Community-run
urban Center of influence
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in Bulgaria,
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a pioneer
Seventh-day Adventist missionary
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to Argentina,
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and a church
part in Madrid, Spain,
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all this and much
more coming up next.
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Hello, and
welcome to Mission 360.
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I'm Gary Krause.
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Today's program is coming to you
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from Amsterdam
in the Netherlands.
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When people think of
Amsterdam and the Netherlands,
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they think perhaps
of windmills and tulips
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and clothes and cheese.
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But this city is really
known as the Venice of the North
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because the number of canals,
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some more than 160
canals stretching for 62 miles.
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And you see boats
going up and down the river
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and it's a place
where tourists love to come.
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Well, first up,
we're going to be looking
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at Mission in Bulgaria
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and a Center of
influence operating there.
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In the still dark
and early mornings,
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flour and water meet,
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they rise with yeast
and are shoved in an oven
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to be transformed by heat.
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The aroma fills the air
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sending an
irresistible invitation
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to mouth-watering delights.
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One by one people come to
order to socialize and laugh.
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Every day people of all
ages and different ethnicities
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line up at this bakery
eager to savor delicious bread.
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Making bread
takes time and patience.
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It takes loving
hands to mix ingredients
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and press them together
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until the dough is
ready to rise and grow
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so it is with people.
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It takes time and patience
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to cultivate
trust and friendship
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to warm their lives
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and invite them to follow Jesus.
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At the Tpane3ata Global Mission
Urban Center of Influence
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in Bulgaria staff
members offer visitors
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more than food.
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Here people find room
to interact and participate
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in a variety of
courses and activities.
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As they make new friends,
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visitors are invited to
become volunteers themselves.
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This way they can give
back and help others too.
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Dimitur is a regular volunteer
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who found purpose in
Tpane3ata by tutoring math.
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There are good people here
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and I developed
good relationships
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with different people.
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So I want to give
my best to others.
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I feel a strong desire
to learn more about God
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and the Bible.
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I have this idea
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that I have to
help and if I can,
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I'm going to do it.
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I am not a math
teacher, I'm an engineer.
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But here I help kids with math.
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Dimitur travels 10
kilometers every day.
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Sometimes he comes on foot.
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He started as a customer,
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then he became a volunteer
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and now he is a
baptized Seventh-day Adventist.
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Like Dimitur many
people who come to Tpane3ata
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find the bread of life.
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The owners of Tpane3ata
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have seen how
centers of influence
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like this can work as a platform
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to engage the
community and form friendships.
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God gave us this place
to keep us close to people.
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God showed us
that we needed a place
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where people felt
accepted and at home.
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That's why we
established a bakery
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because it smells like home.
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In Bulgaria,
people eat a lot of bread.
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This is how Christ
worked. He was close to people.
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He offered them
the bread of life.
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He healed them
and took care of them
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and we want to do the same.
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The leaders at
Tpane3ata invite you to pray
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for this growing
group of new believers.
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Please pray for this
urban center of influence
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and many others around the world
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that find creative ways
to introduce people to Jesus.
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Thank you for supporting
urban centers of influence
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through Global Mission.
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My guest is Pastor Rudy Dingjan
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who was the
leader of church planting
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and church growth here
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in the
Netherlands for many years.
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Rudy, thanks for
joining us. It's okay.
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Now can you tell me please
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describe what the
challenge is of mission
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here in the Netherlands?
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Well, though we have the name
to be very Christian nation,
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Christianity has
moved to the margin.
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And to many people,
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it's a true fact that
they only go to church
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if there's a
funeral of someone they know
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or somebody gets
married who is churchy.
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But for the rest
of it, to be a pastor,
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to be a Christian,
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it's almost like
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some negative
aspect of your life.
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Right. Yeah.
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So the number of people
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who would actually
attend church is minimal?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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They are not many left now.
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But the ones that go to church,
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they are the bold ones,
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otherwise they
would have left already.
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Right.
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Now what about the
Seventh-day Adventist Church?
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How would you
describe the Adventist Church
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in the Netherlands?
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Well, we are a
community of about 6,000 members
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in a population of 70 million.
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Wow.
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And we are struggling to
reach the people around us.
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As we used to be
evangelists of other Christians,
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now it's important to learn
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to be an
evangelist to non-Christians.
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And that's a
completely different game.
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Now tell me about that game
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because I know that you focus
very much on church planting?
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Why did you have that focus?
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Well, we have this hard
time of reaching people.
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And then Peter Humefelt
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who was our
division church growth leader
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at that time,
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took us to Australia
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to see how
church planting worked
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because evangelism itself
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didn't work in the '90s anymore.
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And then when I came back,
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I was full of enthusiasm
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because there it was
possible to touch communities,
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touch cities by
planting new churches,
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though they
sometimes were very small.
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And we try to do it in Holland,
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but we didn't
have enough pastors.
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We couldn't set free a
pastor to start church planting,
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so we said, well,
let's do it with members.
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So teams of members
started planting churches.
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And not all of
them were a success,
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but the ones that did succeed
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the people that
started it stayed.
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Yes.
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And the problem with
pastors is they often get moved.
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Right.
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And then the
project now is spoiled.
