Dutch language

How to pronounce clergy in Dutch?

Full Transcript

i would love to start off um tonight
with a prayer
please join me in praying
dear father thank you so much for this
evening
thank you so much for the opportunity to
connect with
people all over the netherlands
who have a passion for your church who
are passionate about your bride
and thank you god that you are even more
passionate about your bride that you
have a hope for
your church that we can not even fathom
you have a love that we cannot even
begin to grasp
you are so excited about our church and
you want to
share your love and your hope with us
tonight and i really look forward to
what you are going to say to us
father we want to ask for your holy
spirit to fill us
come holy spirit and fill us with your
wisdom with your presence
and even though we're not in the same
physical room
i want to invite you to fill our
online room with your presence and to
lead this night
in jesus name amen amen
amen thank you thank you very much uh
doreen
um it is uh really a pleasure nikki to
have you here
in this call and to have the opportunity
to speak with you
with over 550 screens
and even more people
listening into our conversation around
the
opportunities for the church and we are
so
interested about what is going on in
this season what is your view on this
and we will definitely
touch some of those questions during the
next hour
but first i want to start with because
everyone when they
subscribed for this meeting they had the
opportunity to to
draw some questions to you and what i
noticed was that
many people also uh
were not ready to ask a question but
just wanted to thank you for what you've
done
over the years and what uh for the
person who you've been
for the inspiration you brought and um
and for how god is using you and how you
give the opportunity to god
to use you um and we in the netherlands
and i know
in 189 countries are so blessed
with what you are doing and who you are
and
um yeah we we will definitely come also
to that place where we will
listen in on how how are you inspired
and what keeps you
motivated and what keeps you
going on but first i wanted to express
it and one person even noticed that it's
such an inspiration who you are
and your heart and your love and that
gives hope
because there still is hope for lawyers
that is what someone
noticed when he wrote this down so
many people know that you are a lawyer
and you have a lawyer background
and uh well it's really
a pleasure to have you here tonight
thank you thank you
quite the opposite it's my privilege i'm
delighted to be in the netherlands we
have so many friends
uh over many many years and alpha the
netherlands has always been
leading the way in so many areas and uh
so grateful to for all that you've done
and it's a huge privilege to be with you
tonight
thank you nikki well you have many rules
you're a father
you're a grandad you are the pioneer of
alpha
you are a son of god yourself
you're a leader but also maybe you are
led by others
and of course you are a vicar of a
church
holy trinity brompton in london
and when we are speaking about the
opportunity opportunities for the church
we want to dig in especially on that
role as well
and just the question for these days
these days and this season
what is it like being a church leader
nowadays for you
uh well it's very exciting this is an
exciting
season you know i think coving 19
is a horrible disease
people have lost loved ones they've lost
health they've lost money they've lost
jobs
they've lost dreams hopes so it's a
horrible disease
but god can take something horrible
and use it for good the supreme example
of course is the cross
god took the most horrible event in the
history of the planet and he used it
for the salvation of the world and i
think
this is a a moment of
uh great opportunity that god is
using covid in many ways but i think
this is the greatest
evangelistic opportunity of
my lifetime uh really partly because of
covid you know it's like
um i have this book on my desk and now
i won't be able to find it here it is
the rise of christianity
um it's about how a a small group of
jesus's disciples became the dominant
force in the roman empire in four
centuries
um the whole no known world
was christianized how did it happen
this this secular sociologist
chapter four is the epidemics the
pandemics
it was during the pandemics of two one
165 a.d and 261 a.d
that the church really grew because the
pagans ran away
but the church ran towards the need and
that's
i'm sure that's happening in the
netherlands it's certainly happening
here
we've started something called love your
neighbor just from the room next door we
have fed a million
people it's in the last year and
together with other churches in the
country
we are now feeding one million people
per month
um with love your neighbor so it's a
massive massive opportunity
from that point of view um but also
this is a time of
it's not just the pandemic that there
are like these these
all these different things going on
there's a there's a physical health
crisis
there's a mental health crisis there's a
the biggest financial crisis since the
great depression there
is um a social revolution going on
following the the killing of george
floyd and there's a digital revolution
and the digital revolution i mean this
is as
significant as the invention of the
printing press
gutenberg invented the printing press
in 1427 in germany
and uh you know the first
the first thing to roll off the printing
press was the bible
200 copies in latin of the bible
do you know how long it took him to do
that 200 copies
three years i have no idea three years
three years
a hundred years later martin luther
printed 5 000 copies of the new
testament
in two weeks and that took 100 years to
get to that stage
