The Hellands in Holland

2012-01-13T09:09:00.002+01:00

Breakthrough
There’s a beacon in the night
True salvation, real change in sight
No more fear, torment, no more pain
But to know in your arms we are safe.

Take our wounds and make them scars
Take our scars and make them stars
Healing stars which shine so bright
To turn our darkness into light.

Chorus
Break through, Break through the night.
Break through there is hope in sight.
Break through call us by name
Together we will make a change.

Break through, break chains in lives.
Break through destroy all lies
Break through help us see
Together we’ll reach our destiny

Verse 2
Break through clouds of tragedy
Break through shrouds of unbelief
You give us keys to liberty
Unlock chains, set captives free

Break through with your light, oh Lord
We want blue skies not clouds today
Use your word, your sword of light
To chase the dark storm clouds away
© Matthew Helland 2010

2011-03-17T16:17:00.001+01:00

You Are A Father Who Gives Good Gifts
I’m asking, I’m seeking, I’m knocking at your door.
I’m stretching, I’m reaching, I’m calling out for more
Drench me, fill me, soak me with your love.
Come down Holy Spirit, descend now as a dove.

Chorus
You are a father who gives good gifts
A snake you won’t give instead of a fish
A stone you won’t give instead of a bread
Or a scorpion instead of a hard boiled egg

Verse 2
In the wind of your spirit, I want to soar
I receive everything you have for me in store
The sound of your voice I choose not to ignore
Rain down Holy Spirit, I long for a downpour

Second Chorus
Pour out your spirit upon our lives
May our sons and daughters prophesy
Open our eyes to new visions and sights Reveal your dreams for this time

Bridge
Revelation brings Inspiration
Inspiration brings Intercession
Intercession brings transformation
Transformation brings New Life
©Matthew Helland 2011 Luke 11:9-13; Acts 2:17-18.

2010-10-30T14:35:00.002+02:00

Oordeel en lijden...twee belangrijke maar niet populair onderwerpen.

2010-10-17T10:38:00.002+02:00

2010-09-30T09:53:00.002+02:00

For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall. Psalm 18:29

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11:9-10

BREAKOUT: The ability to go over walls of opposition into realms of the supernatural. -Dale Gentry

PLACING A DEMAND ON THE ANOINTING-It means pressing forward despite obstacles to get to a place where the anointing is and expecting it to fall on you. -John Eckhardt

We can have as much of God as we want to. Sometimes I relate this with the illustration of a bucket being filled with God's presence and we can pull on a rope and get as much as we want. Often we are guilty of just getting a little and saying, "that is enough." Yet, we can have as much of God as we want. This is why I am constantly placing a demand on God's presence. Everywhere I go, I want to see him move in people's lives. This demand has placed such a hunger in me, that I have seen this breakout principle at work. At times I have declared that someone is going to get healed of a certain pain or sickness or that the glory of God is going to fall...and it happens. I believe it when I say it because I feel that that is what God is saying and the people present believe it or are amazed when a healing or a word from God comes that is right on.

Let us continue to ask, seek, and knock on God's door asking for breakthrough in our lives, families, cities, churches, and nations. Let us pray until we are satisfied, but let us not be easily or too quickly satisfied. Remember that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled (Matthew 5:6).

2010-09-29T16:12:00.003+02:00

KID'S CLUB TODAY
Today our lesson was about "anger not producing anything good." We spoke about the Molukse people who came to Holland around 60 years ago and suffered much injustice at the hands of the Dutch. However, some Indonesian young people reacted in anger and committed some acts of violence. One of them was Tom Polnaya (link is in dutch). This man as a teenager took part in taking a school over and holding hundreds of kids and schoolteachers hostage in 1977. Since then he has apologized for his actions and is totally against his actions that he took part in then. We used his story of an example how "two wrongs don't make a right" and that acting our of uncontrolled anger always creates victims. Whether that be others or even the person self.

In the middle of the kid's club, one child raised his hand and said he saw a shooting yesterday where a man was shot and killed. Half of the kids were witnesses to that. I feel suddenly that I am in New York City and not in Amsterdam West. Our city needs peace and hopefully these children can bring peace to our city as they continue to grow up.

2010-09-29T16:05:00.003+02:00

MINISTRY AT THE HAGUE (DEN HAAG)& MORE
Last sunday I felt (as always) very much at home at Ronald v/d Molen's church. (www.huizenvanlicht.nl) He had asked me to preach on one of the miracles from John 5 where a paralyzed man is healed by Jesus. I started off my preaching by asking if anyone had pain in their left ankle. Sure enough there was a woman who the previous day could not walk because of the pain there. She normally does not attends Ronald's church, but was there sunday. Sure enough, after praying for her, all pain was gone. What a great gift from God to that woman.

Also, last week doing grocery shopping at Albert Hein I ran into a mother of one of the kids's who comes to our kid's club. She told me that she had back pain. I prayed for here then and there and all pain left. It was great getting to watch here carry her groceries without any pain. God is good. :-)

2010-09-23T09:59:00.002+02:00

We believe that God wants us to make His love tangible everywhere we go. That does not mean just in Holland, but everywhere. We discovered that this summer as we travelled all throughout Oklahoma. God’s presence is not limited to a church building on Sunday, but we carry his presence everywhere that we go. Where God is present then people’s lives are changed as he speaks to them and heals their hearts, minds, and bodies. Here are some accounts of different things we have experienced in the last months.
A woman we met at a restaurant that we prayed for was healed instantly of arthritis. God touches her and her daughter who attend a church which says God does not heal today. A woman at the grocery store has no more pain in her back after we pray for her. She carries her grocery bag without anymore pain.
While chatting on Facebook, Matt asks a friend if he has pain in his right foot. He does, and after praying, God takes away all pain from his foot. A worker at Subway shares his life story after sharing with him what we felt God was saying to him while he makes Matt’s sandwich. We pray over him and feel God’s presence in a very real way, not at church, but at a Subway sandwich store.
After preaching from Luke 10:9, “Heal the sick who are there and tell them the kingdom of God is near you,’” all but one Southwestern Christian University student who came forward for healing said that his pain was gone immediately. At one church service where the entire high school football team is present, a young man is picked out and Matt tells him God has called him to be a leader and that Christ is inviting him to follow him closely. After church, we found out he is the quarterback of the football team (something we did not know) and that after giving that word, that young man came out of his shell as a quarterback and a leader.
Femke organizes a women’s retreat with ladies from different churches and cities in Holland and Europe. God speaks clearly to and through women concerning his plan and destiny for their lives. This brings not just refreshing but God’s life into situations. Plans are being made for such events in other cities and places of North West Europe.
In one church three people with a deaf ear are healed instantly. Amazingly, a fourth person is healed who was not physically present. Five minutes after praying for him, his aunt received an text message saying that he suddenly could hear perfectly. Her nephew had no way of knowing we had just prayed for him.
A woman at another church after responding to a word of knowledge stood up to say that God could not heal her ankle because it had rods and pins in it. After praying for it, all pain was gone. Ankles, knees, deaf ears, backs, necks, wrists, etc. all kinds of healings have been taking place in the last few months. One woman after a church service came and said, “I want to thank you not only for praying for my healing, but more importantly because of your message and because of what happened today: My daughter’s faith in God is restored!”
We have learned that every believer in Jesus can naturally move in the supernatural. Andrew Balla, a young missionary kid from India to Bangladesh who now studies at Oral Roberts University after travelling with Matt began prophesying and praying for the sick. Not just Andrew, but other friends of his also started moving in the prophetic and seeing healings take place. Matt told them that they had the same Holy Spirit that he did and they could do the same things. They believed it and it happened.
We need to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit because there are millions of people who don’t know Jesus and don’t care what the Bible says. Most people in Western Europe don’t believe in God or if they do, quite often are of other faiths. Yet, when Jesus heals them or someone reveals the secret of their heart they say, “God is really among you”(1 Cor. 14:25).
The power of God is available for us in order to help people come to know Christ. This can come through practical acts of service such as cleaning up the neighbourhood or feeding the hungry but also through someone getting healed, having a dream or a word from God.
As we “make God’s love tangible in Amsterdam and beyond” we want to thank you for joining us through your prayers and financial support and also encourage you to believe that God is going to use you wherever you are at to bring his love, word, and healing power wherever you go. Once again, thank you for partnering with us in making God’s love tangible in Amsterdam and beyond.

Sincerely,
Matthew, Femke, Judah, Hannah, and Levi Helland

2010-09-15T04:28:00.002+02:00

BACK IN THE NETHERLANDS
It is four thiry am and I have been WIDE AWAKE for the last few hours. I still can not get over all the stuff that happened in my last week in the US. On thursday I got to speak at the student body at southwestern christian university. There I preached on Luke 10 and when I got to verse 9, "Heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God is here," around a dozen students came forward for healing. All of them said that there pain was gone immediately except for one guy. I had some friends with me and we stayed an extra hour after chapel just praying for healing and ministering to students.

On tuesday through thursday in Madill, we had an incredible "School of Prophets". There we also saw a bunch of healings, prophesied, but more importantly so many people at that church now prophesy themselves. This climaxed saturday in a full day of prayer and fasting where the presence of God showed up in a mighty way. The sunday services just continued on from there. Lots of healings and prophetic ministry. Sunday night in a church in OKC, we saw a lot of healings, people giving their lives to Christ, and people being filled with the spirit. What a way to end my time in the states. Now it is 4:30 am and I got Jet Lag. Going to try to go to sleep now. Still, it has been exciting and I do look forward to what God is doing in Holland.

2010-09-06T18:08:00.005+02:00

LAST WEEK IN THE USA
This week is going to be intense. Tuesday through thursday I will be leading a School of Prophets in Madill, OK. This is where we teach on hearing God's voice and help people to learn how to move in the gifts of the spirit, especially with prophecy (1 Cor. 14:1).

Thursday morning they are having a missions chapel at Southwestern Christian University where I get to be the guest speaker. Then on Saturday, again in Madill, we are going to have a day (10 am-5pm) of prayer and fasting. That is going to be an awesome day of seeking God's presence, power, and voice for our lives, families, churches, and cities.

Sunday I get to speak in a church in Broken Arrow, a hispanic church in Purcell, OK, and one in OKC. Then monday I get to climb onto a plane and come home to my sweet wife and children. Only 8 more nights of sleeping and I will be home to Amsterdam....but there are just a few things to do in between then and now...:-)

2010-09-06T17:48:00.003+02:00

Ministry at Evangelistic Temple
Yesterday I had the honor and priviledge at preaching 2 services in English and one in spanish at the church I grew up in in Tulsa. All three services had healings take place. After the second service a woman came up to me and thanked me for praying for her healing but most importantly thanked me because she said her daughter's trust in God was restored.

In the spanish service there were a whole lot of healings from back, knees, arms, etc. Nearly everyone we prayed for in the spanish service was healed. I shared from Acts 16 and Matthew 10 about being a missionary (apostolic) church. When I got to Luke 11:9 which says, "Heal the sick and tell them, 'The Kingdom of God has come unto you.,'" I started praying for the sick and they started getting healed.

What I also really enjoy is not just that this is my home church, but that I have a team of 1st year students from ORU who are traveling with me and they are praying for the sick and seeing them healed and they are prophesying and people are being touched. I am having a really great time.

2010-08-31T05:49:00.005+02:00

SPEAKING PROPHETICALLY Although the word prophecy conjures up a weird man with a big stick that is foretelling the future, the new testament picture of prophecy is very different. Essentially it is hearing God's voice and then sharing what you feel God is saying to someone else. 1 Cor. 14:1 says that we should desire spiritual gift ESPECIALLY that we should prophesy.

This year I have by faith started speaking out what I felt God saying to people: prophesying. Some awesome things have happened. Yesterday for example, in Wewoka, OK, the entire football team was present at a church service. Without knowing it, I picked out the quarterback and told him that God had called him to lead and that others look to him for leadership.

The Bible clearly says that prophecy should always be for people's edification, exhortation and comfort. Obviously a prophetic word should never contradict scripture...if it does then it is not from God.

At every meeting, I share words that I feel God is giving to people. The end result is that people are encouraged and their faith level goes up. I love to declare the word of the Lord over people. Humbly and with great care, but also full of faith that God will fill my mouth as I speak to people.

2010-08-29T05:42:00.003+02:00

HEALINGS, HEALINGS, AND MORE HEALINGS.
Last week, I started giving words of knowlegde for healing for people. The first time I did it was on a television program. That night, I preached in a church in Blanchard where someone's back and something else was healed. (I'm forgetting already).

Then saturday I started the day by giving a word of knowledge to someone on facebook and his right foot was healed after I called him and prayed for him. That night in Ponca City, God healed a woman's wrist and leg.

Sunday morning in Ada, Ok was AWESOME!! A couple people with back problems were healed. When I said that someone with a injured right ankle/foot would be healed...a woman stood up and said that it was impossible for here to be healed because she had a metal rod and pins in her ankle. All pain left after we prayed for her. A woman with carpal tunnel syndrome was healed. I prayed for a man with head aches for healings...and then later that night there were more healings at Oil Center where again, wrists, knees, bones spurs, shoulders and other things were healed. Mostly they were immediately healed after I prayed for them, but somethimes it would take 2 or 3 times of prayer.

Last wednesday, 3 or 4 people with a deaf ear were healed. Amazingly, someone who was not present but who we prayed for was healed. His mother sms'ed a message 5 minutes after we prayed for him and said that he was at the doctor's office and that suddenly his hearing was perfect. They did not know that we had just prayed for him.

This morning it was the same. I spoke at a youth rally in OKC of hispanic kids and a couple kid's knees were healed, a man's hand was healed and a guys elbow was healed of pain. Then this evening in claremore, I prayed for shoulders. 3 or 4 men were instantly healed. There was one guy who seemed to still have some pain. The cool thing is that I have a friend of mine (Andrew Balla) coming with me and he is now starting to pray for the sick and believing that he too can hear God's voice. Tommorrow we go to a couple of other churches and we expect to see more people touched through God's healing hand. God healed me as a child of cerebral palsey, and now I am excited to see God use my life to bring his healing power into other people's lives. I humbly thank God that I get to see this taking place.

2010-08-21T15:34:00.005+02:00

The Value of Hearing from God
A dermatologist friend of mine, Steven A. Smith, here in Tulsa shared a story with me about how hearing God has changed his life and business. Many years ago, in prayer, his wife heard the two words "Bromide and Nickel". To make a long story short, these were the elements he used to develop a new medicine for psoriasis and acne. Now, Loma Lux is sold in pharmacies all over the world as a teatment for psoriasis. http://www.lomalux.com/dermatologist-steven-a-smith-loma-lux-story

Amos Landers was layed off a long time ago from his job. He asked God what to do and he heard "Wash Windows." He now has a business which washes many of the large high rises in Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Stillwater, etc. You can see a video where he tells about it at http://www.landerswc.com/ This man is my friend and a great blessing to my life here in Oklahoma.

