Thoughts on life and the Kingdom of God

Moving day

2008-01-07T00:37:00.000+02:00

Dear blog readers!

It's time to move to another blog server, so from now on you can read my thoughts at this address www.abrokencup.wordpress.com so see you over there!

Torben

Kaká - he belongs to Jesus!

2007-12-16T14:44:00.001+02:00

The world's best footballer these days, a young Brazilian by the name of Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, or better known as just KAKÁ isn't just a wonderful football player, he is also a great testimony of Jesus Christ and what Jesus has done in Kaká's life. After each goal, and there are many, he points to heaven to show who gets all the glory in Kaká's life, and after each trophy he has won, and he has won many, he shows his t-shirt saying I BELONG TO JESUS!

In fact it seems like the only problem with this wonderful Christian brother, is that he isn't willing to switch club to Real Madrid..!:-)

More about Kaká here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaká

Torben - who also belongs to Jesus!

Sorry

2007-12-12T22:09:00.000+02:00

It has been brought to my attention that some have read my previous post called "The joys and sorrows of Facebook" and have seen it as me being judgmental. I am so sorry that that's how I've come off. I have no intention of judging anybody. I obviously don't know what's going on in peoples' hearts and where anybody is at with God, and yet I am concerned about many people I know.

Is that concern born out of a love for people? I hope so. I am a discipleship trainer. That's my job, my calling, and who I am. And I want more out of life. More of the abundant life that Jesus promised. More for myself and more for others.

Sometimes it gets overboard, and I end up challenging too much or in inappropriate ways, or I am plain, old wrong.

I am sorry to anybody who has felt judged by my clumsy attempt to express the sadness I do have in my heart regarding friends who seem to be far away from God. And I apologize that I didn't mention that obviously my sadness and concern is more based on personal contact than on a Facebook-profile.

In Christ's service (also when I'm clumsy:-))

Torben

The joys and sorrows of Facebook

2007-12-12T11:00:00.001+02:00

Hello!

A while ago I gave into peer pressure for the first time in my life (??!!!) and joined the Facebook world. Now, a few months later, apparently I have 160 friends! Friends seems like a pretty broad term, especially for those people who have 400 or 898 friends:-)

It's been interesting and fun to catch up with old friends and acquaintances from different eras of my life. Some are married and have kids, others look like they haven't changed a whole lot since I said goodbye to them 10-15 years ago. Some are still going strong with God, but I have to admit that there is a huge sadness in my heart when I read a lot of my friends' profiles. So many who once claimed to be Christians and where the things of God were their, at least spoken, priority seem to have changed those priorities. I'm not the Holy Spirit, and I can't say what's going on in peoples' hearts, and I realize that not everybody wants to put a big sermon on Facebook, but still....your interests, your spare time activities, the books you read, he music you listen to, your favorite quotes, what your friends write on your wall, etc. all of it a story. And - as far as I can see for a number of my friends - a sad story.

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost" the author of Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote. And I have to hold on this little nugget of truth. People might be running away from God, but he doesn't run away from them. People might be caught in mediocrity, suffering the consequences of poor (relationship) choices, etc., but God is the constant one. His patience doesn't end. His love never fades.

So I'll keep praying for my wandering friends, even those who have decided to cut contact with me, because I talk too much about God and the things of his kingdom...:-(

I know God is in control, and I know that he has plans and purposes even for those of his children who run far away. Thank God he is always out looking for us. And thank God he never gives up on me. I can always come back to him.

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20)

God bless you!

Torben

A word about the tragedies in YWAM Denver and New Life Church, Colorado

2007-12-11T10:39:00.000+02:00

The God of resurrection and life

This past Sunday a tragedy happened in Colorado, USA. Two young YWAM’ers (Youth With A Mission), Tiffany and Philip, and two young churchgoing sisters, Rachael and Stephanie, were murdered by a young man, Matthew Murray.

Murray was attending a Discipleship Training School (DTS) five years ago, but was asked to leave due to health and most likely mental issues that were hindering him from getting everything out of his DTS. Five years later he showed up at YWAM Denver, murdered Tiffany and Philip and wounded two other young men. Then he traveled to New Life Church, murdered the two sisters, injured three others, before he was eventually shot to death by an alert security guard.

A terrible tragedy. And obviously for me as DTS director, who have also had to ask students to not continue their studies with YWAM this hits home with a lot of force. I’ve cried when I’ve read the reports from these tragedies, and I’ve asked God to intervene in mighty ways.

And this is one of the cases where your view of who God is comes out in the open. Either God doesn’t care about us, and this is yet another meaningless tragedy, or he is he who he says he is in the Bible, and we can trust that God will bring life and resurrection out of this terrible event.

I believe and hold on to the latter understanding. God is the God of life and resurrection, and he will always bring life out of death. Jesus had to die to bring life to many. We die to ourselves to get full life in Christ. In the kingdom of God things are turned upside down. Death brings life. Lay down your rights to receive all God has for you. Humble yourself and God will exalt you. Don’t defend yourself and judge others, for God will do both for you. How do you grow? You die to yourself and accept that you have everything in Christ.

Because there is a God of of life and resurrection I’ll never lay down my life and die without being resurrected again. Every time I humble myself, God will exalt me. In situations like the one in Colorado, all we have to cling to are verses such as Psalm 30:5b “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” and John 12:24 “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds”.

I believe God will bring resurrection, life, freedom and joy through the sacrifices, the kernels of wheats, of Tiffany, Philip, Rachael and Stephanie. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”, the historian Tertulian wrote hundreds of years ago. And it’s still true today. Life will spring forth. Death and darkness shall not have the last word. This may look like a victory for Satan, hopelessness, depression and darkness, but it isn’t. God will bring life. God will bring victory. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be the almighty God of the Bible that I – and many others – have put our lives in the hand of!

May God bring forgiveness and life to Matthew Murray’s parents as well who now after the death of their son are left with the haunting question: “what did we do wrong?”. May the God of all comfort, comfort them and bring hope into their hearts.

"As if you should do things my way..."

2007-11-25T12:31:00.001+02:00

Beautiful song of surrender. I especially love the line "as if you should do things my way". So often I want God to do things my way. How safe it is to surrender to the God of love and allow him to have things his way. And his ways always happens to be the best ways in the long run! I need to be reminded of this truth these days when my perspective is clouded and my head and heart seem filled with doubt, unbelief and fear regarding the future. He knows what he is doing "and I surrender to Your ways"

A quote about love

2007-11-25T11:32:00.000+02:00

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

C.S. Lewis

How hard it is for us to love. How precious and wonderful it is when we allow ourselves to love. In this weekend of Thanksgiving in America, I've been reminded of how thankful I am that God has given me the courage to love. Or rather that he is loving through me. He knows that I'm afraid, but I'm so glad that he loves people through me.

I'm so happy that God has given Jeannette and I the courage to be vulnerable and open with each other. What a wonder that is!

Thank you, God! - are there any readers out there??

When God doesn't make any sense...

2007-11-12T21:30:00.000+02:00

We have been richly blessed these last couple of months here in Kiev with a wonderful young man from a Muslim nation who has been here studying. He has a wonderful testimony of what Jesus has done in his life. I had tears streaming down my face when he was sharing his story of how Jesus found him. Jesus is truly the hero of his story. Mohammed (not his real name, but he does have a brother with that name) was born into an all Muslim family. Everybody in his family, and every single person he knew was a Muslim. To believe in God was to be a Muslim for Mohammed. There was no other way, no other religion. But Jesus had a different idea. He found Mohammed. Mohammed was crying out to God in his frustration: “God if you’re really there, please show up!”. And Jesus, the true living God, did show up. He met Mohammed in his dreams and talked to him about coming to him and experience rest in him.

Mohammed had no idea who Jesus was, but Jesus kept showing himself in Mohammed’s dreams. Jesus sent a local, Christian missionary to speak to Mohammed and after a while Mohammed gave his life to Jesus Christ.

And he was never the same again.

It’s an incredible story of how Jesus found and completely transformed Mohammed’s life. I have never met a young believer, Mohammed has only been a Christian for four years, with such a clear understanding of the truly important things of God. He understands very well who God is and who he is in God. I’ve been amazed of the clarity of his faith every time I’ve had the privilege of talking to him.

He has been a huge blessing to me these weeks. I have a heart for Muslims and want them to meet Christ and get to experience real life, truth, peace, joy and love. And it has been so encouraging to see how Jesus has met Mohammed. It shows me that there truly is hope for all Muslims. There was no good reason that Mohammed would meet Jesus. But Jesus found him, and he can’t find anybody. Even those who seem far away from him.

And now Mohammed has to leave again. He thought he was gonna be here for nine months, but now he has to go after just a couple of months. Circumstances didn’t work out. Some people didn’t do what they promised to do, and he couldn’t get the right visa. And he has to leave, and it doesn’t make any sense.

It doesn’t make any sense that he isn’t gonna stay here. He doesn’t think so either, but how encouraging it was to hear him say: “those who hope and believe in God will renew their strength”. Mohammed will go and make a difference no matter where he goes. Jesus has changed him and will continue to change him. And Jesus will meet other people through Mohammed.

I will continue to pray for my friend, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again some day whether it’ll be here on this planet or on the new earth someday.

I know that God’s plans are higher and better than ours, so I’ll trust in him. And I’ll look forward to hearing how God’s plans will look like for Mohammed.

“I’ll praise you in this storm, and I’ll lift my hands. You are who You are no matter where I am. And every tear I’ve cried, You hold in Your hands, and though my heart is torn, I’ll praise You in this storm”, Casting Crowns “Praise You In This Storm”

Les Misérables - a story of grace

2007-10-29T22:50:00.001+02:00

Jeannette and I just saw the wonderful movie Les Misérables, based on Victor Hugo's novel, again. What a wonderful movie. And what an excellent portrait of the contrast between grace (Jean Valjean) and the law (Javert).

Enjoy this little clip where a new man is born.

Identity In Christ

2007-10-25T12:59:00.000+03:00

As I prepare for teaching about Identity In Christ in the Discipleship Training School (DTS) here in Kiev, I wanted to share three wonderful quotes with you regarding this life changing topic that continues to change me from within.

"My primary identity rests on what God has done for me through Christ" (Brennan Manning)

"Your real new self will not come as you're looking for it. It'll come as you look for Him (Christ). Only in Him will I know who I am" (C.S.Lewis)

"And now, with God's help, I shall become myself" (Søren Kierkegaard)

Amen, brothers!:-)

Torben

Arsenal - you've got to love them!

2007-10-25T10:41:00.001+03:00

How can you not love a team that plays football and scores goals the way Arsenal do these days?!! Wow!!

Paul Potts - opera is only for old people.....:-)

2007-10-23T07:51:00.001+03:00

Maybe it's because I'm 30 and I'm getting soft(er), but this clip always gets me. Look at the changing attitudes of the different judges, and enjoy this awkward, but extremely talented young man from England sing beautiful opera. Of course he went on to win the whole show, and is now doing very well with his first album. Good job! There is a touch of grace here, it reminds me of the wonderful movie, Forrest Gump. I love it when very unlikely people succeed in a world that's so caught up on appearance, smartness, etc.

Go Paul Potts:-)

God bless, Torben

God is alive

2007-10-21T16:21:00.000+03:00

I just returned to fall-beautiful-Kiev after a week of teaching about Discipleship at my old YWAM-base, Holmsted Manor, just south of London, England. It was a great week of teaching about life as a disciple. I was speaking about brokenness (2 Corinthians! I love that letter. The most personal of Paul's letters!), following Jesus as my Shepherd (Psalm 23) and growing in trust (all of my life!). It is always interesting to teach, and especially on the basis of what has become so clear to me these last six months: it is not about me! It is not about my teaching, my illustrations, my jokes, my material, my powerpoint or whatever. It's about Christ! It's about him working through me his precious, broken vessel.

And I hope and pray that God will bring more revelations in the days and years to come of what I was sharing with the DTS in England this past week. I have often seen in my life how I've heard teaching at some point that I wasn't really ready for, but how God has used the first encounter with whatever truths to plant a seed and help me be ready for it some years down the road. God's timing is incredible!

For me it was encouraging and humbling to realize that even though I taught about the same topic, Discipleship, in England in February and in Rostov-on-Don in Russia in May as I was speaking about this past week, I couldn't use any of my old notes anymore. I've learned too many new things with God. He is alive. He is alive in me. He is changing me. And his Word is alive!

Hallelujah! This past Wednesday it was so cool to see how God wanted to make sure that Jeannette and I felt united though we were physically apart, so he spoke to both of us through the same Psalm, Psalm 139, which we were talking about in both England and Ukraine the same morning! He is great!

Love, Torben

Our God Reigns

2007-10-13T15:48:00.001+03:00

An excellent video featuring an excellent song. Do we remember that Our God Reigns in the midst of the seeming chaos around us? Do we believe in the God of Hope and do we share that hope with people who don't know him yet?

Torben - who will ask all to excuse the guy who did the video and obviously didn't get that the drugs Delirious sing about is medicine (for poor people in Africa), and not heroin or other narcotics....a minor mistake:-)

Activist?

2007-10-09T09:53:00.000+03:00

How tragic it is to read the news agencies' version of the story of Rami Ayyad's death. Most of them use the heavily loaded word "activist" to describe this young man who was murdered because he believed in Jesus and was spreading too much good news.

"Activist"? Running a bookshop, spreading good news, helping people with computer classes and other basic skills so they might be able to get a job, doing mercy ministries, helping, caring, praying....how does that make you an activist??

Peacemaker would probably have been a better term.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God" (Matthew 5:9)

God bless! I'm looking forward to meeting Rami Ayyad and many others who have gone before him some day on the new earth.

Torben

Pray for the Palestinian Christians!!

2007-10-09T09:33:00.000+03:00

I have had a heart for Palestinian Christians living in the Gaza Strip - see the map - since I read Brother Andrew's "Light Force" a year and a half ago. There are 1,4 million Palestinians living in the little area called the Gaza Strip. It's 360 square km. (139 square miles), but only 5,000 Christians are still living there. Most of the Christians have fled to other countries, many of them fled during the long period of Israeli occupation of Palestine. The Christians who are still in the Gaza Strip are for the most part forgotten by everybody.

PLO and Fatah fight for a Palestinian State that would be largely Muslim. Hamas, recognized by the United Nations as a terrorist group, want war with Israel, Israel to disappear from the face of the earth and a strong Muslim state in Palestine.

Christians in the West tend to pray for Israel, which is great, but who intercedes for our Christian brothers and sisters in the Gaza Strip?

The Gaza Strip is a very difficult place to live. There have been countless wars, attacks, occupations, etc. and people are tired, jobless and poor. The little Christian population have been allowed to live relatively unharmed by the Muslims for the past many years, but that stopped this Sunday morning when Rami Ayyad the leader of the Gaza Strip's only Christian bookshop was found murdered from multiple stabs and gunshot wounds. Ayyad, 26, leaves his pregnant wife and two small children behind.

Noone has claimed responsibility for the murder.

Read this article to get more information http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/141-12.0.html

And pray for the Christians in the Gaza Strip. Pray that they won't seek revenge. Pray that God will help them in this terrible and fear-provoking situation.

And pray that God, once again, will prove that even though the powers of darkness think they have won a victory, he'll show that he brings life out of death!

John 12:24: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds" - pray that Rami Ayyads death will produce much life in the Christians and in the Muslims in the Gaza Strip!

God bless!
Torben

Have you prayed for Osama Bin Laden lately?

2007-10-08T19:22:00.000+03:00

An old hero of mine is the little Dutchman, Brother Andrew, who started the wonderful organization Open Doors (www.opendoors.org) and who has been travelling to closed countries (first Communist and in the last many years to Islamic nations) preaching the Gospel of Christ to everybody he comes in contact with (including fundamentalist Muslim leaders - read his excellent book "Light Force" to hear those incredible yet true stories of meetings with leaders from Hamas, Hezbollah, Yassir Arafat, etc.) and strengthening the Church where it faces persecution. I stumbled across an article on Christianitytoday by Brother Andrew, that I encourage you to read. It asks many thoughtprovoking questions, and the question: "when was the last time you prayed for Osama bin Laden?" requires an answer from you and me. Enjoy!

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/juneweb-only/125-52.0.html

God bless!
Torben

Where Is The Love?

2007-10-07T11:11:00.001+03:00

I don't listen to much (any!) hiphop normally, but this Black Eyed Peas' song from 2003 is so thought provoking that I shared it with the DTS this week. They ask the question "Where is the love?', and if you listen to the lyrics you hear that they can't find the answer anywhere in the world. And the chorus turns to a God that (as far as I know) they don't know themselves: "Father, Father, Father help us, send some guidance from above". If we as Christians don't know the answer to the questions posed in this song, nobody will, and all of us are truly doomed....but we know the God of love! And he is the one everybody needs to know. The God of love, life, freedom and joy! Hallelujah!

