Back in 2008, Andrew pastored a thriving church in Derry, Northern Ireland, that was really leading the way in bringing Protestants and Catholics together to worship a God who is not about denominations. What I really liked about his story is how his church was practically reaching out to young people through a ministry called Street Pastors.

In 2010 he became the Senior Pastor of another amazing church, CFC in Belfast and Antrim (this is the church of the “Revival in Belfast” CD, Robin Mark and Paul and Priscilla Reid who have been to Thousand Hills before!). I had the privilege of visiting that church a couple of times and sharing about some of the things that God is doing in mainland Europe. And now I felt the time had come to invite Andrew to speak at Thousand Hills.

So, join us this Sunday! Andrew will speak at both services (9:15 and 11:15). In the 9:15 service, he will be translated to Dutch (you might need that with the Irish accent ). Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday. Bring a friend! Andrew will have a word that will inspire and encourage you!

At the same time, both I and some of the leaders in our Worship & AV team had a strong sense that God wants to take us to the next level in the area of worship. So we sat down and talked about “what could be.” As a result of that, we felt we needed to make some changes that will help us take those next steps.

Our goal is to offer a high-quality, Spirit-filled and Spirit-led worship experience that is down-to-earth enough for unchurched people to connect with. There are lots of practical steps that we will take in the coming few months and year to make that happen.

Introducing… our music director!

The most important steps that we have already taken is that we have appointed a music director and two band leaders who will be the key leaders in our further development. Justin Mincks will be our music director. His job is a one-day-per-week paid position. His one goal is “to make the Sunday great,” so he will be preparing the music, song lists, sound, etc., and will make sure all of the members of the worship team are on the same page. Justin will report to Martijn Haaijer, the overall ministry leader of our Worship & AV team.

Another new role: band leaders

Marcel Koning will serve as one of our new band leaders, but will be on a sabbatical for the coming few months (check his blog with some cool insights into why he is taking a sabbatical), and Nigel Wiggins is also one of our new band leaders. Nigel and Marcel will each lead and facilitate a band with multiple worship leaders, musicians and vocalists.

Because we created this new role of band leader, we can now have multiple worship leaders each Sunday who don’t need to focus anymore on technically leading the band. Their focus will be on leading the congregation in worship. So they will be the main connectors between what happens on stage and what happens in the crowd.

I am really excited about these leadership changes and about seeing where God is taking us next!

Interested in joining the team?

One more thing: are you a musician, singer or sound technician and are you interested in joining the worship team? Just show up for their team nights each Wednesday at 20:00. Coffee is ready at 19:45. It’ll help you learn more about the team and connect with them!

The relationship that mankind had with God was broken because of a meal: Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit salad. It looked good, tasted good, but the aftertaste was terrible. They had to leave the Garden of Eden, sin, sickness and death entered into the world and the world would no longer be the perfect environment that God had created (see Genesis 3).

Even though Adam and Eve had sinned and the relationship with God was broken, God wanted to do everything he could to restore that relationship. And guess what? Again meals were involved! In Exodus 12 he charged the Israelites to eat the Passover meal to celebrate the fact that the very next day the days of their slavery in Egypt would come to an end. With a meal they celebrated that God wanted them to be free.

Flip a few pages and you get to Exodus 24. In that chapter, God confirmed the covenant with the Israelites by having Moses and the elders eat a meal in his presence: “They ate a covenant meal, eating and drinking in his presence” (Ex.24:11 NLT).

The “Last” Supper

Fast forward to Jesus’ day. Right before his crucifixion, Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with his disciples and gives a whole new dimension to it. He broke the bread, passed a cup of wine, and explained that the bread symbolized his body that was broken for them and that the wine is his blood “which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many” (Matthew 26:26-30 NLT).

And then he goes on by saying that this meal also points forward to a more distant future: “Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom” (v.29). So the Bible scholars who call this meal the Last Supper are wrong! This is not the Last Supper, but it points forward to a big lavish banquet that all who are Christ’s will be a part of one day in the future: the marriage supper of the lamb!