Then there is George Washington Carver. This man revolutionized the agricultural world through his scientific breakthroughs. He discovered over 100 products derived from a peanut. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver) Part of the way he did his research was together with God. He would fast and pray and ask God to show him all the different reasons that he had made the peanut. His legacy as a scientist and a follower of Jesus are amazing.

This year I have experienced God speaking to me in amazing ways. Five minutes ago I was chatting with a friend on facebook when I suddenly asked him if he had pain in his right foot. (He is in a city 3 hours from me and I did not know he had pain in his right foot). He answered, Wow, yes I do. I called him up and prayed for him. All the pain is gone.

Hearing God's voice not only helps us be better fathers, husbands, workers, etc...but it enables us to bring the reality of God's kingdom (His love, voice, and power to heal) into individuals lives. Just this week I have begun giving what the bible would call words of knowledge to people and every time...people have been healed. God is soooo awesome. When I have sensed something, I have stepped out and said something (this takes courage) and God has moved. Hearing God's voice does not just bring value to our lives and society, but it is also a whole lot of fun. Something anyone can do who has a personal relationship with God through Jesus.

2010-02-26T15:17:00.002+01:00

New Video

Please click on the following link to see our latest video "Making God's Love Tangible in Amsterdam West.

It is a large file, so it may take a little to get started. ENJOY!

2010-02-07T20:47:00.003+01:00

This week we had a fantastic week! Wednesday we had 50+ kids and mothers (We have been growing each week and the room is already too small where we are sitting). Someone had given us a large amount of marshmellows. Therefore we were going to give them out to the kids and play some games where the kids were going to eat marshmellows. Problem was, muslim kids are not allowed to eat marshmellows (gelatin may have pieces of lard). Only one girl was not muslim, so we could not have the boys play against the girls because of it.

I love living in Amsterdam West where we have such a diversity of cultures present. Our lesson wednesday was about Justice. We told the story of Jews being discriminated in WWII (Anne Frank Story and Corrie ten Boom) and then we told of the discrimination of South Africa's Apartheid and the USA's Jim Crowe's laws. Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks were stories we shared about people who stood for justice with non-violence.

As we concluded, we challenged the kids to not talk badly about other cultures and people groups. There we have Dutch kids, Morrocans, Turkish, Surinamese, Africans, etc. We told them not to label other people groups (those morrocans or Dutch, christians or muslims, etc...) and not to let other people talk bad about people like that as well. We hear these kind of generalizations all the time. The challenge was to reach out to people different that yourself and to see how much we can learn by befriending children and people of different cultures/backgrounds.

The next day I ate a meal at a Morrocan neighborhood center. I was one of the few white people present and we ate a bunch of sea food with our hands. Our morrocan friends mostly do not use silverware and they are really big on relationships. These were just a few of our highpoints of the week.

2010-02-07T20:33:00.002+01:00

Neil Cole's book Organic Church years ago majorly influenced the way that I do ministry. Joseph Myers book Organic Community gives some more helpful how to's behind the entire concept of being organic and "creating a place where people naturally connect." Here are some of his ideas:
1) "Move from a master plan to an organic order." Not everything has to be planned and detailed ahead of time. There is an order which already exists even among what may seem like chaos. Our job is then to discover it and work with it.
2) Patterns: "There is no oneway or pattern that leads to success in ministry. there are different models that work in different circumstances.
3) Measurement- Numbers don't tell full story, stories help to make a better picture of what is taking place.
4) Resources are in the harvest
5) Enjoy the process of building community. These are just a few of a bunch of other's idea I plucked from Myers'book.

2010-01-28T23:25:00.002+01:00

The Fulton Street Revival: A Revival Birthed Out of A Prayer Meeting (Click on title to read full article on this prayer meeting.

IFulton Street revival that lasted from 1857-1859. In those 3 years every single church in New York City grew by over 50%, 1/3 of Ireland (100,000/300,000) came to Christ, and more than a a half million people came to Christ in the US during those 3 years.

Tim Keller in a sermon regarding this revival speaks about the one element that is found in every single revival/awakening in the OT, NT, and throughout Church History. He describes that as "Kingdom Centered Prayer" or "Frontline Prayer." It is Corporate, Intensive, Prevailing (doesn't stop), Kingdom centered prayer.

Three elements he describes are 1) Request for the grace to confess and repent from sins. (This triggers more of God's presence and it is repentence born out of the joy and assurance of God's Love. 2) Compassion and zeal for flourishing of the church. That mechanical worship of God is replaced by a 2 way relationship. 3) Yearning to know God and see his face and his glory.

2010-01-28T22:54:00.002+01:00

Karen’s Story“Ever since I met you guys, my life has changed so much. Six months ago, I was full of doubt and did not know what I believed about God or if I would ever go to a church again. Now I find myself talking to God all day long and thoroughly enjoy being inspired every week when we get together.”
Karen had grown up going to church, but around seven years ago quit. She stopped going because the view she received of God was not one of love. Her upbringing was very legalistic and she felt looked down upon if she did not believe like everyone else around her. People who did not belong to there group or were from different religions were seen as enemies, particularly Muslims. Karen was very confused about God, the church, and her own self-worth. Disappointed, she stopped going to church full of doubt and insecurity not wanting to have anything to do with the kind of religious and unloving God presented to her.
Karen first came in contact with a member of our church at an Iftar meal, a dinner during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, hosted by Muslims. That lady told her openly and excitingly about her church (New Life West). She was surprised to find Christians who did not fear Muslims, but who shared with them and called them their friends. Still it took her six months to actually visit our church for the first time. Since then, God has been doing a radical change in her view of herself, of the church and of God. She has experienced Christ’s unconditional love and grace in her life which motivates her to not fear or doubt about God, but grow in an intimate and personal relationship with him.

Baby Dedications
Another milestone for our church this year was of dedicating our son Levi along with two other babies. That day was a celebration of not only their lives, but also a celebration of our church. On that day, the large school room we use for monthly celebrations was filled with family members, friends, and neighbors who came to witness this memorable day. One person commented, “I have been praying for years for a church in our community in which I would feel comfortable bringing my neighbors and friends who don’t know Christ yet. Now that prayer is being answered.”

A Great ‘Problem’
This last year, we had a problem in that our house was too full with people coming to our church on Sunday. However, we decided that instead of renting a building every Sunday for a service, we would take our one church and multiply it into three. This multiplication has been great and brought us into contact with new people in a very personal setting, a home. Perhaps what makes this most special is to see the people who are a part of our church. We love to sit in a home full of individuals like Karen, who have come to know Christ in the last six month to two years through our church. These people are individuals whom we have poured our lives into and now are overjoyed to hear them express their love for Christ. They are in one sense our spiritual children and we believe that their faith in Christ will cause more people to come to know Christ’s and his unconditional love.

We want to thank you for being a part of our ministry and lives here in Amsterdam. It is your generous support and prayers which keep us here sharing God’s unconditional love to the people around us. Thank you very much and God bless.

Matthew, Femke, Judah, Hannah, and Levi Helland

2010-01-28T22:30:00.002+01:00

Apostolic/Prophetic Day of Prayer and Fasting

"You are to be a strategic, informed intercessors who know the nations...from this time forth, according to the word of the Lord, you are to be a people who go to and from in the earth with nations in your heart...you are a doorway to the nations." (Prophetic word posted on www.iphc.org about 5 years ago).

A friend of mine who is a church planter in The Hague, Holland told me a story once about a team of intercessors who came and visited him many years ago. This team went to six different locations of his city and started praying over those places. As they prayed for each one of those locations, they started praying things regarding the history of each location that they had no way of knowing. My friend, Ronald van de Molen, had studied those areas and knew what they were stating was true. He was amazed at the preciseness of what they prayed, yet what seemed to amaze him even more was that a couple years later, in each one of those 6 places in the city, a new church sprung up. It was as if their prayers were making the way for a new congregation to be started in that area.
My home country,The Netherlands (Holland) is a nation with a rich Christian heritage which like most of Western Europe has been labeled as secular and post-Christian. This can be evidenced in Amsterdam, where large churches and monuments testify to that heritage, yet less than 3% of the population goes to a church on Sundays. The influence of immigration has caused that the major religion in Amsterdam is Islam, and not Christianity. It is almost as if the effects of secularization have stopped up the historic wells of Christian faith to where now very few people have a chance to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In Genesis 26:18 we read a story which describes a similar scenario. “Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.”
This is a great picture of what I believe we are to do concerning the Christian heritage of The Netherlands and throughout Europe. We are to unstop the ancient wells which gave refreshment and life to so many by revisiting the core of the message of Jesus Christ and making it relevant and tangible to our generation. This is not an easy task, yet it is one that begins with prayer.
Three years ago, we hosted the first IPHC day of prayer and fasting for the Northwest region of Europe in Amsterdam. That weekend Todd Presley, a missionary from Wales, spent 3 days praying and fasting in a home near our house. The first person that we baptized just happened to be someone who lives in the next building across to the building where he stayed for those days. It could be just a coincidence, but I believe that God somehow used those prayers at that location to bring this woman in contact with us, but more importantly with Himself.
Since that first day, we have had days of prayer and fasting in Brussels, London, Paris, and London. The idea is that every 6 months we will meet in a major city of Western Europe in order to be a part of praying that God’s “Kingdom come and his will be done in that city and nation.” This is why we describe these days as Apostolic as we believe that we are following the footsteps of the first disciples in going to new places and praying over them in order to activate and accelerate God’s work in that area.
The reason that we call these days prophetic, is because when we intentionally set aside days for seeking God and speaking to him we can expect him to speak back. This is at the core of the prophetic, to hear God’s voice individually, for others, for our churches and even for our cities and nations. This was evidenced in our last meeting in Wales, United Kingdom, where the leaders of that church felt like God had given them a lot of clarity and direction during this day of prayer and fasting. For myself, I can also say that during these different days, I have been highly encouraged by the prophetic words that have been prayed over me and even that I have prayed over other individuals. This is something that we can expect as we set aside time to seek God.
However, these days are not made to simply be an event, but to serve as catalysts to ignite the individual prayer lives of believers. Praying is not something necessarily easy. Most of us talk more about prayer than that we actually do it. This is why at these days practical tools and models are taught to help people learn how to pray.
The best way however to learn to pray is by doing it. Therefore the goal is not to just talk about prayer, but actually doing it by having not just corporate prayer, but also learning models such as the Lord’s prayer, the tabernacle, or prayer stations. At prayer stations individuals have access to tools such as: paper shredders to shred confessed sin as a symbol of forgiveness for sins; maps for nations and regions; lists of leaders and missionaries; a paper prayer wall where prayers can be written; and chairs where they can receive special prayer. These are just a few examples of tools that can be used for helping people pray. The idea is that everyone can actively and personally take part in prayer and not that they sit passively listening to other people pray away.
Our vision is to see these days of prayer spread throughout the world so that eventually we will be having days of prayer and fasting simultaneously around the whole world. Then we can even use technology and link up via internet with one another and share our praises and our prayer needs with one another.
This March, I will be having the opportunity to spend time in Oklahoma. My desire is on March 6th to help facilitate one of these days at the campus of Southwestern Christian University in the Oklahoma City Area and then another one at Evangelistic Temple on March 20th in the Tulsa area. We would love to invite people from these areas to come together for what will be a special day of learning more about prayer by praying. We believe that these will be days which will not only impact individuals prayer lives, but that will also cause things to happen in those areas as we pray God’s kingdom from heaven to earth.

2010-01-12T14:26:00.002+01:00

31 Years Ago Today>
Today is my birthday, and every year when I am home I get to hear the dramatic story of my birth retold by my mother. I was born in Chile, South America. The doctors had said I was dying and need to be pulled out immediately. The only hospital in the city that had an incubator was the military hospital. Therefore, they snuck my mom through the back door of the hospital. Once in, the doctor gave my mother anesthesia so she wouldn't feel the cuts. Unfortunately, they gave her too much. After pulling me out of my mother's womb, my mother stopped breathing. They got her breathing again, but instead of watching her, they left her in the hall way all alone.

My mother is a nurse and knew that it was very likely that she would stop breathing again. The only nurse who came by told her that her baby boy was going to die. As she lay there, all she could do was begin to pray Psalm 23 where it says, "Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me."

She recalls the feeling of a dark cloud coming down upon her of which she could only describe as a darkness of fear and death. She was fighting for her own life and the life of her baby (me). As she prayed, she asked God to have other people praying for her at that moment because she felt she could not make it on her own.

Six months later, a friend of hers who lived in Alaska (remember we were in Chile) told my mom that on Jan. 12 she was woken up with a sudden urge to pray for me and my mother. She had no idea what was going on, but somehow, this woman was made aware that we needed prayer.

The story continues...After being brought home, my parents had an incredibly sick child. Not everything was right. The doctors later diagnosed me with cerebral palsey and let them know that I probably would never walk or talk. Cerebral Palsey is incurable and the doctors prepared my parents for what life would look like taking care of a child with CP. Every day my parents did exercises with my little limbs.

My parents then and always loved me and knew that they were going to care for me no matter what, yet they believed in the power of prayer and that God still does miracles today.

One of the people who was praying was my Aunt Candy in California. She had a weekly women's prayer meeting that got together every thursday and spent time praying together. They did what the Apostle Paul did in the Bible (Acts 19:11-12) and sent a prayer cloth (actually a tissue) to my mother in Chile. My mother sewed that cloth onto my pijamas and one month later all effects of cerebral palsey were totally gone from my little body.

When we returned to Chile, doctors could not tell that I was ever afflicted with the sickness. It was a miracle, or can I dare to say,"I am a miracle!!

I am so grateful to God for my life and my healing. I am so grateful to my parents and to all our famiily and friends who continue to love me and pray for me. I have served now 4 years in Amsterdam, Holland as a missionary and I can not tell you how important prayer has been and continues to be. Without it, I would not be where I am now and literally would not be able to do what I am doing now. So today on my 31st birthday, I want to say thanks to God my heavenly father, my loving parents and family (thanks Aunt Candy) and to all our friends who even to this day pray for me and my family here in Amsterdam, Holland.

2010-01-05T13:24:00.005+01:00

A Simple Way to Study the Bible"."
(from Halter and Smay, The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Kingdom. Jossey Bassey; San Francisco, 2008", pg. 167.
Stretch out your right hand as far as you can. Next measure the distance between your thumb and pinky. Read that much scripture only. Preferably a contained story or idea. Like the second chapter of James, or a parable or a psalm like chapter 23. After you read the scripture, ask these five questions and let people answer as they feel led:
1) What did you like about what we just read?
2) What didn't you like?
3) Was there anything you did not understand?
4) What did you learn about God?
5) Regardless of where your faith is at now, if you wer to apply what we learned about God to something in your life this week, what would that look like?