Excellent first week

2007-10-07T10:58:00.000+03:00

Hey!

We've just finished our first week of this fall's Discipleship Training School (DTS). And it's been a great one! The staff have all told me that they have not been stressed during this week (definitely a first time experience for some of those who have many DTSes under their belts), the students seem open and are already asking many questions and we've had a wonderful week of scratching the surface of many of the topics that we will spend more time on these next 11 lecture weeks.

I had the privilege of speaking about Hearing God's Voice and spending time with God, and it came to me to ask a interesting question to the students that went like this: "How do you feel that God feels about you when you fall asleep while you're praying to him?"

Some interesting answers came forth that revealed that many of us still struggle to see God as a real Father who will not be disappointed or frustrated with us, but will just, like any good human father, be happy that we're spending time with him and will enjoy the closeness of having his child fall asleep in his lap!

Thank God we have next week to learn more about God's fatherheart. There is so much to learn for all of us whether student, staff or speaker. And we ask God to reveal his fatherheart to us this next week and the following.

God bless!

Torben

How Great Is Our God

2007-09-24T15:10:00.001+03:00

Great song by Chris Tomlin. Watch the video, enjoy the song and the pictures, and worship the Creator of the Universe who dwells within each one of his children. What a wonder!:-)

Torben

When God Ran

2007-09-15T12:18:00.001+03:00

God is not disappointed with you, mad at you, angry at you, disinterested in you....he is running to you! The God of the Universe, the Mighty Warrior of Heaven runs to you! He loves you just the way you are. No matter how many times you've behaved like a prodigal son or daughter, he still loves you. He always has, he always will! He will never reject you!

God bless you as you listen to this song!
Torben

Revelation needed

2007-09-15T12:08:00.000+03:00

We're now 15 short days away from the next Discipleship Training School (DTS) starting here in Kiev. We've had a wonderful time of preparation as staff, where we've focused a lot less on leadership principles, techniques, laws, etc. and a lot more on God, God's character, God's grace and God's ability to work through our brokenness.

The school verse is from Ephesians 1:17 - a wonderful verse that shows our dependency on God!

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better"

We need God's revelation. Without it all we have is words. Lot of them. But the students and ourselves don't need more words and information, we need more revelation.

So that's what we pray about, and we trust that God will give it!

God bless!

Torben

A place called grace

2007-09-06T13:35:00.001+03:00

Listen to this wonderful song, enjoy the video and come to the place of Grace and know that your heavenly Father is always out searching for you! He loves you just the way you are!

God bless you!
Torben

Uhhh...what did she just say??

2007-09-06T13:33:00.001+03:00

Some questions are just really hard to answer...;-)

About loneliness

2007-09-04T15:41:00.000+03:00

If there is one topic we as Christians try to avoid it's definitely loneliness! The truth is that all people are lonely. C. S. Lewis once said that we suffer from "lifelong nostalgia". We know we were created for the Garden of Eden, and we long to be back there. Paul, in Romans 8, talks about all of creation groaning and looking forward to the day where the life we were created for will be revealed.

If you google loneliness+Christian you'll find that apparently the only people who are lonely are: singles, divorced people, and people with counselling-worthy depressions......!....

I did, however, find one gold nugget out on the world wide web, that I'll link to and encourage you to read. The author has a lot of the same thoughts about loneliness that I do, so I'm just gonna let him speak on my behalf for now.

Enjoy http://www.adventistreview.org/2003-1501/story2.html

God bless and meet you in your loneliness! "Our souls are ever restless until they find their rest in you" - St. Augustine

Torben

What God wants from you?

2007-09-01T19:50:00.000+03:00

What does God want from me? What are his requirements on me?

The disciples asked Jesus that question and he gave an interesting answer.

John 6:28-29: "What must we DO to do the works God requires? Jesus answered: The work of God is this to BELIEVE in the one he has sent"

That's it. It's that simple. All you must do is believe in Jesus. Abide in him. Rest in him. Be who you are in him. Be the Beloved son or daughter of God.

That's it. He is the vine.

Why is it that the Church so often puts heavy burdens on Christians? Why are so many Christians so tired? When Christ said these words: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28)

Abide in Christ!

God bless!
Torben

Leading from brokenness

2007-09-01T19:37:00.000+03:00

It just hit me how Peter is a wonderful example of somebody who had to lead in his brokenness. Everybody in the early Church knew Peter as Christ's apostle, and one of his closest friends, but first and foremost he was known as the disciple who had failed Jesus on the evening of Christ's crucifixion through claiming not to know him and even swear that he didn't know him.

Talk about brokenness....being known as a deserter of the one who called you to lead a Church that was gonna change the world upside down.

I love Peter. I love his openness, frankness, big head, faith in himself, and how through his life as a disciple he came to the point of brokenness. He came to the place where all of us need to come to, where we're at the end of our rope, at the end of our own strength, and we have to surrender to Christ and accept the fact that we can't do it, we need Christ to live through us.

And then he was ready to lead. Ready to lead not out of his own strength, but in Christ's strength.

Many Christian leaders have told me that you should never say "I don't know" to people you're leading. I firmly disagree. I've also been told that you can't show weakness, and that you're struggling with different problems when you lead. I firmly disagree.

A good, Christian leader is open about his own brokenness. Is open about the fact that him/her does not have it all together. Is open about the fact that he is on the journey with Christ himself. He hasn't arrived.

If I as a leader want my students/followers to know what openness and brokenness is, I need to model it. And thank God, I have a man like Peter to look at.

God bless!

Torben

Law vs. grace

2007-08-30T15:28:00.000+03:00

I have to admit that the more God reveals his grace to me, the easier it is for me to see law all around me and in me. There is so much law being preached in the worldwide Church. I work with discipleship training, and I see it over and over again, in students, in staff, in other missionaries, and in myself too.

Law. People have come to know Christ, and he has taken away their sins. Hallelujah! But they start in grace and continue in law. How do you recognize people who live by the law and not in grace? Look at their faces and their fists! Not too happy, very concerned, negative about many things, always quick to point out problems but rarely part of the solution, tired, frustrated at all the others, talking about experiences with God that happened 10 years ago, they suck life out of you, you get tired from spending time with them.....and clenched fists: angry, wanting more people to do more, they respond aggressively and defensively to criticism, they rarely express what they really feel but are often very sneaky with their criticism and judgments, they display I'll show them-attitudes, and they are controlling....oh so controlling! Maybe control is the primary characteristic? Ever since the fall in the Garden of Eden that has been mankind's primary problem: I want to be in control!

So people of the law who belong to the Church (whether they actually know Christ as their Savior is up to God, I have no clue with some of those I've met in my life) stick to control.

If you know grace, you live in freedom. You give people freedom to make choices and make mistakes. You accept that things are not always the way they seem. You understand that you've never seen a motive, only God has! You don't just see problems, but you want to be a part of the solution. You have fresh experiences with God, because you know him and you know he loves you. You can be tired, but you understand that Christ in you is your strength, and it's not a matter of you pulling yourself together.

You are not afraid to let other people run their lives. You understand that you can't control anybody anyway. You understand that you have rebellious tendencies in yourself, so you relinquish your right to be in control over yourself or others to your heavenly Father. You take criticism lightly. You accept that you make mistakes from time to time, and you can take responsibility for your own actions without fearing that people will reject you. You're not afraid, because your identity is in Christ. When you confront you're direct and loving, not sneaky and beating around the bush.

I love it when I encounter grace-filled people. I've only met few compared to all the law-based people I've encountered in the worldwide Church. But when I meet the grace people, I feel my spirit come alive. I'm attracted to them. To their simple and living faith. I see freedom and I long to know God better.

Thank God for the little group of broken, failing, incomplete people who are not afraid to let their Master's light shine through their brokenness!

I owe those of you I've met a lot of gratitude, and I know that you'll just pass it on to your Creator and Friend.

God bless!

Torben - I pray that God will keep me on the road of brokenness. It hurts. It doesn't feel good. My flesh protests. But I know that there is life here. I know that only when I accept the fact that I'm a cracked pot, but God loves me just the way I am can God's life freely flow in me and through me!

Two wonderful years

2007-08-21T23:04:00.000+03:00

What a joy it has been for me to be married to my wonderful wife Jeannette for the past two years! What a blessing she is! We celebrated our second anniversary yesterday, and I can only say that I'm falling more and more in love with her.

As you can read in the rest of these blog entries we learn many new things about who we are in God and how he loves us, and that gives us new freedom in our relationship with each other as well. I'm getting to know the real Jeannette more and more as we share life together. And what a joy that is!

There is freedom in knowing who you truly are. There is freedom in sharing that with your spouse. There is freedom and life in seeking God together and knowing that he's always there for you.

There is freedom in our marriage. A freedom that's growing as we see more of who we are in Christ. Our marriage isn't always perfect, but it's wonderful, challenging, encouraging, full of blessings, fun, and crazy at different times and all at once some times :-)

I guess I just wanted you, dear blog readers, to know how much I love my wife!

Torben

A visit to hell

2007-08-21T22:35:00.000+03:00

I can’t even begin to imagine the horror of spending eternity in hell away from God, away from love, kindness, grace and all else that’s good, away from meaningful human contact, and I’m so delighted that I’m not going there because I know Christ and have my life, my salvation and my identity in him!

Comparing anything to the horrors of hell may seem futile, but what else can you do when you’re faced with the horrors of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp called Auschwitz-Birkenau an hour’s drive away from the beautiful Polish city, Cracow. This camp, by far the largest camp during World War II, saw more than one million people dying there under horrifying conditions.

The vast majority of the people who were murdered were Jews from Hungary, Poland, Greece, Norway, Germany, Holland, etc. But there were also many Polish intellectuals, Gypsies from all over Europe, and Soviet prisoners of war who were all gassed, shot, starved to death or worked until they died which normally took less than three months.

We got to see gas chambers, cells where prisoners were starved to death, a train station platform where a Nazi doctor with a hand motion decided whether the people coming out of the train were ready to work or were sent directly to the gas chambers to die immediately. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp tells more about the horrors that happened in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

WHY FORGIVE?

So many impressions, so much horror, so much pain and tears and blood being spilled for no other reason than hatred and dehumanization. And sadly we as the human race haven’t learned a whole lot from the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Civil wars in Africa, ex-Yugoslavia, horrible wars in Asia and South America all speak about what happens when we dehumanize each other. It’s a lot easier to torture and kill somebody who is not a human to you than somebody who is just like you.

I was doing a little research on some of the famous people who either survived or died in Auschwitz. People like the Dutch diary-girl Anne Frank (who was there for a month before later dying in Bergen-Belsen in Germany), the Italian author Primo Levi, the Romanian-born American novelist Elie Wiesel and the French politician Simone Veil. All had a sad thing in common. Not only did the Nazis manage to steal their lives while they were in the camps, but they also stole their lives afterwards. Anne Frank’s dad, Otto Frank, spent the rest of his life trying to prove to people that her daughter’s diary was original. So in turn he spent the rest of his life thinking about the Nazis, thinking about the people who killed his family, thinking about people who believed Nazi-lies. I doubt that Otto Frank died a free man.

Levi, Wiesel, Veil also fought the fight against Holocaust deniers and were because of that tied to those people the rest of their lives. That’s the universal law of forgiveness we see here. If you are able to forgive the people who have done evil towards you, you set yourself free and you leave punishment to God. If you don’t forgive, you’re tied to the person who did the evil deed towards you, however horrible it may seem.

From a 2007 postmodern perspective, or from a 1945-perspective for that matter, it’s certainly not reasonable to ask people who survived the Nazi concentration camps to forgive the people who killed their entire family and tortured them.

It’s not reasonable either to ask a young woman who was molested as a child to forgive her dad. It doesn’t make sense to ask a father to forgive the murderer of his wife and three children. But only forgiveness will lead to freedom.

If you don’t forgive you can’t experience freedom.

Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, lived with his wife and five children right outside the extermination camp. He tortured, and murdered thousands of people and was responsible for hundreds of thousands of people dying. Höss was sentenced and hanged in a special made gallow right outside the first gas chamber in Auschwitz on April 16, 1947.

Many people witnessed the hanging of Höss. Some were survivors of the camp. Many probably cheered, rejoiced, sighed with relief and thought “now he got something of what he deserves”, but did Höss’ death mean freedom to the left behind family members of the people he murdered? No. Does any other death sentence mean freedom to the left behind family members? No. Does hating your molester give you freedom? No.

There is only (!!) the road of forgiveness. There is no other way. How ever difficult and unfair it seems and feels. We forgive, because he forgave first!

God bless!

Torben

Meeting Muslims

2007-08-21T15:29:00.000+03:00

I've met many Muslims from pretty much all Muslim countries in the world during my traveling in Malaysia, Turkey, Singapore, etc. and during the time in Cambridge, England where I helped out with a summer outreach a few years ago.

Yesterday I met a couple of Muslim guys, Rashid and Tareq from Kuwait, as we were on the train between Krakow, Poland and Kiev, Ukraine. They were from rich families and were traveling around Eastern Europe. Rashid spoke fine English after having spent six years in the United States, and naturally we talked about Kuwait, the Arabic world in general and of course about Islam and Christianity.

I have a special heart for Muslims. So devoted, so serious, so fun-loving and caring and kind people (this is true for approximately 85-90% of all Muslims...all those who don't attract the big headlines in the news...:-(), yet so misguided in what they believe. Yet so bound by laws and regulations. Yet so foreign to freedom, (eternal) security, relationship to God and knowing him as a loving Father!

I have studied Islam some and know some of the Arabic terms for the things Muslims believe, and this always helps in conversations with Muslims.

Rashid was telling me how he tries to be a good person all the time, and how he doesn't know if he'll go to heaven. Only Allah knows. I shared how I know that I can't live up to God's demands and that I know that I go to heaven the day I die, because Jesus lived the perfect life and paid the price of sin that God required.

Rashid shared how Muslims emphasize that it doesn't matter how much you pray and how much you think about Allah, if you don't do good deeds. Without good deeds, Allah won't be pleased. I agreed that it's important to do good things that God tells you to do, but that God loves me just the way I am and will love me just the same if I don't do a single good thing the rest of my life.

Rashid shared how he hopes that Allah will be merciful to him on Judgment Day, I shared how I know that God is merciful and that I will share eternity with him.

Rashid explained to me that he thought Allah could force anybody to become believers in him if he wanted to, I thought to myself that I'm delighted that God respects free will and gives us a choice to make.

I explained to Rashid how Jesus came down to save us, where all other religions (humanity, atheism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) is about us coming up to God through our good deeds or ourselves being gods. He heard it, but he didn't see the wonder, the joy, the gift.

Sadly Rashid has met many narrowminded, legalistic Christians so me talking about freedom, joy and life sounded strange to him.

I pray that God will let me meet many more Muslims. There is 1.3 billion worldwide. God loves them all. Jesus died for them all.

Don't be afraid of Muslims, don't walk away from them, don't believe the stories the media tell you. Love your neighbor, even if she wears strange clothes and even if he has a funny hat on his head. They are not that different from you anyway.

Torben

The one question Jesus will ask?

2007-08-09T17:30:00.001+03:00

Brennan Manning, author of Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba's Child, speaks in this short video about God's love. Listen and think about the points he makes!

God bless!
Torben

The poor in spirit

2007-08-09T15:37:00.000+03:00

I keep feeling inspired to write these days...so here we go again: Jesus said "Blessed are the poor in spirit", but what does it mean to be poor in spirit or to be humble? I just read this wonderful piece by Brennan Manning in his book "Reflections for Ragamuffins":

- "The awareness of our innate (*something we're born with*) poverty, that we were created from the clay of the earth and the kiss of God's mouth, that we came from dust and shall return to dust, pulls away the mask of prestige, of knowledge, of social class, or of strength - whatever it is we use to command attention and respect.

Poverty of spirit breaks through our human pretenses, freeing us from the shabby sense of spiritual superiority and the need to stand well with persons of importance. Poverty brings us to the awareness of the sovereignty of God and our absolute insufficiency. We simply cannot do anything alone.

Any growth or progress in the spiritual life cannot be traced to our paltry (*small*) efforts. All is the work of grace. We cannot even acknowledge that Jesus is Lord except through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Life is lagniappe (*something given as a free gift*). We are faced with the possibility of genuine humility. I am convinced that without a gut-level experience of our profound spiritual emptiness, it is not possible to encounter the living God" -

Amen, brother! Well written!

