Weekly updated blog
August 27th 2010
The first meeting was organised in the local park. The weather was beautiful. This meeting was for the Christians in the neighbourhood Stedenwijk-Noord (Almere, Netherlands). I let everybody know who had indicated the park to be their place of preference or at least it to be an option. The intention was to organise one happening for different interests like prayermeeting, shared meals etc. That made for a list of 11 people. 3 of those promised to come. 3 of those said they couldn't come of which 1 said that it would probably never fit in the schedule of that person due to activities from the Church that person is part of. 1 backed off altogether. That's more or less the same situation as the person who said that it would never fit in that person's schedule. The only difference is that the first person will be informed directly about ongoing activities while the last one will only know what is happening by going to this website. Both persons wished me all the best with the Local Body of Christ. 2 of them said they would maybe come. The last 4 ones I sent a letter.
The result: After waiting for half an hour nobody had turned up. I went home. 45 minutes after I left I got a telephone call from 1 of the 3 who had promised to come. That person couldn't find it. So I should have communicated more clearly about both the starting time and the end time.
Next time better we agreed with no hard feelings whatsoever. The other 2 who had promised to come had very good reasons for not being able to come.
Of the other 8 people who were informed 1 let me know by SMS that that person was unable to come. I appreciated to be informed about that.
Presently I am organising a prayer meeting at somebody's home for those who were interested in a prayer meeting at somebody's home. More about that later.
Some news about the 2 persons who want to help me in this ministry.
With one of them I did Bible study. This has come to a temporarily standstill as I will do private Bible study on the matter he shared. I will get back to him as soon as I am ready for it. We both look forward to that moment.
And last but not least: I got positive news from the pastor from Ghana. This means that this ministry of the Local Body of Christ will become truly worldwide with both a presence in the Western World as a presence in the Third World. The implications of this are high and go far beyond the preliminary international ministry what has been done up till now in Belgium, Wales, England and Scotland. This is something to praise the Lord for.
August 20th 2010
By now there are only 2 persons left to ask their preference in regard to the place of fellowship. However after repeated visits I didn't find them at home. So I decided to call for the first meeting. More about that later.
Interesting things have happened. 2 persons have expressed their desire to help me in this ministry. One lives locally and we have started to do Biblestudy. He wants to help me as long as I don't ask him anything which goes against his beliefs. Very reasonable of course. That what I have asked him to do was OK with him. However we both agreed to do Bible study and to take the next step from there. More about that later.
Then there is another person. He is from Ghana and he is a fulltime minister and is involved in a mission organization. We have communicated a couple of times via email and presently he has received a detailed layout of this ministry and summary of what has been done. I have asked him to pray about it and see if he can agree to it in principle. His desire is to set up the Local Body of Christ in Ghana. So that's a special situation. I am currently waiting for his reply.
A last notice. I have visited the quarter Almere-Buiten centrum (Almere, Netherlands) once in order to get in touch with Christians. That resulted in a couple of beautiful encounters. I got to know about a starting Church at a certain couple's home within the neighbourhood.
August 10th 2010
Last week I continued to search out from the remaining 8 persons what place of fellowship they preferred. As people are often not at home it is difficult to come round at the right moment. Sometimes I make an appointment as to when I will visit somebody but even that is no guarantee that it will work out fine. So it is laborious work. I am down to 4 people whom I still need to confer with about the meeting place.
As I was free from work from Saturday August 7th afternoon 13:00 until Tuesday August 10th evening 18:30 I decided to continue contacting Christians in other neighbourhoods as well. By Monday 20:15 I had gone once through the whole of the neighbourhood Indische Buurt and Sieradenbuurt both in Almere, Netherlands.
Last week of July 2010
The last two/three weeks I spent in going through the neighbourhood Stedenwijk-Noord (Almere, Netherlands) many times in order to find those who weren't at home the first time. After that I spent some time in contemplation and prayer in order to decide what was going to be the next step. Last week I wrote a letter in which I let every Christian know what was the result of the previous letter. 10 categories of interest were provided for in that previous letter. The result was:
1. A total of 9 Christians allowed all other Christians within their neighbourhood to receive their address.
2. 15 Christians would like to get the address of all the other Christians within their neighbourhood.
3. 10 would like to meet Christians and would contact them themselves.
4. 6 would like to receive help in contacting the other Christians.
5. 8 were interested in prayer meetings.
6. 9 were interested in singing hymns and other spiritual songs together
7. 9 were interested in Bible study.
8. 10 were interested in shared meals.
9. 8 were interested to get involved in Christian service together with other Christians out of their own neighbourhood.
10. 14 were interested in being Church together with the other Christians within their own neighbourhood.
I handed down the addresses of those 9 Christians to those interested to receive the addresses (15 in total).
I requested all who had filled in option 1, 2 and/or 3 to contact those who liked to receive help in contacting other Christians. (in so far these Christians allowed to give their address to others). I will also help them to get in touch with other Christians by introducing them to other ones.
Those who were interested in prayer meetings, worship, Bible study, shared meals and/or Christian service I am right now finding out what kind of meeting place they prefer. I think primarily of three options:
1. a meeting hall of the local community centre
2. at somebody's home. If interested I also ask them if their own home would be open for that.
3. when the weather is fine in the local park.
When I have inventarised that, I will start to organize meetings for those categories.
