This week, Zolder50 is hosting a conference on Church Planting Movements, led by Victor John.  We wanted it to be something of an intimate gathering, with lots of opportunity for interaction -- so we limited the invitation to mostly home group leaders from Zolder50 and a few random church leaders from around the city and across Europe.  In total, approximately 40 of us will be gathering together for the next 4 days to talk about church planting, church growth, and principles for developing a culture of multiplication and "movement" thinking.

I first met Victor John at an conference hosted by the European Church Planters Network in Portugal.  The following was written in a blog post at the time, offering a brief summary of that initial experience (and also likely an effective summary of what we might expect over the coming few days here in Amsterdam):

Victor John was a full-time pastor in an Indian congregation that had been established by Swedish missionaries during the first half of the 20th Century.  But as the European missionaries were gradually phased out of responsibility for the work of the Church in India (according to government policy), Victor found himself facing a crossroads in his ministry about 15 years ago.  Ultimately, he decided to step out of his role as a full-time pastor for his congregation (which is a very unusual thing to do in India, where the pastor is highly honored), and he helped to establish a rapidly-multiplying network of house-churches which has led to an estimated 3 million people coming to Christ among the Bohjpurri people of northern India.  Among these followers of Christ, approximately 50 former Muslim clerics are now helping to catalyze over 200 house churches among the culturally-Muslim popluations of the region!  Now, they're hoping and praying for another 30 million people to come to Christ in the coming ten years!  It seems crazy!  And yet, it's all accomplished through a very simple (though radical) commitment to prayer, studying the Bible, and empowering others to pass on the things they learn from God throughout their social networks.

After that initial encounter, we kept up some communication with Victor John (I honestly don't know if this is a first-and-last name, a first-and-middle name, or perhaps even a pseudonym -- so I never know if I should shorten his name to be familiar, or if I should just use both names at all times)... and eventually, he offered to come to Amsterdam and help to teach some of our people about his experiences in developing Church Planting Movements.

I'm hoping and praying that it will be a really great experience for our church (and other churches with whom we're networked).  In any event, it should be fun hanging out with all these great friends who represent a sort of extended European family... Perhaps you'll hear more about the conference over the coming few days.