right now because of kovid we've had
this digital revolution look we would
never
i would never be in the netherlands had
it not been for covid
at least not on a thursday night not on
a thursday night
because i could we can be i'm doing
conferences in lithuania
in australia in um the u.s
in canada we're in norway yesterday
isn't it i was i was in norway yes i
didn't know that i was in nowhere
yesterday
okay so so you know it's like um
and this is the digital world the
digital world has opened up to us
in the most extraordinary way and uh
it's opened up online on sundays
you know we've gone i'm sure many of
your churches have gone online
and we're reaching people who couldn't
go to church
so they're people who like my daughter's
friend sally
she's been severely disabled for 14
years
she said thank you so much for doing
church online
because um for the first time i can come
to your church
i said sally if it's if it's only for
you we'll never stop doing church online
so people who couldn't come because of
disability because of age
or because of their traveling they can
come to church
then the people like zacchaeus
zacchaeus wanted to see jesus but he
didn't want jesus to see him
so he climbed a tree um he
wanted to explore anonymously and what's
happening on sunday is we're getting all
these young people exploring
anonymously and then of course um
supremely for us it's um alpha going
online
and that's presented the most phenomenal
opportunity for the gospel that that
we've ever seen
so you're very excited about the the
opportunities that the church has
in israel the church has this is this is
not a moment for the church
to retreat this is a moment for the
kingdom of god to advance
and uh
in england we've got some churches
they're talking about accelerated
decline
don't talk about accelerated decline
talk about accelerated
growth zoom the makers of zoom are not
thinking
oh no there's a pandemic what are we
going to do
there's going to be accelerated decline
of zoom no
it's a huge opportunity for them look at
the growth that's happened to zoom
in the last year and it should be the
same for the church we should be saying
where are the opportunities for the
church to grow
and digital is the
just like that the printing press
transformed
what the church was able to do because
they were started to print bibles of
course the printing press had bad things
bad books were published a lot of people
lost their jobs because of the printing
press
but it was the massive opportunity
for the gospel to go out across the
world and the digital revolution
is is the biggest thing since then in
terms of opportunity
because now we have the opportunity to
reach the whole world
with the gospel digitally
okay so because we we've received many
questions as well that
church leaders also asked like this is
the time where we
where we miss it to be physical present
in on sundays where we worship on
different ways and
we are well maybe even a bit anxious
about what the future will bring and
what will be left over from the church
in uh in a couple of months uh if we all
believe that this is the tale of the
pandemic now
what would you say to to those
kind of feelings because they're also
quite realistic because
people see what's happening in their
church and leaders see what's happening
so
what would you what would you say to
them
well i think on as far as sundays are
concerned and the congregation
um i mean for us the the key things have
been
um well first of all we have we we do
services on sunday physically when we
can so we'll reopen this sunday okay
secondly we do zoom calls on sunday in
each of the services
thirdly we have small groups and
with small groups again digital world
makes such a difference because you can
meet centrally
and then you can go into groups so we do
that
and then uh fourth fourth thing is we
ring all the members of the congregation
all the time
and we have lots of one-to-one walks
with people
what because we're allowed to do that in
england i don't know what the rules are
but we can do that we can exercise with
one other person
so you can go for a walk with one other
person and
actually a lot of the new testament is
about one to one
uh ministry one to one pastoral care and
so
um you can really invest in people it's
really worked with the youth
um you know for the youth to be looked
after one
personal one-to-one care is more
important than
great big gatherings so there's a lot of
things you can do for the congregation
but i have to say for me the most
exciting thing has been alpha online
because for a start we've had so many
more people coming
you know we've had the biggest courses
we've ever had on the first course
a year ago so pippa and i are on our
90th
and so 92nd in small group in a row
so we nearly finished this one we had we
last night we had the healing evening
week nine
amazing amazing evening so um but we are
on our 92nd
small group online the last three have
all started online
the 89th ended online the 90th started
online
91st online 92nd online
and we i have been proved wrong
so many times in my life and this is one
of the occasions where i have been
proved
so wrong i didn't think that alpha would
work
online i thought you know you'll miss
the meal the weekend
but i could not have been more wrong uh
first of all we had the biggest course
we've ever had at hgb
the first time we had 1600 guests
just at hgb i was astonishing
um and we were able to start courses
every week
because when we weren't tied to a
central course so
every wednesday morning every wednesday
evening we start new courses
and then we realize we don't even have
to do it on a wednesday we can just say
to people
invite your friends you can do it sunday
afternoon saturday morning
uh trisha neal who's um came to faith in
1993 and asked all her tennis friends to