“Do this to remember me” (1 Corinthians 11:24)

Some more words of Jesus are recorded in relation to that meal with his disciples. In 1 Cor.11:24 he instructs them to “do this to remember me as often as you drink it!” (NLT). We celebrate communion in Thousand Hills to remember Jesus Christ and think about what He has done for us. And when Jesus himself stands knocking at our door and we invite him in, knowing about him becomes experiencing him and experiencing the forgiveness and love he has to offer to us!

“Until he comes again” (1 Corinthians 11:26)

And then in verse 26 Paul goes on to explain: “For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again” (NLT). We should never get stuck with only talking about how Jesus was beaten and died on that cross for our sins, because the story didn’t end there! The grave couldn’t hold him! Jesus rose on the third day and one day he will return as the King of the world! Jesus will come again!

Communion is not a thing that should not make us sad. It should lead us to celebrate the great victory that Christ has brought about, a victory over sin and death, a victory that you and I share in when Jesus Christ is our Lord.

And communion is what unites all true believers. With communion we focus on the bare essentials of the Christian faith. Communion is for everyone who believes that Jesus died for your sins, rose on the third day and is expecting that one day he will return!

“I stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 3:20)

There is another interesting verse in Revelation 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” Jesus is inviting you to have communion with him. He is inviting you to have an intimate relationship with him. It doesn’t matter how long you have let him stand outside the door of your heart, he still wants to come in and share a meal with you. So open the door to a deeper relationship with him! The door handle is on your side! And then when you open the door, your divine Guest will become your Host!

How to deepen your relationship with God?

So what can you and I do from our end to deepen our relationship with God or start that relationship for the first time:

1. Open the door of your life! The door handle is on the inside. Only you can open it.
2. Long for Jesus’ presence. Long for that intimate table fellowship with him. Celebrate that through communion and worship.
3. Listen & talk. Remember: the conversations are more important than the food, as good as the food may be! So pray, read the Bible, and take time to fast from time to time.

This post is a summary from my message last Sunday in Thousand Hills International Church. Below is the video of my message. Click here for the Dutch version.

There are two resources I can recommend which are available on the of the Awakening  page on the Thousand Hills website. Be sure to download them and read them:

• A prayer and fasting guide to help you with your prayer and fasting activities
• A 21 day devotional with some great inspiration every day

Also, there is a virtual conference with some great speakers three times each day on Awake21.org for those who would like additional inspiration during this period.

Your time spent in prayer each day of the fast can result in a new richness, a rewarding connection with the Father. No matter where you are on your journey with Jesus, you can always take a step closer towards Him.

Prayer emphasis this week

As we begin this time of prayer and fasting, let’s turn our hearts toward God. Make a commitment to seek God daily. Pray that your love for Christ will be increased and your passion for Him will be reignited over the next 21 days.

Also pray for…

This week’s prayer emphasis is on breakthroughs in our personal devotion by praying for the following points:

• Giving us the space in our lives to continue to pray, fast and read the Bible
• To develop a closer relationship with God
• That God will provide us with a renewed passion and enthusiasm for Him
• That we will receive God’s guidance for us and our family

Has God been speaking to you?

Please share with us any testimonies of special ways in which the Lord has to spoken to your heart or if He has given you any prophecies or visions that you feel might benefit others in the church as well. If so, you can email awakening@thousandhills.cc and tell us what you have experienced.

Schedule of prayer meetings in the coming week

• Sunday 15 Jan 20.00 – Prayer meeting at the de Jonghs (Top Naefflaan 60, Bussum)
• Monday 16 Jan 20.00 – prayer meeting at the Whites (Muiderzand 26, Huizen), Provoosts (Beyerincklaan 16, Hilversum) and the ‘t Harts (Emminkhuizerberg 58, Amersfoort)
• Tuesday 17 Jan 20.00 – prayer meeting at Jane Busingje (Stephensonlaan 30, Hilversum)
• Wednesday 18 Jan 20.00 – prayer meeting at the Gunninks (Ploeglaan 20, Eemnes) and at Monique Veenstra (Meikevermeent 43, Hilversum Meent)
• Thursday 19 Jan 19.30 – Worship and prayer meeting in Thousand Hills
• Friday 20 Jan 20.00 – Prayer meeting at the Volkerinks (van Leeuwenhoekstraat 56, Hilversum)

Besides these prayer meetings, there will also be a 30-minute prayer meeting in Thousand Hills on Mondays through Thursdays starting at 12:30.