Preaching or doing a complicated Bible Study can be really hard for people to do themselves. However, if people simply read the bible and then discuss the passage using questions such as the one above, then studying the Bible becomes much easier for everybody. People remember things they have discussed easier than things they have heard and it is generally more enjoyable to talk and interact about a subject than only to listen to a subject.

2009-08-10T11:40:00.002+02:00

Two men were given the task to provide water for two small villages. There was a river that was not too far from the villages from which they were to get that water. The first man began immediately to fill up his two buckets with water and to carry them back and forth from the river to his village. He worked very hard and diligently and did not let anyone else help him carry the water because the people were not yet "ready". (He was actually insecure and needed to be needed.)

The second man did not carry a single bucket. Instead he began making drawings and talking to other people who lived in the village and even in villages far, far away. The first man saw him sitting behind a desk writing and could not understand how he could be so lazy, pushing a pencil while he was working for his village. The second man went away and came back with pipes. With the help of the villagers he placed the tubes and pipes in places where the villagers could get the water themselves. He even taught them how to use a faucet so that they could get water as soon as they wanted. This second man was done with that village and was able to go on to a new village to do the same, while the first man had created a village that was dependent on him to get their water. He could never go on to another village, because the first one needed him.

This is a parable of being a missionary. We are sent to a place to help people drink living water (Jesus). We are there to make them dependent on Jesus and never on us. People can learn to hear the Holy Spirit and study scriptures for themselves. When we free people to know Christ themselves then that frees us to go on to new "villages"and for them to do the same with their friends and families.

Therefore, this is our challenge: to teach Christians to not be consumeristic, dependent believers who are waiting on "professionals" to feed them. Instead, that they can know God and make him known. That they can be disciples who make disciples.

2009-05-24T09:59:00.000+02:00

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true friends; succeed anyway.
What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight; build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.
Give the world your best anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway. -Mother Theresa

2009-04-10T11:52:00.003+02:00

24 De wijsheid van de schriftgeleerde hangt af van de gelegenheid tot studie,
en iemand die geen zware arbeid te verrichten heeft, krijgt de kans om wijs te worden.
(Jezus Sirach 28:24)

2009-03-03T12:37:00.001+01:00

"Your nature is a hard thing to change; it takes time. One of the extraordinary transferences that happen in your spiritual life is not that your character flaws go away, but they start to work for you. A negative becomes a positive: you've a big mouth: you end up a singer. You're insecure; you end up a performer who needs applause. I have heard of people having life changing, miraculous turn-arounds, people set free from addiction after a single prayer, relationships saved where both parties, 'let go, and let God." But it was not like that for me. For all that 'I was lost, I am found', it is probably more accurate to say, 'I was really lost, I'm a little less so at the moment.' And then a little less and a little less again.. That to me is the spiritual life. The slow reworking and rebooting of a computer at regular intervals, reading the small print of the service manual. It has slowly rebuilt me in a better image. It has taken years though, and it is not over yet." --Bono (U2 by U2)

2008-12-23T23:21:00.005+01:00

Testimony of a New Life

“Hello, my name is Peggy. I am a single mother of three who wants to tell what God has done in my life. For a long time, I have had an on and off relationship with God. I would decide to follow him, but then disappointment would quickly set in and I would reject Him because ‘if He loves me, then why does He let this happen to me?’.

I found that I was repeatedly let down by people and running to beer as a source of comfort. It would give me only temporary relief. After drinking too much I would find myself again empty and in the need of something more. I decided that I wanted to give God another chance.

It was then that I got a flyer in my mailbox from this church. I really liked its name, New Life, because that is exactly what I wanted, a new life. Since coming here I have connected with God in a very real way. Now I have found a new peace and joy which I did not know before. I know that I can trust in Jesus and am so thankful to Him that He has given me a new life and a new community of friends.”

Healing Testimonies

A few months ago, I met a man in the park who started telling me about his struggle against cancer. For four years he had been facing an aggressive form of cancer in his bladder which required an invasive surgery every few months to take out the tumors. One day he told me that in two days he had to go back to the hospital again for surgery. I shared with him my testimony of how God healed me of Cerebral Palsey as a child and asked him if I could pray for him. He agreed, and there in the park I asked God to heal him of cancer.

Six weeks later I ran into him at the grocery store. He told me that the doctors could not find any trace of cancer in his body. He also told me that he really felt something that day in the park when I prayed for his healing. His story not only elated me, but also encouraged me to always pray for people whenever they share a problem with me. You never know what God may do through our prayers.

Holiday Outreaches

By the time you will read this, the Holidays will have passed, but now we are busy getting together 40 ‘boxes of love’ to families in our community. These boxes will not only contain food, but also the movie ‘the Nativity Story’. About 10 boxes will go to Muslim families. We look forward to telling you all the exciting news about this special outreach.

We are also cooking a 3 course meal for people in our community who have no one to spent Christmas with. Our churches’ motto is: ``making Gods love tangible in Amsterdam West’. Our prayer is that people would really experience Gods love through these Christmas outreaches.

So whether we share stories about a single mother giving her life to Christ, a man being healed of cancer, or getting the message of Christmas out to people who might have never heard it before…it is all because of you making it possible for us to be here! THANK YOU!

Personal News

Judah has just finished his first semester of kindergarten. He loves it and comes home daily singing songs he learns at school. Hannah turned 2 this fall and is a wonderful little personality who loves princesses, puzzles and books. Femke’s pregnancy with our third child is also going along really well, she is due May 1st.

We ask your specific prayers for two things: the selling of our home and for our support account. We need our house to sell before the summer of ’09 and our support account has gone into the red for the first time in three years. Even though our support has been strong, the cost of living has gone up by more than 30%. Please consider supporting us monthly if you are not, or giving a little more this new year if you are already supporting us. We are so grateful for your generous support which that allows us to continue living and working in Amsterdam.

Gods richest blessings for the new year!

Matthew & Femke Helland

2008-12-21T13:12:00.004+01:00

People come always before our mission or vision statements, values, budgets and our programs. Don't get me wrong, I am all for these things yet as servants (leaders) we need to keep the horse in front of the cart and not the other way around. Here is a quote that explains what I mean.

For too long, church leaders have been obsessed with the search for the program, tactic, or strategic plan that delineates a goal, sets out a path, and aligns people in moving toward and realizing a predetermined future. Behind this obsession lurks the continued belief that leadership is not only about defining and shaping a preferred future but also making such a planned future happen. In this sense, no matter what words are used in regard to serving or nurturing, leadership turns into methods of controlling and manipulating others to achieve predetermined ends. In the end, people are ends to a leader's goals. (Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader. San Francisco , CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.)

2008-12-08T12:13:00.001+01:00

2008-11-22T20:14:00.003+01:00

This is why we start new churches...
Today we had our once a month celebration where we use a school building to have a "public celebration". One woman from that neighborhood gave her testimony how she is now following God because she got a flyer in her mailbox about a church named New Life West and she said that that is what she wanted. It has been more than a year since she visited us for the first time, but to see what God has done is her life is awesome.

Something else that is really cool about starting a new church is how people do things they may never do if they were just part of a traditional church. For example, I am recovering from a tonsilectomy, so my wife preached. With her a friend of mine who lives here in the neighborhood "co-preached". He thinks he can't do it, but he did great.

However probably the greatest thing about today is the level of "family" that we saw and felt. Most of the people who were there have been coming for over a year and there is a real sense of belonging. Even though everyone there is not necessarily a believer, everyone seems to feel they belong and that is awesome.

2008-10-18T09:36:00.000+02:00

A man I met in the park a few months ago told me about him suffering from cancer in his bladder for four years and that in a few days he was going in for surgery to have the cancer removed. I asked if I could pray for God to heal him there in the park. Two weeks ago I ran into him at the store and he told me the doctors could not find any cancer. The man is cancer free and he really felt something when I prayed for him that day. Awesome!!

2008-10-18T09:33:00.001+02:00

A guy who took our Alpha course now prays all the time. He has not joined our community yet, but he has grown in his relationship with God. He was driving drunk the other day when he got stopped. He started praying like crazy...The police had him take 3 breathalizer tests to see how much alcohol he had. One at the cop car (it was broken) andother at the police station (it also was broken) and a third at another police station (it also was broken). When they finally could test him, his alcohol level was normal.

This guy is experiencing the grace of God in his life and seeing how God answers prayer even in some less than ideal situations.

2008-09-22T13:12:00.002+02:00

Quotes and ideas from Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart.
Dallas Willard is a Christian philosopher who at times is hard to read, yet well worth it when you give it a try. This evening a few of us will be gathering at a local library in Amsterdam to discuss the ideas from this book. Here I have written out some of the main points from each chapter. This book is all about people's lives being changed and that is ultimately what my job should be all about. Seeing people's lives changed through a relationship with Christ.

Chapter 1
…the situations in which we find ourselves are never as important as our responses to them, which come from our “spiritual” side (14).

The greatest need of collective humanity is renovation of the heart.

The impotence of “systems” is a main reason why Jesus did not send his students out to start governments or even churches as we know them today, which always strongly convery some elements of a human system. They were instead, to establish beachheads of his person, word, and power in the midst of a failing and futile humanity. They were to bring the presence of the kingdom and its King into every corner of human life simply by fully living in the kingdom with him. (15).

The spiritual renovation oand ths “spirituality” that comes from Jesus is nothing less than an invasion of natural human reality be a supernatural life from above.(19).

In spiritual matters there really is no “Third world.” It is all third world.

In the degree to which spiritual formation in Christ is successful, the outer life of the individual becomes a natural expression or outflow of the character and teachings of Jesus. (22).

It is who we are in our thoughts, feelings, dispositions, and choices—in the inner life—that counts. Profound transformation there is the only thing that can deinitievely conquer outward evil.

Chapter 2
Man has a human nature and he is responsible for its formation. Everyone has spiritual formation even if they don’t believe in the spirit.

Make up of humankind. 1) Spirit (Heart/Will), 2) Mind (thought/feelings), 3) Body, 4 Social, 5) Soul.

Order of priority when God doesn’t have a priority. 1) Body, 2) soul, 3) Mind (thought/feelings), 4) Spirit, 5) God.

Order of priority when God is first. 1) God, 2) Spirit, 3)Mind (thought/feelings) 4) Soul, 5) Body.

It is the central point of this book that spiritual transformation only happens as each essential dimension of the human being is transformed to Christlikeness under the direction of a regenerate will interacting with constant overtures of grace from God. Such transformation is not the result of mere human effort and cannot be accomplished by putting pressure on the will (heart/spirit) alone.

Chapter 3 Radical Evil in the Ruined Soul
Sin does not make the soul worthless, only lost.

We are like farmers who diligently plant crops but cannot admit the existence of weeds and insects and can only think to pour on more fertilizer. Similarly the only solution we know to human problems today is “education.”

Prophet Jeremiah says, “The heart is more deceitgul than all else and is desperately sick: Who can understand it?” we have to recognize from our heart that we are the ones spoken of, that, indeed, I am the one described. Only then is a foundation laid for spiritual formation into Christlikenes….realistically, I’m not ok and you are not ok.

Denial of the lostness of humanity causes people to live in denial. Man therefore becomes god and the “Human body becomes the primary area of pleasure for the person who does not live honestly and interactively with God, and also the primary source of terror, torture, and death.”

Self-idolatry rearranges the entire spiritual and moral landscape…John Calvin said that, “the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves. Yet self-obedience seems the only reasonable path for nearly everyone: “So blindly do we all rush in the direction of self-love, that every one thinks he has a good reason for exalting himself and despising all others in comparison.

We cannot be changed spiritually as long as we sit on the throne of our universe instead of Christ.

Chapter 4 Radical Goodness Restored to the Soul.
Humankind must surrender all of his/her life to God.

The human being is capable of restoration/restoration that makes it somehow more magnificent because it has been ruined.

A human being is changed through radical subordination to God.

Christian spiritual formation rests on this indispensable foundation of death to self and cannot proceed except insofar as that foundation is being firmly laid and sustained.

The ruined soul is not be be enhanced but to be replaced.

These remarkable teachings and examples,which do so much to immediately transform life, all presuppose that one has laid down the burden of having one’s own way. You cannot begin to even understand them, much less follow them, ecept from a posture of self-denial firmly supporten upon confidence, and this based, in turn, in a strong experience of God’s all-sufficient presence in your life.

Chapter 5 Spiritual Change: The Reliable Pattern
Spiritual formation in Christ is the process by which one moves and is moved from self-worship to Christ-centered self-denial as a general condition of life in God’s present and eternal kingdom.

Transformation into Christ-likeness is Possible…Although there is much talk about “changing lives” in Christian circles, the reality is very rare, and certainly much less common than the talk.

Inner life is far more important than outer life.

Everyone must be active in the process of their salvation and transformation to Christlikeness. The initiative in the process is always Gods.

Learning to speak Arabic: Learning to speak Arabic does not just happen. One must be motivated to learn it and have a plan. It is the same with becoming like Christ. It does not just happen on its own.

Any successful plan for spiritual formation, whether for the individual or group, will in fact be significantly similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous program (12 step program). There can be no doubt that the AA program originated and gained its power from Christian sources, to meet needs that Christian institutions at the time should have been meeting but were not.

VIM: General Pattern
Vision: Have a picture or vision of how thing can be.
Intention: Decide to go for it. Do it.
Means: Your plan or strategy for reaching your vision. Don’t give up.

By Jesus and for his Father, the heart is what matters, and everything else will then come along. And the process of inward renovation starts from the stark vision of life in the Kingdom of God.

Ghandi loved the teachings of Jesus, but was dismayed to see that the Christians who said they believed in Jesus and his teaching did not really believe them.

Spiritual Formation: Where there is a will, there is a way.

Interlude:
Kiss: Keep it simple s
People have difficulty integrating spiritual disciplines such as: solitude, scripture memorization, fasting, into the rest of their lives.

There are no formulas—no definitive how-tos—for growth in the inner character of Jesus. Such growth is a way of relentless seeking. But there are many things we can do to place ourselves at the disposal of God, and “if with all our hearts we truly seek him, we chall surely find him” (Jeremiah 29:13) or as the prophet Azariah said, “If you seek Him, He will let you find Him”

(Matt) Personally, I take this to mean that there is no one way to follow Christ. Everyone has a personal relationship with him so we can not take something personal and boil it down to a formula everyone must follow. (Not very romantic or personal).

Chapter 6:Transforming the Mind (The thought life)
The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.

…we still have the ability and responsiblility to try to retain God in our knowledge.

Interestingly, you can’t evoke thoughts by feeling a certain way, but you can evoke and to some degree control feelings by directing your thoughts.

