Is any one of you in trouble?  He should pray.

Is any one of you sick?… The prayer offered in faith

will make the sick person well… Therefore… pray

for each other so that you may be healed.

(James 5:13-16)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  It’s spring-time here in the city.  Daffodils and crocuses are beginning to bloom.  The hours of daylight are getting noticeably longer.  Cafes are putting their tables and chairs out on the sidewalks and terraces again, in anticipation of warmer days when their clientele will want to sit outside.  It’s a season of anticipation.  We’ve almost made it through another Amsterdam winter—but we’re not quite there yet… I’m sure you know what I mean.  In any event, I hope that this letter finds you doing well and enjoying your own sense of anticipation for what’s to come.

I was recently thinking about my job and realizing how unusual (and amazing) it really is.  Reading the Bible, for instance, is a part of my job (though I’d also call it a great personal interest, as well!).  Or, I’ll find myself talking with a young person for hours about deeply personal, deeply spiritual, things—and somewhere along the way, I’ll start to wonder:  where does “ministry” end and “friendship” begin?  Should I count this on my time card, as something “professional”—or is this something “personal?”  I have to confess that the amount of “gray area” between these things can be challenging.  It’s a continually-evolving process of making sure that I have some boundaries in my life—so that I’m not neglecting my own family or my personal well-being—without having too many distinctions which would create unnecessary artificiality and awkwardness in the tentative balance between personalism and professionalism that is full-time ministry…

I share this with you because my subject matter for this month’s letter is, well, gray area.  I honestly don’t know if I could call it “ministry” (and, in fact, feel inclined to say that it is not)—and yet, I feel compelled to ask for you, my ministry partners, to pray with me for God’s intervention in this sphere of interaction.

You see, sixteen months ago I joined a “fiction critique group” with a literary organization here in Amsterdam called WordsInHere (www.wordsinhere.com).  I’ve long enjoyed writing short stories as one of my personal hobbies (I even minored in Creative Writing back in college), and I’m always trying to develop my writing skills further.  Furthermore, I had been hoping to make some friends outside the church here in Amsterdam.  So when I found out that WordsInHere organized these groups where a handful of writers get together twice a month to read and critique each other’s writing, I signed up enthusiastically.  In the end, it turned out that I helped to catalyze a new fiction critique group—since the other two groups at the time were pretty full and there also happened to be a waiting list with just the right number of people—and I was coincidentally asked to serve as facilitator for the group (since I had some experience with creative writing workshops).  So since November 2007, I’ve been meeting together with this diverse group of writers every-other Monday evening at this Iranian café in the old Jordaan section of the city.

It’s a very eclectic group of people:  a Jewish-American woman writing her memoirs of living in Tehran (Iran)… a young man from Aruba writing material best described as “magical-realism”… a woman who grew up as the daughter of a Dutch diplomat writing a book for young adults… an American businessman writing stories set in New York City and Amsterdam… a Dutch college student who’s still finding his voice… an Indian woman working on her PhD in Literature and writing short stories about life in India… an Iranian-American woman with an Ivy League education who is just publishing her first fantasy novel for young adults… and me.  Yet despite our different styles and life-experiences, we’ve gotten along remarkably well as a group… Until the most recent holiday season.

Just before Christmas, an ethical dilemma presented itself.  One of the people in the group had written a sexually-charged piece about one of the other members of the group (he claimed it was only an “exercise”) and e-mailed it to a mutual friend of theirs.  And not only did the main character in the piece strongly resemble this woman from our group, but direct lines of text from her personal e-mails had been used without attribution (i.e. he was using her words as if they were his own).  These are big “No-No”s in the writing community.  Yet before the situation could be adequately addressed with the offending party, the “victim” chose to resign from the group (while the “perpetrator” remained).  As facilitator for the group, I tried to mediate the conflict and create respectful communication about the situation.  But as time went on, the situation became more and more confounded (tense, heated, interpersonal conversations and scathing e-mail wars).  Eventually, after bringing the situation before the rest of the group, one other woman from the group and the “perpetrator” also resigned from the group.  And the rest of us were left in the vacuum of broken trust, hurt feelings, and disappearing friends.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been trying to pick up the pieces and move on.  We’ve talked about the situation exhaustively.  We’ve written up some formal guidelines for how we treat each other and each other’s work.  And we’ve talked about how we might better handle such a situation in the future.  All in all, I feel like we’re finally on the right track again as a group—and we’ve developed a healthy sense that “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

Still, I feel compelled to pray for this group of my friends.  And I’d like to ask for you to pray for us, too, if you’re up for it.  Specifically, I’m praying that a sense of trust could be re-established, that relationships could be reconciled, and that a sense of joy could return to our group after this dark winter of our discontent.  I’m also keenly aware of the role that I play in representing Christ to these friends, and I’m praying that I could bring the wisdom of the Bible to bear on group situations—just as I hope to do in every life situation—but to always do it with gentleness and respect (like it says in 1 Peter 3:15).  I’m praying that I could have a good sense of boundaries in these “gray areas” of my life and ministry, so that I don’t confuse the two—but neither do I artificially separate them either.  Does this make sense?  I’m not entirely sure if makes sense to me, myself!  But anyway, any prayer support that you could provide in this direction (however you might choose to categorize it) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for everything you do to keep me, my family, and our ministry afloat.  We appreciate you more than we could ever express—and we will, of course, be in touch…

Eric

“Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence

of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will

also be qualified to teach others.”

