier zat ik op te achten.
Kan ik nog aanschuiven?