come on alpha none of them came for 27
years
when it went online all of them came
eight of them
came and they're still meeting a year
later nikki and sula lee who run the
marriage course
they asked five couples who've done the
marriage prep course who don't go to
church
four of them came i talked to them today
last night
they had the most amazing evening with
praying for each of those people
um and seeing them filled with the
spirit and again and they were signed to
pray for each other
um so it one church
uh one church leader i was gonna do he's
got 50 groups
uh just the people inviting their own
friends whenever they want
so that you've got this total freedom so
you get far more people coming
secondly it's much more convenient it's
like
7 30 to 9 in your own home there's
no buses tubes trains
cars bikes walking you're just there
7 30 to nine it's more convenient for
the team
as someone put in the chat in one of
these calls no washing up
it's like it's like no dishes no dishes
it's like
you come on and it's less threatening
for the guests
they're just we had two muslims in our
the first small group that we did
um online and it was so hard for a
muslim to walk into a church or to walk
into someone else's home
so it's much easier for people to come
we have a lower dropout rate
than we've ever had we have a higher
attendance in the weekends that we've
ever had
we've had a hundred percent attendance
of all those who haven't dropped out we
we only have one person drop out of the
first two groups and we've had a hundred
percent attendance on each of the three
of the guests who are still there so and
and
a really interesting thing we did a uh
conference
uh yesterday for catholics we had 2 000
morning and evening we had 2 000
catholic bishops
priests and laity from all over the
world from japan
from um just all over the world and a
catholic priest said this
he's been running alpha online very
successfully first time
he's really reaching people outside the
walls of the church
um and he said you know you think the
meal is about the hospitality
but he said actually there's an element
of hospital i mean right now you're in
my home
you've been invited all of you are
invited into my home
which i love but i'm also invited into
your home
so there's this intimacy of hospitality
that happens
online that you wouldn't get uh
meeting in person yeah the weekend works
amazingly you know we do our weekend
from
10 till 12 30 on a saturday morning
we have who is the holy spirit small
groups
what does the holy spirit do and then we
pray come holy spirit
and the holy spirit comes the holy
spirit is not confused by zoom
someone said the holy spirit is the only
one who isn't confused by zoo
but the holy spirit comes and it's
amazing to see people experience god's
love
on the first course at our with our
small group i
intervi everyone had such an amazing
experience of the holy spirit
that i interviewed them all i think
there were nine or ten
guests and i did an interview like this
with all of them about their experiences
and but i also interviewed people from
other groups and there was a guy
called harvey i interviewed him on week
nine of the first course so this would
have been like
in april last year or may last year
and he said he
uh on week five with a picture of jesus
knocking on the door
he said i invited jesus in and he said
he had such a powerful experience of the
holy spirit
that he when he went to the kitchen his
glass of water was
shaking he spilt the water on the floor
yet
but he said if i'd been in a church
or there'd been worship music i would
have put it down to that
but because i was in my home i knew it
was the holy spirit
yeah now the great thing about alpha
online
so our service is on sunday we don't
really know who's there
there's you know thousands of people are
watching but who are those people
what are they doing when they're
watching are they eating their breakfast
are they
um in the room even um but alpha online
you've got like we have tonight you can
see the screens
of the people who are there but you're
just in a group of
two two hosts two helpers eight to
twelve guests
you can see them you can talk to them
you can connect
they're connecting and people are
longing for genuine connection at this
time
so it's extraordinary how it's working
and i think this will now go
complete it'll enable us to reach a
whole world we were never
able to reach before yeah so you
actually
you recognize that that it's an
alpha pandemic bringing lots of bad
things but that it's
full of opportunities for the church as
it has been in the past
in the history of the church that we
could take use of those opportunities
and step forward as a church and
reinvent ourselves even in some ways
even reinvent the way we are a
congregation the way we do discipleship
the way we do small groups
the way we walk with each other and and
we want
in one to one and the way we do
evangelism
yeah so that that's what at least i've
heard in the first part and i think
um that that is very exciting and then
and i'm with you i'm on the same page
and
we want to see um well we we just wrap
up this first part and we will
see what what the people will will think
um
and we give it over to handrina who will
lead this spot and then we will speak
in a couple of minutes we will bring the
conversation
we will bring it on
yes thanks wow i find it already
inspiring
and i don't know about you but i'm
getting excited
and there's even more to come and well
normally
we would have a break right now and we
would offer you some
really amazing snacks and you could have
jets
well of course that's not possible you
would have to get your own
snacks but i do have a fun
pulling question for you so
i hope the question comes in your screen
now yes
i would like to ask you what's your
