December 7, 2009
A fundamental rethink of the idea of freedom was needed today, twenty years after millions of East Europeans had been freed from oppressive government. André Rouvoet, Holland’s Deputy Prime Minister, told this to an audience of leaders from politics, church and business last week in Brussels at the European Parliament Prayer Breakfast. He recalled […]
November 30, 2009
Sometimes I wonder how many magazines serve the Body of Christ in America, creating conversation and dialogue across the continent. I can think of quite a few off the top of my head. How many serve a similar function in Europe? I struggle to think of any. Of course, the United States is just […]
November 23, 2009
No, I’m not a doomsday prophet, but it is true. The end draws nigh–at least, of my twenty years as leader of YWAM in Europe. Next month in Amsterdam, Friday December 11, we hold a symposium and a reception to mark the transfer of leadership to the European Leadership Team, to be chaired for the […]
November 9, 2009
Twenty years ago today was probably one of the most significant historical events of my generation. For those too young to remember at the time, or now younger than twenty, it is hard to imagine the sense of incredulity, relief and euphoria felt around most of the world, especially in Germany. This truly was the […]
October 12, 2009
Paul’s landing on Malta nearly two thousand years ago was a great deal rougher and wetter than mine was last week. But our separate visits to the island had something in common: we both experienced the ‘unusual kindness’ from the ‘islanders’ referred to by Luke in his detailed account of the famous shipwreck. My three-day […]
October 5, 2009
A month from now, the world’s press will be reminding us of those exciting and heady days twenty years ago, when the Berlin Wall was torn down by sledgehammers and bare hands, and communist regimes across Eastern Europe came tumbling after. These same momentous twenty years have defined my term of office as director of […]
April 27, 2009
A dramatic revolution has been taking place in Britain’s churches over the past decade, encouraging experimentation and innovation outside of a traditional parish structure dating back to the seventh century. The consequences for Europe could be far-reaching, if continental leadership could learn from this model. On the eve of the new millennium, church leaders began […]
March 30, 2009
Twenty years ago, a revolution was about to burst upon the world. An obsolete and inhumane Communist system began to crumble under the weight of its own lies. A generation is now coming into adulthood too young to remember the tense buildup to the euphoric scenes surrounding the breaching of the Berlin Wall, or the […]
March 23, 2009
As the train carried him homewards, the young Greek doctor thought back on the words of the veteran missionary speaker from South Africa: ‘Healthy people walk vertically and look horizontally, but sick people lie horizontally and look vertically.’ Francis Grimm, founder of Hospital Christian Fellowship, had been challenging his audience to see why sick people were […]
March 16, 2009
Ten suspected human traffickers went on trial today in Zwolle, near where I live, as a result of an African pastor friend of mine breaking voodoo curses over young Nigerian girls forced into prostitution.
March 9, 2009
Winston Churchill put it this way: The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. I like to say it as follows: Short memories breed short-sightedness. Or it’s corollary: Long memories breed far-sightedness. Both these quotes express the reason why my wife and I, each summer, jump in a van, […]
March 2, 2009
The tram arrived at our stop in East Berlin. All seventy of us poured out (it was a long tram). We followed our young guide across the tracks and entered a forest of apartment blocks. And ‘blocks’ they were. Like up-ended egg-cartons. Stalinist baroque, that style was called, all across the old Communist world. This […]