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And working with lay members
has been very, very good thing.
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Wonderful.
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Now, several years
ago I traveled with you
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to visit some of
these church plants.
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Can you describe for our viewers
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some of these initiatives?
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What did they look
like? What did they do?
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Well, we find
that it's very hard
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for new churches to stay new.
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Right.
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It's very easy to become settled
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once you are an
organized church.
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But it's a great joy to see
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how new church
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is now already
planting new churches.
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Yes.
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So they become not only
mother, their mother church,
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but it's going
to be a grandmother.
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Wonderful.
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And to keep that
moving, it's a lot of work,
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but it's the way.
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Now I remember
there was one group
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that was basically just running
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children's
activities on Sabbath morning.
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Do you remember that project?
I remember that project.
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Yeah.
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Now, some would say, well,
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in church you should actually be
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sitting in a pew worshiping God,
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but this look totally different?
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Oh, yeah.
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And then they're many more
totally different church plants
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also in the past and present
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because it's no way
to have a select service
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with all kinds
of songs and music,
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they should go very well.
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But they've
only used self there,
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it's not the object.
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We have to learn to
touch the community,
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to learn to touch real life.
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And that's where
projects are a success
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when they really
itch, you know, how to say.
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They stretch where
it itches. That's right.
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They say, well, there's
a need here we can help.
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And it's not only
that we help people
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we want to reach,
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often it's the way by
asking others to help us
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to do something
good for community.
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And then the ones
who are helping us,
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they are the target group
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that gets to
learn to know Christ.
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I remember that,
because I remember your,
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at least one of your
daughters was at university
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and they were doing
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some sort of a
community activity
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and she stressed
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that the important
things we involve non believers
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in what we were doing.
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Yeah. They asked their friends.
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Please help us, we're doing this
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or we're doing that.
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And by doing that,
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they got into
contact with one another
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and you start talking
and you can invite them
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to something more
biblical, but it takes time.
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Right.
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You first you have to find trust
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to get to know the community.
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The community you experienced
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when you are a
family of God together.
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Yes.
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Rudy, give me an
experience of somebody
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whose life was touched
through church planting?
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Well, I remember a
guy who was a student,
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who was very atheistic
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because his mother had
had very bad experiences
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with Christians.
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She had divorced
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and that was in an age
when you didn't do that.
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And he was a marathon runner.
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Oh, yes. And...
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We were...
00:10:54.88\00:10:56.25
My daughter's prayer project
of doing things for others.
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They were running on
a track to get sponsored
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to pay for a meal for homeless.
00:11:04.33\00:11:06.93
And a friend of his asked
him, "Why don't you run for us?"
00:11:06.96\00:11:10.40
"Oh, I will run."
00:11:10.43\00:11:11.77
And that was his first
contact with the church plant.
00:11:11.80\00:11:17.01
But when they said
we are going to cook it
00:11:17.04\00:11:18.87
now that meal,
you want to join us?
00:11:18.91\00:11:20.94
Now he was going
to join, he liked it.
00:11:20.98\00:11:23.04
He got to learn
another girl, he got engaged.
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Together they started
coming to the church plant,
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though he was a non-believer.
00:11:31.95\00:11:34.12
Then he went to the alpha course
00:11:34.16\00:11:35.49
in other church,
00:11:35.52\00:11:37.89
but kept on having
contact with a small group.
00:11:37.93\00:11:41.13
And during time
he became believer,
00:11:41.16\00:11:43.26
he realized,
suddenly, I am a believer.
00:11:43.30\00:11:45.43
You know,
00:11:45.47\00:11:46.80
there was no
altar call whatever.
00:11:46.84\00:11:49.04
It came so far
and he was baptized.
00:11:49.07\00:11:51.44
But the first contact
was him stretching, running.
00:11:51.47\00:11:55.74
That's his
stretch for a good cause
00:11:55.78\00:12:00.02
we were organizing.
00:12:00.05\00:12:01.38
Wonderful, great story.
00:12:01.42\00:12:03.05
Rudy, thanks
for sharing with us.
00:12:03.08\00:12:04.42
You are very
welcome. Appreciate it.
00:12:04.45\00:12:05.89
Our viewers at home,
00:12:05.92\00:12:07.26
please pray for the Netherlands,
00:12:07.29\00:12:08.62
pray for Europe in general.
00:12:08.66\00:12:10.63
In some ways,
00:12:10.66\00:12:11.99
Europe represents
our new mission field.
00:12:12.03\00:12:13.80
For many years
they serve the world
00:12:13.83\00:12:15.70
sending
missionaries around the world,
00:12:15.73\00:12:17.07
they still do some.
00:12:17.10\00:12:18.43
But we see the
growth of secularism
00:12:18.47\00:12:20.67
and post modernism,
00:12:20.70\00:12:22.20
and church planting
00:12:22.24\00:12:23.57
starting new groups of believers
00:12:23.61\00:12:25.14
is a wonderful ways to start,
00:12:25.17\00:12:27.04
to help build the kingdom of God
00:12:27.08\00:12:28.58
here in Europe.
00:12:28.61\00:12:29.94
We'll be right
back after this break.
00:12:29.98\00:12:31.38