If you are interested in hosting a prayer meeting in your home, please let us know at awakening@thousandhills.cc!

I found this poem written by an anonymous poet:

There was a very cautious man
Who never laughed or played
He never risked, he never tried,
He never sang or prayed.
And when one day he passed away,
His insurance was denied,
For since he never really lived,
They claimed he never really died.

Don’t be so cautious that you don’t really live! God has wired you to be an adventurous person! Think of how you loved adventure in your childhood days. But how can you avoid defaulting to that risk-free life? I believe a good way to start is by making the most of opportunities that God is giving you right now.

Isaiah 43:18-22

And God is up to a new thing! Check out this cool Bible passage from Isaiah 43:18-22 (NIV):

Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
The wild animals honor me,
the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen,
the people I formed for myself
that they may proclaim my praise.
Yet you have not called on me, Jacob,
you have not wearied yourselves for me, Israel.

What did I learn from Isaiah 43?

Here are a couple of things I learned from this passage:

• We should not only forget the bad stuff that happened to us in the past, also the good stuff. Check out the two preceding verses, in which God speaks about how he delivered Israel out of Egypt. Don’t get me wrong, we can still remember the good stuff, but be careful that you don’t thinking that God will never do the kind of miracles he did in the past. He can do the same today and even more!
• Dream as big as the dreams God has for your life! Never let your memories be bigger than your dreams. Be in sync with the new thing God is doing!
• God provides us with fresh water in the wilderness. He refreshes and empowers us with the Holy Spirit in places that may seem spiritually dry.
• When God truly blesses us, there is no way we can keep that blessing only to ourselves. In verse 20-21 we could see that wild animals, jackals and owls would honor God because they benefit from the fresh water God gives as well. Those wild animals are desert creatures. They live in dry places. I believe they represent people who don’t have a relationship yet with Jesus Christ and don’t attend church. So when God blesses us, the unchurched people around us will benefit!
• If we are not in sync with God, if we don’t take the effort to call on God, we won’t be able to lay hold of the blessings that God has for us, of the new thing that he wants to do in our lives. So the Israelites were carried off as exiles to Babylon. There will be too many things that we will miss out on if we don’t live lives that are in sync with God.

How to walk through doors of opportunity?

So what can you and I do to be in sync with God and walk through the doors of opportunity he is giving us in 2012?

1. Look ahead, don’t look back. Be thankful for the past, but live in expectation of an even better future.
2. Look around you. Ask yourself the question: how can the blessings that God is giving me benefit the people in your community, at your workplace, in your school or in your social network? Pay it forward!
3. Look up.  We need to have the proper perspective. In order to be able to look ahead, we need to be people that look up to God. So call on God, focus on Jesus!

Opposition guaranteed!

One more thing: when God is opening new doors, when he is doing a new thing, I can guarantee you that opposition will come. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 16:9 (NIV): “A great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.”

It is almost as if opposition is proof of the fact that God is opening doors for us! But that’s nothing to worry about, because in another place Paul said: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom.8:37 NIV). Nothing that the enemy will try to do against us will stand, if we stand firm in God’s word and God’s purpose for us. So be on guard and stand strong!

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Hey, if you liked this post, there is actually much more to it! So be sure to check out the video from my sermon yesterday at Thousand Hills! Here it is:

Thousand of churches around the world will be doing Awakening. I am looking forward to the impact it will have in the lives of everyone in Thousand Hills and in the life of our church! Be sure to pick up a special Awakening brochure if you attend our church!

More info about Awakening can be found on www.awake21.org.

Below is he intro video we made based on materials supplied by Celebration Church. If you’re a member of Vimeo (there is a free version of that membership!) you can download it and use it in your church! The direct link to the video is this: www.vimeo.com/34711370.

If so, be sure to attend this conference with Greg Surratt, one of Thousand Hills’ overseers and pastor of a GREAT church in Charleston, South Carolina!

The Missional Life & Church Conference will happen on Saturday, February 25. Please be sure to RSVP on Facebook and take care of your 30 euro registration fee here.