Torben

How you get to know God's love for you...part II

2007-08-09T10:12:00.000+03:00

"I'm not sure I truly believe that God loves me, if I have to be quite honest. In glimpses maybe but not continuously. I don't know ... Others I've met find it very easily to grasp but I just find it very, very, very difficult. It seems to me that you've gone through a process where you really embraced God's love... Was there anything in particular that made you realize that God really loves you? Anything you heard, learnt ... or was it just a long process?"

Still the same question. Here comes the more personal touch on that question.

Why do I know God's love better now than I did a few years ago? Wow...what a question! God only knows for real, but I do have some thoughts about it. I believe it's because I've asked God to show me his love for me. In some ways that's all I've done. I've asked him: "take me to a place where I know your love, and where you're enough for me". A brave prayer, and one you shouldn't pray if you're not ready to walk the road of brokenness with Christ. There is no other way to really experience God's love for YOU than the road David, Joseph, Peter, Paul, Jesus himself and countless others have walked: the road of humility and brokenness.

Churches and missions organizations talk a lot about humility and brokenness these years, but often they mean something else than the Bible does. Often humility and brokenness is just something you do. It's an add-on to your Christian life. You serve some homeless people once a week and that proves that you're humble. You admit that you sometimes lose your temper, and that proves that you're extremely broken. These comments are not actual quotes, but they are in essence, what I've heard from many Christians, when I've talked about these two words!

Look at Jesus who walked the road of humility. Humiliated, ridiculed, mocked, beaten, accused of being a drunkard and a party animal, accused of breaking the law, lying, blaspheming, finally convicted in an unfair trial, hung a cross, mocked even while dying and dead.....Yet Jesus was close to his Father in heaven! He knew God's love for him and for the world. "Father if there is another way, can we go that? Yet not my will, but your will be done", "Forgive them for they know what they do"

Joseph...dreamer, proud young man. Learned about humility through being sold by his own brothers as a slave, was thrown in prison though he was innocent, suffered many kinds of agony, but learned to trust God despite his circumstances and was, after many years, ready to forgive his family and save many from certain death because of hunger.

Peter....boastful, proud, strong, always the first disciple to talk whenever Jesus asked them a question. Convinced that he would ALWAYS be there for Jesus, but his own strength and courage failed him. He learned to be humble, he learned that in his own strength he can do nothing, but in Christ's strength, the strengt of humility and brokenness he can do anything. And humble and broken Peter was the first great Church leader.

Paul....powerful evangelist after his extreme conversion experience. On fire for God. Ready to do anything. But...he had a thorn in his flesh (2. Corinthians 12). We don't know what the problem was. Only God knows. But it helped Paul be humble and not trust in his own strength.

WHY HUMILITY?

Was God trying to punish Jesus, Joseph, Peter and Paul? Is he mean-spirited when he puts them and us in circumstances we don't enjoy? Yes, some Christians say and feel that! Because they don't trust God to be who he says he is. But God putting the mentioned great ones and ourselves through difficult circumstances is God's way of loving us and taking us to a place where he is all we have.

He has to strip of all the things that we hold on to (reputation, abilities, ministry, spiritual gifts, sense of humor, work, family, friends, achievements, good looks, etc. etc. etc.) to give us our sense of worth. So that he can become all for us and in us.

My own road of humility started (at least this stage of it! God has been at work in me for many years) almost two years ago. I had just gotten married, and we were headed back to a YWAM base in the United Kingdom where I was convinced that we needed to go. I had big plans and dreams for our time there. I saw myself as the next great leader to come out of that base, I was gonna pioneer this school and that ministry...big plans! And the people there, like all other people I had met previously in my life, had never-ending faith in me and my abilities. All was good. But God didn't agree! It's a long story, but through various circumstances that I don't mind sharing about, but it takes too long right here, God took Jeannette and I away from my dream place in the UK and here to Kiev where things have been more difficult. Again, it's a long story, but God has, in his mercy, taken away many of the things that I built my life around (my performance, my reputation, my admiration, etc.) to replace it with him. He took me to a place where I was willing to admit: "I don't know what to do, but I'm looking to you (only to you) for help" (2. Chr. 20: 12b).

I continue to learn more about humility, brokenness and trust. Sometimes it's a lonely path, but it's also a good path, because I know God is here with me. Psalm 23 speaks about life with God better than I can express:

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Jesus has taken me through difficult times and fun times, but he is the Shepherd, I'm the follower. Jesus says it very clearly in John chapter 10 where he talks about himself as the Good Shepherd. I am his sheep. I hear his voice. I recognize his voice. I follow him. And it's in this context that he promises us the ABUNDANT LIFE in him. It's all about Jesus. I allow God to be God and me to be me, and I experience intimacy with him! But it all goes through the road of brokenness and me realizing that I don't have it all together, that God is more than an add-on to my own efforts, that truly I'm dead and Christ now lives his life through me.

Hmmm...did this reply help anybody? It's a difficult question to answer, because without trusting God it's a terrible thought that he would lead me through the "valley of death". And my journey to God and with God is not your journey. It's personal and intimate and hard to explain and express..!

But it all starts with a simple prayer: "God I want to know you and I want to know your love for me. Take me to a place where you will be all I have and where I can experience intimacy and life in you. I give you permission to take away everything that you see hinders me from truly knowing your love for me. Teach me to trust you more and more and throw myself in your arms and know that you're my good, loving Father" and then the adventure begins:-)

God bless!

Torben

How you get to know God's love for you...part I

2007-08-09T09:58:00.000+03:00

Marcus Allbäck's goal!

2007-08-08T10:04:00.001+03:00

Phew...F.C.København were close to disaster, but the good, old Swede, Marcus Allbäck, as usual saved F.C.København with his extra time goal that gave F.C.København the aggregate victory against Beitar Jerusalem. Now they have to play Benfica from Portugal to see if they again this year can qualify for Champions League.

I saw the game on the internet, and I'm afraid I woke up our neighbors, when Allbäck scored....!;-)

The two biggest problems

2007-08-07T14:02:00.000+03:00

A Christian counselor, the late David Seamands, said these wise words:

"Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people...We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that's not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions."

(quoted from the wonderful Philip Yancey book "What's So Amazing About Grace")

I believe he's absolutely right. Four years in Christian ministry has showed me that countless Christians (including many missionaries and leaders!!) talk about grace and believe grace in theory, but have very little understanding that they're loved, and they have very little love and grace to give to anybody else. Because unless the truths of God's free grace and love penetrate your life, it'll remain nice theories that don't have the power to change anything or anybody. The power of grace (see other entries about this topic on this blog!) is incredible, but unless you truly believe that you are loved just the way you are grace hasn't won you over, and you have no, or very little, love and grace to offer to other people.
"We love, because God loved us first" the apostle John (who refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved"!) tells us, but if you don't know that you're loved by God, how can you love other people? In my flesh I only really have love for one person: Torben! Not even for Jeannette or anybody else....according to my flesh, it's ALL about me! But praise to God that he lives in me and loves people through me. As Fyodor Dostoevsky put it: "To love a person means to see him the way God intended him to be" - without God's grace flowing freely through me, I simply can't do that!

God bless!
Torben

East to West

2007-07-28T11:57:00.001+03:00

Another wonderful song by Casting Crowns. Listen to the lyrics and watch the beautiful pictures.

Psalm 103:11-12: "For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

He has removed our rebellious acts as far away from us as the EAST IS FROM THE WEST"

Thanks Keith Green, Rich Mullins and Jack Frost

2007-07-28T10:50:00.000+03:00

Hey!

Today, July 28, 25 years ago a young man named Keith Gordon Green died in a plane crash along with two of his small children and some of their friends. Keith Green was only 29 when he died. He was only a Christian for nine years, and he only released five Christian albums, but yet I challenge anyone to find anybody who has made a stronger impact on the Christian music scene. I came in contact with Keith Green's music when I was 14-15 years of age, and I was hooked immediately. Sure the style of some of his music was a bit out-of-date already in the mid-90's, but you couldn't help but being touched by the passion of his piano playing and the intensity in his voice. Keith challenged the Church to be real. To start practising what we preach. To obey God when he calls. Sure some of what Keith said were over-statements (God doesn't say to his children "If you can't come to me every day then don't bother coming at all"), but Keith was so passionate to show that being a child of God was and is serious business. God is not a happy Teddy Bear or a Santa Claus figure. God is living and alive and God loves passionately and desires passionately to know us and spend time with us. Keith understood this and spend every moment he was awake eating the Word of God and telling others about Christ.

But make no mistake, Keith knew the love of God. Keith was a man that made mistakes and stood on people's feet from time to time (don't we all?), but he had an all-or-nothing, no compromises-faith that shook the world and still does. I warmly recommend "No Compromise" - the story of Keith Green and the two double albums "The Ministry Years" volume 1 and 2. You will never be the same again, if you listen to the message of these songs and of Keith's writings! Wikipedia has made this article about Keith: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Green

Keith, I'm very much looking forward to meeting you in person and attend one of your concerts on the new earth! See you:-)

RICH MULLINS - an honest ragamuffin

Another one of my musical heroes (I basically have three: Keith Green, Rich Mullins and Casting Crowns) is also dead. His name was Rich Mullins. I don't know the story of Rich Mullins as well as I know Keith's. And I don't like as many as his songs as much. But I absolutely love The Jesus Record. A little album which contains two CD's. The first CD is a recording made in a small church with just Rich, a guitar and an old tape recorder, where he recorded the songs that were gonna be made into the album The Jesus Record. He never finished the project since he died in a car crash in 1997 at the age of 42. But his band, the Ragamuffins, alongside a group of Rich's Christian singers' friends decided to sing the songs and make it into an album as a tribute to Rich and to God! A wonderful, honest collection of songs. Rich was honest to the core. No pretending. I love the story of how the song "Hold me Jesus" came about. Rich and a friend were in a motel room during a tour around the States, and Rich was tempted to watch pornography on the cable tv. He was waiting for his friend to fall asleep so he himself could give into this temptation, but his friend kept waking up. After a while Rich sat down and wrote this song instead of watching pornography - praise God:

Well, sometimes my life
Just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

CHORUS:
So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

CHORUS

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

And this Salvation Army band
Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin

CHORUS

You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

Much more about Rich Mullins here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Mullins

JACK FROST - living in the Father's Embrace

Just a little while ago the father of three children and the husband of Trisha Frost died battling cancer. Jack Frost was the man behind Shiloh Place (www.shilohplace.org) and the author of the wonderful book "Experiencing the Father's Embrace". I came in contact with Jack Frost's teaching while in Malaysia doing a three month Bible School with Youth With A Mission. I was part of a small mens' group and we watched some of Jack Frost's teaching about living in the light and experiencing the Father's embrace on DVD. The teaching about living in the light (based on 1. John chapter 1) challenged me in deep and meaningful ways and helped me come to the point where I decided to tell Jeannette (my wife whom I was engaged to back then) EVERYTHING there was to know about me, the good, the bad and the really ugly..! It was hard and painful, but it was worth it. It set our marriage of to a wonderful start and we have continued walking in the light ever since. We have chosen to be painfully honest with each other and truly know each other and forgive and love each other.

I'm eternally grateful to Jack Frost and God for helping me see these truths.

So....this was a little blog about some men who have inspired, challenged and blessed me. I hope and pray that I will continue to encounter men and women like these. They are beacons of hope, love and peace in a troublesome world.

God bless!

Torben - what type of people, living or dead, have inspired you dear readers in your Christian walk??

What you truly believe

2007-07-25T11:27:00.000+03:00

It keeps getting clearer and clearer to me that most of our confessions of faith mean very little. In fact I see more and more how the only confession that truly means anything is the one you make when the door is closed and you're all alone with your thoughts.

That's where the rubber meets the road. That's where you see what you truly believe. And that's where Satan attacks you. That's where he'll question whether you truly believe or not.

Satan is not intimidated or impressed with your big confessions of God's love at church, with your friends, on your blog or wherever, if only he can keep you from truly believing that you're loved by God just the way you are!

To know that you're God's Beloved is the biggest revelation anybody can receive. And it's the revelation that Satan fears the most.

If you - when the door is closed and you're all alone with your thoughts know that you know that you know that you're LOVED just the way you are, not the way you should be, could've been or will be and that God will love you just the same whether you sit in a couch and eat potato chips until you die or you travel the world and share the Gospel of Christ until you die - then you know the peace of God! Then you know your standing before God! And then Satan is terrified of you. Then he knows that you know that it's not about your power, but it's about Christ living in you! And nothing scares Satan more than God's children who truly know that they are loved.

Do you know that for yourself? Or are you still trying to earn God's love? Are you in ministry to impress God or other people? Or do you serve God because the "love of Christ compels you" as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5, 14. Or to update Paul's words a little bit: "I serve God because I simply can't help myself" Paul knew he was loved. Therefore he was free to serve and give.

If you serve God for any other reason than that....you're serving under the law not under grace!

So what do you believe when the door is closed and you're all alone with your thoughts?

God bless you as you ask him to reveal his love for you! It's only through revelation that we can know that we are loved just the way we are!

Torben

Too many pigeons...

2007-07-23T22:52:00.001+03:00

We really do have quite a lot of pigeons running around everywhere here in Kiev. This might be the way to get rid of them?:-)

God's song over his children

2007-07-14T12:59:00.000+03:00

Foolish heart, looks like we're here again.
Same old game of plastic smile,
Don't let anybody in.
Hiding my heartache,
Will this glass house break?
How much will it take before I'm empty?
Do I let it show?
Does anybody know?

CHORUS:
But You see the real me.
Hiding in my skin, broken from within.
Unveil me completely.
I'm loosening my grasp,
There's no need to mask my frailty
Cause You see the real me.

Painted on, life is behind a mask,
Self-inflicted circus clown.
I'm tired of the song and dance,
Living a charade, always on parade.
What a mess I've made of my existence.
But You love me even now
And still I see somehow...

CHORUS

Wonderful, beautiful is what You see
When You look at me.
You're turning the tattered fabric of my life
Into a perfect tapestry.
Oh, I just wanna be me,
I wanna be me.

CHORUS

and You love me just as I am.
wonderful, beautiful is what You see
when You look at me.

"The Real Me" by Natalie Grant - what a wonderful and true song! God knows the real me, and he loves me just the way I am not the way I could be, should be, or will be! Just the way I am today! I'm God's delight!

Voice Of Truth - Casting Crowns

2007-07-14T11:01:00.001+03:00

There are many voices in my life. But I will choose to listen to and believe the Voice of Truth - Jesus, the Son of God living in me and through me!

When words are not enough

2007-07-14T10:33:00.000+03:00

Dear readers!

Jeannette and I came back to Kiev a bit more than a week ago from a wonderful month in England where we did a four-week-seminar centered around Identity In Christ.

The key verse for the four weeks was Galatians 2:20 where Paul writes: "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of Godwho loved me and gave himself for me". An exchange took place on the Cross. Christ died, I died with him, Christ gave me his life, and I gave him my life. Christ lives in me!
What a wonder!

We spend four weeks trying to unpack this wonder, well-knowing that it's only the revelation of God through the Holy Spirit that can make this truth come alive and become my reality.

I came to the seminar with many questions and much fear. I left the seminar with a new sense of hope, and a sense of hope that'll last because it's rooted in God and his never-changing word.

I can't really explain what happened in me during the seminar. I cried, I questioned, I celebrated, I thought, I rejoiced, I shared, I symphatized with the other participants, I grew! I guess I don't really want to explain too much at this point, it's something sacred between my Father in heaven and me.

But I have a new sense and a renewed faith that tells me that when the door is closed and I'm all alone with my thoughts I know that I know that I know that GOD LOVES ME JUST THE WAY I AM!!

You can't get a bigger revelation. God loves me just the way I am. Jesus' disciple John refers to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved". That was his identity. His identity wasn't in being an apostle, a teacher, a leader, a church father, or anything else. He was the one Jesus loved.

My identity is not in my performance, my achievements, my successes, my failures, my gifts - "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so" is the highest truth. And that's what I'll allow to be my identity. Christ in me the hope of glory!

I could say much more, but I won't. Many truths in my heart are new. They need time to grow and develop. I need time to rest in God and rest in what he has done for me and who he is in me. I want to embrace a road of brokenness, because that's where the ABUNDANT life that Jesus promised is! My dictionary tells me that broken(ness) means: having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order. That's who I am in front of God. I'm broken and not in working order. For many years I thought that I was in working order, but I just needed God to replace my batteries. But that's not the truth. I need God for everything. Psalm 40:17: "I am poor and needy, may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer". There are many tears on the road of brokenness, and few choose to go there. But Jesus says: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matthew 5:3-4). I'm on a journey with God, and I don't know what's ahead of me, but it's okay. I will continue to surrender my felt right to be in control and let God be God and me be me!

There is hope! Lots of hope!