favorite evening
snack so would you like chips or
maybe a healthy vegetable snack like
some little carrots or tomatoes
or uh maybe you would prefer
cheese like the typically dutch
snack or you go for the chocolate
that's my favorite yeah or just
anything anything you can find in your
cupboards
or maybe you don't like snacks at all
i'm i'm curious
what do you think a lot of answers are
coming in
i will close it in a in a few more
seconds so you can all see the results
um it's already interesting
i can see you like snacks
it's great okay um going to show the
results so most people like chocolate
well that's a very good choice yes
i would have chosen that myself maybe
you can if your snack is not there you
can share it in the chat
right now popcorn no
yeah no one likes popcorn one person out
of 555 people like popcorn
yeah yeah interesting
wow a lot of uh snacks are coming into
the
into the jets things and now a more
serious question because i also would
like to know
what you thought of this first part of
the interview
and and i'd like to know what inspired
you most
and therefore i'm going to share my
screen because we have a
specific uh tool how we can do that
so i would like to know what board
inspired you most during this
interview and you go to can go to
uh mentee dot com and use this code
or also the direct links is
shared in the in the chats so you can
also use that
and i want you to type in one or
two words that inspired you during
this first part of the interview
and then there they will show in the
screen so
for everyone to see so please type in
the word that inspired you most wow
they're already coming in so the people
need to type it in in the in the
mentimate and not in the chat
no not in it yes yes that's correct so
you go to the link to share shared in
the chat
or you go to mendy.com and use the
goat that is uh on top of this screen
yes
i see a holy spirit opportunity
it is the same as conson
online alpha 101
wow great to see and and when
a word is shared more than one time it's
it's getting bigger so you see
opportunity
wow i think it's great that opportunity
is the biggest work now
yeah so we're inspired not about what is
not possible
but what is possible it's great digital
revolution well i like the word
it's amazing
smaller words i see the walk which was
shared with the 101.
yes thank you for sharing it's great to
to see what you think and what inspired
you already
someone said popcorn
well that can also be inspiring
okay well i think more and more words
are coming in
but i'm going to hand the the mic over
back to uh arnold and
nikki but thank you all for for sharing
thank you it's it's good to have a small
moment
to digest what has just been said um
nikki we we we want to go on with the
conversation because
i noted you are
also in a position where you it feels
for me like
you are always giving you are
writing the bible in one year with 100
000 people
reading with you you are every every
sunday
you're leading a church with thousands
of people
uh you are the chair of the worldwide
organization alpha and
lots of things are going on but what
gets you
inspired where where do you have your
moment
like like for example jesus had uh when
he
retreated to the mountain and how does
that work for you especially when
like almost always people are asking
things from you
i mean for me it's always been the case
and so i was i my father was a
refugee to this country he was jewish
um he he escaped um not the nazi
nazi germany to come to um
the uk but he he was you know he was a
secular jew
i didn't have a christian upbringing and
i encountered jesus at the age of 18
through reading the new testament god
spoke to me it was like the person of
jesus
emerged from the pages and
so ever since that day i have wanted to
continue that conversation with jesus
and um all relationships thrive on
communication
you you and
in terms of our relationship with god
it's more important that he speaks to us
than we speak to him and the main way in
which he speaks to us
is through the bible so for the last 30
years
sandy miller gave me this
book 30 years ago and
for 30 years i read but now it's worn
out some pages started to fall out of it
so i got myself a new version
um 15 months ago and i used this one
last year
and i use it this year as well um and
for me the most important couple of
hours
for me in my day first thing in the
morning this is the first thing
uh i try to make it the first thing to
be perfectly honest
uh i before i do this i make a cup of
coffee
and often when i'm making my cup of
coffee i get tempted to look at my phone
um but i in the ideal world this would
be the very first thing
usually as five minutes before i do get
into it
but then the next the next hour is spent
meditating on this and um and and
for me it's it's it's doing the i sort
of preach it
so but it that for me is also i'm
preaching to myself
um and um so that's the first thing i do
every morning this year we're doing an
express version of it
for people who haven't got 25 minutes
just doing a 12-minute version of it
and then um and then the next thing that
i do is i
i walk around the park because if i pray
sitting down i fall asleep um and
although i get very distracted the park
is
is is pretty empty early in the morning
uh but still it's just
there are distractions but i find
i easier to walk and pray than to
sit and pray or do anything else and
pray so that's what i do i walk
in the park um i think of you know that
um
adam and eve before the fall walking
with god in the cool of the day
and i love that idea you walk you walk
and you talk
um and i walk and i i talk with god
and though that first two hours of the
day
to me is like that's really
taking in i sort of i i and then after
that the day is usually pretty busy but
i try and also take a break in the
