June 2009
June 7th, 2009“How can this be? What can this mean?
Brothers, what should we do?”
(Acts 2:7, 12, & 37)
Greetings from Amsterdam! This is a beautiful time of year here in the city. The trees blossoms are now starting to fade into the thick, leafy greenness of summer, Marci and I just celebrated another wedding anniversary (our eleventh!), and we just had a lovely Pentecost weekend. Pentecost is a national holiday here, though most people don’t actually understand its biblical significance. Ironically, though, I had never really celebrated Pentecost either, before moving to the Netherlands. It's actually a very significant holiday for Christians—and especially for a church like ours that happens to call itself 50 (which is the modern translation of the Greek word Pentecost).
Reading through Acts chapter 2, it’s impressive to see the ripple effect that the original Day of Pentecost had on the city of Jerusalem. Out of nowhere, there’s this huge “Whooosh” coming down from heaven, settling on the house where the disciples were staying. So everyone runs to see what’s happening, and not only do they hear this crazy sound—but they look and see flames! Then these Galilean peasants start to talk in different languages which they’ve never learned but which are clearly fluent enough to be understood by Jewish pilgrims from every corner of the ancient world, and they all hear God’s praises in their own languages… It’s quite the scene, if you really think about it! Everyone is completely amazed. They’re all asking “How can this be?” and “What can this mean?” So in the midst of this scene, Peter steps up to explain exactly what it all means. He quotes from the ancient prophets Joel and David, reassuring the crowds that everything had been predicted long before. Then, Peter shares about as clear a presentation of the Gospel as you could ever hope for—and the response from the crowds is overwhelming, with thousands and thousands coming to faith in Jesus.
It’s an incredibly inspiring story. It really makes you wonder what it might be like to experience some of the same things for our churches today. Here in Amsterdam, we’ve long dreamed about how we could live out the last five verses of Acts 2: no loneliness, no selfishness, no materialism, a real sense of community, a real sense of experiencing God, a real sense of growth and development and change…
But how?
As a church, we’ve recently started questioning: How can we make the most of this summer? How can we take advantage of our longer hours of daylight and nicer weather? How can we live it up like the church in Jerusalem that we read about in Acts chapter 2? How can we have a lot of fun and make as much of an impact for the Kingdom of God as possible?
So after much discussion and prayer, we’ve developed a very simple (but hopefully very memorable) motto for the summer, encouraging each other to “Be neighborly.” In the end, this is what we really see in Acts 2, isn't it? Sharing meals, sharing possessions, sharing stories, spending a lot of time together, both in each others' homes and in public spaces... This is what we could be! This is how we could spend our summer! It’s ridiculously simple—but it seems like there’s incredible potential in just choosing to focus on being friendly, being available, and being neighborly, deepening trust in our relationships—both inside the church and outside the church. Practically speaking, this might mean having lots of picnics in the park (Amsterdammers are passionate picnickers in the summer), spending a lot of time with friends in the semi-public spaces around our homes (balconies, roof-top terraces, and/or the sidewalks in front of our houses), playing sports together… that kind of thing. We want to be constantly inviting each other to hang out and being neighborly with each other. We’re telling our people that they don’t have to wait for an officially organized “Zolder50 summer activity.” Rather, we’re encouraging each member of the community to invent their own activity (or activities) and invite others to join!
This goes every bit as much for the people outside the church as it does for those of us within the Christian community. We want to make a point to get to know our friends and neighbors better this summer—those people we’ve always been wanting to invite over for dinner, but never getting around to doing it. And we want to make new friends, too, deliberately going out of our way to learn our neighbors' names or learn how to say "Hello" in your neighbor's own languages (seeing how Amsterdam is such an international city)…The main concept with which we’re challenging each other is to just be initiators. We’re asking every member of our church to spend some time thinking, praying, and talking about these ideas with other people here from the church—and then come up with a plan for themselves.
Now, maybe you’re thinking to yourself: “Seriously? That’s it? Hang out in the park, and enjoy picnics with friends? Is that really what Acts 2 teaches us?” Well… if you look into the text of Acts 2, it’s actually very interesting to note how the story of the early church is moved forward. Note how Peter decides to get into the presentation of the gospel—and how the challenge for the listeners to repent and turn to Jesus comes about. Amazingly enough, all of these developments happened as answers to questions that the people of the city were asking. “How can this be? What can this mean? Brothers, what should we do?” In all of these situations, the early church was simply responding to the questions that were coming up, as people witnessed their life of supernatural joy and communion with God and with each other. Perhaps this can’t be our strategy all the time, yet it seems to us this summer that our challenge is to live in such a way that we’re just genuinely enjoying God and each other… And when the questions come up, we want to engage in regular conversation and let God lead from there. Recognizing the miracle of Pentecost, we want to trust that the Holy Spirit is inside of each of us, and He’ll give us the right words to say at the right time.