(1 Corinthians 11:1 and 2 Timothy 2:2)

Greetings from Amsterdam!  It's been longer than I would have liked since our last prayer letter (back in early December)... But please know that my lack of communication is certainly not for a lack of things to write about!  The past three weekends, in particular, have been filled with strategic ministry opportunities -- opportunities to think, talk, listen, and pray about the mission that God has given us to “make disciples” here in Amsterdam.

Last weekend, I had the privilege of traveling to the Dutch countryside with a group of 24 of the home group leaders from Zolder50 for our semi-annual Home Group Leaders Retreat.  Over the weekend, we focused on equipping our home group leaders for effective conflict management -- which proved to be both intellectually-stimulating and instantly-applicable to our personal lives and our various home groups... not to mention the fact that it was just plain fun to be able to learn together with a quality group of people!  I got some great pictures over the weekend, too, that you can view here.

Two weekends ago, our Servant Leadership Council (basically our church's expression of the “deacons/deaconesses” we read about in 1 Timothy 3) spent two days together critically evaluating the past, present, and future of our ministry in Amsterdam.  We tried to stimulate ourselves to “think outside the box” and brainstorm creative solutions to the challenges that face our church as we continually seek to know Jesus, become like Jesus, and make Jesus known throughout Amsterdam.  Though the dialogue is still ongoing (to be continued in our regular monthly get-togethers), it's so encouraging to have a group of other mature, committed, international Christian leaders who can help to make decisions and carry the practical burdens for day-to-day leadership of the church.  If you would, please pray for God to continue speaking to the members of our Servant Leadership Council -- Linda, Jannie, Jen, Jurren, Marc, Michaël, Neil, Patricia, and Will -- as we continue this conversation over the coming months.

And then three weekends ago, we had our monthly Soul Gathering (“members” meeting), and we spent the evening reflecting on everything that God had done in 2008 and then also looking ahead to 2009 and setting some goals for ourselves.  As we thought about it, we realized that God has done a lot over the course of the last year!  In 2008:

• We celebrated the 5-year anniversary of our church, Zolder50.
• We fostered the growth, development, and establishment of two church communities here in the center of Amsterdam.  Though we didn't know exactly what to expect when we took this step at the end of 2007, the transition ended up being remarkably smooth and encouraging, and it seems to have accomplished much of what we hoped for— deeper relationships and room for growth in each of the church communities as well as more focus on home groups and outreach.
• More Europeans took on roles such as Home Group Leaders and members of our Servant-Leadership Council.  It's a dream-come-true to see increased (and continually-increasing) ownership among these young people…
• The church grew in enthusiasm and ability to share our faith in Christ with our friends and neighbors.  We celebrated seven baptisms.  And in November, we hosted a conference that further equipped and inspired many in our church to commit their lives to following Christ and making disciples.
• We expanded to nine Home Groups (“spiritual families” of 5-15 people), and our network of Life Groups (small groups of 2-4 people who meet weekly to read the Bible, confess sin, and pray together for their friends and neighbors) has grown to at least 23 groups (though we're starting to lose count!)!
• We offered six seminars focused on establishing greater health and wholeness among the church. Topics covered included Listening, Speaking the Truth in Love, Renewing the Mind (in God’s Truth), Embracing God’s Grace (Healing Prayer), Outflow (Evangelism), and Finding Your Gift Path.

Indeed, God has done a lot in us and through us over the course of the last year!  For the coming year, we're keeping our focus very basic—making our goal to simply multiply through discipleship.  We want to deliberately live according to the verses listed at the beginning of this letter:  1 Corinthians 11:1 (1C11:1) and 2 Timothy 2:2 (2T2:2).  Thus, as a church and as individuals, we’re striving to live out our faith in a way that will set an example for the city, in effect saying, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”  You see, not only do we want to “make disciples” -- but we want to allow for the “disciples” to also become “disciple-makers!”  We're praying for God to move powerfully through this simple everyday, every-person commitment to 1C11:1 and 2T2:2... And if you could pray with us in this regard, we would be very grateful for the support.

On the more personal level, our family was just reflecting on the fact that as of January 2009, we have been involved in full-time, support-based ministry for ten whole years!  And if that wasn't crazy enough, January of 2009 also marked the six-year anniversary of our move to Amsterdam!  It's still hard for me to believe that I've been doing any kind of career (post-college) for a whole decade -- but especially a career in ministry.  And to think that over half of that has been in Europe!  Amazing... If you're interested, you could read my reflections here.  But more than anything else, I just wanted to thank you for your part in making it all possible!  So many of you have been so incredibly faithful to our family and our ministry for so long… We really see your partnership as a gift from God!  We hope that you are as encouraged by everything going on here in Amsterdam as we are, and we pray that God will bless you for everything that you’ve done to bless us and our ministry here in the Netherlands… Tot volgende keer…

Eric