Ideas...are assumptions about reality….They are so pervasive and essential to how we think about and how we approach life that we often do not even know they are there or understand when and how they are at work.

It is extremely difficult for most people to recognize which ideas are governing their life and how those ideas are governing their life. This is partly because one commonly identifies his or her own governing ideas with reality, pure and simple. Ironically, it is often people who think of themselves as “practical” or as “men of action” –both, of course, major ideas—who are most in the grip of ideas: so far that they can’t be bothered to think. …One’s culture is seen most clearly in what one thins of as “natural” and as requiring no explanation or even thought.
SPIRITUAL FORMATION MUST TRANSFORM IDEAS
To change governing ideas, whether for individuals or for a group, is one of the most difficult and painful things in human life. Genuine conversion is a wrenching experience. It rarely happens to the individual or group except in the form of divine intervention, revolution or something very likely to a mental breakdown. It can cause deep and permanent damage to the most intimate of relationships, as Jesus forewarned (Luke 12:51-53). (98).

Images: Christ followers must keep the image of the cross vividly present in their mind.

Satan did not draw Eve away from God with a stick but with an idea. This is the basic idea of all temptation: God is presented as depriving us by his commands of what is good, so we think we must take matters into our own hands and act contrary to what he has said. This image of God leads to our pushing him out of our thoughts, as discussed inprevious chapters, and putting ourselves on the throne of the universe. The condition of the ruined sould and world naturally results. The single most important thing in our mind is our idea of God and associated images.

Dangers in our thought life with God
1) Pride and overconfidence in ideas, images, or bits of information.
2) Simple ignorance of facts.
3) Allowing our desires to guide our thinking: especially the desire to prove we are right.
4) The images we allow into our mind.

Chapter 7: Transforming the Mind 2
For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal. 5:24).

Self-control is the steady capacity to direct yourself to accomplish what you have chosen or decided to do and be, even though you “don’t feel like it.” 127

Chapter 8: Transforming the Will (Heart or Spirit) and Character
Thought, feeling and will give rise to character.

Will is the ability to originate or refrain from origination something: an act or thing.

The constant character of the will apart from God is duplicity—or, more accurately, fragmentation and duplicity.

Our only hope is to entirely place our confidence in the God and Father of Jesus Christ who is willing to enter the duplicity of our heart and bring it wholly to himself if we earnestly invite Him. He is greater than our heart and knows all things. (COMPLETE SURRENDER TO GOD).

Chapter 9: Transforming the Body
Even professing Christians, by and large, devote to their spiritual growth and well-being a tiny fraction of the time they devote to their body, and it is an even tinier fraction if we include what we worry about.

Our body is not just a physical system, but is inhabited by the real presence of Christ.

Not let sin have dominion in our death-bound (mortal) body to obey Sin’s desires.

My Body is not my property.
I am responsible for the care of my body, and it is the center of all the other responsibilities I have. But that does not imply that I and I alone have the right to say what is to be done with it, or in short, that I own by body.

Steps
1) Release our body to God.
2) No longer idolize your body
3) Do not misuse your body
4) Properly honor and care for your body (nourish, exercise, rest, etc)

Sabbath (way of saying God is God and I am not).

Chapter 10 Transforming our social dimension

Chapter 11 Transforming the soul
In most actual cases, the individuals are not at harmony with themselves, much less with truth and with God. Their habitual condition is one of conlict, and one of acting other than how they themselves intend or regard as wise.

The protective walls of the soul seem to have been broken down by pain and evil, leaving the person at the mercy of everything that happens.

Our sould is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom.

Life is self-initiating, self-directing, self-sustaining activity and power. In this full sense, of course, only God has life.

When we speak of the human soul, then, we are speaking ot the deepest leel of life and power in the human being.

God has a soul :deepest most fundamental level of his being.

We must never forget that the indispensable first step in caring for the soul is to place it under God.

We will find his yoke an easy one and his burden a light one because, in learning form him, we have found rest to our soul.

Abandon results to God: rest in his life as he gives it. Resting in God, we can be free from all anxiety, which means deep soul rest.

Law and Grace go together.

The steamship whose machinery is broken may be brought into port and made fast to the dock. She is safe, but not sound. Repairs may last a long time. Christ designs to make us both safe and sound. Justification gives the first—safety; sanctification gives the second: soundness.

Our walk with Christ , well learned, is a burden only as wings are to a bird or the engines are to an air plane.

Chapter 13: Spiritual Formation in the Local Congregation.
The problem with local congregations and spiritual development is that quite often they get distracted from Jesus. Details of how the vessel should look like (worship style, paint, pet doctrines) get exalted above the treasure (Jesus). Willard shares unfortunately the goal of the western church is quite often just getting people ready to die and go to heaven, instead of getting heaven into people now.
He also shares that when you look at the early church, early Methodism, early etc. You always have to look at the early part of movements to see where they were still in love and after Jesus instead of after forms of worship. So he finishes this book off by quoting Matthew 28:18-20 and shares the directive of spiritual formation in the local church.
1) Make disciples, apprentices, of Jesus.
2) Immerse the apprentices at all levels of growth in the Trinitarian presence.
3) Transform the disciples inwardly, in such a way that doing the words and deeds of Christ is not the focus but is the natural outcome or side effect.

2008-08-26T08:35:00.004+02:00

The Bible is not meant to be a book used to get information transfer but for life change. --D.L. Moody

"We must shift from the traditional model of 'Knowledged Dispenser' to that of model, mentor and organizer of experiences that help students grow." --Lynn Stoddard director of National Alliance for redesigning education.

2008-08-21T09:53:00.002+02:00

Judah is now 4!!! Last saturday we had Judah's b-day party in the park. It was a blast!! Perfect weather (miracle in Amsterdam). Tons of friends. The little guy is now going to school 4 days a week all day long. Here in Holland they start young. My Little guy ROCKS!!!

2008-08-20T21:01:00.006+02:00

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some iimpressive project is so strong that soom my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups and workshopts that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause and not to feel that you are working for social progress.

But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people byname, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own and to let them know with words, handshakes and hugs that you do not simply like them--but truly love them.
--Henri Nouwen, Gracias! New York: Harper Collins, 1983, pp 147-148.

2008-08-20T20:57:00.003+02:00

"Our time, effort, energy and focus must be on houw the gospel is spread and how disciples are being made...It's a lot easier to build buildings, fill them up, and have special events than it is to pour into the lives of people and make multiplying disciples. But it is the only thing that will really work. "-Bob Roberts Jr. The Multiplying Church

2008-08-11T22:13:00.002+02:00

Never Work A Day In Your Life. (This story comes from Mark Albion's book Making a Life, Making a Living.) I actually found it in John Maxwell's latest book Leadership Gold.

"A study of business school graduates tracked the careers of 1,500 people from 1960 to 1980. From the beginning, the graduates were grouped into two categories. Category A consisted of people who said they wanted to mae money first so that they could do what they really wanted to do later--after they had taken care of their financial concerns. Those in category B pursued their true interests first, sure that the money would eventually follow. What percentage fell into each category?

Of the 1,500 graduates in the survey, the money-now Category A's comprised 83 percent, or 1,245 people. Category B risk takers made up 17 percent, or 255 graduates. After twenty years there were 101 millionaires in the group. Once from category A, 100 from category B.

The study's author, Srully Blotnick, concluded that 'the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing...Their 'luck; arose from the accidental dedication they had to an area they enjoyed.'"

2008-08-11T19:08:00.005+02:00

(Pastor Alejandro & Mayra Lopes in a conference in Costa Rica)
Yesterday I visited a Hispanic church here in Amsterdam which was celebrating the opening of its brand new temple. Iglesia El Encuentro con Dios was founded 18 years ago by Mayra Lopez, the wife of Alejandro Lopez who is now the senior pastor. Their new church building has cost them more than 2 million euros (3 million dollars). It sits in the middle of a commercial/factory zone, so you don't expect to find a building packed with 400 Latin Americans worshipping God in their native language. It is an unbelievable story. Pastor Alejandro has planted churches in the other major cities of Holland as well as in New York and the Domican Republic (his native land).

What I did not expect is that yesterday he called me and two other missionary families to give us awards. One award was to an elderly American missionary who led his wife to Christ 18 years ago. I mentioned to her that she was the spiritual grandmother of so many people in that building. Then Alejandro honored me and another American missionary with a symbolic plaque with the key to their building in honor of all we do for the Hispanic and Dutch community in Holland. Then he asked us to pray a blessing over the church and the new building.

2008-08-07T12:45:00.002+02:00

I found this example of a brief gospel presentation by Tim Keller. It is written to speak to what our expressive individualistic culture in Western Europe looks for and that is things such as"True Freedom", "Community", etc.

Why we are here. The one God is a community – a Trinity of three persons who each perfectly know and defer to one another and love one another and therefore have infinite joy and glory and peace. God made a good, beautiful world filled with beings who share in this life of joy and peace by knowing, serving, and loving God and one another.

What went wrong. Instead, we chose to center our lives on ourselves and on the pursuit of things rather than on God and others. This has led to the disintegration of creation and the loss of peace – within ourselves, between ourselves, and in nature itself. War, hunger, poverty, injustice, racism, bitterness, meaninglessness, despair, sickness, and death all are symptoms.

What puts the world right. But though God lost us he determined to win us back. He entered history in the person of Jesus in order to deal with all the causes and results of our broken relationship with him. By his sacrificial life and death he both exemplifies the life we must live and rescues us from the life we have lived. By his resurrection he proved who he was and showed us the future — new bodies and a completely renewed and restored new heavens and new earth in which the world is restored to full joy, justice, peace, and glory.

How we can be part of putting the world right. Between his first coming to win us and his last coming to restore us we live by faith in him. When we believe and rely on Jesus' work and record (rather than ours) for our relationship to God, his healing kingdom power comes upon us and begins to work through us. Christ gives us a radically new identity, freeing us from both self-righteousness and self-condemnation. This liberates us to accept people we once excluded, and to break the bondage of things (even good things) that once drove us. He puts us into a new community of people which gives a partial, but real, foretaste of the healing of the world that God will accomplish when Jesus returns

2008-08-04T07:52:00.002+02:00

"Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves--on the town heap, at the crosroads--so cosmopolitan that they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek."

"The Son of God was crucified at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, where thieves curse, and where soldiers gamble. Because that is where he died and since that is what He died about, that is where Christians can best share His message of love because that is what real Christianity is all about." -quoted by T.L. Osborn

2008-08-04T07:20:00.002+02:00

Here I sit in my back yard in Amsterdam discussing some Lessons from the encounter Zacheus had with Jesus.

2008-08-02T20:05:00.004+02:00

Why I am green! I took a test on the internet the other day which told me I am very "green" or (environmentally conscious). The real reason may be because I am cheap, but also because I find being a good steward of everything we have (including the environment) all over the Bible. Here are just a few verses however.
Genesis 1:28 God gives Adam and Eve the charge to care for all of the animals and all of the earth. They are to rule over it and subdue it. In other words care and protect it in the same way God protects us.
Romans 8:19-20 Creation is groaning under bondage and waiting for God's sons (true righteousness) to be revealed.
Hosea 4:1-3 Because of lying, murder, adultery, lack of love, selfishness and other sins the earth is dying. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air and animals are dying. The earth is mourning.
Isaiah 24:4 The earth is dying because of its peoples sins.
But...there is hope
2 Chronicles 7:14 promises that when people turn back to him he will heal them and their land.
Matthew 19:28 Jesus speaks of when everything will be renewed

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle is a great way to be a good steward of your money but also of your pocket book. I am fortunate to live in a city which is very green. Recycle bins are right outside of my house and public transportation is great. In fact, I bike everywhere I go. What a priviledge. A fantastic way to stay fit, save money (seen gas prices lately), and cause less pollution to the environment.

Also, the way the weather has been changing in Oklahoma, Holland and other places is amazing. We have actually had a hot summer in Amsterdam!! Tulsa had a huge ice storm and the number of tornadoes was ridiculous. Water in the canals don't freeze anymore in Holland during the winter and we have hardly any snow. Mor rain than anything. These are just a few of my thoughts on why I am green.

2008-08-01T21:32:00.002+02:00

Empowerig Leadership: Avoiding Making Leadership a "Bottleneck"
Today I heard a story that supposedly comes from the Kaballah (Jewish Mysticism). There was a poor uneducated man who prayed to God in his own simple way. But then a very spiritual man came to him who told him he was praying incorrectly and that he needed to pray differently. Later on the "spiritual" man came back to see how the man was praying. He answered, "I am not. Praying correctly is too difficult and the way that I used to pray is not good enough, so I just stopped." The "spiritual" man then told him to pray his own way because that was good enough.
I have been working on a new membership course for New Life West, our church in Amsterdam. However, my slogan has been KISS: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. I want to empower people to worship God and do church in a way that is highly reproducible and sustainable. I want to equip people with the basic essentials so that no one will think they have to be super gifted or super spiritual to form new churches.
John Maxwell states that the companies that make it over the long haul are the ones who keep things simple. I too, want to make following Christ and starting new churches simple.

2008-07-28T14:36:00.002+02:00

Lessons from the Movie Freedom Writers. Freedoms writers is based on a true story which took place in LA. Some lessons that can be learned from this movie include:

1) Cross-cultural issues..Many people who live in the inner-city live in a war zone where survival is all that matters and race has much to do with your chances of survival.

2) Life Changing Power of Community- Hilary Swank in this movie changes the life of her students by creating a multi-cultural community where everyone feels safe and accepted.

3) Importance of Personal Boundaries- Swank keeps no boundaries to safeguard her time with her husband. She get a divorce.

4) The Power of Stories- The Diary of Anne Frank captures the students attention because it is so related to their lives. The Bible, a book full of stories, can be used to show that God's story and his people's lives are just like ours.

5) Replicate your victories- Erin Gruwell, the name of the teacher upon whose story this is based on, went on to start a foundation and to write books to train other teachers to use the same kind of methods she used. We should also record our victories (and failures) to enable others to reach their own victories (and to avoid some of our failures).

2008-07-24T15:03:00.003+02:00

Check out this video about the Church in China. This is pretty amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYuCFIQ2M1w

2008-07-23T21:23:00.004+02:00

Baptism & July Update
After we returned from the States we had our first baptism service!
The woman that was baptized had come to know the Lord Jesus and after taking the Alpha course (which introduces people to Christianity) and really wanted to be baptised.
We organised a barbecue by the lake and had a time of praise and worship and a time of sharing the Word. The lady who was baptized had invited a bunch of friends and relatives. After she was baptized she started sharing about the Alpha course and right there 3 girls said that they wanted to join the course that will start in september. Praise the Lord for this testimony of this baptism!