I’m excited to see what God might do through the coming months. I feel personally excited to try and apply some of these ideas in my own neighborhood, and among my own circle of friends. But I pray that the Holy Spirit will fill us in an extraordinary way—and that we’ll talk about the “Summer of 2009” for many years to come. Please pray with us, as God leads…
Eric
April 2009
April 20th, 2009Take courage and be a man.
Observe the requirements of the Lord
your God, and follow all his ways.
(1 Kings 2:2)
Greetings from Amsterdam! Life is a bit chaotic in the Asp household these days, as we’re doing some pretty major renovation on our house (taking out a couple of walls, re-routing electrical and plumbing systems, refinishing walls and ceilings and floors, and all that good stuff). When the project is finished -- creating one, big, interconnected space for our living room, dining room, and kitchen -- it will be very nice (especially for Marci, who’s been dreaming about this and planning for it ever since we bought the place last summer). But in the meantime, we’re living in the middle of a construction zone.
As far as ministry is concerned, I guess you could say that we're also experiencing a bit of “renovation” due to the departure of my co-pastor Todd Watkins (along with his wife, Lindy, and their two children Amelie and Gabrian). The Watkins family has served as our family’s main partners-in-ministry for the last six years. Todd and I stepped up into the role of pastors-in-training together back in 2003. We were ordained together in 2006. And we have developed a deep friendship in the process (Marci and Lindy have also become very close through the years). Over the past weekend, our church had a number of special events to remember and celebrate all that they've done in Amsterdam. Their actual departure date still isn’t until the 1st of May, (at which point they’ll be relocating to the USA) -- but we’re already in the midst of transition. Certainly, the coming weeks and months will have their challenges. Yet I’m also excited and filled with faith to see what God will do next.
Our church has learned to thrive through transition.
One of the most intriguing (and encouraging) things to witness right now is the development of new Bible teachers from within our church community. Todd had been one of our church’s primary teachers. So back when we first learned that he was going to be moving on, we briefly considered trying to recruit someone from outside the existing church body who could take his place -- but after some serious prayer and dialogue with our leadership team here in Amsterdam, we decided to let our current circumstances serve as a catalyst for the development of young, European leadership for the church. So this spring, we decided to organize a series in which we get to see five young European men teaching for their first time at our Sunday worship gatherings (plus one other young Dutch pastor-in-training who is continuing to hone his developing teaching skills).
You might read this and think, “Seriously?!? Are you crazy?!? Six totally inexperienced teachers in one series?!? Wouldn’t that be torture for the rest of the congregation to have to listen to each week? Isn’t that just plain foolish?” And while I would have to concede that I could easily understand any sense of concern -- we really felt confident and excited about the opportunity to see these young leaders stretch their wings and give it a try. They are all men who are well-known, well-loved, and well-respected by our church. And even though some of them weren’t even Christians when Zolder50 got started, they’ve developed deeply in character and faith. They’ve learned to read and study the Bible for themselves, in the context of everyday life and ministry. They’ve developed their skills as home group leaders and other various ministry roles. And they were willing to step out in faith (with a good bit of instruction, supervision, and encouragement from me and Todd).
So we’re teaching through a series on the Old Testament Kings -- emphasizing themes of leadership, transition, and depending on God. Each week, we learn about the life of a different king (and in the process, we learn a lot about the young men who are teaching as well). It seems like God has really brought everything together, and I believe that this is a very strategic series for these individuals and for our church as a whole.
And in case you were wondering, I think you’d be surprised by how good the teachings in this series have been. I’ve heard a lot of sermons in my life -- yet even I have been blessed by the deep truths of the Bible, as shared by these young men. The congregation has also provided overwhelmingly positive feedback. And -- what’s best of all -- the young teachers seem to have benefited from the experience immensely. They’ve felt God speaking to them and through them, and almost every one of them has said that they’d like to have the opportunity to teach more in the future (as you can probably imagine, we will almost certainly take them up on this offer). So, if you would, please continue praying for the development of young European Bible teachers here in Amsterdam. The names of the guys who have taught so far are Jeroen, Sokol, Neil, and Marco -- and in the coming month, Marc and Jurren will also be taking their turns. My teaching responsibilities are also increasing slightly through this period of transition, so prayer for me in this regard would be much appreciated as well.
In everything, we just want you to know that it means so much to have a team of people like you supporting us along the way. Especially when we experience transition among the group of people who are locally involved in the ministry of Zolder50, it really helps to know that we have a dedicated team of ministry partners throughout the world who are praying for us and financially supporting our ministry. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I don’t think we could ever say thank you enough…
Eric
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