As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men

but chosen by God and precious to him— you also,

like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house

to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices

acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

 (1 Peter 2:4-5)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  As I’m writing this letter, I’m looking out the window at the wind and rain which signal the advent of autumn in Amsterdam.  The kids have already been back in school for a couple of weeks now, and all the other regular rhythms of the city also seem to be kicking in again.  It’s been a great summer (especially with better weather than usual, for Holland), but we’re actually looking forward to the new season.  We’re hoping and praying for big things in the coming months; and we hope that you will pray with us, too.

The reality of our mission in Amsterdam has been visually reinforced for me, recently, through a personal photography project:  cataloguing dozens of Amsterdam’s grand old cathedrals, originally designed to invoke a sense of God's glory and awe, but now repurposed for other uses.  It’s really quite fascinating to see what has become of these large spaces that have been systematically vacated by the Church over the past hundred years (you can see some of the pictures for yourself here below).  I know that the list sounds crazy, but so far, I've snapped pictures of four exhibition halls, three conference centers, two community centers, two restaurants, two office complexes, two concert halls, one museum, one media production studio, one night-club, one rock-climbing facility, and even one haunted-house tourist trap!

When I started out, I thought to myself:  "Ah, no big deal.  It's an interesting photo project—but it's not the building that makes a church.  I shouldn't get worked up about some deeper spiritual meaning to the historical development of the city."  But I have to admit; as I went gone along I felt increasingly heavy-hearted.  The truth is that it’s sad to see so many of these "church carcasses" scattered around, piled up throughout the city.  It's reminded me of the massive cultural shift that has occurred (and is still occurring) in the West over the last 100 years or so.  It's very clear to see the declined (and still declining) influence of the Church within our society.  And it’s particularly sobering to see the horrific mortality rate of churches in Amsterdam.  This may be overly dramatic, but it can make our ministry here in the city center seem like some kind of Holocaust survivor, amidst all these colossal church carcasses.  I know, of course, that we still haven’t gotten to the “end of the story;” but still, a certain sense of sobriety is probably not a bad thing.

In contrast to the cold stone structures in Amsterdam, our family was recently privileged to experience “church” in the form of a weekend retreat in the village of Groet (just a bit north and west of Amsterdam).  It was just us and a couple dozen leaders from the home groups of Zolder50, spending three days and two nights together in a large group-house right at the edge of a nature preserve.  There were no church buildings anywhere in sight, and the weekend didn’t even feature many of the traditional expectations of “church,” such as singing worship songs or listening to a sermon.  Even so, I came away from the weekend with a profound sense of joy and thanksgiving for this spiritual family—this “church body”—which God has knit together here in the Netherlands.  Our weekend was spent problem-solving (we ran into a lot of transportation problems on the way there because of the largest wildfire that Holland has had in recent history, just a few kilometers from where we were staying), strategizing (about ministry plans for the upcoming fall), performing (a highlight of the weekend was a sort of talent-show that was organized for the Saturday evening of the weekend), story-telling, laughing, strolling, and eating meals together.  And as unspiritual as all of that may sound, it seemed like most of us ended up coming away from the weekend with fresh energy and enthusiasm for what God is doing these days—and for what He will be doing in the coming months of ministry… through His Church in Amsterdam.

In case you might be interested in hearing more stories and/or seeing more pictures about these contrasting experiences of “Church” in Amsterdam, you can find fuller accounts of these experiences at http://www.ericasp.com/blog.php/2009/08/25/church-carcasses  and/or http://www.ericasp.com/blog.php/2009/08/31/adventures-in-and-around-groet.  But for now, I just wanted to let you know that we deeply appreciate your partnership in this ministry.  Please keep praying for us, especially asking for God to build His Church in the city of Amsterdam.  The church (building) is dead; Long live the Church (people)!

Eric

Greetings from Amsterdam!  I was just thinking about an interaction that I recently had with a young man (who shall remain nameless) here in Amsterdam.  It was a fairly normal conversation in which nothing monumental really happened.  But it occurred to me that you (as a part of our ministry team) might be interested in hearing about this spiritual sojourner—maybe even praying for him.  So I've sketched out the story of our encounter here below...