I hope to see you next Sunday at Thousand Hills! We’ll be starting a brand new message series called Doors about the open doors God is giving you! By the way, next Sunday is the last one with just one service (English at 10:30). From January 15 onwards we’ll have two services, the first in Dutch at 9:15 and the second in English at 11:15.

I can’t wait to see how God will be leading us into a new season of growth!

Family vacation ahead of us!

Our family will be driving to Austria for a family visit on December 25 (Eva is Austrian, in case you didn’t know!). Our 21 month old twin boys Miles and William are really looking forward to see their grandparents again, their aunts and uncles and their all their cousins. I hope for them there will be some snow. Not sure if I am looking forward to snow… I am more of a winter vacation in the sun kind of person.

What’s happening in church in the coming few days?

So what’s happening in church in the coming few days?

• We’ll be handing out 35 Christmas hampers to people in need. A big thank you to all the people who have given so generously to make this happen and to all who have helped put all the products together last Saturday.
• There will be a special Christmas meal on Wednesday for people in need as well as people who are lonely. Again, thank you to the Thousand Hills folks who will be serving and to the company that is making this possible financially.
• On Saturday we’ll have two Christmas Eve services. The first one will be starting at 19:00 and will be in Dutch and the second one will be starting at 21:00 and will be in English.
• On Sunday morning, there will be a bilingual Christmas service for the whole family starting at 10:30 with lots of interaction for the kids.
• On Thursday, 29 December, the worship team of Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida (Lead Pastor: Stovall Weems), will play at a special worship encounter starting at 20:00.

So: lots of cool things happening! Hope to meet you at any of these events!

A personal request from our family

One final thing that I would like to mention to you. I have been working on raising monthly support for a one-day-per-week missions assignment with Europe Advance, a network that is seeking to help people who want to plant life-giving churches all across Europe. That means that 80% of my workweek is spent at Thousand Hills and 20% at the Europe-wide vision.

Still 510 Euro per month (=650 USD) needed

In order to be able to spend 20% of my time to help others, I need to raise at least 1200 Euro per month (=1650 USD) to cover income and expenses. Currently, we are only receiving 690 Euro (=1000 USD), which means that every month our missions fund is decreasing quite rapidly. So we still need at least 510 Euro per month (=650 USD) to cover the monthly deficit. We could use some extra help!

Could you pray with us that the Lord will provide all that we still need? If you feel led to help us, you could check out our “Support” page and find out the easiest way for you to help us. We’re helped with any monthly gift, no matter if it’s 10 Euro or USD, or 100 Euro or USD. And one time gifts are welcome too, of course! Also, please know that there are tax-friendly options for you if you live in the US or in Holland.

Thanks for your prayers and for your (financial) support! Enjoy the Holidays!

The biggest frustration for any Monopoly player is jail. You’ll have to stay there a couple of rounds, can’t collect the 200 guilders (yes, the Monopoly game I had was a Dutch one from the 1950s or so), and just wait until your free again.

But then there is this great invention called the Get Out Of Jail Free card. There are two of them, one in the Chance set of cards and one in the Community Chest of cards. Imagine the value of this card in my version of the game!

Jesus our Get Out Of Jail Free card?

I think Jesus Christ is our Get Out Of Jail Free card. Why? Let me take you back a little over 2000 years ago to Israel. A man named Joseph was engaged to be married to a girl called Mary. But he found out that Mary was pregnant and he hadn’t been in the mix himself. So he wanted to quietly separate from her, but then an angel appeared to him in a dream. The angel told him that Mary was pregnant, not because she had slept with another man, but because the baby in her womb was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit.

And the angel told Joseph to name the baby boy Jesus. Jesus is the English version of a Hebrew name Yeshua, which means “Yahweh (=God) saves.” The angel explained that the boy would “save his people from their sins” (Matt.1:21 NLT). Even before Jesus was born God had planned that Jesus would die on the cross to bring forgiveness to people who did not deserve forgiveness, to offer peace with God to people who were enemies with God.

God forgives AND forgets!

Did you know that when you embrace the forgiveness that Christ has to offer, God doesn’t only forgive your sins, but he also forgets them? Many centuries before Jesus was born, Ezekiel prophesied: “I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins” (Jer.31:34 NLT). Wow, what a promise! God allows us to make a fresh start with him, to have a clean slate!

