{"id":291,"date":"2005-12-07T01:07:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-06T23:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/?p=291"},"modified":"2005-12-07T01:07:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T23:07:00","slug":"what-is-god-doing-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2005\/12\/07\/what-is-god-doing-update\/","title":{"rendered":"What is God doing (update)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marc posted an extensive report<\/a> on the seminar of last Friday. You can tell which one of us is the reporter – he manages to write a very clear report on what happened, whereas I can only try… but anyhow. It’s worth reading his thoughts.
What is puzzling me is how it can be that people cling so much to church structure being crucial. If I read the New Testament, there is no clergy, no formalized structure, but only an pragmatic (or organic, as Marc would call it) structure that supports the spreading movement of the Spirit. And also: why do people define Church as being an Institution? It is even in contrast with the original Greek meaning of ecclesia – ‘called out’, and not ‘instituted’. (By the way: I believe this ‘called out’ refers to the yoke of the Law, not the ‘world’ – basically saying we’re pulled into freedom). Church in in my humble opinion is nothing else (nothing more, nothing less) than the Body of Christ on earth. At least, I don’t see any other definition in the New Testament. Being part of a so-called para-church organisation, this is always a tricky point. Recently somebody argued that missions and evangelism are the task of the church, meaning that a movement like Agap\u00e8 should actually not be doing it. The statement is that para-church organisations exist because of an ‘unpaid debt’ from the churches.
In my definition, Agap\u00e8 is as much part of Church as any other group of christians, whatever form they may choose. Our focus is to win people for Christ – are we not allowed to do so? Our focus is to build them to become mature christians – shouldn’t we? Our focus is to send them out to do the same – who says we can’t? I believe in the church – whether institutionalised or non-institutional, traditional or post-modern, out-going or not. I don’t care which form it takes, as long as it is focuses on Jesus and honors Him as its head. And I see the Spirit at work both inside the (very high) walls of traditional churches and outside, where even heretics and prophets seem to be truly following Jesus \ud83d\ude42
Let’s not get distracted from the mission we all agree on, but join hands and get to work…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marc posted an extensive report on the seminar of last Friday. You can tell which one of us is the reporter – he manages to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-algemeen"],"aioseo_notices":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mark","author_link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/author\/admin\/"},"featured_img":null,"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"bravada-featured":false,"bravada-featured-lp":false,"bravada-featured-half":false,"bravada-featured-third":false,"bravada-lpbox-1":false,"bravada-lpbox-2":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Mark","author_link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Marc posted an extensive report on the seminar of last Friday. You can tell which one of us is the reporter – he manages to …","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["algemeen<\/a>"],"unlinked":["algemeen<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Geplaatst 20 jaar geleden","modified":"Bijgewerkt 20 jaar geleden"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Geplaatst op 7 december 2005","modified":"Bijgewerkt op 7 december 2005"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Geplaatst op 7 december 2005 1:07","modified":"Bijgewerkt op 7 december 2005 1:07"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p63Qy-4H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1274,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/12\/cape-town-2010-thoughts-on-ephesians\/","url_meta":{"origin":291,"position":0},"title":"Cape Town 2010: thoughts on Ephesians","author":"Mark","date":"12 oktober 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The bible book of Ephesians is the focus of the Cape Town 2010 devotionals. Here is my contribution to that conversation. I once heard the story of an American general (apparently the only one) that was made POW during World War II. He was imprisoned in a Japanese camp in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lausanne-capetown-2010-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":233,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2005\/05\/25\/five-fold-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":291,"position":1},"title":"Five-fold (2)","author":"Mark","date":"25 mei 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Much debate (more than I was aware of) is going on about the five-fold ministry, especially the apostolic and prophetic ministry. Take a look for example at the discussion around apostolic ministry at Marc's Messages, the Super-apostle Detector (ironically meant, but with an awful lot of truth in it?) and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "algemeen"","block_context":{"text":"algemeen","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/algemeen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":335,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2006\/05\/28\/shortcomings\/","url_meta":{"origin":291,"position":2},"title":"Shortcomings","author":"Mark","date":"28 mei 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week I preached in church on a topic that is close to my heart these days. I called the sermon 'Cooperating with God', but the actual underlying topic is how to deal with shortcomings in your character and in your competencies. I feel confronted with my own shortcomings a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "algemeen"","block_context":{"text":"algemeen","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/algemeen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":226,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2005\/05\/01\/five-fold\/","url_meta":{"origin":291,"position":3},"title":"Five-fold","author":"Mark","date":"1 mei 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Gave my first sermon in our church today. It went well, at least I got some positive feedback. Although it was my first speech in our current church, it was not my first speech ever. It was fun to see some people react surprised, asking 'if I had done this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "algemeen"","block_context":{"text":"algemeen","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/algemeen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/19\/good-news-to-the-poor\/","url_meta":{"origin":291,"position":4},"title":"Good news to the poor","author":"Mark","date":"19 april 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I met him again, my friend Nermin. Originally from the Balkan, now living in Almere in a beautiful part of the city. His place has 6 bathrooms, a huge pond and a basketball court. The only problem: it has no roof. And actually, the bathrooms are the public ones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/armeko-100x100.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2004\/08\/10\/slender-meager\/","url_meta":{"origin":291,"position":5},"title":"Slender \/ meager","author":"Mark","date":"10 augustus 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Just read that the dutch 'Skinny Anonymous' wants to have the Dutch word for slender or meager out of the dictionaries because it would be offensive to skinny people. What a ridiculous idea! I am almost 2 meters tall (almost 6 ft 8) and only 75 kgs (165 pounds), so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "algemeen"","block_context":{"text":"algemeen","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/algemeen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}