Praise God!
Torben

God's Beautiful Church

2007-06-01T18:25:00.000+03:00

Hey!

My wife Jeannette and I recently experienced four powerful days with approximately 800 other Christians who have that in common that we all work for Youth With A Mission (www.ywam.org) in Europe. People came from countries as different as Spain, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Germany, Norway and Northern Ireland. It was wonderful to be in this international atmosphere and celebrate God together!

There were many times of wonderful worship where we acknowledged God as our Father, Sustainer, Provider and Comforter. Wonderful to worship God with so many different people in different languages!

There were many challenges during the different seminars, workshops and big gatherings where the international YWAM leaders Lynn Green, Braulia Ribeiro and YWAM's founder, Loren Cunningham were sharing. God is up to something great in Europe! God wants to change Europe! God wants to revive his Church in Europe! Europe is not forgotten or abandoned by God! Hallelujah!

At a personal level, it was exciting to meet other Danish YWAM'ers and hear about some of the good things that are going on in my little nation. God is good! And God hasn't even given up on Denmark! I joke with Dutch people that Denmark and Holland are rivals in terms of being the most ungodly nation in Europe. Maybe that's about to change? Maybe Denmark and Holland will rise as some of the forerunners for the spiritual awakening that's coming in Europe? Some say the party is over....that God is gone in Europe....it'a lie! It's Satan's lie! We are not praying "Your will be done, your kingdom come on earth (but not in Europe!) as it is in heaven"....! Or do we?....

We participated in The Global Day of Prayer (www.globaldayofprayer.com) on the day of Pentecost. What a powerful morning! What a privilege to be in prayer in front of the throne of God with millions of other Christians all over the world! There was a time of true repentance, , prayer and worship. What a wonderful God we serve!

What is God doing in your life? In your city? In your country? I would love to hear comments from you, dear blog reader!

God bless you!

Torben

Do you ever feel homesick?

2007-05-23T01:46:00.003+03:00

I love this song by Mercy Me! I feel homesick many times. I'm created to live on a perfect planet without any pain, sorrow or death.

I miss people I knew who are already with God. And I'm not looking forward to losing more dear friends and family members in the years to come.

Listen to this song and remember that you are also created for so much more than we have here!

God bless!
Torben

The top 10 blessings of living in God's Grace!

2007-05-20T16:48:00.000+03:00

Hey!

In Rostov-on-Don we were studying Romans, which - as always - was wonderful!

We didn't have time to study the whole book in depth, but we did look at Romans 1-8 using the inductive study method, where we allow the Bible to speak for itself, instead of forcing our theology down on the Bible texts (maybe I should write another blog about the inductive method some other time?).

In chapter 7 Paul shows how life is for anybody who tries to live up to God's law in their own strength ("the things I don't want to do, I end up doing. And what I want to do, I don't do!). In chapter 8 Paul explodes in joy and shouts out all the wonderful blessings that are available, if you live in God's grace and walk in the power of his Holy Spirit. And that is for all, no matter if you have Jewish, Gentile or any other background!

Here are the Top 10 blessings when you live in God's grace according to Romans chapter 8 - enjoy!:

1. Peace (8:1) - no matter the circumstances, you can experience and live in God's peace

2. Life (8:6) - there is life and joy when you abide in God and trust his promises and principles

3. Wonderful relationship to God as our Father (8:15-16) - The Holy God of the Universe is our Father! Wow!!

4. Access to God's riches (8:17a) - what Christ has is yours, you are co-heir with Jesus Christ to all heaven's riches!

5. Privilege of suffering for Christ (8:17b-18) - might sound like a weird blessing, but many Christians can testify to a fantastic intimacy and a fantastic growth in their relationship with God during suffering for Christ!

6. Power of the Holy Spirit (8:26) - The Holy Spirit lives in you. He helps you, he guides you and he constantly intercedes for you!

7. Assurance that God loves us (8:28) - God loves you just the way you are!

8. Promise that we'll get all we need (8:31-32) - God, your Father, takes care of you and will give you all you need!

9. Victory over all evil (8:37) - God if for us! Who can be against us?

10.Assurance of remaining in God's love (8:38-39) - God will never let you go! He'll always love you!

Praise God!

Torben - here is a picture of the DTS class in Rostov

Why is it so hard to say : "I don't know!"?

2007-05-20T16:10:00.000+03:00

I just came back to the baking oven formerly known as Kiev (it's superhot these days...) after a great week of teaching in a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Discipleship Training School (DTS) in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Eight students from Russia, Azerbaijan, Canada and the United States along with staff and myself were talking about Discipleship this week. The students had many good questions, so a lot of the teaching time was spend talking about a number of their questions.

One thing struck me: why is it apparently so hard for pastors, Bible teachers, Christian leaders, etc. to say: "I just don't know".....Might sound like a weird thing to be thinking about, but it struck me how often these people (including myself from time to time sadly) end up answering questions that God himself has decided not to give definitive answers to as of right now!

Especially regarding the topic of healing it was clear that the students had heard many well-meaning people answer a lot of questions with a certainty found nowhere in the Bible. Students had heard that all Christians will be healed from all sicknesses if they just had enough faith. That's simply not true! It's a - pardon my French - ridiculous statement. Look at the many, many Christians who are not healed in this lifetime. Look at the apostle Paul who had a "thorn in his flesh" and asked God to take it away. God chose not to take it away (and to this day we don't know what the problem was, despite many people claiming that they know...!), but God chose not to and taught Paul the important lesson: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2.Corinthians 12:9).

We just don't know why God chooses to heal some and not others. It's true that there is some link between faith and healing in the Bible, but exactly how it works is still a mystery. There is NOT a Scripture saying that if you have this and that amount of faith, and the wind is blowing from that direction and you say exactly this prayer you will for sure be healed...it doesn't exist!

We have to admit that God is God and we're not. There are many things we don't know fully. Let's not be afraid to admit that. And let's not try to explain things that God, in his infinite wisdom, has chosen not to explain! Many well-meaning Christians feel that they have to be like Job's friends, who thought that they knew exactly who God was and who thought they could explain why so many bad things were happening to Job ("Obviously you must have sinned!!"). The Bible shows us that it wasn't anything Job had done that made God curse him. And when God breaks through in the final chapters of Job, he doesn't explain "why good things happen to good people" - and quite frankly I don't think God needs our help in defending himself!

God bless!
Torben - who is glad that God has revealed the answers to many of life's questions to us, and who, with Paul, is looking forward to the day where we'll know fully - "Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror (the mirrors back then were made out of polished metal and gave a pretty bad image of how people looked), then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1. Corinthians 13:12)

We are the Champions!!

2007-05-10T00:07:00.000+03:00

I know that you, dear international readers, have been very concerned about the well-being of my favorite football club, F.C.København (www.fck.dk), but now I'm happy to tell you that tonight they have won the Danish football championship for the fifth time in seven years!

They defeated their archrivals, Brøndby, at Brøndby's own stadium and sealed the championship four games before the end of the tournament!!

YIHAAAAAAA!!!! One of the pictures show the two biggest stars of the team, the Dane Jesper Grønkjær and the Swedish striker, and the man behind the only goal in tonight's match, Marcus Allbäck celebrate in champagne:-) The other one is of the goalkeeper Jesper Christiansen - who happens to be my wife Jeannette's hero:-)

F.C.København!!!!!!!!!!

Torben ;-)

The Power of Forgiveness

2007-05-01T20:30:00.000+03:00

I wrote about it earlier on this blog in the blog-entry "Why Christians don't burn down Mecca" (it is, if I may say so myself, worth reading if you haven't already read it...:-)) that the big difference between Christianity and Christians and people from all other religions and life philosophies is grace and forgiveness. That's what makes us unique.

If you don't have the Spirit of God in you, if you don't know Jesus as your personal Savior, if you haven't been moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.....then true forgiveness (where you don't hold a grudge!) is next to impossible. Why would you forgive anybody?
And even if you forgive somebody who asks you for forgiveness, you wouldn't seriously consider forgiving somebody who is not sorry and who doesn't ask for forgiveness at all...!

But that's Christian forgiveness. Moedeled by Jesus Christ as he was hanging on the cross dying: "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing". None of the people who crucified him were repentent. None of them were asking for forgiveness. But Christ forgave them anyway. Paul talks about this attitude in Romans 5:7-8: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But Christ demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us"

This is not normal. This shakes the world. This changes hearts. It did 2000 years ago, and it still does today. And it changes people when we show the same forgiveness that Christ models for us.

People want revenge when somebody has hurt their family. It's only reasonable. People rejoice when a mass murderer's life ended. A mother talks about how relieved she is that her son's murderer now has a death sentence on his plate. She looks forward to the day where he'll be executed. But it won't bring freedom. It won't bring peace. Never.

The excellent movie The Interpreter (with Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn) talks in a scene about how the African tribe, the Ku, have a ritual when somebody has been killed. The murderer is bound and thrown in the river, and the family members can either choose to let him drown and get their justice (but no peace in their hearts), or choose to swim out and save the murderer and through that gain freedom through saving a life.

Another movie that portrays the power of forgiveness in powerful ways is the movie To End All Wars with Kiefer Sutherland. Buy it and watch it, you won't regret it!!

Anyway...the reason I'm writing this long blog on forgiveness is two current events that once again show how powerful a testimony true, Christian forgiveness is. On April 15 the Palestinian Bible Society in the Gaza-strip was, for the second time in the last two years, hit by a bomb that blew up a lot of their building. The leader, Labib Madanat, said to the press: "We have so much love for the people who live in Gaza". No hatred. Just love.

Even more recently there was the situation in Turkey where three missionaries (a German and two Turkish) who worked for a Christian publishing house were brutally murdered by Islamic fanatics. Their wives and children were left behind and the Turkish media sought out the widows to hear their comments about the murders. They wives response was incredible: forgiveness!

Forgiveness changes the world. Hopefully there were many Turks watching the news that evening who saw true forgiveness. Saw love. Saw hope. There is no such thing as forgiveness in neither the Islamic world, nor the secular, Western world (I recently watched the movie "An Unfinished Life" with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez that the producers claim is about forgiveness. The truth is that nobody in the movie confesses anything or talks about past hurts. Forgiveness Hollywood style is "You get over it. And time heals all wounds" which has nothing to do with the truth!)

God forgave me, so I'm called to forgive others. It's not easy. But it's the only way. May I, once again, recommend Philip Yancey's masterpiece "What's So Amazing About Grace" where Yancey tackles all the hard questions concerning grace and forgiveness.

I often struggle to forgive and give grace for little offenses against me. So I read "What's So Amazing About Grace" at least once a year, and I ask God to change my cold heart and give me a heart of forgiveness like some of the Kus, the Bible Publisher, the widows of some other Bible publishers, and countless others who change the world for good, one act of forgiveness at a time.

God bless you!

Torben - another wonderful book/movie about the power of forgiveness is Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables"

Cry out to Jesus - Third Day

2007-05-01T20:29:00.001+03:00

An absolutely wonderful song talking about the true hope we have in Jesus Christ no matter how hard our circumstances might seem. He is the hope for all of us, yesterday, today and forever!

Cry out to Jesus

Idiotkovic...

2007-05-01T17:41:00.000+03:00

I've recently switched cell phone operator and now I have LIFE. That's wonderful since I have free calls to everybody else with a LIFE number, but apparently the whole idea of free calls inspires certain people to do somewhat stupid things.

Four nights ago my wife Jeannette got a call from somebody who knew no English. He called a few times, laughed a lot with his drinking buddies and hung up again.

Later the same evening the same guy called me (my number is only one digit different from Jeannette's). He said "My name is Vova" which is a quote from a Ukrainian tv-commercial, but that was the only English he knew. He called again and again and again. After a few calls I started yelling at him and told him to stop calling me. That didn't help. Then I decided to use a sense of humor and I started singing songs to him in Danish, English, plus a little German and French when he called. That kind of had the opposite effect. He started calling even more frequently, and after 15 calls that evening, I put him in my contact list as IDIOTKOVIC and stopped picking up the phone.

He has called a few times every day since. I wonder when my phone will ring and I'll see "Idiotkovic calling" on the display again? In fact I kind of miss him...he hasn't called me today yet...:-)

Torben

F.C. København - En hyldest

2007-04-30T21:50:00.001+03:00

Life has been great as a F.C.København-fan this year. We're heading for a new Danish Championship and during this season we finally (!!!) made it into UEFA's Champions League and even beat mighty Manchester United ;-)

What is love?

2007-04-16T19:35:00.000+03:00

What a rush! We've just had a wonderful week of teaching by Dean Sherman about Relationships and Love and Spiritual Warfare. Dean is a world travelling Youth With A Mission speaker and has worked as a full time missionary for YWAM for more than 40 years. He brings a wealth of experience and insight and it was a pleasure to sit and listen to his insightful teaching taken straight out of the Word of God!

He talked a lot about love, and I firmly agree with him that love is our message. And the world needs love. The world is desperate for love. There is no such thing as a human being who isn't longing for love. From the hardest criminal to the sweetest grandma there is a need to be loved and love.

And God has given us the answer to the question that many authors, singers, movie producers, etc. have made fortunes exploring their versions of: "What is love?" Most people say that they don't know...that it's too complicated to explain...that it's a warm feeling in your stomach....the impossible dream some might even call it?!!

John Gray, who has made millions writing about men and women apparently being from different planets, gives this rather vague definition: "Love is a feeling directed at someone which acknowledges their goodness". Another author, Paramahansa Yogananda says this about love: "To describe love is very difficult, for the same reason that words cannot fully describe the flavor of an orange. You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor. So with love."

But God is the Creator of love. "God is love", John tells us in his first letter (1.John 4:8), and God who is love gives us the definition of what love is in 1.John 3:16 (which corresponds very well with John's Gospel ch.3 verse 16!): "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers (and sisters)"

Laying down your life is love. Jesus loved all people at all times so much that he laid down his life for them. Jesus told his followers that he was the only one who could choose to end his life. It was Jesus's choice. It wasn't the Romans, the Jews or Satan who chose to kill Jesus. It was Jesus who, out of his love for you and I, chose to give up his life.

And laying down your life for another person will always (!) in all cultures, in all religions at all times be the highest measure of love. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends", Jesus said. And it's a timeless, universal truth!

We are called to love because God loved us first. And we can only love in sacrifice and service. Nobody needs more talk about what love is. Nobody needs (Christian) theories. Nobody needs people who say one thing and do something completely different. We all need real love. And this is the kind of love that will change the world, nations, your city, families, relationships. Love is the answer to the world's problems. Love is the answer to my problems. But not any version of love. The love of Jesus Christ. The love that has transformed and is transforming me! Do your friends, colleagues, family members, yourself know this kind of love?

Thank God I'm loved!

Love, Torben

The Political Situation in Ukraine

2007-04-16T19:02:00.000+03:00

Hey!

Kiev is still filled with pink (socialists), red (communists), and blue (Yanukovich-supporters) flags and at another location also orange flags (Yuschenko-supporters), and nothing much has changed the past week since President Viktor Yuschenko decided to dissolve the Parliament and call for new elections at the end of May. The Parliament, led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, still says that the decision was unconstitutional, and that they won't do new elections, and Yuschenko says that he will not back down either.

So we're at a very locked down point. Experts in law texts from Western nations such as Austria and Switzerland have been called to Ukraine to help understand the law text and to check what the constitution really says.

It's all a big mess. The excitement that surrounded the Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004 is long gone. People are disappointed that President Yuschenko didn't change things for the better in drastic ways in a year. And the political climate in the Parliament is one where no serious work and reforms can take place. Yuschenko felt he had to appoint his big rival from the Orange Revolution, Yanukovich, as the Prime Minister due to pressure from the majority in the Parliament. This in turn means that Ukraine is in a situation, where they have a President who has one agenda (working with the West, being integrated in Europe and eventually - hopefully - join the European Union) and a Prime Minister with a very different agenda (remain in a very close relationship with Russia).

What's the solution? Hmm...the Ukrainians need to agree. About something. As far as I can see there isn't much of a choice. In terms of financial prospects for Ukraine, the country needs to look West. There is no strong economical future in sight in a partnership with Russia. It's simply not gonna happen. And people need to understand that the idea of just working closely will Russia will never work either. Russia doesn't exactly have a history of working well with its surrounding nations. Russia and Vladimir Putin will like to control Ukraine, as they have already done for many years.

