My life has been circling around the topic of money for the last couple of months. In Agap\u00e8 we are still running the campaign of ‘Funding the Family Business’, dealing with the changes in our structure of staff finances. Not only will staff be employed in the near future, for many this is also the time to raise their income to a more healthy level. Of course this also has implications for our personal finances. Apart from that, those who follow my Twitter updates know that the 2009 budgeting process has taken a lot of my time, and those who are in the Agap\u00e8 database know that we’ve been actively seeking support for different projects and initiatives.<\/p>\n
And then there is of course the economic crisis. In the recent Agape Europe leadership conference we’ve been discussing the possible implications for our movement, and there is at least consensus that we are facing a time of radical change.What you see happening now in the world is – as I said before<\/a> – in many ways the effect of greed and immorality. In economical terms, one of the problems we have created is leaving the gold standard<\/a> as the basis for creating money. Today, the monetary system is not based on actual value of an underlying good (gold, for example), but on debt. See this simple but shockingly convincing documentary ‘Money as debt<\/a>‘. Note by the way the remarkable parallel with spirituality, in which we have abandoned the ‘gold standard’ of an absolute truth and exchanged it for a myth of egotism<\/a> and self sufficiency.<\/p>\n So, I thought it was a good idea to speak on this in church<\/a> last Sunday. I tried to explain the ‘worldly’ concept of wealth, riches and money, and to contrast that to the ‘godly’ system. See my powerpoint<\/a> (in the download section of this site) for a comparison of these two perspectives and\/or listen to the sermon<\/a> (in Dutch, of course).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My life has been circling around the topic of money for the last couple of months. In Agap\u00e8 we are still running the campaign of …<\/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":[3],"tags":[15,18,7],"class_list":["post-683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agape","tag-rafael","tag-sermons","tag-thoughts"],"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":"My life has been circling around the topic of money for the last couple of months. In Agap\u00e8 we are still running the campaign of …","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Agap\u00e8<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Agap\u00e8<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Rafael<\/a>","sermons<\/a>","thoughts<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Rafael<\/span>","sermons<\/span>","thoughts<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Geplaatst 17 jaar geleden","modified":"Bijgewerkt 17 jaar geleden"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Geplaatst op 17 december 2008","modified":"Bijgewerkt op 17 december 2008"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Geplaatst op 17 december 2008 12:03","modified":"Bijgewerkt op 17 december 2008 12:03"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p63Qy-b1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":315,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2006\/03\/03\/holy-money-for-holy-purposes\/","url_meta":{"origin":683,"position":0},"title":"Holy money for holy purposes","author":"Mark","date":"3 maart 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The title of this post is Maria Jacoby's email signature, and it quite well defines what we've been discussing all day long - from breakfast to bedtime. Agap\u00e8 Europe's new Director, Javier Garcia, has set the future direction for Europe and is moving in an incredible speed to get there.\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":1366,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2011\/07\/20\/cru-the-new-name-for-campus-crusade-for-christ\/","url_meta":{"origin":683,"position":1},"title":"Cru: the new name for Campus Crusade for Christ","author":"Mark","date":"20 juli 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night it was officially announced: Campus Crusade for Christ, our 'mother-organisation', will change its name into 'Cru' as of 2012. A few quick thought from my side. This has been the outcome of a long process. Rumours reached The Netherlands somewhere early last year, and\u00a0when I was visiting the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agap\u00e8"","block_context":{"text":"Agap\u00e8","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/agape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/cru135.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2005\/09\/28\/roadshow-on-track\/","url_meta":{"origin":683,"position":2},"title":"Roadshow: On Track","author":"Mark","date":"28 september 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"This week we are running a 'roadshow' for the Agap\u00e8 staff at several places in the country. 'We' is Henk Veltman, Hans Pruis and I, being the new Direction team. Together with the National Leadership Team, we wrote down our vision and plans for the next coming years in 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":360,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/27\/masses-and-leaders\/","url_meta":{"origin":683,"position":3},"title":"Masses and leaders","author":"Mark","date":"27 september 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I am only now becoming more and more aware of what great people we have in our movement. During the summer conference we saw and heard several Agape\/Campus Crusade leaders from around the world, with some great stories. One of those was Layo Leiva, the Campus Crusade for Christ Director\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Agap\u00e8"","block_context":{"text":"Agap\u00e8","link":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/c\/agape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":200,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2004\/11\/24\/personal-growth\/","url_meta":{"origin":683,"position":4},"title":"Personal growth","author":"Mark","date":"24 november 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not been blogging a lot about personal stuff lately. I should, if this blog reflects my life as it is. As I said before, we had a great time in Spain end of October. During that week, a process of spiritual growth has started in a way that\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":173,"url":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/2004\/10\/05\/agape-update-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":683,"position":5},"title":"Agape update","author":"Mark","date":"5 oktober 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Today it has been made public that Willem and Marian de Vink are leaving Agap\u00e8. They served as National Director for the past two years. Willem was also the one that got me on board. It has been a tough decision for them, and I think it is a loss\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\/683","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=683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boerenroem.nl\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}