Weekly updated blog
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 31 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 neigbhourhood. 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 420 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.
