Johannesburg 2

Friday is the day, then I will leave for Johannesburg, South Africa to lead a trip of Livingstone and work for the MES. I am very much looking forward to it. The group that went in july is returning home at the moment, their stories jou can find at www.expeditie07.nl. I hope and pray we will have a good time, see something of the world and come to know each other. The big question will be who will be helping who during this period...

Leadership @ Freakstock

One of the main topics @ Freakstock were the outcomes of the leadership crisis. There were a few meetings about the topic which I followed and I would like to give a (imperfect, since it is my interpretation) impression of the situation.

JesusFreaks has always been a chaordic organisation, but a certain part of the German JesusFreaks wanted a strong leadership. This has led to a leadership crisis withing JesusFreaks and a council was formed to address the issue. 100 leaders were asked about their opinions and to pray for God's guidance while addressing the topic. In the end the following decisions have been made:

#1: The structure of Jesusfreaks
JesusFreaks is to some respect a family, denomination, movement and a network. Officialy JesusFreaks will not be a denomination because it would mean defining much more than they want to define.
Officially JesusFreaks will not be a movement since a movement is temporarily and with a focused goal. JesusFreaks wants to be eternally focused and not striving a singular goal since following Christ can mean different things for different people. Officially JesusFreaks will not be a family allthough they want to be a family in the sense of being brothers and sisters in Christ. But to call the complete organisation one family is not a adequate term that addresses the relevant issues.
Officially JesusFreaks will be a network of independant churches which are cooperating together under Jesus Freaks International.

I was personally very glad with this decision because I think this line of thought serves the heart of JesusFreaks and emphasises the things that make JesusFreaks relevant in today's society. This basically comes down to seeing diversity as a blessing instead of focusing on singularity. I am glad that the chaordic nature of JesusFreaks will be preserved by the network structure. I think the network structure has a kind, supportive nature which encourages instead of controls.

#2 Leadership of JesusFreaks
The question of leadership follows out of structure. The chosen network structure allows no strong directive leadership, but asks for more subtile forms. Since churches are independent they will define their own leadership in their own way. The basis will be that the best way to define leaders is to let informal leaders (by personality or age for example) become formal leaders. But if churches want to formalise their leadership on their own way they can do so. JFI will accept by the group appointed leaders. Leadership of JFI will be supportive to the individual groups instead of controlling.

I am very glad with the decisions on both issues. Unfortunately the group wanting strong leadership left JesusFreaks because of it, but I think this has been unavoidable. Of course it is sad that this makes you realise JesusFreaks suffers from the same human diseases that are in all organisations. On the other hand I think it is very special to see to what answers JesusFreaks have hold on. I think it is rare that organisations stay true to their basics in this way in face of such great earthly temptations of becoming this big festival and stock market company. Allthough there is no crime in being a big festival or stock market company I do think that in the case of JesusFreaks it would have drifted them away from their basics in being a meeting and sharing point for followers of Christ finding ways to live out faith in a new century.

Freakstock 2007

I visited Freakstock Family Festival this weekend in Gotha Boxberg, Germany. It was great being there, talking to people and encourage each other in faith. I was really surprised by how much dutch JesusFreaks were there. I guess it were around 40 and we had a really good time together. It was great to see people between the dutch groups connecting with each other in a very good atmosphere. I hope these connections will grow in the forthcoming year.

At the friday of the festival I spoke in the JFI (Jesus Freaks International)-tent about the birth and growth of Jesus Freaks Netherlands. Although there was mainly a Dutch audience it was a nice experience for myself to be able to tell the story and share something personal.

It was also nice to meet a lot of familiar German people again and get to know them better. I will write about some of the meetings after this.

Grant freedom

Every once in a while you hear an interesting, refreshing thought on a subject. Someone has taken an angle to a subject you did not think of yourself. In the documentary Tegenlicht: "Het ei van De Soto" for me such an interesting angle was taken on the subject of fighting poverty. I saw the documentary based on a recommandation of a friend, and I think it is a must see if you are interested in globally fighting poverty. It discusses fighting poverty not through aid, but through law by granting poor people by law the possessions they already physically own. Maybe it is not the whole answer, and not everywhere and not anytime, but it is certainly a road that deserves much more attention than it gets.

Freakz

Jesus Freaks, Willowfreak, Freakstock and the World Wide Pizza Service: just a nice blog of Andrew Jones in which he paints a big picture and impression of Jesus Freaks. In this blog Andrew announces the speech which I learned so much from and inspired me to dive into the emerging movement. Very nice material to read for me. He also describes the Round Table in this post which was a international meeting of emerging church leaders. The Round Table was a very nice chance to talk to a lot of people doing special things. If I can I will sure visit Freakstock again this year.