afternoon um
in the up but when the when the when the
gym was open i used to play squash
every afternoon or go to the gym but
right now
um i i've sort of set up a gym here in
the
in the home but i also um i
um i bike i bike around the park um and
i try not to do phone calls uh but it's
it's got worse because they're always
people who whereas going to the gym i
could get away
right now um i it's harder to get away
but i
but i i try to um
listen to stuff you know listen to
podcasts or things that are
build you up um talks that build you up
and things sort of feed your soul
and also get some exercise in the
afternoon and get a break
and we're very blessed because we have
um our
so we have three children and nine
grandchildren and um our eldest
son was the last one to get married but
he has an indian wife and we have two
grandchildren living with us who are
aged three
and six months and so that brings some
joy in the day
that is a real real um
um privilege for us to have them with us
um in the household um so that is we're
very i'm very conscious that we're very
blessed
um so many people are either on their
own or their schooling or whatever
and we have that but but it's trying to
get
um i think you know it's it's really
important to get
to feed your soul at this time
particularly and i hear
you have some healthy rhythms you found
some healthy rhythms that work for you
so that's
that's i think the the thing that we can
we can learn from that nikki when uh
i remember in the early days of kovit
you made some decisions and you said
well we're going to focus on several
themes
and one of these themes was also family
life
and i also know that generations is a
very
important thing and i know that a lot of
questions came in
around well both of those struggles
first of all i would like to know
what what made you what brought
you to the decision to invest in family
life and what have you seen happening
with the marriage course because i think
that's
an interesting story as well to wear
let's start there please
well the marriage course nikki and cilla
um who ran alpha before me you know they
taught me how to
run alpha but they run their marriage
course now
for the last well i've been running
alpha for the last 30 years they've been
running the marriage course
and um we've been to a very early
version of the marriage course with with
them when we want to win to watch
someone else doing a marriage course
but we've never really done it but with
lockdown
and it going online pippa and i did the
marriage course
and it was phenomenal it's brilliant the
videos they produced
are phenomenal um and we it really
are we you know we've been we've been
very blessed in the last 43 years of
marriage
but still we were we actually we got a
lot out of it we had some great
conversations
it was really enriching for our marriage
and we had at hdb we had 20 000 cop
couples doing it on the hdb
course and they've been i mean thousands
and thousands of couples around the
world have been doing the
the marriage course and it you know i
think this is a great opportunity again
take that word opportunity it's a great
opportunity
for people to do the marriage we
couldn't do seven mondays
there's no way pepper and i could do
seven monday we don't have seven monday
evenings
free in a row to go and do it
but online we could choose when we did
it
and we would do one on a saturday
morning we'd do another one if we had a
free evening we'd do it
and and we could do it and it's it's i
would recommend it to
any married couple there's no married
couple who wouldn't benefit from doing
the marriage course
and and and when the pandemic started
i remember you were saying we are going
to focus on several themes and one of
that
was family can you express why you think
the the church needs to have a focus on
this theme and why is it such an
important thing where the church needs
to write his voice
well we we focus the things we focused
on were
sundays online we focused on alpha
online we focused on
um uh love your neighbor
feeding the hungry getting medicines to
people who needed it getting hot meals
to doctors and nurses on the front line
um and we focused on uh
youth and children so i think that's
what you mean by that
young people because uh
i mean young people don't want to go on
zoom you know for us
oldies it's quite interesting to go on a
zoom call because it's new
they've been doing it for years ago they
you know they've been into the digital
revolution
for a long time and they they don't
really want to do that
it's hard to get them engaged in the
services so we had to really focus
on this one-to-one um looking after them
on a one-to-one basis um and um
so the youth and children and then the
pastoral care of the congregation
and that was involved the phone calls i
think are so important i've encouraged
everyone to make
lots and lots of phone calls and you a
phone call doesn't necessarily need to
be long
you can ring someone say say anna how
are you
what are you finding most difficult
about the pandemic because if you just
say how are you
they'll just say fine thanks but if you
say what are you finding hardest about
the pandemic
you might say well actually i'm really
struggling with something and then
you can say okay well um you know either
you might be able to help them
get them some help or whatever they they
need or at least you can say
can i pray for you and just pray and
then that's it
like it could be five minutes but it'll
mean a lot i i i found the people i've
rung
and i've rung so many people in the last
year
they're really grateful for a phone call
someone to ask how they are and someone
to pray for them
so that's the personal attention and i
know your church is
i think the average age is 27 isn't it
well the average age of alpha is 27.
