For the word of God is living and active.

Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates

even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow;

it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart..

(Hebrews 4:12)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  As I was thinking about what to write for this month’s prayer letter, it occurred to me that I’ve been doing a lot more preaching this year.  More than ever before.  Perhaps that sounds strange—given the fact that I am serving (and have been serving, for the past six years) as a pastor for the church here in Amsterdam.  But I’ve always tended more towards the pastoral and administrative side of things, over the up-front, homiletic roles; and throughout the majority of my ministry career I’ve been blessed to have teammates who have been more wired for preaching.  For me, preaching has always been a part of the mix, probably 12-15 times per year on average (at least since moving to Amsterdam).  This year, however, I’ve already delivered nine full-length sermons (through just the first quarter of 2010), and the coming months should allow me to easily pass my previous levels of preaching productivity.

I don’t bring this up to be boastful or plaintive.  I guess I’m just mentioning it because it’s been a growing process for me, personally.  I’ve had to develop a lot of discipline and endurance, to keep up in this area of ministry which has not been my strong suit.  As I’ve put in the work to prepare for our church’s weekly worship gatherings, God has been remarkably faithful to inspire me and equip me for serving the church in this way.  At the same time, I’ve also been challenged to consider other ways to equip, encourage, and inspire the church through alternative, creative means of instruction—ways in which we maintain a very high value on God’s Word and its power for our lives, though not necessarily in the form of a 45-minute sermon.  These alternative forms of biblical instruction this year have included a time of extended prayer, a panel discussion, testimonies, and two different “family meetings” (talking about very practical ministry considerations in an interactive, “town-hall” style environment).  These worship gatherings have been surprisingly life-giving, and it seems like the church has responded really well to these different ways of learning from the Bible.  Perhaps most intriguing for me personally, though, was our Palm Sunday worship gathering, in which the entirety of our "message" was based on just one single Bible passage and four simple follow-up questions.

Basically, we just picked one Bible passage:  Luke 19:11-27 (the Parable of the Ten Minas, which Jesus shared with his disciples immediately before riding into Jerusalem).  First, we read it straight-through, with everyone following along (visual reinforcement of the words on the pages).  Then, without any follow-up explanation, we read through the exact same passage a second time, with Bibles closed and everyone listening (aural reinforcement of the words from the passage).  Then, we asked these four simple follow-up questions and allowed opportunity for group interaction (which worked well, even though we probably had about 110 people in attendance that week).  These were the four questions:

1. How would you restate the passage in your own words?
2. What does this particular passage teach us about God?
3. If the message of this Bible passage is true, how would we have to obey?
4. With whom do you plan to share the things that you just learned?

My hope in doing things this way was for us all to be sucked into the learning process together—not just me, the pastor, studying and studying, and preparing and preparing, all throughout the week and then sharing a "very wise, very insightful" message with the congregation while they all sat there and listened quietly.   No, what I was essentially trying to do was publicly reinforce my conviction that the Bible is way more accessible than we typically believe!  A person doesn’t need any kind of theological degree to read the Bible—or even to teach from the Bible.  A person doesn’t have to have any kind of formal "adjustment period" before he can start to get meaningful insight from his own study of the Bible.  Even if that Palm Sunday worship gathering happened to be the first time someone ever read or heard the words of the Bible, I was convinced that it could have been an amazingly powerful and insightful experience all the same!  Yes, there are some parts of the Bible that may be kind of confusing, at first glance—and there definitely is some benefit to deeper study and learning from others who have greater experience with studying the Bible... But if we believe that the vast majority of the Bible is immediately accessible and beneficial for anyone who would choose to pick it up and read it, then there’s something powerful to be said by simply doing that in a congregational setting.  I went into that Palm Sunday worship gathering with the belief that a simple focus on one Bible passage and four follow-up questions could provide a simple tool for any individual, small group, or church seeking to learn from the Bible.  And our church’s experience on that Sunday bore that out!  Following the worship gathering, I had numerous conversations with young men and women who felt like God had really spoken to them from Luke 19.  Two young Dutch men even approached me later on, asking if they could lead the church in a similar exercise at some point in the future (which is something for which we’ve been praying and hoping for quite some time!).  This alternative form of “preaching” turned out to be a very effective learning experience for our church.

To give credit where credit is due, we learned about this way of studying the Bible from an Indian church planter named Victor John.  He called it a “Discovery Bible Study.”  But seriously:  Even Victor John would admit that it’s not rocket science.  It’s not some magic formula for understanding the Bible.  It’s just one Bible passage and a total of four follow-up questions.  I’m not sure how much more we’re going to try to use this technique for studying the Bible together during our Sunday worship gatherings.  But in any event, this time around it was a very positive experience!

So at any rate, I just wanted to thank you for all the prayer support and financial support which allows us to be serving the church in Amsterdam at this time and in this way.  We appreciate you very, very, very, very, very much.  :-)  We’ll be in touch…

Eric