Grace
Lately, the Lord has really been teaching us about the concept of grace. Many people think that they need to have their life totally in order before they accept the Lord in their lives or even in order to accept the Lord. This is such misconception. We take non-believers or ‘new-believers’ through stories like the story of Zaccheus and explain to them that all that the Lord Jesus wants is to ‘come into their home and eat with them’. He wants to have a relationship with them just the way they are. When they have a personal encounter with Jesus and realize that He loves them, then the change will come. Not as a result of their efforts but as a result of His love and grace. God loves us just as we are, yet he loves us to much to change the way we are.

This challenges us too. So often we as humans are inclined to look at the outward sin in peoples lives and (if we are not careful) tell them they need to change. But we need to always be aware that people don’t learn to change outward behavior without being changed by the Holy Spirit from the inside out.

Our Team
We really feel that our team is moving to the next level. We are excited to see them long for more of God’s Spirit and power. They long to see spiritually and physically sick people healed and the gifts of the spirit active in our midst. We are also excited about the opportunities for some of our team members to start taking and teaching the “Celebrate Recovery” course’ (dealing with addictions) and the “Marriage Course” for (pre) marital counseling.

Please pray specifically that these courses will be effective tools to serve our community. We long to see people set free from patterns of addiction and serve the Lord Jesus!

Kids
Hannah and Judah are enjoying the summer. Judah has spent the weekend with his opa and oma (his Dutch grandparents) and caught his first fish. How excited he was! He is a true boy. Hannah is starting to talk more and more and still talks about ‘grandpa and the car’ very often. She is such joy!

Matt and Femke Helland

2008-07-23T20:49:00.003+02:00

Remaining Outward Focused
It is very important for us to not just talk about reaching out to the lost; but actually spend time doing it. A weakness of people who have been Christians a long time is that they no longer have any unchurched, non-Christian friends. Jesus said that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10). If we are not placing a priority on befriending and loving people who are lost, then we are not really following the example of Christ.
An example of a person who lives focused on reaching the lost is Charlene West (see photo). West could have retired more than a decade ago, but she continues ploughing ahead. Recently, she told me how she was handing over her church she had planted to another pastor. When I asked what she was going to do next, she replied, “Plant another Hispanic Church in another city.”
The church where she came to Christ in Ponca City, Oklahoma as a small girl is closing down so she decided to use this opportunity to start a new Spanish speaking church there. West surely can talk about good old days, but she does not dwell on them. She has authored books, been a missionary in Latin America, and planted more than 20 churches in her lifetime. Her daughter and son-in-law, Gary & Kathy Petty, have followed her example and are now missionaries in southern Spain. A church she planted in Caracas, Venezuela has now over 4,000 members. She has had great ministry “success” yet she chooses to focus on what is most important: winning the lost.
Bill Wilson, founder and leader of Metro Ministries in New York City once said, “I have the biggest sunday school in the entire United States with over 25,000 kids coming every week. Yet that and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee.”
Wilson’s attitude is to focus on what matters most. As a small child he was abandoned on a street corner by his mother, he now lives to see that the children of New York City can be reached with God’s love. His motivation stays focused on what matters most: reaching the lost.
The Apostle Paul expressed this same concept when he said, “...one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”(Philippians 3:13, 14). This is the same man who wrote the church in Rome telling them about his ambition to travel to Spain since, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, Rom 15:20a.”
This is the same passion that led my parents to give more than 25 years of their lives as missonaries in Chile and to start and pastor a spanish speaking church in Oklahoma. This is the same passion I see in my brother Aaron who is pioneering a multi-cultural church in the inner-city of Chicago. This is the same passion that has brought us to Amsterdam, Holland to start new Christian communitis and make Christ known where he is unknown. Yet, to do this we must be continually remained outward focused.
Jesus said, “Do you not say, “Four months more and then the harvest '? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest (John 4:35).
The words of Jesus speak of urgency and the need of remaining more outward than inward focused. We can get so busy with our Christian programs that we can totally lose sight of reaching out to non-christians. Then we miss the joy of seeing friends and family come to Christ. Here are a a few practical suggestions to prevent becoming too “inward focused.”
1) Pray: Ask God to open your eyes and give you a burden for friends and family members who do not know Christ. Keep a list of names in your Bible of people for whom you pray for daily. Also, when you see that someone has a need offer to pray at the drop of a hat. Don’t be surprised when people are healed or recieved an answer to your prayer.
2) Be a real friend. If you do not know many non-Christians, intentionally find ways that you can naturally befriend some from your work, kid’s school, community events, etc. Do what you love to do (hobbies, sports, etc.) with people who are not Christians and then be a real friend. As long as you lead an attractive lifestyle and share what Jesus means to you then evangelism will naturally happen. Our goal is not to make people an evangelism project, but simply to love them as God has loved us.
I now have a long list of people in my Bible for whom I pray daily. A few of them have already come to Christ, yet I am expecting that many more people will. I spend time with non-christians intentionally in order to remain outward focused. As I learn about their lives, then I can talk to God about them in order to later talk to them about God. Evangelism and discipleship is a process, not just a moment when someone prays a prayer. It is not just about coming to Christ, but daily becoming more like him.
It is wonderfully rewarding to see people’s lives change as they come to know Christ through your life. Then you can celebrate since, “there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” (Luke 15:7). So lets share Christ and get ready to party! (with God, his angels, and some unsaved friends of course).

-By Matthew Helland

2008-07-21T07:36:00.005+02:00

Thoughts about Zaccheus (Zac) and Jesus. (Luke 19:1-10)
1) Some of Jesus best followers were outcasts or despised members of society. Bad people really do make great soil for the gospel.
-Zac would be like a top drug dealer today. He got his wealth by oppressing the poor. He was despised by most Jews for being a tool of Rome. Everyone despised him.
-Mary Magdalene, first to see Jesus resurrected, had 7 demons cast out of her.
-Gadarene demoniac (1,000s of demons in him) became evangelist in 10 cities.
-Samaritan Woman by the well was very inmoral yet she brought all of her friends to Christ.
-One of my good friends was a gang banger in East L.A. and is now passionately following Jesus. His life is as radical for Christ as it was in the streets of LA.
-Some of the most radical followers of Christ I know today, used to be really bad people. (aren't we all without Christ?)
2)Religion kills, Jesus Heals and Changes lives.
-Verse 7 says that all the religious people looked down upon Jesus because he was with a chief sinner. People called Jesus a drunk and a glutton because he spent time with sinners (Luke 7:36). We should spent more time with "sinners".
-These same religious people killed Jesus in order to keep their institutional power. Religion can kill.
-Jesus grace and love changed Zac. Only after Jesus had been in Zac's home did he change. Often we tell people they have to change before coming to Christ, yet here, Jesus accepts Zac before he changes. Important different between religion and relationship with Jesus. One tries to change you from the outside in (rules). The other changes us from the inside out (Christ's love and grace). Don't try to change people, that is God's job.
-Jesus died as the worst of criminals. If we are truly his followers, we must do what he did and spend time reaching out to sick and low lifes in society. Jesus healed people and changed their lives for the better. He still wants to do the same through our lives today.

2008-07-08T09:10:00.003+02:00

First Baptism Service Here you have a video of our first baptism. It was a very exciting time!! As you watch, you can see a bunch of the people who were present. Also, at the end Anneke shares a little about the experience. I apologize for my son's screaming by the camera, but if you listen well you can hear what she has to share. There waas rain forecasted for that day. Well we had perfect weather until everyone left. Then you can see us doing a small interview under the trees. This was a great celebration last sunday!!

2008-07-02T16:18:00.003+02:00

Brief Update from Matt.

2008-07-01T14:17:00.002+02:00

Here is a phenomenal article by Tim Keller on Decontructing Defeater Beliefs and leading secular people to faith in Christ. http://www.redeemer2.com/themovement/issues/2004/oct/deconstructing.html

2008-07-01T11:38:00.002+02:00

Last week, we returned to Amsterdam after being in North America for over 6 weeks. I preached more than 19 times in a one month period. It was great and yet it is nice to be back where I can sort of live a normal life again. My parents, siblings, and their families were all so happy to see us and of course so sad to see us go. The last sunday I got to speak three times in my home church in Tulsa (2 times in English and once in spanish). I sound so much more intelligent when I preach in English or spanish than I do in Dutch.
We were so pleased when we got back to Holland to find that our kid's club and our house church was still doing great. Everyone really pitched in while we were gone and did a great job. Maybe we should leave them more often. Then again, maybe not. It is nice to be home again in Amsterdam.

2008-03-28T20:08:00.002+01:00

Geert Wilder's Anti-Islam Film
Much has happened since I last blogged. Today, Geert Wilders, a controversial dutch politician came out with an anti-Islam film. The film focused on all the extreme crimes and extremist sayings of radical Muslims over the last 10 years or so. The film tries to cause fear in people's hearts to all Muslims. This is really unfair because in no way can we characterize the billion plus muslim people who live in the world as cold hearted murderers. Throughout history, we have seen the crusades, inquisitions, and which hunts which have also killed thousands if not millions of people in the name of Jesus Christ. No one denies the horrible crimes done in the name of Christianity or Islam, yet it would be a tragedy that these crimes would impede us from reaching out a hand of friendship and even neighborly love to Muslims and to people of all religions.

2008-01-02T10:01:00.000+01:00

Does God speak today? How does he speak today? Why don't we always hear him? How can we distinguish his voice from other voices? Haw can I hear God's voice today? These and other questions are dealt in this talk. For more short video teaching go to www.godtube.com and search with our last name: Helland.

2007-12-15T21:54:00.000+01:00

2007-12-10T09:49:00.001+01:00

Videos on God Tube
I have uploaded some videos on God Tube. There is: a 5 minute video explaining our vision and work here in Amsterdam, a 2 minute video on our children's weekly outreach (http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=8eed440c1317c3b30072), and a 18 minute sermon on forgiveness. I am planning on eventually posting clips from our weekly teaching on god tube. To check this out, go to http://www.godtube.com/ and use helland, amsterdam, or hellands to find the videos. I wish you much viewing pleasure.

2007-12-10T09:41:00.000+01:00

Sinterklaas & Kid's Club
Last wednesday we had 56 kids and 3 mothers come to our kid's club. It was special because it was Sinterklaas day. Everyone got a present and we told not only bible stories about being thankful, but also stories about Sinterklaas and his helper (Zwaarte Piet). This is the first year I experience such a 5 december. In Holland, this is the day they give out all the presents to the children. My son was singing all the songs about Sinterklaas and was elated with the presents he got. In America, I am used to doing this for Christmas, but hey, nothing wrong with doing presents on 5 december. (Did you know Santa Claus actually was derived from the Dutch Sinterklaas by Coca-Cola? Only Sinterklaas comes from Spain and Santa from the North Pole. In Chile, Santa Claus came from the clouds.) Interesting bit of trivia.

2007-11-29T15:13:00.000+01:00

Sex God by Rob Bell
Bell is a master story teller who uses the subject of sexuality to give a masterful portrayal of the message of Jesus. He uses excellent illustrations to show that sexuality is more than just a physical act but, “Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God.” In his chapter on angels and animals he tells how we are not animals who can not control our sexual instincts, but we are also not angels who have no sexual instinct. It is important that we recognize that our sexuality is a good gift from God that when channeled, can lead to great pleasure and fulfillment.
One chapter on lust tells how in the long haul, lust only delivers anger (inwardly expressed as depression.) Lust can never be satisfied because there is always a desire for “more”. This is probably how some people end up using whips and leather. However, he also shows that lust is not just sexual, but can be an endless desire for more money, success, reputation, power, control, food. He explains that real freedom is not in doing whatever we want, whenever we want (which can lead to addiction), but “freedom is going without whatever we crave and being fine with it.”
His look into our relationship with God and with one another in marriage is very special. One chapter uses the marriage of Johnny Cash and June Carter to illustrate how people can fall more and more in love over time. Here he shares how marriage is about intimacy where couples can be naked emotionally, spiritually, and not just physically.
In one chapter, he relates our eternity with God as being “whoopee forever.” This is an interesting analogy I had never heard for heaven, where we will have perfect fulfillment and intimacy with God. I highly recommend this book for not only Christians, but for people who want to know more about God, Sexuality, and Christianity.

2007-11-20T13:01:00.000+01:00

Alpha Weekend
This last weekend we had our alpha retreat. This weekend was very special for me in that 1)I got to pray with my neigbor across the street to accept Christ, 2)to watch other people decide to follow Christ, and 3) I preached my first sermon to a larger crowd all in Dutch. It was incredible. We will continue doing the alpha course and possibly offer it in spanish and english next season.

2007-11-10T13:58:00.000+01:00

(Members of one of our "Alpha" Groups)

...Last week I heard Rick Warren in his podcast talk about bringing the gospel into every sermon in relevant ways. More people made a decision to follow Christ through his preaching on Having a purpose driven life than his sermon on how you can know that you are going to get to heaven. Warren says that the way he trains his people to do evangelism is to do whatever they are passionate about (rock climbing, sports, chess, etc) and do it with 5 or 6 unbelievers. The problem with us christians is that we do get insulated in our little bubble of Christians and we lose all effectiveness in sharing about Christ.

The other problem with "nominal Christians" is "consumer" Christianity. Yesterday I met a guy from Greece. I used the few words I remembered from studying the bible in greek and asked him is Jesus Xristos was his kurios. He said, yes and his doctrine was excellent. He knew all about Jesus and Mary and could tell me the gospel. Yet the guy also loves drugs and sex with many women (a great reason to move to Amsterdam).

I am challenged in how we can make evangelism more than knowing the right stuff and saying the right prayer and more into following Christ. This is also why I like sharing with people what it means to follow Christ before they ever decide to commit to faith. This way they know what they are deciding to do.

This is what we are experiencing through the Alpha Course. The alpha course sees evangelism as a process and does not rush anyone to a decision. In fact a motto for what I am seeing now for this paradigm of evangelism is 1) belong, 2) believe, 3) behave.

Earlier it was first a person had to 1) behave right, 2) believe right, and then they could 3)belong. But through a course like alpha, you first create a community with believers and unbelievers and eventually you believe (due to the spirit of God) that they will believe and eventually change their behavior.

One seminary professor told me once, "Many Christians want to clean their fish before they have even caught them." This is why I am finding it important to give people space and not run them off (while of course still being challenged to share my faith). Yet, people are called to be witnesses, not lawyers. To share their story, and his story and allow the Holy Spirit to to do what we can not do with our wisdom and words. Of coures, this whole process is a teaming up with the Holy Spirit. As St. Francis once said, "Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words."