most people are showing up
35. the church the church is probably
getting
i mean it probably was 27 it's probably
getting
you know in the last getting older well
the probably in the last
i mean it really sort of the this move
of the spirit started in about 1976
when sandy came to be the curate and
yeah i mean it's good in a way because
we get a load of young people coming in
through alpha but also we've held on to
some of those people
a lot of them are planted we planted
church i think we had a call today
with our church plants we had 900
members of staff in all those church
plants across the uk
um who are now either youth workers or
clergy or whatever in those churches so
we've pushed out a lot of people
um but still there's some who've stayed
and they've got a bit older so the
average age has probably gone up a bit
but it's still it's still about a lot of
young people yeah
we will uh have a question about the
church planning
um uh a bit later in a couple of minutes
but
uh lots of people are also struggling
with this question
around generations we have this problem
in the netherlands it's a bit on general
some churches have some haven't but
those in their 20s to 40s
we we don't see them that much and we
are worried about that and
on the other hand we see that you are
able to reach
this generation and you have a vision
for this generation what do you think
we as the church in the netherlands or
global at least in the west
what do we have to offer to this
generation and
and what's what's the way we can step
forward
well everyone is looking for three
things
everyone is looking for purpose uh you
know
ultimately you will only find purpose in
a relationship with god through jesus
and i think that's what attracts young
people to alpha
they find the purpose of their lives
second thing everyone's looking for love
and young people are desperate for love
they're desperate to know that they're
loved
ozlem who's one of the was in our small
group the first time she's probably 27
years of age her only experience of
religion was in arabic
growing up but she came on alpha and
um on the weekend on the saturday she
was filled with the holy spirit
and she said she said the thing is i've
been searching for love
all my life but i've been looking in the
wrong places i've been looking in
impossible places
and then she experienced god's love the
message of alpha
is jesus loves you the son of god loved
me and gave himself for me
if you ever doubt god loves you look at
the cross
that's how we know god loves us but we
experience god's love through the holy
spirit
that's why the weekend is so important i
can't stress enough
praying that prayer i know it takes you
a bit of courage
come holy spirit and believe that the
holy spirit will come
why is that so important because paul's
some paul writes
the love of god that's god's love for
you is shed abroad
in your heart by the holy spirit who has
been given to you
and if you want people to know that
they're loved you we have to pray this
prayer come holy spirit that's how they
know that they're loved
third thing is people are looking for
belonging
looking to belong um and that's
young people are actually desperately
lonely
um and because even if they got loads of
friends on facebook
that's not real friendship usually it's
it's quite superficial
and you get a group of 12 people on a
on on an alpha course and they connect
and by the end they say i want to be
with these people we belong
so i would say the key is make sure you
appoint
young leaders the average age of our
leaders is 27
we always appoint young leaders and once
you start this virtuous cycle
alpha works best with young people
because
they are the friends generation they if
they come to faith they'll invite their
friends on the next course
so so yeah everybody's important but
but make sure all your leaders on the
vast majority of your leaders are young
people
and then they'll invite their friends
but you have to pitch it young
people say oh well you know we ought to
take into account if you pitch it
we pitch alpha at the 24 year old urban
male
1 uh because we think if you get the 24
urban
your 24 year old urban male you'll get
everybody else as well
so um but it's not that we don't love oh
of course we love the old people they're
they're
they're every human being is precious to
god
but the old people like to be around
young people
and so if if you pitch it at young
people you'll get everyone
if you try to pitch it at everyone you
won't get anyone so
pitch it young pitch the whole thing
young and you'll get everyone
so you say aim aim at that generation
but also you say they are looking for
love they're looking for purpose and
they're looking for belonging i think
there are some great lessons that we can
reflect on as churches as well in the
netherlands because
that's true one of one of the the
the the guys in my own small group of
alpha
um he is in the skull we will not
spotlight him but he once expressed in
in the small group and he knows that i
sometimes
use this as example he says you are you
guys are my best friends
and we i often saw him online
and i rarely maybe four times i saw him
um offline in a physical meeting and
we do feel this every thursday night we
meet that's why we are
we're all here with our small group
tonight because we are friends we became
friends
and there is this belonging there is
this love and
the sense of purpose that grew over the
years so i totally recognize what you
said and um
uh thank you for for that to to close
um you mentioned already
uh church planting is one of the
strategies of
the growth of the church and how h2b
is blessing the rest of the nation we've
received quite a lot of questions for
house churches people who want to be
present in the neighborhood
people want to be present in the street
as
with new initiatives some churches are
planting but they're also struggling
with this season
could you briefly express to us what
what have you learned
in this season around church planting
and uh
can you have can you give us maybe one
or two