But Ukraine wants to and needs to be free. It's time to tell Moscow that Ukraine is Ukraine, and Ukraine will make its own decisions, regardless of what Russia thinks! It's time for Ukraine to elect politicians who will think at the future and make the necessary financial reforms instead of only focusing on what works today and gives me money today. It's also time for Ukraine to work more on rediscovering what is truly Ukrainian as opposed to Russian/Soviet Union-Ukrainian. Soviet Union succeeded in destroying much understanding of what Ukraine is and people are confused. But God has put his specific finger prints on all nations, including Ukraine, and it's the Ukrainians job to find out where they are and how God wants Ukraine to be a blessing to other nations. Ukraine is very new in terms of democracy. The 17-18 years of independence since the mid-90's is in fact the longest period in Ukrainian history where they have been there own master. Let's hope and pray that something good will come out of this political crisis. Something that helps establish Ukraine as a modern, independent, democratic nation. And something that unites Ukraine as a nation where people disagree on many important issues.

God bless Ukraine!

Torben

Easter and Passover

2007-04-04T10:08:00.000+03:00

Hey!

It's an unusual Easter week this year, since Western (Protestant and Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) Easter and Jewish Passover all fall at the same time.

So happy Easter to all of us! May Christ's sacrifice not be in vain. I pray for Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox' Christians who might just be nominal Christians (we have many nominal Orthodox Christians here in Ukraine). I pray that they'll truly come to see and believe that CHRIST IS TRULY RISEN, and the he is alive today, and can make all the differene in their lives.

I pray for the Jews as well that they'll see Jesus in their Passover celebration. That they'll see that God made Passover to be a foretaste of what would happen when Jesus would come down to planet earth and give up his life as the eternal, atoning sacrifice for all sins past, present and future. Jesus wept over Jerusalem when he rode into the city on Palm Sunday, because they didn't believe in him as the Messiah. He still weeps, and he calls Jews to believe in him and experience the freedom he has bought for them.

And I pray for all believers that we will see Jesus for who he truly is, and stand in awe in front of him and worship him for his sacrifice for us. "It is finished!!" Christ yelled from the cross. And it is. Let's celebrate that!

Happy Easter everyone!

Torben - "In Christ Alone"

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
'Till on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost it's grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Brought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
'Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand

A niece!

2007-03-30T22:38:00.000+03:00

Jeannette and I are happy to be (favorite) aunt and uncle to no less than nine nephews right now (seven who speak English, and two who prefer Danish). Jeannette has three more sisters who are pregnant and will give birth this year, and lo and behold....we just heard that one of them will have a GIRL! Wow...our first niece! Cool! We still don't know what the other two sisters will have, so we might have more nieces coming up/out:-)

Anyway, at the end of 2007 we will have 12 nephews and niece(s) - a football team including a substitute;-)

Torben

The birds that left us:-)

2007-03-25T22:33:00.000+02:00

Here they are. The happy graduates of the DTS of 2006-2007!

The birds leave the nest...

2007-03-16T00:58:00.000+02:00

It's over. We have just finished yet another Discipleship Training School (DTS) here at Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Kyiv in Ukraine. We had the graduation tonight and it was a great time of honoring God for everything he has done in and through the students the past six months.

We have been extremely blessed with a wonderful group of students. Very different people. From countries as different as Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the United States. Students between the ages of 18 and 40. A wonderful group that came here to Kyiv with one purpose in mind: they really wanted to know God more! And God answered their prayer. They grew and changed. Some more than others. But that's life in discipleship training. It's a process for all of us. And we as leaders celebrate all growth whether it's a tiny little step or a gigantic one. All growth is positive.

We have focused a lot on Truth in this school. "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free", Jesus said in John 8:31-32.

And that's the essence of growing as a disciple. Four steps are involved, but too many Christians stop at step 1. Step 1: knowledge of what Jesus has said and done, 2: OBEDIENCE to what Jesus said, 3. Know the TRUTH, and when you know the TRUTH, 4. The TRUTH will set you FREE! If you know and live by the Truth (and Jesus is the Way, the TRUTH, and the Life) in any area in your life, you can live in freedom. If you follow a lie, you won't live in freedom.

It's been an honor for me to lead these precious students these past six months. I'm proud of them, and I'm looking forward to seeing the positive history they'll be making for God and his kingdom!

Torben "And now, with God's help, I shall become myself" /Søren Kierkegaard (Danish Christian philosopher) - this quote became our school quote. Growing with God as his disciple is not about becoming somebody else. It's about becoming more of who God has created you to be. It's about discovering all the gifts and talents God has put in you. It's about knowing how you, in a unique way, can make a difference in this world.

Men...where are you?

2007-03-08T11:07:00.000+02:00

Statistics say that somewhere in between 70 and 75% of all Christian missionaries worldwide are women. Wow...! Good job, women. Today is women's day, and it's truly incredible to look back at the past and see Christian women who have made a massive impact (Mother Teresa, Corrie ten Boom, etc.), but also to look at the present day and age and see how many wonderful, Christian women are changing this world for the Kingdom of God. I'm delighted to see how many women get God's heart for misisons, and choose to forget about social pressure (many female missionaries are single!) in order to serve God and the Body of Christ whole-heartedly.

Enough about the wonderful women. What about us men? Where are we in world missions? Where are the men who are gonna make a difference in the world?

∫We need men

Too few men respond to Christ's calling to GO and make DISCIPLES of all nations. And because of that we don't see as many changes as we could hope for.

The truth is we can't change the world unless men go. It's as simple as that. No matter whether you want to go and evangelize tribal groups in Africa or South America or you have a heart to change lack of justice-laws in Asia or whatever your heart's desire is, we can't do it (at least not good enough!), if no men go.

Many socities are very male-dominated. A woman's voice means practically nothing. That is in itself a huge issue, but it's also a fact that is only changing slowly. The reality is that if we want to reach for example the 1 billion Muslims in the world, we need men! We need men to talk to men. We need men to go and evangelize. We need men to go and model how to run a godly business. We need men to teach men to respect their women. We need men to show and model to young men how to be godly men, husbands and fathers. We need men to show politicians what it is to be a Spirit-led politician.

And where are all the men? Why are there so few men in the church in the first place? And more specifically: why are there so few men involved in missions?

I'm sure there are many reasons. For the sake of simplicity, I'm just gonna suggest a couple of possible reasons. You are free to agree or disagree all you want:-) (see previous blog about comments!)

I think one of the reasons we struggle as a worldwide Church to attract men is that we have de-clawed the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ! Way too often we encounter a Jesus-figure in contemporary, Western evangelical churches (and make no mistake: whatever we see in Western churches eventually spreads to churches in other parts of the world, for better or for worse) that is more of a woman than a man. It's as if we are so affected by the post-modern cry for equality (which in Western Europe means that it't to be point of being a crime to say that there are differences between men and women!) that we forget that men and women are created differently, and that we can't expect men to be very attracted to a female-looking (check out the majority of the Jesus-films...), kid-friendly Jesus.

Yep, Jesus was and is friend of all sinners, women and children included. But he was and is more than every child's best friend.

It's wonderful that we have all kinds of Scriptures in the Bible that show that God is everything in terms of both what is considered feminine and masculine. He is both caring, nurturing, creative, fighter, warrior, avenger, protector and provider. Praise God!

But we seem to forget to tell about God as a man. We seem to forget to tell men what is required from them as men. The responsibility to be the head of the woman. The head of the family. The one upon whom the Spiritual leadership of the marriage and the family rests. That's the way God has ordained things. It's non-debatable. But too many men only get the impression in church and in their homes that they're expected to be nice. Nice. Just nice. (I can find relevant Scriptures later on, if anybody is interested?)

A man should be nice. But a man is also a warrior. A man is called to protect and defend. A man is called to enter into Spiritual Warfare for his wife and children. A man is called to stand strong with God and in God. The calling on a man is big, exciting, difficult, but rewarding! I have learned more about practical, spiritual warfare in my 18 months of marriage than I did through many lectures on the topic. The calling on a man is very practical!

I also think that we struggle to attract men because of the way we often present the Gospel. The Gospel is a calling to come to Christ, turn to him for forgiveness, walk away from the past sin, take up your cross and follow him as a disciple the rest of eternity. That's the full Gospel. But too often we serve a Gospel Light-version to people that only talks about how happy and clappy and rich you'll be if you become a Christian. First of all it's terrible that we don't preach the Gospel that calls disciples to follow Christ and change the world for God's Kingdom (more about that in a later blog-entry). But second of all the Gospel Light-version is just not very appealing to many men.

Men want, due to the way God has created us, adventure, something to fight for and against. We want to take up our crosses, follow Christ, lead our family, make a difference. But we're also afraid. Too many men are not as secure in themselves as they try to look like. There are many hurt men out there. And many hurt Christian men as well. I'm glad that there is a growing focus on men in many churches today, but the need is still great. We need strong, godly, free men. We need men who are ready to take responsibility and change the world. Not just make a lot of money.

We need men who are strong, yet broken. Powerful, yet humble. Visionary, yet trusting God. Leaders, yet servants. Where are they?

Where are you?

The world needs you. The Church needs you. The families need you. God needs you to help change the world.

Men in missions - come and join us! It's worth it!:-) I have a big heart for young men to help them become the world-changers that they are truly called to be, and I hope and pray that many more men will join the global missions work!

Torben

Comments are welcome!!:-)

2007-03-04T12:54:00.000+02:00

Hey!

I know you're out there, dear readers. I hear from some of you that you read this blog and have thoughts about what I'm writing. Why not post a comment then? It would be interesting for me to hear thoughts/complaints/criticism/encouragements/whatever regarding this blog. I enjoy writing about the different thoughts I have, but I would like to be better. And as a citizen of a system that has taught me much about constructive criticism (Denmark), I would like to receive such so I can improve!

Thanks!
Torben

Thank you!

2007-03-02T17:46:00.000+02:00

Hey! Kiev, Ukraine, March 2, 2007

Wow...what a time in the United States, Denmark and England. We’ve been so richly blessed these last 2,5 months. It’s been wonderful for Jeannette and I to be able to catch up with friends and family members. It’s been great to have so many opportunities to speak about the work we do here in Kiev, Ukraine in various churches in America and Denmark. It’s been wonderful to be able to eat familiar food (no food beat my mom’s food!), go to familiar places, drive in familiar cars, hang out with familiar people, watch familiar tv-shows and movies, relax in familiar couches – all in all it’s been a wonderful time!

We are happy that God gave us all these encouragements these past months. We just wrote down all the blessings that we could think of, and after three pages on the computer, we were still not done.

Our last visit on our trip (which included eight plane trips!) was to our old Youth With A Mission-base, Holmsted Manor, in beautiful countryside England. It was great to be there, meet familiar faces and a lot of new ones, and get a chance to teach on Discipleship in the Discipleship Training School (DTS) there. It was a wonderful, open and teachable group, and I very much enjoyed teaching, discussing and trying to help wherever I could.

God is good! Will be back with more (controversial/interesting/thought provoking) articles soon:-)

And a little piece of travel advice: don’t have your Swiss Army pocket knife in your pocket when you travel by plane....I just lost mine that way. I checked my pocket right before the security check, found my knife and just decided to hand it to the security check lady straight away. I guess there was no way they would allow me to bring a knife, when you can hardly bring a bottle of water on planes these days...;-)

Two small travel stories from the big world: When we arrived in London Heathrow, Europe’s largest airport, there were big, beautiful British Airways-colored banners wishing us welcome in all kinds of languages. I could understand 10-15 of them and could recognize that they all said “welcome”, but the Danish one said “Glæde Sig”, which makes absolutely no sense in Danish, and translated means something like “Forward To”. I did tell some personel in the airport about the mistake, while adding that it would probably only be 10 million people (Denmark and Norway) who would notice anyway:-)

And in Miami’s International Airport: There were hundreds of signs saying how many ounces of liquid you could bring on the connecting flights in America, but nowhere did it say how many ml. you could bring. I did mention that to a security worker that it might make life easier for them, if they wrote some signs saying the allowed measurements in milliliters, since they deal with tens of thousands of international passengers every day and since ounces is really only used in the US and a few like-minded countries. To my surprise, he looked as if I had told him something surprising:-)

God bless, Torben

Ted Haggard and accountability

2007-02-06T14:04:00.000+02:00

I was looking for some Ted Dekker books for my wife at amazon.com, but by accident I typed in Ted Haggard instead of Ted Dekker and stumbled across a list of books written by the former pastor Ted Haggard.

As many of you know already Ted Haggard was a very well-respected pastor of a 14,000 people church in Colorado Springs. He was also (one of) the top leader of the evangelical Christian movement in America, and named by TIME Magazine to be one of the top 25 most influential evangelicals in the United States.

He was, but he isn’t anymore. A few months ago a local male prostitute went public and shared in details how he had had a relationship with Ted Haggard for years. Haggard was confronted with the story by the media, and tried to lie his way out of it, before he came to the point where he had to publicly admit that the story was true and that he had been lying to the media in the first place.

Thus another bombshell in the evangelical church. Ted Haggard and his wife published a book about the beauty and holiness of marriage vows and the importance of keeping them alive (it came out in April 2006), while Ted Haggard simultaneously was involved in a homosexual relationship with a prostitute away from the sacredness of his family relationship with his wife and their five kids.

The reaction from churches, Christians in general and the secular media was just as expected. Accusations of hypocrisy, despair and frustration in Haggard’s congregation, general hatred and then a few voices trying to talk about that we as Christians are all in danger of living double lives with fatal consequences. Those same voices also tries to get Haggard back on track through offering counseling and help in the midst of this mess.

Only in America?
Some will think: “Oh, that only happens in America”, but think again! We in Western Europe are guilty of many arrogant attitudes towards our brothers and sisters in the United States. Too often horrible stories like the Haggard-story surface in American churches, and Western European Christians shrug their shoulders instead of seeing it as a wake-up call to all of us.

But what happens in American churches can happen anywhere where we do not have enough accountability, and where there is no real understanding of what it is to live in the light with God (1.John talks in length about this). In my little homecountry of Denmark it just came out that a former leader of a Christian orphanage (the orphanage was closed 25 years ago) had raped several girls back in the 1960’s. He was a very well-respected member of his Christian community and spoke many times in different churches, and took his secret past with him in his grave a few years ago.

It happens everywhere. We give leaders too much power and too high a position, and we don’t establish structures that help them to not get too big heads and they end up playing God themselves. Pride is the name of the game. And pride can come out in many ways. It doesn’t have to be in hidden sexual sins. Many leaders are kind and friendly at work and house tyrans at home. Many leaders are gracious and generous while stealing money from their ministry in the secret. Many leaders are seemingly filled with the Spirit in the pulpit and living far away from God in everyday life.

Accountability
All leaders need accountability. All of us need people to ask us the hard questions. Accountability that stays on the surface is worthless. We need people to ask about the things we don’t want to talk about. How’s your thought life? How’s your marriage? How are you doing with lust, finances, tv/internet usage, hatred, fear, etc.? And we need to establish structures where more people than just one carry the load and the responsibility. We need each other. Too many churches and ministries are lead and controled by one charismatic figure. And if he falls, everything breaks into pieces. I’m happy that our mission, Youth With A Mission, is focusing more and more on accountability structures these years. And I’m glad that all the main leaders have good mentors and accountability partners around them. Does that mean that we in YWAM couldn’t end up in a Ted Haggard-situation with one of our leaders? Not at all. We can’t control people and make absolutely sure that they don’t live a double life and give into evil desires raging within them, but we can make the risk smaller through accountability and more focused prayer for our leaders. All leaders need more prayer. All of us, whether we lead 16,000 people or just five are in positions where Satan loves to attack us. Satan is into numbers. He likes to make as many people fall at the same time as possible. So he attacks leaders. And he hopes for the domino-effect which is the result if the followers build their confidence in their leader instead of in God himself! I often tell my students to not quote me or put any faith in me. I’m insignificant. God is what matters. Only if we live in close relationships with God can we survive and be effective Kingdom of God-workers in this world.

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven

2006 lessons

2007-01-16T20:31:00.000+02:00

Hey!

I'm in Denmark again. After 374 days away from my homecountry, I'm finally here. We had a wonderful month in the States visiting with family and friends and speaking in a couple of churches. Now we have a month ahead of us here in the oldest existing kingdom in the world - good times!:-) Can't wait for my first red, Danish hotdog!!

2006 was a very eventful year, and it's hard to pin down all that I learned through that year's experiences. It was obvious that God knew that I needed another lesson in humility through the spring DTS I helped staff, a school where we had next to none that I could communicate with in English. It was a rough experience to help staff the school. My flesh was yelling out constantly, complaining about the fact that I wasn't where I thought I would've been (my old base Holmsted Manor in England where I would've been DTS-leader if God hadn't changed our plans), but God's challenge for those months was clear: "serve in whatever small ways are available". I tried, and it was good. Hard, but good. And I learned a lot about humility. I still need more lessons in that difficult topic, but 2006 was a big year in this area.