2007-10-16T21:05:00.000+02:00

Squash and Following Jesus
I played squash today (European Racketball)with a friend of mine who pastors a large hispanic church here in Amsterdam. I was reminded what following Jesus is all about by playing squash with him. It is about:
1)Multiplication.-Since I took him for the first time a month ago, he has taken his wife, kids, and even all of his staff to play squash. One night when they were going to prepare a sermon, he rented a squash court and they all went and played.
2)Learning by doing. (Nike: Just do it.) If we were to first read textbooks about playing squash, we would not have as much fun as just doing it. You do make mistakes, but you learn and get better. The best way to learn is through on the job training. Learning by doing.
3) It can be scary, yet a lot of fun-Jesus once said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor , but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mk 2:17 The gospel is good news for the sick, poor, rejected and broken. If we are not spending time with people who are broken, then the gospel is going to waste.

Yet this takes courage and faith to reach out to people who are "sinners". Honestly, most of us are scared of doing this. Yet Christ's example leads us to reach out to "sinners" with "real" friendship. Only when we are "real" can people see that Jesus is real and relevant for them. We will also learn that we are just as much "sinners" as anyone else and that it is only God's love and grace that can change us. We are not better than anyone. So spending time and reaching out to "sinners" is not something to avoid, but to do if we are going to be like our master, Jesus. So whether you are going to learn how to play squash or share Jesus with someone, know that the best way is by Nike:Just do it!

2007-10-12T13:39:00.000+02:00

At a recent planning meeting for our upcoming celebrations www.newlifenet.nl , I put down on paper our dream/vision and values for New Life West/Netwerk. Here is what has come out so far.
New Life Netwerk
Our dream is to see a new network consisting of hundreds of new multi-cultural, multilingual communities started throughout Amsterdam and beyond who are wholeheartedly following God and serving their neighbors. The letters NL stand not only for New Life through a relationship with Jesus, but also for the nation of Holland, the Netherlands.

Mission
To be a multi-cultural community of believers who are committed to following the great commandment and carrying out the great commission (Mark 12:30-31; Matt 28:19-20).

Vision
NLN is a network of communities (churches) who meet in homes, parks, neighborhood centers, offices, etc. These communities include Alphas Courses, kid’s clubs, sports, service projects, prayer, and Bible study. Once a month, we all gather together to worship God and celebrate what he is doing in our lives.

Values Of NLN
We value the Bible as God’s Word and read, study, discuss and apply it in our lives to be changed as individuals and as a community (2 Tim 3:16).

We value and encourage spiritual disciplines and spiritual gifts.

We value (m)eating together in order to build community.

We value unchurched and irreligious people and seek to build authentic friendships whereinwe can be salt and light in these relationships (Matt 5:13-16).

We seek to be and to multiply new multi-cultural and multi-lingual communities.

We value children and young people.

We value sacrificial giving and extravagant service as a way to practically show God’s love.

2007-10-07T07:43:00.000+02:00

Why "Evangelism" is so different in Post-Christian Culture?

Tim Keller and Oikos Evangelism

Tim Keller in this teaching articulates what I have experienced with regard to doing evangelism in a post-modern, post-christian society. Growing up in Latin America and inside of the Bible Belt of America, evangelism has been described as a program such as evangelism explosion or the 4 spiritual laws from Campus Crusade. Although these are incredibly great resources and methods, Why don’t they work so well as in these other settings.
The answer is because people live in a setting where the gospel is extremely foreign to them. Most people I come in contact rarely believe in God, let alone understand the gospel. Many of them think they know all their is to know about Christianity and are not interested. Therefore evangelism become a lifestyle where you have to live the gospel through your life and less of a program to share.
Keller quotes John Stott’s commentary on the book of Acts over the 4 different ways the gospel is told in the Bible. Stott (Events, witnesses, promises and conditions).

In a setting where people have never been churched, dechurched or lightly churched. There have to be 4 things which take place. This is why evangelism is more of a process.

The gospel has to be intelligible, to people. (You have got to bring them to the place where they understand what it teaches. People don’t know what God and sin is. God loves you can mean a whole lot of different things. They have to understand these basic ideas of God, truth and sin. So you must make sure they have the intellectual furniture to go on.

…credible to people. (People have defeater beliefs) such as there can not be one true religion. Or can’t trust the bible it was written by the winners.
They might understand the gospel but not believe it to be true. There are defeater beliefs which people think are common sense. For example 1) there can’t be just one true religion or 2) the bible was written by winners so it can’t be true. You can not make the gospel intelligible unless you deal with these different defeater beliefs. You need to be able to answer these defeater beliefs in soundbites because our generation isn’t ready to sit around for looong talks about religion. Show that these beliefs don’t work on their own terms.

…plausible. People have to see how the gospel meets their need. This is how God can meet your needs that no one else nothing can meet.

…intimacy…Do you know how to make this personal.

Evangelism explosion and other traditional methods goes straight to intimacy and assumes people already believe the gospel is intelligible, credible, and plausible.

First two are hard edge of gospel and second two are soft side.

Methodless method…

Friendship…..in friendship, evangelism will happen naturally unless you short circuit it in two ways. 1) You lead an unattractive lifestyle. 2) You hide how attractive Jesus is to you.
You don’t love people in order to evangelize them. You evangelize them as you love them in order to love them. Only cowardice will short circuit evangelism.

Traditional evangelism you are in the driver seat. In oikos evangelism you simply share how Christianity affects your life and they are in the driver seat. This makes it incredibly attractive to unbelievers and scary to us.

Oikos evangelism takes place in networks
Kinships (family)
neighborhood
colleagues
affinity (hobbies and stuff you like to do)
Friends (people you meet in all the other networks)

Identify a few
Pray for them
Get closer to them as friends.
Overcommunication of the gospel needs to be done in light of a need that they have. It has to come when it is more organic. This needs to take place when the need is made aware. Then give them a book, tape, take them to church, offer a course, etc.

Another possible model for sharing the gospel Keller shares is”
Creation…God created perfect world
fall…because of our self-centeredness we destroyed world
redemption…Christ redeemed us so that we could experience
restoration…the way he had made the world.

2007-10-07T07:40:00.000+02:00

Awesome Kid's Club Video

During the month of October, you can click on this Link and see a great 2 minute video about our Kid's Ministry.

http://wmm.iphc.org/globalfront.html

Enjoy

2007-09-29T17:26:00.000+02:00

I just heard a sermon by Tim Keller (Redeemer Presbyterian Church from New York City). He spoke of the Fulton Street revival that lasted from 1857-1859. In those 3 years every single church in New York City grew by over 50%, 1/3 of Ireland (100,000/300,000) came to Christ, and more than a a half million people came to Christ in the US during those 3 years.

He goes on to speak about the one element that is found in every single revival/awakening in the OT, NT, and throughout Church History. He describes that as "Kingdom Centered Prayer" or "Frontline Prayer." It is Corporate, Intensive, Prevailing (doesn't stop), Kingdom centered prayer.

Three elements he describes are 1) Request for the grace to confess and repent from sins. (This triggers more of God's presence and it is repentence born out of the joy and assurance of God's Love. 2) Compassion and zeal for flourishing of the church. That mechanical worship of God is replaced by a 2 way relationship. 3) Yearning to know God and see his face and his glory.

Something else, that we can be bold and specific as the widow who constantly went to the judge. That we pray specifically and boldly for peoples and people groups.

A praise report that we have heard from Amsterdam is that 1/3 of the windows for prostitution down town are being shut down and turned into residences. We see this as an answer to years of prayer. Also, the head of the Dutch reformed church in the Netherlands (largest Christian denomination here) publicly asked forgiveness from the Pentecostal church at a recent meeting with over 25,000 people present (Pentecostal leaders also asked the reformed leader to forgive us for their sins against them). I dare say God is up to something new in Amsteram and Holland.

2007-09-18T10:41:00.000+02:00

Weekly Visitation
Every tuesday, Femke or Matt go to visit all of the kids to remind them to come to Kid's club on wednesday. Here you see Femke doing visitation and talking to some girls on the street.

2007-09-17T13:04:00.000+02:00

2007-09-17T12:59:00.000+02:00

Vrede Om De Hoek This is a sermon written for a book that will be published containing sermons from churches, mosques, and synagogues in our part of the city. I was asked to write a sermon on peace in our neighborhood. It will be translated into Dutch, Turkish, and Arabic.
Quite often while walking home, I greet the Egyptian owner of the corner store by my house with the Arabic greeting “Salam.” He smilingly responds and replicates the greeting back to me. I find this Arabic word, “Salam”, which means peace, a wonderful and powerful way to greet one another. Jesus once instructed his followers that every time they were to enter a home they were to say, “Peace to this house” (Luke 10:5). If the person were to be speaking in Hebrew, then the word would have been Shalom, which is quite similar to Salam. This word has a much richer meaning than the word peace in Dutch. The meaning of this word includes: peace, completeness, welfare, health, harmony and wholeness. Shalom is a central message of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus and of great importance to our world today.

We live in a world full of division, pain, and brokenness. Underneath the façade of busyness, we hide deep brokenness and pain which needs peace and healing. The Bible calls this brokenness sin and teaches that Jesus came into the world to bring true peace. Seven hundred years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah wrote. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace [shalom] was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). This prophecy foretold the crucifixion of Jesus as the way in which God was to bring peace to humanity. Jesus was broken so that we all could find wholeness and healing. He took the punishment of our brokenness upon himself so that we could all have peace. Here it is important to recognize that before we focus on having “vrede om de hoek”, peace around the corner, we need to find peace inside of our hearts. It will not matter what we do to our exterior, we will never truly find peace if it is not in our hearts first.

One clear example of this is an iceberg. Only 10% of an iceberg can be seen above water. The other 90% is below the surface. If we attempt to find peace only by changing our exterior through the possessions we have or the friends we keep, then we will not have affected the core of who we are. We can not fully have inner peace unless we can allow God to change our hearts, at the core of our being. Once we allow him to shape us from the inside-out, then we can better focus on giving peace to the people who surround us.

As followers of Jesus, we find that inner peace through his death and resurrection. God desired healing and wholeness for all of humankind, yet since he is a just God there had to be a price paid for all of our sins. This is a price that we could never pay by being good or through doing religious acts, but was paid by Jesus death. He paid the ransom for our peace with his own life. This is God’s love, to sacrifice Jesus so that we could have true peace in our hearts.

However, peace is not only something that applies to individuals, but to communities as well. In the west, we are used to being in a highly individualistic society where what “I” want to do is believed to be of utmost importance. Yet in eastern cultures, such as in the ones the Bible and the Quran were written, family and community are of much greater importance. Our individual gifts and talents are not used just for our own benefit, but also for the benefit of the community we live in.
The apostle Paul, one of the prominent authors of the New Testament, makes the comparison to us being like different parts of the body. Everyone is different, yet has a different function (1 Corinthians 12:14-26). A nose should never be jealous of the mouth, as the foot of the hand. If the nose stopped working because he was not a mouth, then the body could never smell again. If the bowels stopped working because they did not get the attention the face does, then the body dies. In our community, we may all be different, yet we all have important contributions to make for there to be peace.

Another comparison is that of a carpet. A carpet has thousands of strings of different colors and sizes, yet when they are all put together by a master weaver they make a beautiful design. When a community has peace and harmony, it is because God can then weave us together in a way which makes a beautiful design.

The prophet Jeremiah once told exiles in Babylon to, “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper" (Jeremiah 29:7). Herein is our challenge to pray for our community and work for the peace of the people we live with. When our city prospers, we all prosper as well.

Yet, it is not within normal human nature to be peaceful to others when they cause us pain. This can be seen for example in Ireland, where for many decades Protestants and Catholics have been killing each other. The vengeance killings created what seemed like an endless vicious cycle which could not be broken. However, one man named Gordon Wilson is recognized as a key figure in stopping this vicious cycle. In 1993, Gordon and his daughter were victims of a bomb attack. He described his last moment with his daughter in a BBC interview with the following words,

"She held my hand tightly, and gripped me as hard as she could. She said, 'Daddy, I love you very much.' Those were her exact words to me, and those were the last words I ever heard her say." To the astonishment of listeners, Wilson went on to add, "But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge. Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. She loved her profession. She was a pet. She's dead. She's in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night."

Historian Jonathan Bardon recounts, "No words in more than twenty-five years of violence in Northern Ireland had such a powerful, emotional impact." Gordon Wilson was a peacemaker whose inner peace with God was what led him to be able to forgive and seek peace with the men who killed his daughter. He followed the example of his God who gave Jesus to die for mankind while we were still his enemies. This kind of God like love is what brings peace into our hearts and communities.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). Are we bringing peace into our community or are we hidden away in our own little corners? Do we have the peace that God promises we can have inside of our hearts? These are important questions for us to answer if we truly want to see God’s peace around the corner.
by Matthew Helland, voorganger van New Life West

2007-09-17T12:44:00.000+02:00

We are really enjoying our weekly Kid's Club. Here is an old flyer we handed out in our neighborhood. Every week or so we try to make flyers with pictures we have made from the kid's club. We have been running anywhere from 35 to 50 kids every week with only Femke, myself, and one other volunteer. It really is a blast!!