things you've learned in this that we
could apply or
or maybe start thinking about by giving
away
the best people like you said we put
away hundreds of people
and that was sending them away on a
mission so what have you learned over
the over the last time
yeah well today i spoke to our um
uh team you know all our church plants
about
five um five accelerations
that are happening as a result of covid
uh there's an acceleration
that we ought to be seeing an
acceleration of love and except so love
your neighbor that's all of that the
social stuff
um the food all that stuff just massive
needs
even in rich countries like the uk or
the netherlands there are people who are
hungry
so that's an acceleration of love love
your name second thing
is an acceleration in the message of
jesus
so because of the digital revolution um
the third is an acceleration in a social
revolution
of jesus jesus brought about a social
revolution
of galatians 3 26
in christ there's neither male nor
female slave nor free
jew nor greek so that there's there is
a gen gender male and female
there's social class slave not free
and there is race racial equality
neither do you know greek
and what we're seeing is there are a lot
of people in the uk who've been trapped
underground
by intellectualism elitism and racism
so intellectualism thinks you know you
need to have you need to be clever in
order to be a church leader
or elitism you need to be from a certain
social background to be a church leader
racism you need to be white in order to
be a church leader
no there are a lot of people trapped
underground who are brilliant
and we are we have a peta stream we
started a theological college
um it's got over a thousand people have
been through it now
um uh but we have now a peta stream
for the people who've been trapped
underground by intellectualism
uh elitism and racism and they are
dynamic they're very diverse um very
ethnically diverse
and that's putting right something
that's been wrong in our church
our church has not been um diverse
and the church of england needs to be
diverse but there's a social revolution
that's being accelerated
um and then fourth there's
a revolution of uh the ministry of the
holy spirit
uh that we're just seeing uh in we i'm
sure you did as well we did bless
the uk blessing um four and four and a
half million people have watched that
um and then there's a revolution in
prayer
two chronicles seven fourteen if five
people will humble themselves the
context of the panda of a plague if my
people will humble themselves and pray
and seek my face
turn from their wicked ways then will i
hear from heaven and forgive their sins
and heal their land
and then a revolution in healing we're
seeing seeing more and more people being
healed online
as we pray for them there's there is
there's a revolution of the ministry of
the spirit
and then the fifth thing is a revolution
uh the fifth acceleration
so it's the the love of jesus the method
the message of jesus was the social
revolution of jesus
that the the um the ministry
the spirit of jesus the spirit of jesus
and then fifthly the church of jesus
and the church of jesus is growing
through ordination through that through
the
increasing number of people coming
forward for ordination
and through church planting and we've
seen an acceleration
in church planting because the
it works the planted churches grow
and they become the largest church in
the city um
or the town that they're planted into
and bishops therefore
you know we're we're in the church of
england so in addition to everything you
need in say
an independent church for church
planting we need three extra things
we need a bishop a building and a what
we would call a priest a you know
ordained person
um but more and more bishops are saying
please come
and more and more buildings are becoming
available so
it's it's and there's an acceleration we
planted eight churches last year we've
got at least another eight planned for
this year
um and then the church plants start to
plant their own
churches so you get sort of children and
then you get grandchildren you get a
multiplication
yeah so thank you and you were speaking
about
the ministry of the holy spirit the
prayer and uh
it would be such a blessing for us if
you would be able to pray
for the church in the netherlands to
invite the holy spirit and
to have a time of ministry prayer for us
which
would you please pray may i encourage
you if you'd like to receive
put out your hands that's the way to say
to god i'm open
and then lord that's our prayer tonight
i'm going to put you on gallery so i can
see you all
um i want to encourage you just to oh
the screen i've gone to everyone's got
their camera off can't see anyone
i have to go the one with way you have
to go to page one or two probably
i encourage you to receive uh we believe
that when we pray come holy spirit the
holy spirit comes
every time and even if you've got your
camera off
i encourage you just where you are in
your room
receive from god right now come
holy spirit
picture i have is is like
after a long dry season the rain
coming and i think some of you are
feeling
so tired so weary so dried up you feel
like you're in a desert or wilderness
and tonight the spirit of god is coming
the rain is coming
the reign of the holy spirit
to fill you to refresh you
those who wait on the lord will renew
their strength they will run
and not be weary they will walk and not
faint they'll rise on wings like eagles
i think some of you god is going to heal
you tonight
and we can't lay hands on each other
what you can if you're with somebody in
in your own house
but if you're not just lay hand on
whatever part of your body you want
healed
and i'm going to pray right now that god
will bring his healing it might be your
mind
might be got some mental health issue
lord i pray that you will pour
out your spirit and heal
bodies and minds
and thirsty spirits
what i sense is that god is giving
people a deep sense of peace
i think there's someone here who hasn't
been sleeping well and tonight
you're going to sleep really well
