Season’s Greetings from Amsterdam!  This is the time of the year for Advent, anticipation, expectation, hope, and the realization that something wonderful is coming… We light candles to remind ourselves that the Day of the Lord is getting closer and closer, and in the meantime we rejoice for the little moments of wonder and togetherness we get to experience as something of a foretaste to the future glory of Christ’s second coming and the great Heavenly Reunion we’ll experience at the end of time.  It’s a great time of the year, isn’t it?

In addition to the expectation and hope of the Advent season, our church is also in anticipation and preparation for something else:  the coming of a new approach to our small group ministry.  For several months now, we’ve been thinking, talking, praying, and planning how we can organize our small spiritual families around specific shared interests which also allow for access into many of the broader sub-cultures of Amsterdam.  If the concept sounds intriguing to you, you can read a more detailed description of the plans on-line at http://www.ericasp.com/blog.php/2009/08/04/transition-to-communities.  But for the purposes of this letter, it suffices to say:  We’re going through a process of transition.

I’m super-excited about what’s developing; so far we have identified developing communities for students, for internationals, for musicians, for artists, for writers, for social activists, for young professionals, for families, for sports-enthusiasts, for do-it-yourselfers, for recovering addicts, and even a potential community for extreme sports enthusiasts living in the Hague (an hour south of Amsterdam)!  With several of these possibilities, there are enough people interested that we may even start off with more than one community for a particular sub-culture (i.e. multiple communities for young professionals, social activists, and families).  God is moving.  We’re seeing incredible progress in the people of our church assimilating these concepts into their everyday lives, viewing the life of faith as something holistic (not just some weekly meeting).  We pray this will result in meaningful ministry for many years to come.

But I’ve got to be honest with you:  I’m finding this period of transition to be both exhilarating… and exhausting.

People can be so resistant to change.  Even when they want to be open to it (or even think that they are), their thought patterns are so conditioned in one direction that they cannot easily make the switch… Over the last three months (but especially in the last three weeks), I’ve been spending a lot of time talking with individuals and groups about this process of transition.  Coaching, mentoring, casting vision, clarifying.  It’s something I love to do and am glad to do in this season of transition.  This is, in fact, why I went into ministry.  We’re making real progress, but still it’s been a challenging process.  Some people and some groups have been particularly resistant—developing not just isolated opinions about the church’s structural changes but resistant group dynamics as well.  I’m sure you know how this goes.  Change can be hard.  But my thinking is, “Hey, if there’s no way to avoid change anyway (because of people coming and going, because of other social, psychological, and spiritual forces at work), then why not deliberately steer the change?!?”  We can be actively against change, passive about change, or actively engaging in the process of directing the change.  So why not pick the most positive of the three options and ask ourselves what are we going to do about it?  This is basically the substance of my dozens of individual conversations and group consultations.

Whenever I sit down with people from the church, it feels like we’re able to get somewhere (even if it’s only an inch or two closer to the final destination).  In one recent group consultation, I’d say we started the evening with just 2 or 3 of the group’s 10 members actually having any level of enthusiasm for the idea of sub-culture specific Communities—the rest ranging from confused to ambivalent to openly hostile.  Yet by the end of the evening, after some good dialogue, the dynamics were dramatically changed—almost flipped 180 degrees.  Everyone seemed to warm up to the ideas by degrees, and some of the antagonistic ones actually became quite enthusiastic.  So yes, we’re getting there…

But as I said, this is a long and wearying process.  I feel a constant need for God’s wisdom and insight.  I feel a keen challenge to balance my roles as leader (executive) and shepherd (pastoral care)—though these can roles often feel at odds with one another.  I feel like I need a lot of prayer support during this season of adaptation and anticipation.

The third chapter of Hebrews has offered invaluable encouragement in these things.  I think it feels so appropriate to our situation because the Jewish (Hebrew) believers in the 1st Century were going through some major transitions of their own, adapting their faith to the fulfillment of the prophecies and assimilating Gentile believers into their communities.  But through all of the adjustments, the Hebrews were exhorted to “Fix your thoughts on Jesus… Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house.  And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.  So, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert…’ See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness… ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.’”  Soft hearts are the order of the day, when it comes to transition.  I need to keep my heart soft, as a leader—sensitive to the needs of the church and to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  And I need to exhort the people of our church to keep their hearts soft, too, in preparation for God’s continued work in and through our community…

So I just want to ask you, during this season of anticipation and expectation:  Could you please pray with us?  Could you pray for soft hearts and flexible attitudes?  Could you pray especially for encouragement and endurance for me and our church’s leadership team (which we call our Servant Leadership Council)?  It means the world to have people like you behind us and with us.  We’re so thankful for your partnership in the Gospel.  We’ll keep in touch, to let you know how things develop… And in the meantime, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Eric