De(v/f)ine discipleship

Discipleship is a term I could not grasp for a long time. During the Eurochurch conference I was pleasantly surprised a lot of time was spent defining the term. Below is the definition that was created:

1. There can be no discipleship without community, then it is instruction. This points to the necessity of a personal relationship with people as a prerequisite for discipleship.
2. Offer a reason or a goal for community (this is communitas), because to commit to something without a goal is no real commitment.
3. Understand the context where people live in, love and serve the world around them. This refers to that Jesus sends us as he was sent.
4. Be vulnerable, available and accountable.
5. It requires spirit, soul and body, none of them can be left out.

I have also seen it defined in another way:

• love people
• look whats happening
• truely listen to people, because we tend to fill in a lot of blanks
• live among people
• learn to connect
• link concretely to people locally

One thing is basic and clear among this term, that discipleship has to happen out of actual life. Sharing your life in an honest way with the people around you creates a natural setting for spending time influencing each other about deeper issues.

A more systemic view from Dawn European Network:

Denominational diversity

In my last blog I wrote about Ouweneel's talk about diversity within and between denominations. This reminded me of a talk at the Eurochurch conference in Switzerland. This talk was about the blessings of diversity, I looked at my notes and will share the examples that were discussed:

• In christ we unite in purpose, but we can diverse in everything else.
• Our arms have different, antagonistic muscles: stressors and flexors. It is even useful that these arm muscles are antagonistic, they produce a meaningful whole. One without the other would be unable to function.
• When you go fly fishing you have all sorts of bait. The differents sorts are for different fish whom require a different approach to catch them.
• We should value diversity out of humility: I see only a small part of the whole, you see another. We need another to create a whole.

Good examples to remember when we meet our antagonist in faith or life.

Ouweneel @ momentum

Last weekend I visited the momentum festival which was organised by Soulsurvivor and Navigators. At saturday drs. Willem Ouweneel spoke in depth about the workings of The Spirit. It was the first time I heard him and besides good content he had a lot of humour. It was one of the little topics during the larger setting that touched me the most. It related to the developments between denominations that are happening at the moment. He told that differences between denominations are less salient at this moment. He said that the cause of this is that within all denominations there are churches paying more attention to the workings of the Holy Spirit. So denominations become less differing and salient, but the churches are getting much more diverse within their denomination. Up until this point I was aware of this, but I thought the result of this would be more unity and harmony within christian Holland. Mr. Ouweneel said he expected more problems for the future. The differing thing was that he did not expect problems between the dominations, but within. He said that at some point the denominations will find that the greater differences within the denominations that are coming into existence today will be the problems of tomorrow. He said that at some point the new differences that start at the bottom of the denomination will at some point meet at the top and create tension. Based on this line of reason Mr Ouweneel said that he expects trouble in the future within denominations. Basically he suggests that the whole movement that is going with the PKN and broader with churches that are trying to cooperate and integrate is doomed to fail. This is what struck me and what I had not expected. It is just an interesting line of reason he made, I´ll keep it in mind and see what will happen in the future.

Asp on relationships

One of the subjects I really was eager to write about is about relationships. This is just because I think allthough there is spoken and written a lot about the subject we often miss te point. In the secular world a lot of communication is about eros or expression of eros and in the christian world we tend to only touch the surface and do not get our hands dirty. I often find we christians tend to produce a clean text about how we think things should be, but that we have failed to test it to the reality of 2007 and make it a live discussion subject for growth especially among the young. I think this is an allergy that's left over of the time getting our hands dirty meant that christians had very fixed views of relationships that often collided with society. A lot of friction came out of discussing fixed views and created the allergy or taboo. I think the allergy was a neccessity for a while, but that broader society and christians have changed to be less polarised by now which opens doors. Now it is time to reinvent ourselves and to start honest discussions about this subject. I think the value of the discussion should be valued more than finding the "right" answer everyone should obey. Because the discussion leads to growth in knowledge and understanding and I think acceptance can flow out of that. In the past the fixed views have proven to block the the flow of information, thereby blocking growth in knowledge, understanding and possible acceptance.

I often visit De Zolder and while surfing the internet I landed on the blog of Eric Asp. He's one of the church leaders of De Zolder. I found on his blog a series of what I think is a honest discussion about relationships and sexuality and by writing this I think he is getting his hands dirty. I found it to be interesting material to read and therefore liked to share it with you. It is not that I agree on everything, but I value his opennes, respect and honesty in the discussion he tries to start. I hope, if you read his work, you will also truely value his opennes and honesty and be mild if you do not agree with his views on sensitive subjects. I think he deserves this approach because of daring to be vulnerable in a brave attempt to start an honest discussion about relationship issues in the christian world in 2007.