because you're being
filled now with a peace
even in the midst of all the sadness the
trauma
the distress
the troubles the fears god is giving you
his peace
when jesus appeared he said my peace
i give to you not as the world gives
the peace of god which passes
all understanding keep your
hearts and minds
in the knowledge and love of god
and of his son jesus christ our lord
and the blessing of god almighty the
father
the son the holy spirit be upon you
and remain with you always
amen amen
god bless you much love thank you nikki
thank you so much for being with us
we're spending this time thank you for
your time my goodness
much love to you god thank you nikki
that was nikki um doreen over to you
yes uh well maybe you think
okay that was it the evening is over
but no that's not the case um
i hope you feel inspired that maybe some
things nikki said really
hooked with you um or made you think
about your church
inspired you for with a new vision or a
new hope for your church
um the thing is i said it earlier
this evening inspiration needs landing
ground
so we're hopefully all inspired
but if we don't do anything with this
inspiration
uh it will probably just fade away in a
few days
so we have three ways to encourage you
to stay inspired and to
put those inspirational thoughts into
practice as well
the first one is i want to invite you
all to join
us with the leadership conference this
is a global event
normally it takes place in the royal
albert hall in london
it's an event with leaders from all over
the world gathering and
being inspired in their leadership my
colleague is sharing the link in the
chat right now
and i really warmly recommend
you to join the leadership conference
it's
an eve the evening of the 4th of may
or early afternoon may 5th
and you can choose which time suits your
agenda best
if you click on the link you will be
able to go to the
registration page and you'll be able to
register
somewhere this month so it's kind of a
surprise when you
you'll be able to register but it's
warmly recommended
the second uh way to help you get those
inspiration
get the inspiration into practice is
especially for the church leaders among
you all is to invite you to
plan a meeting with one of our church
relationship managers
we really as alpha we're passionate
about the church
we really want to serve church we want
you to
um we want to help you and um
if you feel that some things tonight
inspired you and you want to bounce off
some ideas or you want to
share some thoughts or get some input
from us
feel free um you can let us know in the
evaluation form that we'll share later
on this evening
so you'll be able to let us know that
you want to be contacted for a meeting
with one of our church relationship
managers
but that's all in the later we also need
to think about
getting our inspiration into practice
right now
so i hope you will all just
get on a bit more active take on a bit
more active mode
because we'll go out into breakout rooms
and i've said it earlier this evening
the breakout rooms if you don't know
what they are i'll explain
my colleague will put us all into groups
and um in a few moments there will be a
how do you say this a small sign in your
screen
and you can just click on join the
computer will take a few moments and
then
you are assigned a group of
six maybe eight people and you can share
your thoughts about this evening
not random thoughts we have three
questions for you to help you
um get a bit more um how do you say this
inspiration into practice i think my
colleague is going to share this
these three questions because before we
go out into breakout rooms i really want
to encourage you to
take a short moment and to think about
these questions for yourself
so ask yourself what inspired you the
most
about this story and how can you use
this inspiration to
further invest in your church
and you're not alone so who else can you
involve in this
maybe you're a church leader of a
smaller church
i know nikki's story is can be quite
intimidating it's a large church with
all these facilities and money and
people
um but how can you translate what what
he shared
to your own context
what inspired you the most and how can
you use this inspiration to
further invest in your church
just write your answers down and discuss
the questions
in your breakout rooms and we'll all get
invited for the breakout rooms
right now um i really want to encourage
you to just stay
and talk it over with uh with other
people because that's the way
inspiration really sits with you and not
fades away
so we'll have 15 minutes for our
discussion in breakout rooms
here we're back
we i almost turned uh and turned back to
dutch
so i hope you had a good conversation in
your breakup room
i hope you inspire each other as well i
know it works
in in the group i was in it worked it
really worked
like that and i'm encouraged to hear
stories of others
and i hope you feel the same
um i would like to
take a short moment to pray together for
the
the plans the thoughts the idea that
were shared
father thank you so much for the
inspiration
um for your guidance also
in in the
breakout rooms i really feel that you
let people to get together um
i want to thank you for nikki and for
everything
he does and i want to pray for
the thoughts and plans in our hearts and
mind
let everything that is your will stick
in our minds and hearts and let
everything that is just
um not good enough just
fade into the background but really
highlight everything that is yours and
help us to
get moving to not just be inspired but
to get moving
in jesus name amen

i would love to start off um tonight

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clergy::noun | Spocien Dictionary

clergy

noun

/'klɜrdʒi/

in Christianity, clergymen collectively (as distinguished from the laity)

Type	Words
Type of	priesthood
Has types	pastorate, prelacy, prelature
Derivation	clerical

How to pronounce clergy in Dutch?

clergy::noun | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

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