Being the main leader of the fall DTS was a great experience. I very much enjoyed putting into real life many of the ideas, dreams and visions I've had since my own DTS. It was a great school, and I loved leading it. Now the students are on outreach (in Crimea, Southern Ukraine and Moldova), and I'm looking forward to meeting them in Kiev in early March and debrief them.

Throughout the fall DTS I learned more about humility. We had some great speakers who came in and taught and modeled humility. Very challenging to hear speakers who actually took Jesus's teaching about humility seriously. It's challenging and I still have a long way to go. Jesus truly gave up his right to his reputation and to his accomplishments. And he calls me to do the same.

Teaching wise I got to teach some on discipleship and some on godly relationships - my two favorite topics to speak on these days, and I'm happy that I have more and more chances to teach. I love teaching, and I feel like I'm growing in my teaching gifts.

Many more things could be said about 2006, but it's been incredible to see how God has been challenging, encouraging and blessing me this past year. Blessing us. Jeannette remains the single greatest blessing in my life. I love being married to her, and I love experiencing life together with her. She's wonderful! And she keeps growing with God as well.

Wonderful books I read in 2006:
Lee Strobel: "The Case for Christ"
Jeff van Vonderen: "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse"
Philip Yancey: "Prayer - does it really make any difference?"

Looking forward to hearing from you, dear readers. What did you learn about in 2006? What dreams and visions do you have for 2007?

Torben - greatest sports moment of 2006 was beyond any doubt seeing Marcus Allbäck score the only goal against Manchester United to secure a shocking Champions League victory for my heroes, F.C.København!!:-)

"God is God and I'm not
I can only see a part of the picture He's painting
God is God and I'm man
So I'll never understand it all
For only God is God" (Steven Curtis Chapman)

The Da Vinci Google

2006-12-29T21:41:00.000+02:00

Hey!

Merry Christmas and happy new year!

I've had some thoughts since I saw The Da Vinci Code on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I had some expectations when I sat down to watch the movie. I expected it to be somewhat original and interesting, but I have to say that I was very disappointed. The whole thing with Mary Magdalene that the storyline is built around is just an old fairytale that comes out in public every few hundred years or so. Nothing new there. No new material. Nothing that could even hint at any proof of Jesus Christ ever being married. And most of the material Dan Brown was using looked like it was simply found through the computer owner's best friend www.google.com. If you google Mary Magdalene you'll find the different stories that Brown built the book and the movie on, and I suppose it does take some talent to do that. That Brown sees himself as a historian is entertaining, but at least I have to give him that he gave a good introduction to Postmodern history and philosophy understanding.

Postmodernism in its extreme form which Dan Brown seems to support, tells us that EVERYTHING written in history books in the past needs to be re-written because it is flawed, based on kings and their victories, and does in no way tell the little man's story. So that's what postmodern scholars try to do now. They tell the little man or especially woman's story, and in that tradition The Da Vinci Code fits right in. I will leave it do you, dear reader, to find out for yourself, whether that's real history.

Even though I thought The Da Vinci Code was a royal waste of time, I'm happy that Christianity is so popular these days! Considering that most people in the Western World don't believe in the God of the Bible or Jesus Christ, it's impressive to see the amount of books and movies that are made these years to combat the socalled dead Christianity...(I am planning on buying The God Delusion and read that to see if the reknown atheist Richard Dawkins has come up with any original thoughts against Christianity)

I'm also happy that the challenges from books and movies force Christians to find out why they believe what they believe. As I always tell my DTS-students: "God gave you a brain, use it!". Maybe we'll get a little wiser and trust God a little more, if we examine the true roots of our faith? I believe so!

Torben

Going to America

2006-12-13T22:50:00.000+02:00

Hey!

Wow...I've been a busy bee these past months. I don't know if you, dear reader, have been missing me, but I promise that I'll be back with more (hopefully) thought provoking articles on life and the kingdom of God soon. I have had many thoughts about various topics, but I haven't had the needed time to sit down and write them.

In a few days that will change though when we travel to America. Sunday we start one month of vacation in the United States, followed by a month in Denmark and a few days where I'll be teaching at my old YWAM-base (www.holmsted.org.uk) Holmsted Manor. Both Jeannette and I are very much looking forward to two months in more familiar surroundings.

The DTS lecture phase has been a massive success, and I'll definitely be writing more about this in a little while. I'm happy, but very satisfied with the outcome of the last three months - God has blessed us all in incredible ways!

Merry Christmas everyone! My first American Christmas awaits me!!:-)

Torben

Glory glory Copenhagen!!

2006-11-04T01:40:00.000+02:00

We did it! FC København won against Manchester United!

"My God is so big..."or is he?

2006-11-01T19:57:00.000+02:00

”My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there is nothing that he cannot do – for you” a well-known children’s song with the deepest theological message. “Jesus loves me this I know – for the Bible tells me so”. So simple. So profound. So true. That’s really all we need to know. We need to know, understand and believe that God is big, strong and mighty. And we need to know that Jesus loves me. That’s it. That’s Christianity. That’s what basic Christianity is all about. Living this out is living the way Jesus wants us to live. If I go about my day whether I’m in Oslo, Ohio or Oostende truly believing these simple yet difficult to believe truths my life will change day by day and I’ll get to know and live more and more like Jesus and people will see and respond to the change.

Hmm...isn’t that a bit simplified? No, I don’t think so. I truly believe that this is what we need to know and believe. This is what the Bible talks about. The Bible talks about God’s awesomeness, power and radical love. And it’s funny that the truth is in the songs we sing as kids, but doesn’t appear too much once we get older and wiser. Or do we get wiser? Don’t we just complicate things more and more for ourselves?

If I truly know and believe that God loves me, I will also know what it is to walk in the Spirit as it is described in Romans 8 and many other places. I would understand that walking in the Spirit means to take God seriously. I would understand that walking in the Spirit is extremely practical and not theoretical at all. I would know what it is to walk in the Spirit, because I would be doing it. So many millions of Christians are very confused about what it is to walk in the Spirit. They think it’s something extremely supernatural, and that you’re only walking in the Spirit if you hear God’s audible voice, receive an e-mail from god.com or see the writing on the wall or billboard. But that’s not Biblical, practical walking in the Spirit. Sure God can speak those ways and loads of other different ways, but most of the daily walking in the Spirit is simply believing God’s truths and walking and living them out.

Timeless truths

What truths? The timeless truths stating that there is no habit, no problem, and no sinful pattern in my life that can’t be broken! The timeless truth saying that there is not a single relationship, no matter how messed up it may be, that can’t be redeemed and forgiven. The timeless truth saying that there is nothing that has happened to you or will happen to you that can’t be turned around to be your most important ministry tool and your greatest weapon against Satan. But we don’t believe this do we...? Do we honestly believe this? I have met loads of Christians who don’t. Loads of well-meaning Christians who say they believe in God (and I’m sure they do), yet say that this relationship in their life cannot be redeemed and healed, this thing that happened to me in school was too terrible and I’ll never get over it and always use it as an excuse, etc. But if we say all of this and believe it, we don’t really believe in God! If God is big and mighty he can heal every relationship and every personal wound. If God is big and mighty he can heal your past so you don’t have to be held down by whatever problems you’ve been in.

Practical freedom

Let’s get practical...if God is big and mighty and if there is nothing that he can’t do for you that means that:
- you can get out of all sexual sins or other sins, large or small, you’ve been trapped in no matter how long you have been trapped in them, if you’re willing to: a) bring them to the light (1.John 1), and b) walk in the Spirit and say no to your old habits (Romans 8)
- you can get over all abuse (sexual, verbal, physical) that has happened to in your life. You can come to a point where you truly forgive whoever harmed you, and where you accept that God loves you and doesn’t see any shame on you, and that you can walk in complete forgiveness and freedom. No matter how horrible it was, what happened to you, it does not have the power to control your life, unless you give it that power!
- you can turn away from any old thought or action-pattern that has been controlling your life. You can get away from smoking, drug-abuse, alcohol, idol-worship, evil and lustful thoughts, talking behind someone’s back, stealing, lying, etc. You can receive complete forgiveness, and you can decide to walk in the light, helped by the Holy Spirit and walk in victory in any of these areas.
- you can come to a point where you can use all the bad things that have ever happened to you in your life as your best ministry tool and your most effective weapon in spiritual warfare against Satan. You can walk in the light and show other people who are still trapped, that it is possible to break free and walk in God’s light and you can wave your story at Satan and tell him to take a hike – you’re free now!!

Powerful statements. But all of this can only happen if we come to a point where we truly believe that God is who he says he is, and that I can walk in victory because of Jesus’ victory over Satan. If we only believe that God can help all other people, we will never ever come to a point of freedom. God doesn’t force you to dig deep and look at the deepest wounds in your life. You can always choose to cover them up and try to get on with your life. But there is a sad yet strong spiritual truth that says that Satan will ALWAYS use whatever circumstances you have been in or will come in, if you don’t live in the light with this problem or this horrible thing that happened to you. He will attack you with it, if you try to cover it up. Always. Satan walks in darkness, and whatever you keep in darkness, he can use as a weapon against you. You can be saved today and on Judgment Day and still live a life in depression and misery because you kept things in the dark and never dared to believe that you can walk in victory and freedom in that area. There is another profound truth saying that things, good or bad, always multiply. If you have some things in the darkness, they’ll multiply. The second lie is always easier than the first. The second person you sleep around with is always easier than the first. The second thing you hide from your spouse is always easier than the first.

Free from sin?

I’m not preaching a message saying that you will never sin again. We live in a world filled with sin. The consequences of the human race’s sin affect all of us, and we can’t get completely free from sin on this side of the eternity on the new earth. But if you look at the New Testament, and examine the teachings of Jesus, Paul, Peter and especially John you’ll see that they knew that as a Christian you can come to a point where a righteous and godly life is the norm in your life and sinning is something you do less and less. That’s a natural part of growing to become more like Christ. When you become more like him, you will naturally sin less. You can’t say that you are becoming more and more like Jesus, while still sinning at the same level and remaining as entangled in sin and evil desires as before. That doesn’t work.

There is freedom in Christ, but we have to step out into the fullness of the freedom that Jesus bought for us. Don’t stay in the darkness. Come out into the light. Light will hurt you at first, but you have to do it in order to come and experience healing. Jesus said that he came to: “ (...) preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight of the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4: 18-19).

Freedom is available. Freedom is bought at a high price. Come out into the freedom of Christ. I have tasted some, and it’s great. I want to taste more and break even more free from fears and troubles that hold me down from experiencing more of the abundant life that Jesus promises all of us. (John 10:10)

Jesus has promised the abundant life for all of us, but too many Christians stay in mediocrity and lack of life, joy and power because of fear.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1)

About communication and love

2006-10-03T14:03:00.000+03:00

Communication
The creator of the universe is a communicator. God created the universe through communicating. He spoke, and it came to be the first book of the Bible, Genesis, tells us. More and more non-Christian scientists come to believe these days that there must have been an Intelligent Designer behind the creation of this planet. The myth of evolution that has ruled science the past many years since good, old Charles Darwin falls short again and again when scientists try to find out how it all started. But first of all, I’m not a scientist, and second of all the topic of creation is so large that I should probably save it for another blog (let me refer to Lee Strobel’s excellent book "The Case For Faith" where he interviews different experts who tackle some of the classic obstacles for people who reject Christianity).

He spoke
So back to the communication aspect. God communicated when he created the earth. God speaks each of us into being. God creates every day. Every sunset, every flower is a masterpiece that speaks to us about God’s creativity and love. The first chapter of the Gospel of John tells us about Jesus. John explains that Jesus is the Word. Jesus is God’s ultimate communication. Jesus communicates to us who God is. If you want to know how God is like you can look at nature, people, and history and see his fingerprints. But God’s primary revelation is Jesus. Look at Jesus, read about his life in the Gospels, ask him into your own life and you’ll experience the Best Communicator in the world communicating with you in just the right way. God doesn’t communicate with all of us in the same way. He knows us, he created each one of us, and he knows what communication- or learning style suits each of us best.

Communication is key in any relationship. There could be no relationship between my wife Jeannette and I if we didn’t communicate. Jesus communicates with his followers. John 10 talks about Jesus as the shepherd and his followers as his sheep, and Jesus said: “my sheep know my voice”. If you belong to Jesus, he speaks to you. If you never hear him, it’s probably because you’re not quiet enough or you don’t stop up enough to hear what he’s seeing, or it’s because you don’t have your eyes tuned in to see Jesus speaking to you through other people, through nature or through circumstances.

How do we communicate?
God is excellent at communication, but his followers aren’t necessarily models of excellent communication. Why is it so hard for so many people to communicate? Many churches fall apart due to something as simple as bad communication. Many friendships fall apart due to misunderstandings based on bad communication. Marriages fall apart because communication is lacking or because there is more yelling and screaming going on than sound communication.

Being a missionary in a foreign country obviously means being (far) away from friends and family. That’s life for all of us. That was life for the old heroes such as Paul, Peter, or David Livingston who went to Africa and many more throughout the close to 2000 years since Jesus gave his followers the Great Commission to go out into all the world and preach the Gospel about him.

There are multitudes of means of communication available these days. Old fashioned letters (remember those handwritten ones?), phone calls, text messages, e-mails, web-cameras, video conferences, instant messaging and chats, Skype (co-invented by a Dane, btw.), fax, etc. but ironically enough I don’t think we’re better communicators in 2006 than we were when I got my first e-mail address nine years ago or when my grandparents were young. Communication is difficult and it seems that it’s especially hard on those of us who live far away from what used to be our playground. “Ude af syne, ude af sind” an old Danish saying goes – “out of sight, out of mind” would be the English translation. And that seems to be the case for most of us. If we don’t see people on a regular basis it becomes very difficult to keep up good communication and relationships. Experienced missionaries tell me that their circle of friends get smaller and smaller until only the true, close friends are left in it. The rest gave up because they thought it too complicated to keep up good communication that would sustain the relationship and friendship.

“It’s the thought that counts” people say when they thought about getting something for somebody, but decided not to anyway. I’ve never understood that saying. In fact it has never warmed my heart to hear that somebody thought about doing something nice for me, but in the end decided that I wasn’t worth it – how can that be positive? And in the case of communication in a friendship the saying isn’t true either. An “I thought about sending you an e-mail, but then I thought about something else and I never got around to do it”-e-mail neither takes up any space in my inbox nor sustains a relationship.

Communication is like discipleship training it doesn’t just happen. We have to make the choice to make it happen. We have to show that we care enough about the other person to communicate with them. Many relationships end up on the ever-growing graveyard of Good Intentions. Good intentions that don’t turn out in good actions aren’t really worth anything.

Say it!
I’m from nature not particularly naïve. I doubt that my frustrations about communication will necessarily grow smaller. I hope that I can help God’s people to grow in communication skills. I hope that the students in the discipleship training school that I’m leading now will learn about good communication with each other and other friends. I hope that I can grow in communication myself. I want to become better at communicating and express more what I feel. We need to be better at encouraging each other and lift each other up. We need to tell each other what we see of God’s character in each other. We need to say it, e-mail it, fax it, Skype it, don’t just think it. Pray it and give thanks to the Giver of all Good Things, but say it to your friend as well. Why is it that it’s mainly at weddings, birthdays or deaths that we remember to say what we mean to each other?

God communicates, and God wants us to be better at communicating with him and with each other. In our DTS’s we try to work on both aspects. We want to grow in our communication skills with God, but we also want to be good communicators with each other.

Michael W. Smith "Give It Away":

"We can entertain compassion
For a world in need of care
But the road of good intentions
Doesnt lead to anywhere
'Cause love isn't love
'till you give it away
You gotta give it

There was a man who walked on water
He came to set the people free
He was the ultimate example
Of what love can truly be
Because his love was his life
And he gave it away
You gotta give it away"

About choices

2006-09-24T16:38:00.000+03:00

Choices – some good, some bad

We make choices all the time. Some choices are fairly irrelevant. Some are very important. But all choices form who we are. Obviously it’s a bit more important what wife I end up with than whether I wear a blue or a red t-shirt tomorrow. But all choices form our characters. And my character is who I am. Commercials tell us that we are what we drink, eat and wear, and there is some truth to that. But generally speaking I am what my character is. My character defines me. For better or for worse. And my character is formed by all my choices. Choices turns into habits. I do or say the same thing over and over again. Some habits are good. Some are bad. All habits define us. Habits can, thank God, be broken. Breaking bad habits is a down-to-earth-way of saying: experiencing more freedom in Christ!

Renewed life is Christ always means renewed understanding with the head and with the heart, and it means new thought patterns and habits.

