Around four o'clock this afternoon, I felt very odd.  At that moment, half-way across town, a worship gathering was just getting started at the H88, organized by Zolder50 (the church for which I serve as co-pastor)... and yet I was casually tidying up in the dining room of my home in Amsterdam Oost.  Not sick.  Not on vacation.  Not disgruntled...

Just not there.  Not participating in my own church's worship gathering.

Instead, I was tidying up the house in preparation for the arrival of the others from our home group.  Instead of meeting for weekly worship as eight combined home groups, with extra attenders thrown in on the side, we're now meeting as two separate neighborhood church communities.  More focus is being put on missional living (taking the church to the people, instead of bringing the people to the church) and embracing community on the level of home groups and life groups.  Thus, four of the home groups meet for worship on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of each month; and the other four home groups (including ours) meet for worship on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month.  In the process, more opportunities are afforded for home groups to organize in innovative ways that connect with people outside the church...

Like organizing casual family-style dinners that can serve as a forum for introducing friends to a circle of believers. 

Who knew that Fons could cook snert (Dutch pea soup) from scratch?  It was delicious!  I had no idea that Amarys was such a natural baker... Her double-chocolate cookies were amazing.  Of course, Marci contributed her now-famous culinary skills in coordinating an appetizer... And as such, it seems like our home group has found a meaningful way to interact and to create a hospitable environment for welcoming others into our circle of relationships.

We really had fun doing "church" in our own way this evening.  Everybody cooking together in the kitchen... four kids (our three, plus Maria's Selina) making noise and providing a sense of joy to the scene... It felt like a family holiday gathering.  It really did.  Some might say that it's strange to call such an experience "church" -- and I have to admit that it was bizarre to have a Sunday go by with not participating in the more typical worship gathering, and to know that our church was spread out all across Noord Holland this evening (I believe another home group went to the seaside... another group organized a prayer walk... another four groups, of course, were celebrating our first worship gathering in our "new" ministry center).  But this Sunday's experience of "going to church" was beautiful and meaningful in its own way.

 I just thought I'd post a few brief reflections and a few photographs of the occasion, for the sake of posterity (and my own intellectual and emotional processing of the events)...  In case you were wondering, even though Fons was the primary cook for the evening, my best photograph of meal preparations turned out to be of Marci, chopping vegetables.   So please be sure that Fons gets the props -- but Marci is prettier to look at anyway!

Everyone enjoyed the meal immensely.  And we all felt quite immense after multiple helpings of all the delicious food!  Dutch pea soup is a classic winter recipe, especially if made by a real Dutchman with all fresh ingredients, cooked from scratch.

The evening wound down around the time that Elliot was going to bed -- but not before Amarys, Jeroen, and I helped him make a fantastic lego "tent."