February 20, 2006
BONFIRES AND TORCH PROCESSIONS DOTTED THE ALPINE VALLEYS OF THE OLYMPIC SKI EVENTS IN NORTHERN ITALY LAST WEEK. BUT THEY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TEARS AND TRIUMPHS OF THE WINTER GAMES COMPETITORS. Rather, these fiery celebrations commemorated centuries of suffering and heroism experienced throughout these Valli Valdesi by believers known as Waldensians, who […]
February 13, 2006
THE WINTER OLYMPICS SLOGAN SPLASHED DAILY ACROSS OUR SCREENS THIS WEEK REMINDS US OF THE PASSION DRIVING OUR TOP SPORTERS IN TURIN. It’s an almost fanatical passion demanding discipline, focus, sacrifice – blood, sweat and often a lot of tears. Once I found myself on an exercise machine at the local gym next to a […]
February 6, 2006
THE MOST OPEN REGION TO THE GOSPEL IN EUROPE RIGHT NOW IS THE REGION AROUND ODESSA IN THE UKRAINE. That is part of the bottom line of the ‘ESE’ (European Spiritual Estimate) study to have been released last week. If you visited the website mentioned in last week’s WW (http://emrg.friderich.net), you will have read that […]
January 30, 2006
WHOEVER CAME UP WITH THE IDEA OF CATEGORISING THE WORLD’S NATIONS AS ‘UNREACHED’ (WORLD A), ‘PARTIALLY REACHED’ (WORLD B) AND ‘REACHED’ (WORLD C) HAD A BRILLIANT PLAN. These categories enabled anyone to look at a list of nations and see at a glance where the greatest spiritual needs were globally, and where resources needed to […]
January 23, 2006
SHOULD THE BIBLE STILL BE THE FINAL AUTHORITY FOR MATTERS OF LIFE AND FAITH IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY EUROPE? Or is that famous cry of the Reformation – Sola Scriptura – simply tired, old-fashioned, irrelevant and obsolete? Do we in fact need a fresh Reformation today, or would that simply be turning back the clock? And […]
January 16, 2006
OUR YEAR HAS BEGUN FOR YWAM INTERNATIONAL ON A VERY SOBER TONE. We have been shocked by report after report from around the world of untimely deaths through senseless car accidents or heart failure at a far-too young age. The reports started coming in late November and have become so regular that I’m almost reluctant […]
January 9, 2006
FROM INDIA, NEW ZEALAND, NORWAY AND BELGIUM COMES THE FOLLOWING SAMPLING OF HOLIDAY READING. Pat Shultz, from the USA, gives this personal tip in response to the suggestion (cited last week) that we should only bother with the One Book: Instead of getting rid of all of one’s books, I choose to fast from books […]
January 2, 2006
LET’S REFLECT FOR A MOMENT, BEFORE WE RUSH INTO OUR NEW YEAR SCHEDULES, ON BOOKS. The Christmas-New Year break offers cosy warm evenings in front of the fire curled up with an exciting page-turner, at least in the northern hemisphere; or long sunny days stretched out on a beach-towel somewhere south of the equator, devouring […]
December 26, 2005
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT DECEMBER 25 HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL BIRTH OF JESUS, RIGHT? And that the Church Fathers simply baptised an already pagan festival celebrating the re-birth of the sun as symbolic of the birth of the Son. At least. that’s what I understood – until recently. No intelligent person, I thought, […]
December 19, 2005
TURIN, HOST OF THE APPROACHING WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES, IS ALSO HOME TO A CENTURIES-OLD UNDERGROUND EVANGELISM MOVEMENT, WHICH BECAME MID-WIFE TO THE REFORMATION. For, nestled at the foot of the Italian Alps, Turin is a modern centre of the Waldensian Church, the largest evangelical church in the nation and perhaps the earliest ‘protestant’ church, with […]
December 12, 2005
DUTCH TELEVISION NEWS PLAYED OLD BLACK-AND-WHITE NEWSREEL FOOTAGE FROM THE 1930’S LAST WEEK, ANNOUNCING THE DEATH OF INDUSTRIALIST FRITS PHILIPS AT THE AGE OF 100 YEARS. Standing with evangelist Frank Buchman, founder of the Moral Re-Armament Movement. “Mister Frits” was seen urging a large open air crowd that listening to God, and living in honesty, […]
December 5, 2005
TEN YEARS AGO, TWO YOUNG YWAM WOMEN, RENEE AND SUE, WERE RESCUED BY HELICOPTER as civil war engulfed the West African republic of Liberia. As they caught their last backward glances of their adopted country from the air, it seemed all their efforts to establish a work of YWAM had just evaporated in the smoke […]
