Day 2

Prayer:

Psalm 27:1

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

Devotion:

Titus 1:5

“I left you behind in Crete for this reason, that you should put in order what remained to be done, and should appoint elders in every town,...”

Journal:

Paul, the sender of senders; what an amazing person and what a remarkable call.

Yesterday our team in the Netherlands met with a pastor and his colleague that is involved in the leadership of the church planting pioneers in Amsterdam. While the tasks at hand are hard, these pastors seem to persist. Pastor Bas is the senior pastor of JeruzalemKerk (Jerusalem Church) and they have started a church plant named VanBoven (From Above). Bas is the regional coordinator for church planters in Amsterdam. (A sender of senders of sorts.) The new faith community of VanBoven is a part of the existing church building and has been working to grow with the gifts of the neighborhood. With an interesting ministry of connecting with people in the community, they have been steadily experimenting in how to engage the people in which they interact with on a daily basis, Christian or not.

After eating lunch at the church, we travelled by bus to meet with Pastor Jeannet who is a pioneering pastor that is working with the Nieuw Westenwind(New Westwind) church plant. Jeannet and her team are taking listening to the next level. She walks the streets and meets people where they are. The ministry was initially started as a conversation in the community but eventually led to a monthly interactive worship service. One of my questions to Jeannet was “Did you have struggles getting ordained as a pioneer church planter?” Her answer was “No. It was harder to get ordained because I have a wife.” Even in such a liberal and secular world, the institution of the church is still marginalizing its own leaders. Jeannet’s work is so important to today’s conversations and I know she is called to see ministry and community engagement in a new way.

After we grabbed dinner and a drink and we met Pastor Linda who is the pioneer leader of a young community based of the Taize tradition. We didn’t get to talk long but we joined the congregation of the church that hosts her ministry and the ones involved in the new ministry in an Ash Wednesday service. There was singing and and scripture and while it was mainly in Dutch, the service was somber and reflective like I have experienced before. We wrote our sins on a piece of paper and they were burned in the front of the church to make ashes. With about 100 people present, there was a lot of paper and the flame was high that came from this big ceramic bowl. But there was no alarm; instead there was beauty in it all. We had old folks from the original congregation, students in the new Taize ministry, folks from the community and our group of nine from the States; all of our sins and struggles were burned into a common pile. We then took those ashes and passed around a small dish anointing each other with ashes. As I was blessed in Dutch, I blessed another in English, all with the burned remains of our concerns and worries in life. It was a place of mutual care for the other and we were able to look each other in the eye and proclaim that our whole lives are in our Creator’s hands.

Yesterday was our introduction into the church planting movement in the Netherlands and we were excited to see and hear from people who have discerned God’s call in their lives. While the culture may be different, the need for people discerning God working in the neighborhood is the same and is a hard task that God has gifted these people with and I pray that they continue to be supported in their work even if they may do things a little different.

Peace