2007-09-17T12:40:00.000+02:00

Jesus and Oprah's way to serve others...
We love God because he first loved us. Now it is our turn to love others as he has loved us. Amy Carmichael, an Irish woman who went to India and saved thousands of children from slavery, once said, “It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.” We can not love without giving. If we are to display Jesus to the world, we must be generous givers.
Giving generously unleashes a multiplication effect. Many of us are familiar with the story of the young boy who gave all of his lunch to Jesus (some fish and bread) and fed thousands (John 6:8-9), yet not everyone has heard how Oprah Winfrey has shown this principle to be true.
Oprah gave $1,000 dollars to over 300 people in her studio audience to give away. The results from this challenge were incredible. Hundreds of stories ranging from gift cards being given out to needy persons to schools in other continents receiving help. Terminally ill patients and their families as well as homeless shelters and many other individuals and organizations were helped out. Two women from Georgia took there $2,000 dollars and raised a whopping $200,000 to help a charity in Atlanta. Oprah’s show demonstrated that Jesus was right when he said, “It is better to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).
One week we decided to apply this principle of giving by handing out 10 euros (about $13.50) to each person at the end of a meeting. The room was suddenly still when we handed out the money. Everyone was used to an offering being taken up, but not an offering being handed out. Everyone had one week to find a way to give that money away to someone else. The only rule was that it could not be to a family member. These are some of the things that were done with that money.
One family bought hundreds of water bottles and placed stickers on them which read, “You looked to thirsty to pass up!! Here is some water to show you in a practical way that God loves you…no strings attached. If we can serve you in any way, let us know www.newlifenet.nl. On the next hot day, hundreds of people at a local park received a bottle of water in Christ’s name. In another follow up activity, hundreds of chocolates were bought and a sticker was placed on them which said, “A Delicious way to say, “God Loves You!” www.newlifenet.nl
These two simple acts of servant evangelism led to hundreds of people getting a positive picture of God’s love and our church. The reactions varied widely from one man actually cussing us out to long conversations about faith and God’s love. Generously giving has led naturally to witnessing because when we freely give, we are showing the gospel first in actions so that we can later share it with words.
Evangelism is a word that strikes fear in the average person. I remember as a teenager going to a local mall with my huge black bible ready to evangelize. I recall scaring more people away than actually having any good conversations. Yet when I approach someone with a water bottle on a hot day, it is natural for them to ask, “Why are you doing this?” This gives me a natural way to tell them about God’s love.
This form of witnessing has been coined servant evangelism. It is a form of evangelism which anybody can do. Whether it is handing out water or chocolates, mowing someone’s lawn, or washing someone’s car for free; anybody can do it.
Saint Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” When we freely give our money, our time, and our lives, then we are looking most like God. He gave his all for us. What has he given us that we can generously and freely give? (go to www.servantevangelism.com to read or share more practical ways to show God’s love.)

by Matthew Helland

2007-09-17T12:34:00.000+02:00

Isn’t Europe a Christian continent? The answer to this question is a resounding, “NO!” Europe is now a post-Christian continent where for many, the presence of the Christian church has more to do with history books than with the present or the future. That Christianity at one time was pervasive in Europe is very clear. In the Netherlands for example, church holidays such as Pentecost, Ascension Day, Easter, and Christmas are all national holidays celebrated with not one, but two days each. Nearly all stores are closed on Sundays, and many massive cathedrals and churches can be seen which at one time were attended by thousands of weekly worshippers. Now many of them are businesses, restaurants, night clubs, mosques, or just historical monuments.
The decline of the Christian church in Europe is alarming. In the United Kingdom for example, five major denominations (the Church of Wales, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church, the Salvation Army, and the United Reformed Church) have publicly stated that if things continue to decline at the present rate, they will be non-existent sometime during the 2030s. This is significant in that many of our American churches have their roots in these movements.
A team of 35 Americans from Great Commission Missions came to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to scout it out as a potential site for a church plant. During that trip, this team spoke to random people throughout the city about their opinions regarding church and God. They were shocked when they found out that not one random person whom they spoke to during that entire trip had ever set foot in a church.
This sad spiritual state is further seen in the lack of Christian education available for the children. One 13-year-old boy who heard the Christmas story for the first time thanked his teacher for telling it to him. However, he wanted to know why in the world anyone would name the child using a curse word. Another young girl upon hearing that Jesus died when he was 33-years-old responded by saying, “Oh, yeah? What did he die of?”
As a mission field, Western Europe is financially prosperous but spiritually destitute. The church in Africa is growing 50 times faster than the church in Europe. The church in Asia is growing 43 times faster. As a whole, the church in the United Kingdom has not experienced growth since the 1950s. Many European nations have less than 1% of an evangelical Christian presence. Thousands of cities and villages do not have even one evangelical Christian church. What should our response be as the body of Christ to this situation?
Two shoe salesmen were once sent to a distant island where, upon arrival, they discovered that the people did not wear shoes. The first salesman returned home discouraged believing that he could never sell a single shoe in that land since no one there wore shoes. The second salesman however called back to the shoe factory excitedly, asking them to send a large shipment of shoes to the island. He exclaimed, “No one here wears shoes yet. This is the chance of a lifetime that we can not pass by!”
Two hunters went searching for wolves in order to get 500 dollars for each pelt. After a week of hunting and finding nothing, one of them woke up in the middle of the night to find a pack of wolves closing in on them. He woke up the other hunter and said, “Wake up. We are going to be rich!”
Church history is full of men and women who had this kind of faith to see nations changed by God. The Scottish Reformer John Knox is known for having once said, “God, give me Scotland, or give me death.” This man’s passion and faith was influential in changing Scotland from being the most “sinful, wicked and superstitious nations of all Europe” to becoming one “noted for its honesty, piety and morality centuries after his death.”
Dutch religious and political leader Abraham Kuyper, at the founding of his Free University in Amsterdam, proclaimed, “...there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”
Kuyper’s faith in Christ led him not only to start new churches, but also newspapers, political parties and educational institutions. Laws which he brought into existence still influence legislation in the Netherlands today. John Wesley, British founder of the Methodist church, once proclaimed: "Give me one hundred men who love only God with all their heart and hate only sin with all their heart and we will shake the gates of hell and bring in the kingdom of God in one generation."
Wesley’s “Methodist” or “Holiness” movement changed not only England, but the United States as well. His movement was a forerunner of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church of today. Yet, the Europe of these men is long gone. A student of Kuyper’s Free University here in Amsterdam informed me that, “God [and his church] is dead in Europe.”
This diagnosis may seem like reality to her, but it is wrong. God is developing a new generation of spiritual leaders whose faith, like that of Kuyper, Knox, and Wesley, can change cities and nations. We must believe God for the emergence of new leaders and new churches that can be a part of spreading God’s kingdom afresh throughout Europe.
The call to reach Europe is one that demands a firm commitment to prayer, to give, to go and to stay. Persevering prayer is a must for our families and ministries here on the front lines of this spiritual warfare. We often hear people passing through our cities describing a dark spiritual atmosphere hanging over this continent. This will only change as we pray.
We also need prayer for fruitfulness, growth and multiplication in our churches. Western Europe is described by many as hard spiritual ground. What may take a short amount of time to start a ministry in other parts of the world may take years or even decades here. Yet as we ask the Lord of the Harvest for the workers and resources needed, we can believe God for a miraculous speeding up of this process.
As missionaries in the Netherlands, we are focusing our ministry on reaching a new generation for Christ. Weekly kid’s clubs where children can hear Bible stories and learn about the love of Jesus is one strategy. Also, making disciples by building relationships grounded in prayer, Bible study, and accountability is another. We pray that from these relationships, new leaders will develp and have the impact Wesley, Kuyper, and Knox had on their nations. Fruitful ministry in these areas can have influence for generations to come and will play a pivotal role in changing the spiritual landscape of this continent.
Europe is not Christian any longer, yet let us dare to believe that God will use our lives and prayers to change the destiny of these nations. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field (Luke 10:2)”
Will you join us in asking God for workers for the harvest field of Europe? Will you join us in reaching our World for Christ?

2007-03-27T22:34:00.000+02:00

The flyer for our weekly kid's club.

2007-03-27T22:09:00.000+02:00

Our Third Kid's Club

48 kids, 3 mothers, 3 babies, and 7 helpers =60 people and a lot of fun

10 second count down before club starts

Kids listening to the lesson.
Kids singing and some flexing their muscles

2007-03-19T12:45:00.000+01:00

Discipleship Through Transformation Trios.
“If we don’t do something now, we won’t have anything left later…”

These words were painted on a wall near my house in Amsterdam, Holland. I don’t know what the author was referring to, yet I could hear a loud message directed to us as the Church. I live in a post-Christian, post-modern society wherein the Christian Church has lost the influence it once had. Most people I meet on the streets of Amsterdam do not believe in God and are not interested in Church. Church to them is an obsolete and irrelevant institution. Perhaps their grandparents and possibly even their parents went to church, yet very few of them have little or any contact with a Bible-believing church.

Ron Luce, founder and president of Teen-Mania Ministries, has stated that the future of the evangelical church in the USA is also in danger. He has said that only 4% of today’s teenagers classify themselves as “Bible-believing Christians.” This is a huge decline from 35% of baby boomers and an enormous decline from 65% of the people of the World War II generation. However this took place along time ago in Amsterdam; only 3% of people go to church.

How do we reach the generation that is ‘out there’ now, and has no Christian influence? First of all we need to acknowledge that the world people live in these days is very different from the world you and I might have grown up in. An example of this is the access and exposure to sex. Amsterdam, is world famous as being the “sex capital” of the world, yet with the internet and other advances of technology, pornography and other filth is only a click away for everyone. Herein lies a huge challenge for the Church today. Young people need more to stand against these spiritual dark powers than just a message on Sunday morning. They need to be discipled.

We, as a Church, need to be a place where people learn to deal with our struggles and temptations before we lose more ground. This happens in small groups and in one on one relationships. It happens in an environment of safety and trust, where people can be open and honest with their struggles.

Over 250 years ago John Wesley began a movement which would eventually become what is now called the “Holiness” or the “Methodist” movement. Millions of people world wide have come to Christ because of this move of God. What made this movement so special was its “classes” or “Holy Clubs.” Every week people would get together to report their spiritual progress and pray together. They would answer a list of questions which would range from whether they slept too much to whether they witnessed and prayed for lost ones that week. This movement exploded and is part of our spiritual heritage as a church.

How can we implement the strengths of this Holiness movement and apply them to a new generation? One of the answers is “Transformation Trios”. A “Transformation Trio” is a group of three people (either all male or all female) that get together every week to 1) Be accountable, 2) Share what God has spoken to them through his word that week, and 3) Strategically pray for the lost. There are eleven accountability questions that the group discusses. Everyone in the group commits to reading the same 25 to 30 chapters out of the Bible each week. If one member does not read it all, everyone has to read the chapters again the next week. This is not seen as a punishment, but just that God still wants to speak to group members through those chapters. Finally, each member prays for 2 to 3 unsaved friends to come to Christ. When a group gets a fourth member, it splits and multiplies into 2 groups. This way these group can continue multiplying and growing continuously.

Having my own transformation trio has been an incredible blessing to my life. Every week we get to be accountable with one another. We strategically pray for unsaved people, and we read large amounts of the Bible we would not be motivated to read on our own. We believe that as we are transformed, then our families, our churches, our cities, our nations, and ultimately our world can be transformed. The generation that is ‘out there’ needs people that are willing to invest into their lives. They need people who are willing to go the extra mile to see others set free from sin and be discipled. Let us be one of those persons now, because if we don’t, we won’t have anything left later!

by Matthew & Femke Helland.

(For more information on Life Transformation Groups see Cultivating a Life For God by Neil Cole at www.cmaresources.org)

Life Transformation Groups- Character Conversations Questions

These questions are to be asked of one another in a weekly meeting of accountability (Proverbs 27:17). They are to stimulate conversations of character and confession of sin in a safe environment which values honesty. vulnerability, confidentialitv, and grace.

1. Have you been a testimony this week to the greatness of Jesus Christ with both your words and actions?

2. Have you been exposed to sexually alluring material or allowed your mind to entertain inappropriate sexual thought about another this week?

3. Have you lacked integrity in your financial dealings or coveted something that does not belong to you?

4. Have you been honouring, understanding, and generous in your important relationships this week?

5. Have you damaged another person by your words either behind their back or face-to-face?

6. Have you given in to an addictive behaviour this past week? Explain.

7. Have you continued to remain angry toward another?

8. Have you secretly wished for another’s misfortune so that you might excel?

9. (Personal Question)______________________________________________________

10. Did you finish the reading and hear from God? What are you doing about it?

11. Have you been completely honest with me?

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” -- James 5:l6

Strategic Prayer Focus-Each of you in the group is to identify two or three whom you feel led to pray for their salvation. List the names of all those identified in the group on each card so that all of you pray for each of the people weekly. We recommend that you keep this in your Bible as a bookmark for your daily reading so that each time you open your Bible you are reminded to pray for these people.

1.__________________ 2.________________3.____________

4.__________________ 5. _______________ 6. ____________

1.Lord, I pray that you draw ____________ to Yourself (John 6:44).

2. I pray that _____________ seek to know you (Acts 17:27).

3. I pray that ___________ hear and believe the Word of God for what it really is (1 Thess. 2:13).

4. I ask You, Lord, to prevent Satan from blinding _______ to the truth. (2 Cor. 4:4; 2 Tin. 2:25-26).

5. Holy Spirit, I ask you to convict _______ of his/her sin and need for Christ’s redemption (John 16:7.14).

6. I ask You to send someone who will share the gospel with __________. (Matt. 9:37-38).

7. I also ask that You that you give me the opportunity, the courage and the right words to share the truth with________ . (Col 4:3-6; Eph. 6:19-20).

8. Lord, I pray that __________ turn from his/her sin and follow Christ (Acts 17:30-31; 1 Thess. 1:9- 10).

9. Lord, I pray that _______ would put all of his/her trust in Christ (John 1:12, 5:24).

10. Lord, I pray that ________ confess Christ as Lord, take root and grow in faith and bear much fruit for your glory. (Rom. 10:9-10, Col. 2:6-7; Luke 8:15).

“Brethen, my heart ‘s desire and my prayer for them is for their salvation.” Romans 10:9

(Express written permission has been received from Neil Cole for the republishing of these questions.)

2007-03-13T09:53:00.000+01:00

College and Career Bible Study Group

One group we really enjoy doing Bible study with is our Beta group. These are all young people either in college or just out of college. Most of them did an introductory course to Christianity (alpha course) last year with the Navigators. It is a very "gezellig" (Dutch word for warm, cozy, and social sphere) time in that we eat a meal together and then read the Bible together. We always ask, "What sticks out to you in this chapter? What don't you understand or is difficult?" and finally, "What point can you take home today to apply to your life?" We have thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with each other and seeing how God speaks his word to everyone's life.

2007-03-12T19:36:00.000+01:00

Matthew's Dutch Visa (Residency) Finally Granted!!

Today I called Dutch immigration police to request a new stamp for my passport as the one I currently had ran out yesterday. This entire process of requesting a Dutch visa has been complicated and harder than we ever expected. After 15 months we finally got the answer we expected..."a decision has been made to grant you Dutch residency."

This means I will be able to get a driver's license and do other official business I was not allowed to do. Last year (May 17th, our wedding anniversary) we recieved a letter from the immigration services saying that I had 28 days to leave Holland. We appealed this letter and 9 months letter we can say that Matt's residency has been granted. It is truly a relief and we are so happy about this news.

2007-03-12T11:32:00.000+01:00

First Kid's Club

On March 7th we had our fist kid's club. It was a lot of fun. A dozen children came and one mother stayed throughout the entire program. Now we will start visiting all of the kid's in their homes and building relationships with their families. This really is a fun and educational way to get to know the kids of the neighborhood.

2007-03-01T16:20:00.000+01:00

“A Men’s Prayer Meeting?!?!”