Those who liked to be Church in their own neighbourhood, the Local Church or the Local Body of Christ, those I asked for patience. I don't see myself as an apostle or pastor or vicar. I will get in touch with Church planting ministries like DAWN (
http://www.dawnministries.org) which stands for Discipling A Whole Nation. Also I will get in touch with the House Church movement and with Church planting ministries in the Netherlands. Together with them and times of prayer I will decide to what extent I personally will be involved in seeing a Church come to fruition within both that neighbourhood and successive neighbourhoods.
early July 2010
In the neighbourhood Stedenwijk-Noord (Almere, Netherlands) I found about 114 Christians. I wrote those interested a letter and posted those letters also at the addresses which weren't at home or those with whom it was unclear whether they were Christians or not. I only went once through the neighbourhood in order to find Christians. In this letter Christians could indicate in which manner they would like to be in touch with other Christians in their neighbourhood. I got 30 positive replies to my letter.
14 Christians showed an interest for a Local Church in their neighbourhood which made me very glad and was a big encouragement. The other 17 had a variety of other interests. Though less than the ideal of a true expression of the unity of the Local Body of Christ, it is still beautiful to see that Christians would like to be in touch with other Christians in their own neighbourhood. I am right now in the process of determining what will be the next step. The reply I received to this letter is confirmation to me that this ministry is worth my time and energy. All glory to Jesus. I hope to continue with this ministry for the rest of my life and I hope other Christians will join this ministry. The world is too big a place to go door-to-door all by myself!
first part of 2010
The neighbourhood in which I live is called Oostvaardersbuurt (Almere, Netherlands) and I went door-to-door throughout the whole neighbourhood. There are about 2500-3000 homes and I found 320 Christians. I had nice conversations with several of them. In order to find all of them, I went several times (about 6 times) throughout the neighbourhood to find those who weren't at home at earlier times. I have all the addresses on file and will start sooner or later to do follow up. I also went door-to-door in the neighbourhood Stedenwijk-Noord (Almere, Netherlands). This was close to my work location and was a lot smaller.
December 2009
This month I started to contact the Christians within a radius of 50 metres around my home (Laan der VOC 170, Almere, Netherlands). I found about 20 Christian homes and I ended up being in touch with 3 of them.
September 2009
My cycle trip for the unity of the Church finally took me to Stornoway, which is the main town on Lewis, Hebrides in Scotland. It is far away in the North-West and lies 3 hours out of the mainland. It's a town with many Churches and many Christians. I took the time to meet with every pastor and talk about Church unity. I was helped out by a friendly couple with whom I became friends. During the three weeks I stayed in Stornoway I went also to the island archipel St Kilda. (a video link is provided on the
Gallery page). Although I had planned to go on to Ireland and France I decided to go back to the Netherlands because of finances and a changed vision. The end of my trip got media coverage as well. This time in a island magazine.
about 10 days later in August 2009
Alston is British highest market town. I'ts in the Pennines, which is a rough hilly part of the country. I went door-to-door and arranged a meeting that same evening. 1 couple pledged to come. Another 6 were interested in coming but didn't show up. Another 2 people said they would have liked to come but weren't able to come. The meeting place was a central place in the centre of this little town in the open air! The plan was to go to a pub or somebody's home once everybody had arrived. Only the couple who had pledged to come showed up and I was invited to their home. We had a beautiful evening together. A home Church does exist in this little charming town and I met with some of them. This was very uplifting. Another person I will still get in touch with. He is heavily involved in Church unity.
August 2009
My bicyle trip took me to a village called Newbridge upon Wye in Wales. I went door-to-door covering the whole village. This took me about one full day. As it was still a quite small village, many people already knew each other and so there was no need to make them aware of each other. In a town like Nieuwpoort, Belgium this was a useful thing but not in this village. So I ended up in talking with everybody about the unity of the Church which was a nice thing to do. It was very pleasant to have an English business card with me to hand out to all the Christians I met. The local vicar was an inspiring person to me. He had Christians from several backgrounds in his chapel mainly because there wasn't another Church in the village where he lived. So they went to the Anglican Church instead.
He agreed to the notion that Church unity cannot be reached through top-down methods but only through talking to one person at a time.
July/August 2009
In Nieuwpoort Belgium I arrived by bicycle and a bike-car filled with camping gear, business cards of the Local Body of Christ, a tennis racket,tennis shoes and my concert guitar. I planned to go on a trip through Belgium, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France in order to get a good experience in how this ministry was going to be received in a diversity of cultures. In Nieuwpoort I stayed 10 days (some photo's are on the
Gallery page). I mapped out a small part of this town and went door-to-door in order to find the Christians and connect them with one another. I met a Christian artist who invited me in his home and had some other fine conversations at the door. In the end I let the Christians know through a small letter what was done and the end result was that I had given awareness to 3 Christian families about each other. Before this action they didn't know about each other even though they lived in the same neighbourhood. But that's exactly what this ministry is about. Bringing Christians in contact with one another who live in the same neighbourhood and let them be the Local Body of Christ. Admittedly I didn't do anything else other than making them aware of each other. Nevertheless I counted this as my first success. The encouragement was that 1 of those Christian families was indeed very thankful about this action and I was going to be prayed for in their prayer meeting.
July 2009
My passion for the unity of the Church took shape through this new created website. I happily found out that this website is on the top of Google when presented with the search terms 'local body of christ'.
It took about 2 weeks of full-time work to create this website using Vistaprint's services. News got around about this website and an impending cycle trip, about which I was interviewed. It was published in a Dutch regional newspaper.
Somewhere in 2007/2008
It had been on my mind already for some time to connect with the Christians who live in my neighbourhood and to help them get in touch with one another. The idea of going door-to-door seemed a bit daunting but finally I decided to do a test. I went through one long street going door-to-door to find out where Christians where living. A street of 170 even and 170 uneven numbers took about 3 hours to go through once and the end result was that I had found a decent number of Christians.