This Wednesday I have the privilege of leading 12 young men and women who come here to Kiev to do a Discipleship Training School (DTS). Our website, http://www.ywamkyiv.org/, tells us that a DTS is a journey into God’s Heart. And that’s true. We search God’s Heart trying to get to know him. We want him to renew our characters. We want him to search our hearts and point out where we have made bad choices and formed unhealthy habits.

And then the choice is up to the students and us as staff who’ll be in the lectures and participate in the DTS. I know God will do his part. God is God. He is incredibly good at pointing out our growth areas. But God is also a God of love. He doesn’t force us to grow. He’ll point out and ask to accept his challenge, his healing and his tips of how to form better habits for the future, but he doesn’t force himself upon any of us.

I’m excited to see God work. I am excited to see how we will respond. I need changed habits myself. God has been working a lot on my character my whole life, but especially since I joined Youth With A Mission (http://www.ywam.org/) three years ago. But there is still a lot of work to do.

I’m ready for new lessons in God’s School. He knows what he's doing, even when I don’t understand.

“On Christ, the Solid Rock we will stand. All other ground is sinking sand. On Christ, the Solid Rock we will stand. We will climb on Your back, take us to higher ground” (“Solid Rock”, Delirious?)

FC København in Champions League!!

2006-08-25T02:12:00.000+03:00

The narrow path

2006-08-19T11:01:00.000+03:00

Hello....Are you out there, readers?..........

Having just returned from four days of intensive street evangelism in Taraclia, Moldova I have many thoughts that I want to share with cyber space.

Our Youth With A Mission outreach team were in the 10.000 people town for four days and were out talking to people and inviting them to (healing) meetings at the church 4,5 hours every day. At the end of our days on the streets it seemed like everybody had at least two invitations to our meetings.

I personally, and our team in general, had many good conversations with people. We had many chances of sharing our personal testimonies of how Jesus Christ has changed our lives and we had many chances of challenging people with the good news of Jesus Christ dying for everybody's sins and shortcomings. I personally talked to many people where I felt in my spirit that they were very open to get to know Jesus and that these people realized (contrary to most Moldovans sadly...) that money (from the West!) was not going to solve their problems and heal their hurts.

Thursday we had a 2 hour program at the church mainly targeting the youth of Taraclia. I wasn't present that evening since I was in another Moldovan city preaching. A group of maybe 5-7 non-Christians showed up and saw our program and heard the challenge to receive Jesus into their lives. As far as we know only one young woman made the step of faith and became a Christian that evening.

This young woman was also present last night where there was a healing meeting. Sadly no non-Christians showed up last night! Not a single one. After 15-18 hours of solid evangelism and loads of dedicated prayer. Not a single one. Wow.........talk about disappointment!

Many good explanations

I work as a missionary and I've been a Christian many years, so of course I know my lines and know that I need to point to the fact that it's not always that we see immediate results of our work....that sometimes we get to sow and water, but not reap the fruit....that we have helped people one step closer to God and maybe they'll be more open next time they hear the good news about Jesus....and bla, bla, bla.....BUT right now I'm just good, old-fashioned disappointed. Disappointed that nobody showed up. Disappointed that people chose the couch and their tv and their mediocre and dissatisfying lives instead of coming and meeting Jesus and experience his full life.

The path to the kingdom of God is narrow and few find it, Jesus told us many years ago. And that's true. That's a sad, sad truth. Many people in Taraclia heard the good news, but they didn't have the courage to step out, take a step of faith and experience that Jesus is real.

I'll continue to pray for the many people I talked to and witnessed to. I'll pray for the Jehovah's Witness lady who admitted that she would be kicked out of Jehovah's Witnesses if she didn't witness and who couldn't explain to me how that policy corresponded to proclaiming the name of a God of freedom and peace. I'll pray for the two ladies who worked in an Orthodox Church whom we challenged to stop praying to icons and instead focusing all their (religious) energy on Jesus. We prayed for them standing in front of all the icons, and I'll pray that Jesus will become more real to these ladies. I'll pray for Lena, who admitted that her life and her marriage with a cheating and drinking young man was in ruins, and who understood that money wouldn't fix anything. I'll pray for Vitalik whom I had a long talk with and who seemed open enough to understand that I had something (Jesus!) that he was looking for.

I'll pray for these people. I'll pray that God will continue to call on them. I know he will. And I'll pray that these people will stop and listen and will have the courage to step away from Satan's and society's lies and step out into a life of freedom and truth with God! I'll pray and I'll acknowledge that God is God and I am not! He knows best. He has his timing. Maybe we were just there to plant seeds and water them.

Maybe we will hear reports from Taraclia that many people are coming to know Jesus and that they heard about him during our days there. Maybe I'll meet people on the new earth whom heard about Jesus these last four days.

I don't know. Right now I'm just sad and disappointed. But I'll still praise God!

And so ends this little insight into a missionary's heart.

God bless you all!
Torben

Water....you can't live without it!

2006-08-03T17:59:00.000+03:00

Water...No water, no life...

We’ve had several experiences the past few months where we’ve experienced first hand how every change regarding water changes many things. First we lost hot water for a month in our apartment in Kiev and had to get used to cold showers during a time where it was definitely not hot outside. Then we came to a village out in the middle of nowhere (3 hours away from the big Ukrainian city, Dnipropetrovsk) where time had been standing still since 1930. We had to use a good old-fashioned bucket in a well to get our water for washing hands, and if we desired a shower we had to pull the water up from the well, have the sun warm it and then we could use it for a shower. This week, in Chisinau, Moldova, we have now lost all water in our apartment, and then life gets difficult. Have you ever thought about how important water is to every little household detail? Right now we can’t flush the toilet, we can’t wash the big pile of dishes that keeps growing, we can’t shower, we can’t wash our faces, we can’t make tea which is hard for Eastern Europeans to live without, and we can’t do any kind of cleaning. That’s life without water.

Hopefully the water will be back soon. Or we’ll have to buy many air fresheners....

Gives life and kills

Water gives life. Water is essential for all growth. No food on our tables if the fields are not watered. No life for us if we don’t get enough water. Hundreds of thousands of people die every day because they don’t get the water they need. We need water all the time. Our bodies are approximately 60-70% water the wise people tell us. We sweat, we drink, we go to the bathroom, we drink more, we have watered tongues so we can swallow and speak, and we have internal water pools for all our organs to be kept in. It’s all about water. Without water no life.

But water also kills. Water kills more people every year than any Kalashnikov-rifle or any other type of weapon. People die in the big oceans and the tiny lakes every day. People are hit by floods every month. Rivers go over their banks all the time. And then a tsunami hit and we really understood the power of water to give and take away life. And we cry. And we yell. And we despair. Water was supposed to bring life, but it can also kill.

Living water in Chisinau

Jesus talked about himself as being living water. He told a woman he met at a well (I imagine it looked a lot like my Ukrainian village-well) that if she received his living water she would never be thirsty again. She would never lack anything. I have tasted this water. I have tasted the living water Jesus talked about. It’s good. It’s filling. But it’s not all. I want more. Jesus was right. When you’ve tasted his water you don’t want anybody else’s water. When you’ve truly tasted what’s good, why would you take what Satan and the world can offer? When a Christian dies there is hope, because we have living water in us. Water that won’t dry out. And we offer that water of hope to each other. When non-Christians died in the tsunami, where was the hope? Where was the living water for them? They had tasted water, but it was the water of death and eternal life without God. That’s the reality of water. Water either kills or gives life. For eternity. You need to taste Jesus’ living water in order to have real life. Both here on Planet Earth and for all eternity. There is no other way to real life. It goes through Jesus’ living water. In all eternity we’ll live by the spring of the water of life that John saw in his revelation from God.

Last week we had a Jesus-festival here in Chisinau. Many evangelical churches had come together and invested a lot of money in renting the local brand new football stadium where the festival was held Friday and Saturday. A Zimbabwean Russian-speaking pastor from Kiev, Ukraine was speaking at these meetings and the thirst in the crowd was tangible. Moldavians were thirsty for living water. The living water that they haven’t found in the Orthodox churches here where tradition and rituals have dulled the living, ground-breaking water. They haven’t found it in the new waves of Western-style entertainment and luxuries that flourish in the city either. They knew that they needed more. And hundreds of them found it in an orange-green colored football stadium in July, 2006. They met Jesus. They got the living water that will never dry out in them. They met the giver of life. And they smiled. They smiled and cried the tears of joy that only Jesus can bring. Many experienced physical healing and gave glory to Jesus for that as well, but these meeting (as all good Christian meetings!) were about their hearts. It was about bringing the water of life to thirsty hearts. And the hearts that took the chance and opened up for this new, unknown water were washed and refreshed in a way they had never experienced before.

Plenty of water

There is plenty of water in Jesus’ well. The water of life doesn’t run out. It’s there. I want to bring it to people. People need it everywhere. People need it in Bangladesh where floods kill people every year, people need it in the Sahara desert where they cry out for rain every year, but receive very little. People need it in the West, where most of us live our lives thinking that we have all we need. We don’t need God. God’s living water is old news. But look how the West is drying out. Look how the spiritual life is disappearing in the West. Look how Westerners are financially blessed, but spiritually poor. Look how racism, homosexuality, promiscuity, fascism, Nazism, depression, abortions, murder, and other types of lawlessness is the order of the day in the West. We have water in our taps in our kitchens and bathrooms. And these weeks we even have enough water to water our thirsty backyards, but so few people in the West have living water. So few people in the West have ever tasted living water. So few people have experienced the abundant life that Jesus promised his disciples.

Bring people the living water. Dig deeper in Jesus if you need more water yourself before you have anything to bring. But bring it. It’s needed. Everywhere.

Finally free and a swastika

2006-08-03T17:58:00.000+03:00

I’ve been fed up with contemporary worship songs for quite a while. The vast majority of them seem worn out, fairly shallow and a little bit too happy-clappy-Jesus-I-love-you-100%-all-the-time-no-matter-what-happens. I don’t think that most of them reflect the everyday experience of most Christians. But hey....that’s a longer debate I think I’ll save for another blog. I actually wanted to share an experience I had last night where one of these worship songs made some sense to me. “I could sing of your love forever” is one of the contemporary classics that is being sung in churches all over the world (sadly it seems like American, Australian and English worship songs translated into whatever language is the order of the day no matter where I travel in the world....come on...write your own songs in your own language!! I’m positive God would prefer that!). One of the lines of the song goes “and I will open up my heart and let the Healer set me free”. Yesterday I was with a group of people where the Healer had truly set them free. My outreach team was making a little program with testimony, skit and songs for a group of Christian ex-drug addicts here in Chisinau, Moldova. We started by sharing our names and a bit of our life story so far, and it was overwhelming to hear the stories from our Moldovan friends. All of them had the usual ex-Soviet Union names (Vadim, Sergey, Sascha, Dimah, Yulia, Natasha, etc.), but all of them had unusual and heart-warming stories of how Jesus Christ had set them free from their drug abuse. The church we work with here in Chisinau runs a rehabilitation center, and the outcome is impressive and wonderful. All 15 men and women we met yesterday had completed a rehab-program and had even met Jesus during their time in the center and now they had been free from drugs and full of Jesus for anything in between one month and five years.

“Finally free” and a swastika...

A woman who was there with her young daughter caught my attention in a special way. She was in her mid-thirties but had a face that looked much older due to her many years as an alcoholic and drug abuser. She was telling about how alcohol and drugs controlled her life and her family’s life for 10 years. Now she had been a Christian for three years and her kids kept telling her how wonderful it was to have a mother who was there for them and who was finally capable of showing them love. I’m sure the woman didn’t know a word of English, but still her t-shirt spelled out the truth in capital letters: “FINALLY FREE” it read.
Another young man had only been a Christian and off drugs for a bit more than a month and he still had a little swastika tattoo on his right hand. I hope he’ll have the money to have that replaced with a real cross soon.

The Healer had set them all free and now they were fighting for their freedom. After a time of worship and us showing a skit there was a guy who spoke about freedom. He shared some of his problems with being disorganized and frustrated and then we went around the circle and the ex-drug addicts freely shared some of their problems: lack of patience, lack of finances, problems with anger, problems with controlling emotions, etc. It was incredible to feel the honesty among these people. No masks. No Jesus-loves-me-so-I-don’t-have-any-problems-and-I’m-always(!!!!!!)-super-happy-attitudes that I seem to run into in most churches I visit. Good old honesty was the way of life for these people. Accountability and honesty and good friends to help them point to Jesus as the only one who can give them true freedom in every area of their lives. I left the place last night sensing that my new friends know in their hearts that Jesus will help them with absolutely every problem they have if they surrender to him. People who have felt the Healer set them free when they were in the darkest pit, have a lot of faith that he can help them with all other problems as well. One at a time. Healing for any of us is never a once in a lifetime experience, but a process that we walk through with each other and with Jesus.

Football, football, football...!!

2006-06-12T12:49:00.000+03:00

Inspired by the ongoing World Cup in football in Germany(where Denmark sadly isn't playing:-(....), I've put down some thoughts about nations and football. Since football is the only real worldwide sport obviously the way nations work also show in the way they play the beautiful game. Here is a little information about selected football nations – and I’m sure you can see some of how the nations work in other spheres as well through these brief descriptions. I realize that some people could disagree with the descriptions given here, but that’s the beauty of football: it’s always up for debate! :-)

England: Working man’s nation. Filled with the confidence of a former world power. Honestly believes that they have been cheated from winning the World Cup ever since their only victory in 1966. Convinced that since they invented football they should win every time. Plays football like they play rugby. Hard work, fight, not a whole lot of technical skills, but a lot of energy. Classic player: Wayne Rooney – looks like any other British teenage boy. Nothing fancy about him. Young, attitude and character issues, not a high technical level, but he fights like a crazy person.

Norway: Very influenced by England. There is almost a greater love for British football in Norway than in England. Re-invented primitive, goal-oriented football in the 1990’s under Egil ‘Drillo’ Olsen’s leadership. Incredible nationalism drives the team. Classic player: Tore André Flo – tall target player. Named Flonaldo by the nationalistic, Norwegian press (comparing him with the Brazilian Ronaldo). No technical skills, but incredibly good with his head. Essential to Drillo’s style.

Sweden: Also very influenced by England. Plays a stringent 4-4-2. Plays like their big world-wide companies (IKEA, Volvo, and Ericsson). Effective, cool, not necessarily entertaining, but very efficient. Classic player: Henrik ‘Henke’ Larsson – very effective striker even in his older days. Cool and effective in front of the goal.

Denmark: Naive dreamers. Called the Brazilians of the North. Tries to play offensive, Brazilian-style football. Realistic expectations in the nations in terms of results. Important to play both entertaining and effective football. Always loses when faced with more cynical teams in World Cups and European Championships. Won the European Championship in 1992 when they played more cynical football and didn’t have their biggest technical star Michael Laudrup in the team...Classic player: Michael Laudrup – one of the best players of his generation and one of the biggest stars of Barcelona’s 90’s Dream Team. Excellent when his team was working well, invisible and disinterested when things don’t go well.

Holland: Pressure to play the Ajax-style football. Offensive football based on good and quick wingers and a cynical striker. Tries to entertain and pass the ball in a quick pace. Lost two World Cup finals in the 1970’s due to too naive football. Often experiencing problems because of personal conflicts within the team (and within the nation) between white and colored players (from Suriname mainly). Big egos come in the way of the success that the talent within the country would give. Classic player: Marco van Basten – incredible striker for A.C. Milan and Holland in the late 80’s and 90’s. Elegant and efficient, but not a strong player when the team was struggling.

Belgium: Plays like a factory. Cynical game based on aggressiveness and hard tackles. Tries to live up to big brother Holland’s results, but never comes close. The national team symbolizes the disunity in the nation where there are often conflicts between the different Belgian people groups. Classic player: Marc Wilmots – nick-named Kampfschwein (something like a fighting wild boar) by the fans of the German club, Schalke 04, he played for. Hard working fighter. Best with blood running from his face.

Germany: Play like their cars drive. No romantic ideas about football. Ordnung muss sein. It’s all about the result. Effective, reliable, controlled. Big egos in the team, but they submit to the team (which is why historically Germany always beat Holland). Big results based on organization and effectiveness. History shows that the more the big egos argue during the tournaments, the better the German team will do. Classic player: Lothar Matthäus – big talent, big ego, but submitted to the team’s interests he led Germany to the World Cup title in 1990. Arrogant on and outside the football pitch.

Italy: Dolce Gabbana team. It’s about the hair and the looks. More concerned about looking good and playing effective than entertaining. Always have technically strong and entertaining players, but in the national team they are forced into playing defensive, cynical, and result-based football. Have almost as many excuses for not doing well in the World Cup since 1982 as the English do. Classic player: Roberto Baggio – Italian icon. Buddhist, thinker, technically strong playmaker on club level for Juventus, but in the national team he never lived up to his level from his club performances. Missed the final penalty in the World Cup final 1994 and became one of the historical, tragic heroes of Italian (football) history.