And God throws our sins into the depths of the ocean: “You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean” (Micah 7:19 NLT). A mental image comes to my mind of nuclear waste stored (hopefully) securely on the bottom of the ocean.

No fishing allowed!

Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch lady who survived a Nazi concentration camp, took a hold of that promise and started traveling through post-war Germany. She shared this promise with a people that was defeated and bombed out, a nation that was struggling to forgive itself. In her book Tramp for the Lord, she wrote: “When we confess our sins, God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. Then God places a sign out there that says: ‘No fishing allowed.’”

Corrie was able to forgive the people who had hurt her and her family so much, and she encouraged them to forgive themselves and embrace the forgiveness that Christ had for them. Don’t fish for the things that God has cast into the deepest ocean!

God’s forgiveness for us has come at a high price. He gave his only begotten Son to die on the cross for us so that we could receive that forgiveness. Because it is so precious to him, he wants us to pay it forward to the next person, to people who have hurt us: “Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Col.3:13 NLT).

Receiving forgiveness and extending forgiveness are two things that are closely related. Remember that Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matt. 6:12 NLT).

Did you know that when we fail to forgive others, we end up in a self-made jail? We’re hurting ourselves more than the other person we don’t want to forgive. I stumbled upon this great quote: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and then to discover that the prisoner was you.” You have the keys for your own prison!

What can we do to embrace and extend forgiveness?

So Jesus is our Get Out Of Jail Free card. He forgives our sins and helps us to forgive others. So what are some practical things we can learn from that pre-Christmas story in Matthew chapter 1?

1) You can’t give to others what you truly haven’t embraced yourself

Embrace God’s forgiveness that you can receive in Christ only! Drink from that fountain of forgiveness! It is hard to bitter when you drink from that sweet fountain of forgiveness that is called Jesus. So: surrender your life to him. Build an intimate relationship with him!

2) Forgotten grace breeds unforgiving living

When Jesus was no longer a baby boy, he told some stories to highlight some profound truths. One of the stories was about a man who had a huge debt, in today’s money close to 100 million Euros or dollars. His creditor, a king, was planning on selling all this guy’s possessions and even sell him and his family as slaves to repay the debt. The debtor pleaded for mercy, and the king cancelled the whole debt.

The next thing the debtor does is find a few people who owed him some petty cash, and force them to repay. When the king finds out, he has his former debtor thrown in prison to be tortured and cancelled the cancellation of the debt. He said: “You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?” (Matt.18:32-33 NLT).

The debtor had forgiven how much his creditor had forgiven him, so was unwilling to forgive the debts that others owed him. Forgotten grace breeds unforgiving living! Never forget the grace that Jesus has given to you!

3) God’s grace is a costly thing

In the story in Matthew 18 the debt our anti-hero owed the king was millions and millions of Euros or dollars. I think the parallel is clear: when God forgives us our sins, it costs him a fortune. His own beloved Son had to die for our sins on the cross. But he thought you would be worth it! I would be worth it!

But still, God’s grace is a costly thing! You know what I think is the bottom-line of forgiveness? Wrongs done to us by another person can never be compared with our sins before and against our heavenly Father. Until we get this, we will always struggle with forgiving other people. You and I owe God a multimillion debt. Others owe us maybe a few thousand.

There is nobody that has wronged me as much as I have hurt the Lord and sinned against him. I have been a Christ-follower for 16 years and for 16 years God has extended grace to me. I don’t want to put anyone in jail, neither do I want to be in jail. I want to embrace the gift of forgiveness and I want to extend the gift of forgiveness.

Let me ask you this, will you embrace God’s forgiveness during this Christmas season, maybe for the first time in your life? Will you extend forgiveness to others who have hurt you? Wouldn’t it be amazing if broken relationships in your family or with former friends would be restored during this Christmas season? Jesus not only tells us to forgive those who have sinned against us, his Holy Spirit also gives us the strength to do so!

Embrace forgiveness! Extend forgiveness! And as you do, see God work in ways beyond imagination!

The above blog post is a summary of my message yesterday at Thousand Hills International Church. Be sure to leave some comments here. And if you want to learn more about forgiveness, be sure to watch the sermon video!