From Knowledge to Wisdom

Brian Doerksen "Holy God"

Last night we were at a worship concert with Brian Doerksen and Band at the LEG on Schiphol Rijk and I bought the Special Edition of his latest CD "Holy God".

This has been a project bringing me back to God. The music and songs express the holiness and mystery of God. They call to repentance and worship. They are worship.

And Brian's ministry is authentic. It grows out of his own life experience and his relationships with God, his family and his church. It is now gaining depth from his maturity and experience and his personal ongoing journey with God. The music style and presentation are moving with the times. He has great musicians on his team. And the message is become deeper and simpler - "Our Father in heaven, Holy is Your Name" - captures everything. He is Holy. He is in heaven - remote, unreachable. Yet He is our Father, close, intimate, loving, immanent, indwelling.

The CD notes include commentary from Brian on each track telling something of the history of the writing of the song and the musicians involved. Each track was in itself a project with singers, instrumental musicians and recording technicians drawn in to create a piece worthy of a Holy God. Philip Janz, the producer must have had his hands full working with Brian on this.

Brian's page on mySpace currently has a few YouTube clips where he talks about background on some of the tracks with Philip Janz and here and there gives some tips for musicians and worship leaders playing them.

This morning, early on Pentecost Sunday, listening to the devotional on the extra CD had me in tears. It's entitled  "Reopening The Ancient Wells Of Devotion And Worship In Europe".

This comes out of Brian's history of work in Europe. An awakening is starting to happen in Europe. Jesus is on the move again in Europe. Here is an overview of what seem to me to be the main points Brian is making:

Summer Balloons

Summer is here! I've just seem my first hot air balloons of the year. They drifted right over my house. One very low and the other quite high, right overhead.

You hear them first. We had just gone outside when I heard the familiar dragons roar of the hot flame and looked around to locate it. Dogs barked in the neighbourhood, disturbed by the strange thing in the sky.

Ever since we came to live in The Netherlands I have associated hot air balloons with summer evenings. In previous lifetimes we lived in coastal areas of the English speaking islands and I don't think I ever saw a hot air balloon. But here on continental Europe, safely in from the coastline, hot air balloons appear on summer evenings when the wind goes almost still and it's light till late.

So I take these as heralds of the real summer.

"Missional" - quote of the day

Just came across an interview with Brian McLaren on Next-Wave. It includes the following on defining "missional":

Next-Wave: Describe what it means to be missional.
McLaren: The term missional asks this question:  what is the purpose of the church?  To enfold and warehouse Christians for heaven, protecting them from damage and spoilage until they reach their destination?  Or to recruit and train people to be transforming agents of the kingdom of God in our culture?  The missional church understands itself to be blessed not to the exclusion of the world, but for the benefit of the world.  It is a church that seeks to bring benefits to its nonadherents through its adherents.

I like the caricature of the churches that "enfold and warehouse Christians for heaven, protecting them from damage and spoilage until they reach their destination".

"warehousing Christians for heaven" - conjures an image of an upmarket storage hire place on the edge of the city where Christians are preserved in a climate controlled atmosphere, almost dust free ... until the rapture.

"Bethany"

Frank Viola has recently published a booklet on the Internet, entitled "Bethany: The Lord's Desire for His Church".

He gives a vivid exposition of several events in the Gospels that happen at Bethany:

• the scene when Jesus and His disciples are received in the home of Martha and Mary, where Martha is busy preparing the meal and Mary chooses to sit and listen to Jesus,
• the raising from the dead of Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary,
• the meal at the home of Simon the leper where Mary anoints Jesus with precious perfumes,
• the Ascension of Jesus.

Bethany was a unique place for Jesus.

    "Love and friendship. These two words sum up the heart of Bethany. Bethany is the place where Jesus Christ loves His own, and His own do not doubt it. It is also the place of friendship. Friendship with the living God.

    "These two words reveal the heart of Christ. He desires friends, not servants. He desires love, not servitude.

    "In the cold temple of Jerusalem, God was served. But in the warmth of a Bethany home, He was loved and befriended.

    "When I read this passage, I see a Lord who is saying, 'I didn't come to this earth to be served. I came to have friends. I came to love and be loved. I came to take a people into my very bosom. I came to disclose the secrets of my heart to my friends. For I am at home with them.'

    "This the meaning of Bethany. And it's what the Lord is after in His church."

Sightings of the true God

Recently a phrase Frank Viola's book "God's Ultimate Passion" caught my attention - "After a sighting of the true God ..."

"Sightings of the true God" are life changing. It was life changing for Abraham. He had a sighting of the true God and left home for a strange land. Saul had one on the road to Damascus and it totally changed the direction of his life, even down to changing his name to Paul.

A sighting of the true God;

• have I had one?
• am I really looking out for one?
• OR am I stuck in my comfort zones and routines?
• would a sighting of the true God turn my life upside down too much for comfort?

I am reminded of Tommy Tenny in "God Chasers" and other books encouraging active passionate pursuit of sightings of God. God responds to passion. God is a passionate God.

Am I on a passionate committed search for a sighting of the true God?

Such a sighting is life changing:

• how then do we live?
• the context for everything changes
• comfort zones fade in value and are seen to be temporary hiding places in the great span of space and time before the living God
• am I prepared for such change?

Can one be prepared for such change?

Beginning of June I am heading down to Abstatt for a conference with Frank Viola. Looking forward to doing what believers do when they are together. Worshipping Jesus. Accepting He is Lord. Looking for Him among the bothers and sisters. Hoping for ... expectantly ... a sighting of the true God.

Hallelujah, come Lord Jesus.

It is raining again

Here in The Netherlands we had 44 days without rain. Instead we had seemingly endless bright sunny days and temperatures way above normal. This week it is raining again and the plants in my garden are growing like crazy.

I love these plants that catch droplets in the fibres on the surface of the leaves. They remind me of a poem that I learned from the poet in my youth when I was hitch hiking south from my home in Edinburgh, Scotland. It went something like this:

Great tae be hunderds a' burds,
'n set 'n trees
'n wash w're nebs i' rainy leaves.

My 24 Hours of Flickr day

I joined the "24 Hours of Flickr" group and set out to shoot a photo journal of my day on 5 May 2007. It was a rather ordinary Saturday. No special appointments.

After the usual getting up and dressed stuff I went on my shopping bike to the supermarket and my favourite bakers for a few breakfast supplies.

In the Netherlands 5th of May is the day on which liberation from the German occupation at the end of the Second World War is celebrated. So there were national flags hanging out on some houses. On 4th May the dead of that and other wars are remembered. So there were some flowers at the village war memorial. This part of The Netherlands was liberated in September 1944 as US and British troops fought their way north in operation Market Garden. Two soldiers died in Nuenen and there are war graves in nearby villages where many more a buried.