“Men excited to pray? I thought only women liked to do prayer meetings.” This is what one man surprised man said after taking part of our monthly men’s prayer meeting in West Amsterdam . He is just one of over a dozen believing men who now can not wait to get together to pray.
Upon first arriving in Amsterdam , one of the best things which I did was to get together with other men and pray. We started with only three of us who would get together periodically. These times were very special in that we could share our burdens with one another, pray for each other, and share what we felt God was saying to us. We normally spent an extended time (2 ½ -3 hours) of getting together in the presence of God as men. This men’s prayer meeting has become an exciting thing in our lives. It has been awesome to see how God has answered our prayers over the last year.
One participant was diagnosed with an incurable sickness which doctors had told him would never allow him to work as an engineer again. Several months later, the diagnosis was changed and the doors opened up for him to work doing what he describes as his “dream job.”
Another participant had shared that he needed a bigger house for him and his family. In all of Europe ’s major cities there is a shortage of housing, yet months after we began praying for this, God provided him with a four bed room house just as he had asked for.
A benefit has been to see how we are all maturing spiritually. One man from Syria has learned how to hear God’s voice for himself and has been filled with the Holy Spirit. He was planning on moving to North America in the future, yet now his plans have changed drastically. He desires to go back to Syria where he can open a “house for God” and be a missionary to his own people.
Something else we have seen is how after prayer we have seen people suddenly open up to the gospel when before they had no interest. One neighbor in July of last year told me how she was not interested at all in God. Months later, she began telling me that she did not know why, but she got a Bible and started talking to God. She said she found great refuge and strength talking to God. She might not know why, but I know why; people are praying for her.
The prayer of a righteous man (and righteous men) is powerful and effective (James 5:16b). As men, this is what we have experienced first hand. When we pray together, we draw closer to each other and to God and expect to see him work in our lives.

(In the picture you can see people from the US, Nigeria, Syria and Holland. The nations are at our reach in the major cities of Europe.)

2006-11-16T23:24:00.000+01:00

Hannah Grace Helland was born today around 12:15 in the afternoon. She weighs 4.25 Kg. (9.3 US lbs.) and is absolutely beautiful.

2006-10-14T21:35:00.000+02:00

Stichting New Life Netwerk- (IPHC)
We have now officially set up New Life Netwerk as a foundation (stichting) here in the Netherlands. The four members of the founding board were made up of Pastor Grace and her assistant pastor Mary along with Juan Sarmiento who is a part of my core team for our church in West Amsterdam. This was a historic moment as we now have two churches officially in New Life Netwerk. Pastor Grace's church is in the Bijlmer (South East Amsterdam) and she reaches primarily people from Africa, Suriname, and the Caribean. Our new work in West Amsterdam also has a multi-cultural flavor in that we are made up of not only Dutch, but of other nations. Juan comes originally from Venezuela and I come from Chile/USA. (We never know if we should speak in English, Spanish, or Dutch with each other). We are excited about the official birth of NLN and look forward to what God has in store for us.

Ten more weeks...

2006-08-31T15:03:00.000+02:00

Ten more weeks until my due date, November the 9th, and the pregnancy is going great. I had to be tested for pregnancy diabetes, because Judah weighed 10 pounds at birth (which is usually an indicator for diabetes). But yesterday the results from that came in and my blood sugar is normal! Praise God! No sugar free diet….!
We are expecting a little girl. We have picked a beautiful name…Hannah Grace.
Judah calls her “Hannah Gracie”. Talking about Judah…we just celebrated his birthday on the 17th of August. He loved it! It was the first time he could realize that this was all for him and he is still singing birthday songs. He is just developing so quickly, he learns new words every day and because I speak to him in Dutch, he is picking up Dutch real fast. Here are some pictures!!

2006-08-26T13:33:00.000+02:00

Lessons from an Amsterdam Graffiti Artist
Throughout Amsterdam you can read the words of a graffiti poet (www.Laser3.14.com) whose short phrases may include humor, irony, paradoxes, and comments about God and religion. Some of these odd comments include: "The Neo-Jesus Strapped down." Another one is,
"Pale and strapped down in a morphine doctrine." Another one said, "Fetch and roll over-God." Why do these writings so catch my attention?? Because in a real sense, Laser 3.14, mirrors the society in which he lives. These writings acknowledge a hopelessness and lostness that many in Amsterdam feel. A world where God does not exist, nothing really makes sense and religion is powerless.
Another of his comments is "God died in the arms of the devil." This is a very common denial of God's existence since how could a good God allow such terrible suffering and injustice in the world. I do not claim to have all the answers, yet I dare to say that God did die in the arms of the devil, yet he rose again on the 3rd day. This is the message and the hope which Laser 3.14 and Amsterdam is missing. True hope and a true relationship with an all powerful all loving God.

2006-08-20T19:04:00.000+02:00

Learning Dutch
Learning Dutch has been a primary assignment for me in this first year in Holland, yet there still is a strong yearning in me to start our new church. For the first 7 months we just visited different churches every Sunday to see the different ways that people do church in the Netherlands. I must admit, it was difficult for me not to have our own home church.
About 6 weeks ago we began meeting every Sunday at 4pm in our home. We have had as many as 11 people and as few as 4. On our first two Sundays we had an elderly neighbor lady who did not understand English. Therefore I went ahead and delivered my sermon in Dutch. Everybody understood my message. Of course it was not perfect, yet understandable. That gave me a good feeling.
I have been daily reading the Bible and newspapers in Dutch. However, I recently began reading big thick Dutch novels as well. This has helped my vocabulary increase and given me even more confidence with this new language. In September, I begin an intense 2 month Dutch course which will culminate with a National Test which will determine if my writing, speaking, reading, and understanding of Dutch is sufficient enough to study or work in this language. This will definitely help me improve my Dutch and get me closer to my goal of being able to teach, preach and write in Dutch fluently.

Sharing My Faith In Amsterdam

2006-07-12T20:55:00.000+02:00

Sharing My Faith On The Streets Of Amsterdam.
Sharing my faith with complete strangers on the street can be a scary thing to do. Especially since my past experiences with street witnessing in Amsterdam have been at times quite difficult. Yet last Saturday I had the pleasure of praying with someone to accept Jesus in her heart for the very first time. What made it extra special was that I spoke with her only in Dutch. Therefore, this makes it my first time, yet definitely not the last time, to lead someone to Christ in Dutch.
Something which made last Saturday a lot easier for me to speak with people was that I relaxed, prayed, asked the Holy Spirit to lead me and spoke with people in a very natural way. I always start off by asking a person if I can practice my Dutch with them. At some point, I will bring up my personal testimony of how God healed me from cerebral palsey as a child. Then it is a thing of just listening to the person, seeing where they are in their knowledge of God, and share as much as is feasible about the gospel. Sometimes this is a lot, but many times it is just a small seed. After all this is what Jesus calls us to do…plant seeds and of course be fishers of men (and women).

Second Day of Easter

2006-04-18T13:42:00.000+02:00

Second Day of Easter
Yesterday was the “Second Day ofEaster." We took Judah and Nena (our dog) on our bikes on a day long excursion by the fields of flowers and sand dunes which are right beside the Dutch coast line. It was truly prachtig (beautiful).

Discipleship and Dog Walking

2006-04-12T14:05:00.000+02:00

(A family picture with our dog)

Discipleship and Dog Walking
Upon first arriving in my neighborhood in Amsterdam, Holland, I met up with a Christian neighbor who invited me to go prayer walking. When I arrived at his house, I was surprised to see that he was bringing his big black dog along. As we walked through a nearby park, another black dog came bouncing towards his dog. The two dogs began playing with each other while the owners of the other dog began speaking to us. Within a short time my neighbor was witnessing and praying for these other dog owners. Upon finishing our “prayer/witnessing/dog walk,” My friend told me to get a dog.
Two weeks later, we went to the local dog pound and got ourselves a little puppy. That same evening I ran into another neighbor who was also walking his dog. As we struck up a conversation, I soon learned that he had just decided to become a Christian a few days earlier. He knew very little about the Bible or about being a Christian, but he knew that he wanted to follow Christ.
The next evening he came with his girlfriend to our house. Within a few weeks we had begun doing a weekly bible study with them. What has become even more fun to see is the role that our dogs play in our friendship. Being that we live in apartments in densely populated city, we must walk our dogs several times a day so they can exercise, and take care of their physical needs. Therefore this has become a natural way for us to get to know new people. It has also become an excellent tool for discipleship.
We have now begun meeting in the morning to walk our dogs and then to read the Bible and pray before going to work. Also, at night we walk our dogs together and talk about how our day has been. My dog not only has become a tool for making new friendship, but she also loves to play with other dogs every day. I never expected that owning a dog would be a great way to make disciples.
In Mark 16:15, Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to all creation. Interestingly, the word for go in Greek could also be translated as “as you go into all the world preach the gospel.” This changes the meaning a little in that as we go into the world we should share the gospel. In other words, as we live our daily lives at work, at school, with our family, or just walking our dogs, we need to share the gospel and make disciples.

What Secular People

2006-04-07T15:50:00.000+02:00

What Secular People in Amsterdam Think About God
Recently, I went down town to the presidential palace to talk to people about God. I was amazed at people’s reactions. Once “God” was mentioned people either walked away or just told me that they thought weinig (very little) about him. Here are some very typical answers:
“I don’t believe in a source of help, you must do everything yourself.”
“I cannot trust in something I can not see.”
“There are too many things wrong in the world to believe in an all powerful ‘God’.”
“There is a force, a light, and energy or something. Yet it is not a personal God.”
“Jesus was just a good man who told nice stories.”
“We don’t believe in Santa Clause, Politics, or God anymore.”
My heart is saddened upon hearing these answers, yet I am even more desirous to share with people what God has done in my life. One woman told me that God is dead in Europe. I was astonished at this comment, yet this seems to be the reality that many have chosen to live in. Why??
Some answer this question by explaining that they were not raised believing in God. They never really heard about him. Others tell me about going to church as a kid, yet eventually losing any interest in God. Could it be because they have not really ever heard the gospel of Jesus Christ in a relevant manner?
Do the words “God” or “church” invoke ideas of legalism and judgement which have nothing to do with God’s Grace or Love?
We are praying and believing to find relevant and tangible ways to share God’s love with our secular friends and neighbors in Amsterdam. We believe that God is preparing their hearts to come to know him. May we be sensitive to his leading in how to make him known in a relevant manner.

2006-01-21T11:40:00.000+01:00

New Home, New Doggy (Nena), and New Friends.
We have settled in our new home in Amsterdam and also found a great way to get to know new people. We got a little dog named, Nena. (That means small girl in Spanish). I quickly learned that walking a dog is a great way to meet strangers, some of whom we have already gotten to not only talk to, but also pray with. Amazing how a dog can open the door for new friendships.

We are also getting re-acquainted with old friends and getting to know new ones. We seem to have quite a network already from Femke's previous ministry and we are excited about the what lies ahead of us.

2006-01-09T16:57:00.000+01:00

Recently we got to enjoy a week long vacation to Austria with Femke's Family. Here are some family photos of us all bundled up.

2005-12-26T15:22:00.000+01:00

God’s Grace Working in Amsterdam's Red Light District.
Recently, I was privileged to meet a beautiful saint named Grace. She is originally from Ghana, but has lived in Germany and Holland for the last 25 years. Every week she travels into the red light district of Amsterdam to share the love of Jesus with women who work there. Her goal is not only to see these women set free from lives of prostitution, but also to experience the freedom that is found in knowing Jesus.
Grace has been working in the red light district since 1992. She feels called to reach out to these women. Her message is simple. Armed with only gospel tracts and some bibles, she visits the women, prays with them, and tells them that Jesus still loves and cares for them.
God uses Grace to see women freed from prostitution, yet freedom from their occupation is not very easy. Many of them are immigrants who have a high bounty to pay for their freedom (it may be as high as $50,000). Besides money however, many of them are bound by satanic covenants. These women fear that if they desert their occupation, then they or their loved ones will be harmed due to satanic curses placed on them. Grace says that it is not possible to pay money for the women’s freedom, but through Jesus, all satanic covenants and curses can be broken.
Grace ministers not only from behind the comforts of a church building, but in the center of the devil’s territory. The spiritual warfare and oppression is very real. She shares how the armed pimps at times have little patience with her talking to their property. When asked whether or not she was putting her life in danger, she let me know that this is what God has called her to do.
The Red Light district of Amsterdam is world renowned for being a place of immorality. Yet in the middle of it, Grace is dedicated to bringing God’s grace and love to the women who work there. Where sin does abounds, there God’s Grace abounds (Romans 5:20). It is no coincidence that God called this woman called Grace to flesh out the grace of God to these people. Please pray for Grace’s protection and provision and that many people like her will succeed in bring the grace and light of God into the spiritually dark places of Amsterdam, Holland, and Europe.
- Matthew Helland.

2005-12-26T09:49:00.000+01:00

On Christmas Morning we had a delicious breakfast. As you see here, Judah is enjoying some of his delicious breakfast as did his parents, grandparents, aunt, and uncle.

2005-12-18T16:43:00.000+01:00

(Femke and Judah on their bike pose all bundled up on top of a dike.)

Today we went on a nice bike ride on the dike by Femke's Parents house. It is cold. We have had some snow and hail over the last few days. But not to worry, with a warm coat, hat, and some gloves, no cold weather can stop us. Notice Judah is waving to you :-)

2005-12-09T03:44:00.000+01:00

Amsterdam, Here We Come!!
In the last 14 months, we have shared in over 85 services about our vision and our burden to be missionaries in Holland. We have always presented our video “Hellands to Holland,” talking about what we wanted to do. Now, we can change that title to “Hellands in Holland.” Our desire is to do what we have talked about. We want to see many people come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We want to see churches strengthened and many new churches planted. Thanks you for deciding to pray and support us financially. Thanks a whole lot. We desire to be an extension of your ministry in the US to Amsterdam, Holland. So Amsterdam, here we come. Not alone, but with God’s spirit and with the prayers and backing of many Christians in the US. If you are not praying and supporting us yet, join us. We still have plenty of space for more to join our team through prayer and finances. Thank you and God Bless.

2005-11-14T18:32:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday we took 10 kids from South Haven Apts. to Fairmont Terrace Apts and gave away over 100 toothbrushes. As they gave them away they said, "Remember to brush 2x a day and Smile, because Jesus loves you."

2005-11-02T20:25:00.000+01:00

Here is our little Tigger, Judah. He really likes his little outfit and wore it all around the house on Monday. Femke took him to his aunties house, but when he got there he was totally wiped out. All he did was sleep the evening away in his aunties arms.

We had spent the previous day and that day traveling to southern oklahoma/northern texas and the trip took a toll on our little tigger. But not to worry, the next day he was back to his normal curious/adventuresome self getting into and climbing into anything he could find. We love our Judah.

2005-11-02T20:19:00.000+01:00

Here is a picture from an outreach we took some of the children on. Here they are singing to some residents of a retirement center. They did a grrreat job!!!

2005-11-02T20:10:00.000+01:00

(Judah is High fiving some of the boys in Kid's Club)

Something that we have been able to do is work with children that live in government housing here in Tulsa. We both work at South Haven as education directors. That means bus the children to a local church for tutoring, do a weekly Kid's Club (Bible Lesson) and do bi-weekly field trips.

Also, I (Matt) have been doing Kid's Club (Bible Lesson) with children who live in another low-income housing project named Fairmont Terrace. This has been a great opportunity for us to do outreach during the week, but we can't wait to be in Amsterdam soon.

2005-10-27T04:39:00.000+02:00

Matthew, Femke & Judah Helland.

We are the Hellands.