The beginnings of our conversation were rather inauspicious.  I met him after our church worship gathering, on a Sunday evening.  Tall, pale, piercing blue eyes, long dangling Euro-dreds.  It had been his first time visiting our church.  He was polite and reluctant, but when I asked directly he admitted that he didn’t really like the church service very much.  The message (on the book of Titus) was too “religious,” with not enough take-away for someone like him.  The music was too “predictable,” with chord progressions, Western tonalities, and all that kind of thing.  He was pretty nice about it, but he said it just didn’t scratch him quite where he itched.

I told him I could appreciate that.  That different people had different preferences.  No hard feelings about that, of course.  “So how did you end up coming today, then?”  I asked.  He told me his friend was playing in the band.  She had invited him to come and hear her play.

“That’s cool.  So do you have any kind of Christian background, yourself?  Or was this, like, a totally new kind of experience for you?”  It turned out that his parents were 'hard-core atheists.'  He never went to church growing up—and would say that he still had a rather limited range of experiences within Christianity to date.  However, he had become convinced of “the Supernatural” through some experiences with Goa Trance music and psychedelic drugs in his teenage years, and he had dabbled some with Buddhism, Hinduism, and other Eastern religions for a number of years.  He never really considered giving the Christian traditions much thought, in spite of (or perhaps because of) growing up in the Dutch “Bible Belt.”  But at one point, he realized that his closed-minded attitude towards Christianity was somewhat hypocritical—and if he was going to be truly “open-minded” in his spiritual quest, he might also do well to try reading some of the Bible for himself.  The only problem was that it just never really added up for him.  He liked some parts of the Bible (like the Old Testament wisdom books), but on the whole it didn’t make a lot of sense.  So he kept on experimenting with his music (playing “pretty much anything with keys”), and that was about it for his spiritual journey.

“I’m curious to hear more about your experience of the supernatural through music.  It sounds like it’s been a very helpful medium for you.  Can you describe what that sounds like?  What that feels like?” I asked—not with any sense of cynicism but with genuine curiosity and interest.  He explained that the music he knew was powerful.  Its beat pounded and pounded and filled him.  The music wrapped him up and swirled him around.  It took him to new places, emotionally and spiritually.  It made it incredibly clear that there was something bigger than himself.  It helped him to transcend his ordinary life and tap into the supernatural.  I was impressed by his explanation and by the sense of passion with which he spoke.

“Yeah.  Yeah, I know that feeling!”  I told him that I didn’t have much experience with Goa Trance music or psychedelic drugs—but that I could totally relate to that feeling of power and transcendence.  “I get the same feeling sometimes when I’m reading and studying the Bible.  I’m reading and reading, and my head is swirling.  And I’ve got all these questions that are coming into my reading of the text and coming out of the text into my own life.  And then—suddenly, the clouds clear and I can see God’s Truth standing there, plain as day.”  There was no condescension in my response; I was genuinely relating to his life experiences and contextualizing them into my own.  “Have you ever read Ecclesiastes?” I asked.  It turned out that he had indeed read it but not understood it.  To him, it had just seemed like a bunch of hopeless, impossible questions.  Kind of sad and depressing, actually, as he remembered it.

“Well, I guess I could understand that perspective,” I said.  “But I love Ecclesiastes!  It feels just like that spiritual process you just described.  There’s all this chaos and confusion—all these things that turn out to be empty and meaningless.  Riches and material wealth, women and sex, wine and pleasure, empires and international acclaim… They all just swirl you around and around.  But then, in the middle of the crazy confusion, two points of peace cut through the chaos like laser-beams.  Chapter 5 and Chapter 12.  Two small islands in the seas of uncertainty.  Places to stop and rest.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  It all clicks into place.  It all makes sense.  In Chapter 5—kind of at the mid-point of Ecclesiastes—it says, 'Stand in awe of God.'  It says to enjoy the gifts God has given us—food and drink, satisfaction in his work, and to just 'stand in awe of God.'  And then, in Chapter 12, the Teacher concludes that it's best to simply remember our Creator.  At the end of the day, when all is said and done, all the wisdom of the world can be boiled down to a simple sentence:  'Fear God and keep his commandments.'  That's what it comes down to!  It's so simple.  It's so basic.  But it's so wise.  It just feels like a beautiful resting place, in the midst of all that confusion.  It's totally tapping into that greater sense of supernatural wisdom.  I love it when that happens, as I'm reading the Bible.”  He seemed stirred by the stories of my experiences with the Bible.  He said he wanted to read Ecclesiastes again for himself.  He wanted to try seek God—the God of the Bible—again... maybe even talk about everything with me further at some point in the future.  But with a look at his watch, he realized that he had to take off.  He was late for another appointment.

