Weekly Word: 2009 Archives
There are three reasons why we can face the New Year, or the next twenty years, with hope. They are: 1) the Father; 2) the Son; and, yes, 3) the Holy Spirit. Peter tells us to 'always be ready to give...
Hope, Gerard Kelly told his listeners at the Next 20 Years symposium in Amsterdam ten days ago, was the answer to the question, 'what did it mean to be human?'How did we then, as Christians, so lose our vision of...
Under a barrel ceiling dating back to before Christopher Columbus, and facing a stained-glass window depicting the Pilgrim Fathers praying as they left Holland for America via Plymouth on the Mayflower, some 200 friends and staff of YWAM gathered in...
A fundamental rethink of the idea of freedom was needed today, twenty years after millions of East Europeans had been freed from oppressive government. André Rouvoet, Holland's Deputy Prime Minister, told this to an audience of leaders from politics, church...
Sometimes I wonder how many magazines serve the Body of Christ in America, creating conversation and dialogue across the continent. I can think of quite a few off the top of my head. How many serve a similar function in...
No, I'm not a doomsday prophet, but it is true. The end draws nigh-at least, of my twenty years as leader of YWAM in Europe. Next month in Amsterdam, Friday December 11, we hold a symposium and a reception...
Twenty years ago today was probably one of the most significant historical events of my generation. For those too young to remember at the time, or now younger than twenty, it is hard to imagine the sense of incredulity, relief...
Paul's landing on Malta nearly two thousand years ago was a great deal rougher and wetter than mine was last week. But our separate visits to the island had something in common: we both experienced the 'unusual kindness' from the...
A month from now, the world's press will be reminding us of those exciting and heady days twenty years ago, when the Berlin Wall was torn down by sledgehammers and bare hands, and communist regimes across Eastern Europe came tumbling...
Daniel the exile had a remarkable political career. He survived and prospered during the reigns of four of the most powerful men in the ancient world. His story offers great inspiration and encouragement for 21st century believers. His life is...
At the recent Global Cities consulation in New York, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a vigorous church planting movement was well under way among Reformed churches in Amsterdam. Several pastors from these churches shared in a breakout session about the...
New York commemorated two anniversaries last week while I was there attending a Global Cities consulation. The first was the discovery of the Hudson River exactly 400 years ago by Henry Hudson on his fruitless search for a passage to...
Sometimes our language builds barriers rather than bridges when it comes to relating to those outside our own 'spiritual' circles. I recently heard Shirley tell the following story and asked her to write it up for a Weekly Word:"Why did...
Children living with single mothers are more likely to drop out of school and to become teen parents, and are five times more likely to be poor, than children in two-parent households. And the evidence suggests that children who live...
A sign on the unpaved road leading to a red-and-white boom marking the border between Austria and Hungary, just outside Sopron, carries the words of Helmut Kohl, former German Chancellor: "History has been written on this forest road." A large...
As we continue to remember the events in Central and Eastern Europe twenty years ago leading to the collapse of the communist system, stories of the courage of anonymous citizens add to an amazing picture of providential orchestration.We have written...
Breakfast on Saturday morning turned out to be an extra session for the Summer School for European Studies. Officially we had finished the evening before, and the first participants were packed, ready to leave Le Rüdli, the Swiss schlössli which...
After visiting such cradles of the Reformation as Wittenberg and Geneva, it was rather unsettling for our Summer School participants to read Alistair McGrath's suggestion that Protestantism may have unintentionally encouraged the rise of atheism in Europe, and ushered in...
"Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."But you said, 'We will not walk in it.'" Today's reading from...
The large sign on the church tower of the St Nicholas Church in Leipzig, East Germany, recalled the 20th anniversary of the dramatic events of autumn 1989 leading to the fall of Communism. Some of us in our Heritage Tour...
A literal stone's throw from YWAM's training centre in Amsterdam, De Poort, is the house where, for twenty years, one of the fathers of modern Holland lived and worked to 'to carve as it were into the conscience of...
Over this past year, some seed thoughts have matured into a meditation garden inviting believer and doubter alike to read God's Big Book. On our annual Heritage Trip (which begins again next weekend) we have come across Celtic prayer gardens, meditation parks with...
The EU election results show unsettling nationalist and populist parties gains, reflecting a growing animosity towards migrants, especially Muslims. Election campaign posters of the British Nationalist Party asked voters, 'What Would Jesus Do?' The BNP assumes 'Christian' means 'anti-Islam'. Yet Brother Andrew...
Voter turnout for the European Parliament elections will be low again this week. So, what a great opportunity! If Christians across the EU were mobilised to vote, we could have a disproportional impact on the European Parliament for the next...
Schloss Mittersill is an imposing castle with a commanding view and a colourful history. Witches were tried there. Protestants starved to death in its dungeons. Queen Juliana and Prince Bernard honeymooned there. Nazi officers-including Heinrich Himmler-dined under its great wooden...
From different sources last week, I received emails alerting me to a must-see YouTube clip on Muslim demographics, revealing current population trends that demonstrate conclusively that Europe is doomed to become Muslim. At least, that's what the makers of the...
Apeldoorn. This name of the large town just fifteen minutes from our home suddenly became laden with tragic connotation last Thursday, through the traumatic drama experienced first-hand by millions. All Holland is still reeling from the dramatic events of Koninginnedag...
A dramatic revolution has been taking place in Britain's churches over the past decade, encouraging experimentation and innovation outside of a traditional parish structure dating back to the seventh century. The consequences for Europe could be far-reaching, if continental leadership...
Which European state declared war on Imperial Germany during World War I (but did not actually take part in the fighting) and remained officially at war until 1957? Did you guess Andorra, that small landlocked country sandwiched between Spain and...
"An incredible new technology enables the transmission of text on a worldwide basis. It rapidly reduces production and distribution costs and for the first time allows large numbers of people to access text and pictures in their own homes." 'What...
Twenty years ago, a revolution was about to burst upon the world. An obsolete and inhumane Communist system began to crumble under the weight of its own lies. A generation is now coming into adulthood too young to remember the...
As the train carried him homewards, the young Greek doctor thought back on the words of the veteran missionary speaker from South Africa: 'Healthy people walk vertically and look horizontally, but sick people lie horizontally and look vertically.' Francis Grimm, founder...
Ten suspected human traffickers went on trial today in Zwolle, near where I live, as a result of an African pastor friend of mine breaking voodoo curses over young Nigerian girls forced into prostitution.The ten men were part of a...
Winston Churchill put it this way: The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. I like to say it as follows: Short memories breed short-sightedness. Or it's corollary: Long memories breed far-sightedness.Both these quotes...
The tram arrived at our stop in East Berlin. All seventy of us poured out (it was a long tram). We followed our young guide across the tracks and entered a forest of apartment blocks. And 'blocks' they were. Like...
Whistleblowing is a thankless job. Ask Paul van Buitenen, now sitting in the European Parliament as a one-man party, Europa Transparant. Shortly before I first met him in Brussels ten years ago, his exposure of corruption and cronyism involving Former...
It happened again last week in Berlin. When I asked a German congregation to think of a prominent European personality who had converted to Islam, immediately the name 'Cat Stevens' was called out. Now, how long ago was that? It...
Nobody quite knows which saint gave his name to February 14, the day on which lovers traditionally send each other Valentine's cards. Biographies of two Valentines honoured on this date, from the second and third centuries, offer no romantic connections....
As we drove through the narrow paved streets of the Old City of Riga, Latvia's capital, we passed shops where angry protestors had smashed windows and looted just two weeks ago. My host's apartment was just off the Cathedral square,...
This summer, my wife Romkje and I invite you to join us as we head off once more around Europe in search of people and movements who shaped Europe. As with past years, we start in Amsterdam, city of Rembrandt,...
The road winds through English woods and fields in the countryside north of London, and eventually circles in front of the grand entrance of a sprawling red-brick country mansion. A forest of chimneys and turrets sprouts from its steep shingle...
It's amazing what journalists come up with when prospects are down. We're facing crises on many fronts: credit, ethics, energy, environment... not to forget, of course, the Middle East. Yet some writers see potential for good. This year will...