I assured him that I would be glad to talk more with him.  I said it was nice to meet him (and I really meant it).  And then I prayed briefly, under my breath, asking God to guide him into all wisdom and understanding.  Days later, I heard (via the home group leader of the friend in the worship band who had invited him to church) that he had been greatly stimulated by our conversation.  That he was very open—if not eager—to come back to our church again sometime soon, even though the preaching and the music may not have been his thing...

What else is there, you might ask, to a church gathering—other than the preaching and the music?  What else could keep this young man coming back for more?  Apparently something... Apparently something.

Please keep praying for God's work in Amsterdam.  We'll be in touch.

Eric

“And if you give even a cup of cold water to one

of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.”

(Matthew 10:42)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  Summer has finally arrived here in the city, and like everyone else here in the city, we’re trying to spend as much time outside as possible.  This is true on the ministry level just as much as it is on the personal level.  This past weekend, our family joined a dozen other people from our church community—on a muggy Amsterdam summer day—to walk 2.5 kilometers (1.55 miles) from our ministry center on the Herengracht to the main park in the city’s Old South, and back… carrying buckets of water on our heads.

We were doing it to raise awareness for issues of water and sanitation in the developing world.  Ever since the establishment of our ministry in Amsterdam, we’ve made “social justice” an important part of our work in the city.  But especially in the last few months, we’ve been making more of an effort to focus our attention in this area.  Three young women from our church (one of whom holds a masters degree in international development) have spear-headed a recent campaign to coordinate and crystallize our goals for the church’s social justice ministry according to the following mission statement:

“As a Christian community, our aim is to increase awareness and action on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged, in order that we may be a bright light, radiating God’s love to our ‘neighbors’ through involvement in the fight against social injustice, both locally and globally.”  

And one of the first issues that we’ve now chosen to tackle is world-wide water and sanitation.  It may not seem like a very spiritual issue.  But the fact of the matter is that water is one of the most basic needs in the world—and yet it’s one of the most unequally distributed resources in the world, as well.  As we’ve been studying this issue further, we’ve learned that the average person in the Netherlands uses 127.5 liters (33.7 gallons) of water per day (and in case you’re curious, it’s even more in the USA—about three times as much, in fact!).  But in contrast, the average person in developing countries uses just 10 liters of water per day.  Women and children have to collect all the water by hand, and the average distance a woman walks to collect water is 6 kilometers (3.72 miles)—sometimes doing this three times a day!  The average distance a woman walks to collect water is 6 kilometers (3.72 miles).   And the weight of water that the average woman has to carry on her head is 20 kilograms (44 pounds).  To look at the same situation from the global level, 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water.  2.6 billion people lack adequate sanitation (places to properly wash hands or go to the toilet).  Unsafe water and sanitation causes 80% of all sickness and disease—causing 6000 people to die every day (90% are children under the age of 5.)   This means that unsafe water and sanitation kill more people than all other forms of violence, including war.  It’s crazy to write it out like that—but it’s true.  These statistics can be overwhelming…

Suffice to say:  water and sanitation are very significant issues in the world today!

So the idea with our past weekend’s “Water Walk” was to organize some of the women and children of Zolder50 to help identify with the women and children in the developing world, to raise the general level of awareness among Amsterdammers for these issues, and to "advertise" for a fund-raising event later that evening.  Our family had the privilege of joining in.  Marci walked the whole way.  Elliot and Olivia walked for parts of the way.  And Cor and I offered logistical support (a luxury, of course, that most African families don't have), riding alongside in the bakfiets:  offering a place for the older kids to sit when they got tired, displaying a couple of posters that explained more about what we were doing, passing out flyers, taking pictures, and that sort of thing.

It seemed like it was an exhausting experience for those who participated... but also an enriching one.  Our hearts are growing, our views are expanding for how we can love our “neighbors,” and we also managed to raise over €500 for a Dutch organization called the Healthy Vine (www.healthy-vine.org)!  It’s hard to say exactly how God will use our efforts, but we continue to walk (at times literally, and yes—sometimes even with buckets on our heads!) by faith.  Please pray with us for this developing social justice ministry…

Eric

P.S. - In case you might like to see some more pictures from the Water Walk, you can visit http://www.ericasp.com/pictures.php/c70/