France: Lots of attitude within the team. Huge belief in own abilities. Arrogant way of playing football. Quick, passing-style football. Beautiful when it works, but the arrogance can break the team (as shown in the last World Cup in 2002). Play like they own the world. Many different ethnic groups represented in the team. Classic player: Zinédine Zidane – led France to the World Cup title in 1998. A symbol of a nation of immigrants with his Algerian roots and his childhood in the suburbs of Marseilles. Excellent technical player. Arrogant, stylish and effective.

Spain: Big talents, big results for the club teams, beautiful football. Always playing incredibly well in the qualification campaigns and in friendly games, but lacks the cynicism to do well in the big tournaments. Relaxed, happy football. Siesta is important, not too hard-working. Always ends ups losing to more organized, cynical teams in the big tournaments. Spain has never won any big tournaments, and their best result remains a lost European Championship final in 1984. Classic player: Raúl González Blanco – star and icon for Real Madrid. Always performing well at club level, but despite being the biggest scoring national player in Spanish history, he never performs well in any World Cup or European Championship.

Argentina: Plays like Spain, but has the added cynicism. Many technical talents in the team, but play aggressive, fighting-based football. Known for hard tackles and attitude problems. The contrast to Brazil’s playful football. Have had many big stars that have been incredible, but they have all fallen at some point due to character issues. Arrogant and strong way of playing football. Classic player: Diego Armando Maradona – led Argentina to their last World Cup title in 1986 with incredible goals, cheating (his handball goal versus England) and mind-blowing technical tricks. Ended his international career in disgrace caught using doping during the World Cup in 1994. Has been through hell with drug abuse.

Brazil: Known for playful, Copacabana-style football. Joyful players with very high technical level. Only nation with 5 World Cup titles. Have struggled to perform well in World Cups in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but came back, re-adjusted their playing style to be more effective, and won the World Cup in 1994, reached the final in 1998 and won the World Cup again in 2002. Incredible amount of talent in the nation. Everybody plays football all the time. Kids play barefoot whenever wherever and that forms the nation’s team. Can have problems when physical stronger teams force them to play on their conditions. Classic player: Ronaldinho – generally acknowledged as the best player in the world these days. High technical level, friendly and goofy smile. Good team player, but also an incredible individualist. Scores many incredible goals.

USA: Very new football nation. Not a specific way of playing. Don’t have a football culture as such, but play a mixture of different styles. Strong defensive players with charisma and playful attitudes. Classic player: Alexi Lalas – Entertaining cult figure with his big red hair. Played his guitar and sang his way into all football fans’ hearts during the World Cup in the USA in 1994.

African nations: Used to play playful, happy, naive football. Would charm the world the way Cameroon did in 1990 where they shocked the world by beating the reigning World Champions, Argentina, in the first game of the tournament and went on to the quarter final before they were eliminated. In the last 3 World Cups the African nations have had European coaches that have taught them to be less playful and more effective. It hasn’t helped in terms of results since no African team have done better than Cameroon in 1990. Plays like many European teams without too much flavor (Serbia, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, etc.), since they tend to sacrifice their flavor of playing to try to be more effective. Classic player: Roger Milla – entertaining grandfather figure who at the age of 38 scored four goals in the World Cup in 1990 and became the player to invent the dance with the corner flag that is still practiced by many goal scorers 16 years after.

Worldview

2006-05-25T17:11:00.000+03:00

Millions of Christians pray: ”Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” all over the world every single day. On markets and in souvenir shops worldwide you can buy cutting boards and beautiful wall decorations that show the Lord’s Prayer as it is found in Matthew chapter 6. In many Christian homes you’ll find this prayer on the wall somewhere. We have the prayer memorized in our different languages and can recite it at 3 in the morning if needed.

Maybe we have forgotten what we are praying? Do we honestly believe what we pray when we pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? Do we see God’s will in our nations? Do we believe it is possible to experience the will of God in our nations, in our neighborhoods, in our families, in our friendships? Or is it just empty words? I sadly think that a vast majority of all Christians are thinking that “your will be done” is a prayer about the future. A prayer about heaven. A prayer about a new re-created earth. Because we don’t see God’s will here on earth as it is in heaven, and it’s never gonna happen anyway...

But Jesus wasn’t teaching his disciples to pray about something impossible. And he wasn’t teaching them to pray about something that wasn’t possible to achieve on earth either. There is no real reason to pray for God’s will to be done on the new earth. It’ll be done anyway. We know that from the book of Revelation. That’s a done deal. But what about our lives here on Planet Earth? Is the will of God possible?

What's your worldview?

Do you have a Biblical worldview? Or do you just follow the world and agree with everything non-Christians say? I sadly know a good number of Christians who never seem to have any problems in the company of non-Christians. They never seem to disagree with what non-Christians say or do. Sure, they’ll tell you that they don’t have sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend and you can hear that they don’t swear and you know they have secret opinions about being against abortions (but it’s not something they would ever share with a non-Christian....”we’re not called to be condemning...”, they’ll tell you...), but other than that they watch the same movies and soap operas, vote the same way, go to the same concerts and clubs, view society the same way, drink the same way, have the same heroes and read the same books and magazines. They see no problem in having a non-Christian girlfriend or boyfriend. And why should they? They are not that different from non-Christians anyway. There is no real significant difference. They are born-again Christians, but their worldview is not a Christian worldview. Their souls are saved, but their minds are unchanged by Christ and his teachings. A more scary thought is that I think that a lot of people who think themselves Christians because they said a prayer once probably are not Christians at all. If there is never any fruit from a tree of faith, is it even a tree that God has planted?

Dualism

Most likely these Christians I mentioned are caught up in dualism. Dualism seems to be one of the biggest challenges for the Church in the 21st century. Dualism tells you that as long as you’re spiritual, sing the right worship songs, lift your hands in church and maybe even witness, it doesn’t really matter what else you do. Following dualism you can lead worship at church on Friday and sleep with your girlfriend on Saturday. You can talk about God, love, unity and humility until the cows come home, but you’re still hard, you’re still hostile to other people; you still think that American Beauty, Wedding Crashers, Sex in the City and Friends are wonderful to watch and semi-pornographic tabloid magazines are okay and fun. “It’s just entertainment”, you say, “and besides everybody watches it”. This type of dualism is known as Gnosticism and is hardly a new concept. A lot of the New Testament and especially John’s letters are written to battle the understanding that as long as you are doing fine spiritual things, it doesn’t matter what you do or what you don’t do.

Dualism also comes in other ways into our Christian circles. Many Christians believe that there is a clear and strong line between what’s secular and what’s Christian. Jobs are neatly divided into Christian or spiritual jobs such as being a pastor, a Bible teacher, an evangelist and a missionary (I notice how many Christians think that only a pastor or at least somebody who has studied theology can tell them anything worthwhile about God and his will). The secular jobs are the rest: teacher, nurse and doctor are okay because at least you can help in missions. Carpenter is kind of cool since it was Jesus’ occupation. But working in a bank, owning a business, selling clothes, working as a journalist, working with kids or old people and all other regular jobs are considered secular and seen as a necessary evil that you have to get through in order to earn money for the church and to earn your Sundays with God’s people away from the annoying non-Christians......I realize that few people would express it exactly this way, but isn’t that how many of us think? But is that Biblical? Has God labeled some jobs Christian and some jobs secular? No. God wants all of us to work and witness wherever we are. God wants us to be in the world and influence the world. God wants us to show Kingdom of God-values to a world which desperately needs it. God wants us to be in the world yet set apart from the world. Jesus’ longest recorded prayer in John 17 talks a lot about this. Jesus realized that it would be difficult to be a Christian in the world. If you never find it difficult to be in the world and be with non-Christians you probably don’t have a Biblical worldview, and you’re probably not living out your faith.

“It’s all going to hell anyway”

I could write a lot more about dualism, but I also want to mention two other obstacles that we as Christians face in coming to a place where we have a truly godly worldview. Fatalism is a big problem. Many Christians are fatalists. They’ll say things like “it’s all going to hell anyway, we can’t do anything, we’ll just have to make sure that we’ll be saved on Judgment Day”, or “I’m the way I am and I’ll stay this way” or “things have never been worse than they are today and they’ll continue to get worse, we can’t do anything”. In Denmark where I grew up there are many Christian fatalists. I’ve grown up believing that there is no hope for Denmark. We were one of the first nations to legalize abortions and pornography. Where other nations are post-modern or maybe even modern still, Denmark has moved way past that and today it’s a post-post-modern country where Christianity is as irrelevant as belief in the old Nordic or Greek gods. And Danish Christians have given up. Not officially of course. Not many people would admit to have given up, but that’s still the case for many Christians. Christians will say things like “God has moved his lamp from our country, there is no light left and all we can do now is to hope and pray that we’ll be saved ourselves”. There are very few visions for making a difference in society. Obviously there is some talk about witnessing to non-Christians, but there is not a lot of talk about making a real, lasting difference in society at large. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” we also pray in Denmark. But few believe that God’s will can be done in Denmark. Few believe that positive, godly things can happen. Some take up the challenge and fight for kingdom values and righteousness, but most have given up due to fatalism. Denmark is like many other countries. Many American Christians are fatalistic and dream about the good, old days where everything was much better....The same applies to Christian in many other countries. Romantic fantasies about how wonderful life was 20-70 years ago control a lot of Christians’ mindsets. But are these romantic ideas realistic? Were things really that much more wonderful 50 years ago in the West. Sure, most evil was hidden from the public sphere. But were there less immorality, more godliness and more true faith in God 50 years ago? I doubt it! Maybe there was more religious Christianity. But religious Christianity doesn’t save anybody. To put it frankly: a nice religious grandmother-type is just as eternally lost as a young, hard child rapist if none of them know Jesus Christ as their personal savior! There is no difference.

Individualism is another challenge, especially in the West. The individualist says that he doesn’t need other people, she’s got her own little “personal Jesus” and he certainly doesn’t need the fellowship of other believers. The individualism is within the church where it’s all about me: “What can I get out of this? When will I see a miracle? When will cool things happen to me?” Me, me, me, me. God’s Word tells us about the Body of Christ being the Church. The Church is God’s tool to reach lost people. Whether we like it or not. We need each other. We need each other to sharpen each other. As it is put in Proverbs 27, 17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”.

God’s will?

Where are you in all of this? Are you dualistic? Are you a fatalist? Are you living your individual Christianity? “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” – do you believe that God’s will can be done in your country? In your neighborhood? In your family? Among your friends?

So what is the will of God? Hmmm....that’ll require a very long blog or maybe a book:-) I might come back to that topic later on, but for now I’ll leave you with these thought-provoking Bible quotations:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7, 21)

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12, 2)

“Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1. Thessalonians 5, 16)

...and finally....

“Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is” (Ephesians 5, 17) ...and then the rest of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is a wonderful instruction book about living according to God’s will!

Beautiful spring days

2006-05-18T21:41:00.000+03:00

Here we are a couple of weeks ago in the beautiful city of Uzhgorod in Western Ukraine:-)

Plumb line, Satan and the Church

2006-05-08T17:57:00.000+03:00

Three weeks ago we had a week of teaching called the Divine Plumb Line. The name of the teaching (which is a fairly classical Youth With A Mission-teaching) comes from the Old Testament book Amos chapter 7, where God tells that he’ll put a plumb line against Israel to see if they are measuring up to his holy standards.

The week was about the lies we as Christians still believe. It was about the different building blocks in the walls all of us build which separate us from true freedom and intimacy with God. And it was about ministry, healing and restoration of truth. It was a powerful week. The lecturers did a very good job explaining the different lies we believe and where these come from. And that’s what made me mad that week. I got really angry. At Satan. And at the Church.

I’m angry at Satan for being so good at doing his job. I’m angry that he’s so excellent at stealing, killing and destroying (John 10, 10). I’m so angry at how good he is at deceiving and paralyzing God’s children so that even though they’re saved and born-again-Christians they are also more or less completely useless to the Kingdom of God, because they are held back by fear and lies about God and about how God sees them.

Passive parents, sin and abuse

The students were openheartedly sharing stories about how passive parents, bad father figures, mockery in school, insecurities about being too fat or too beautiful (!), legalistic theology at church, sexual sins and all kinds of other things have happened to them that have made them A: hate themselves, B: not trust God, C: not trust other people completely (“they’ll end up hurting me”)

We live in a fallen world. Life on this side of the new earth is not going to be perfect for any of us. But still. We make life too easy for Satan. We either don’t take him seriously enough (naivety) or take him way too seriously (paranoia). But far too many Christians are not aware of the fact that the “fight” between God and Satan is not a fight between two equal opponents. God is far stronger than Satan, and he does not want his beloved children to live in captivity. We were bought at a huge price when Jesus died for us. And he bought complete freedom from us. We do not have to live in captivity here in the world. But Satan has a couple of different strategies when it comes to human beings. He prefers to keep people away from God so they will eternally be lost (this week’s speaker, Pastor Bob Forseth from the United States stated that approximately 150.000 people die and are eternally lost every single day!! The greatest of all tragedies, but one that is never reported on...!)

What do we spend time on in the Church?

I’m really angry at the Church for not doing enough. Or not doing a good enough job. I’m angry at us (myself included!) for spending so much time debating little issues such as baptism and other minor theological soap box-issues, this or that strategy for this or that project, budgets, types of music, etc. instead of focusing on helping people to see freedom in Christ. It doesn’t help you at all to have all the head knowledge in the world about God as your loving father. It doesn’t help you at all to sing beautiful worship songs about God’s love. It doesn’t help you at all to witness right and left about how much God loves everybody. It doesn’t help.....if that’s not what you truly believe! I have a very simple definition: “You truly believe what you believe when the door is closed and you are all alone with yourself and your thoughts”. What you believe in that situation is what forms your life. It’s not what you profess in public or what you repeat somebody else has said. That won’t help you. You can’t live in somebody else’s understanding of love. You can’t live in somebody else’s freedom. And this is what we as churches should focus on. Jesus announced at the beginning of his public ministry that he had come to “ (...)preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4, 18-19). Preach good news....Proclaim freedom....Freedom should be our message. Jesus put it this way in John 8, 31-32: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free”.

Freedom!

Freedom is more than freedom from eternal death. Freedom is freedom in life. Freedom is not about freedom to do stupidities and be free to stay as far as way from God as possible. Freedom is not a license to sin. But true freedom in Christ is freedom to live in victory over sin. Freedom in Christ is freedom to work through the things that have hurt us and will hurt us and choose to walk in the freedom that Christ has won for us. Freedom is a way of living. Freedom is choosing every day to say: I know who I am. I am God’s beloved son (/daughter) and today I’m going to walk in that freedom with him!

That’s what our churches should be known as. Houses of freedom. People should come to our churches, and we should help them to a life in freedom through pointing to Christ as the giver of all true freedom. Life here on Planet Earth hurts, but we don’t have to be held down by the different blows we all receive. We don’t have to believe lies about who God is, about who we are and how God sees us. We can know God’s love and freedom in the deepest hurts of our lives. There is no relationship or hurt that is beyond God’s repair, if we surrender to him, and let his healing power work in us and among us.

I could go on for many pages about this subject, since it’s very close to my heart. I hope and pray that if I meet these dear DTS-students in five years from now they’re living in their freedom and helping others to live in freedom. If that’s the case then discipleship training is worth all the effort. I don’t want the students to have a notebook with cool-sounding notes and a bunch of spiritual stories to impress their friends with. I want to see changed hearts. Hearts that are being set more and more free to live for Christ wherever they are and whatever they do.

I want my life, and the lives of the students, to measure up as closely as possible to God’s sovereign and holy plumb line. Not because of our great efforts, but because we live in the freedom that Christ has won for us, and because we believe who God says he is, who he says we are and how he says he views us.

Sprechen vous English?

2006-04-11T17:07:00.000+03:00

We are up and running with the Youth With A Mission (www.ywam.org, www.ywamkyiv.org) Discipleship Training School (DTS) here in Kiev. We started the school March 22 with 14 students and 8 staff from countries such as Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, the United States, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Denmark, Poland and Moldova. All in all a very interesting mix of very interesting and different people. Spoken languages in the group are a bit easier to account for, since everybody but half the staff speaks Russian. Our Polish guy and the American girl speak quite a lot of Russian, but prefer to speak English. So....what do you do, when you’re a Dane who speaks English, but still doesn’t know much more Russian than how to describe what kitchen utensils we have in our apartment, and you meet people who freeze and look like I just asked them to jump in the river when faced with the question: “how are you doing?” in English? Hmm....you have to use your imagination and your non-verbal-communication gifts. Wise people claim that 70-80% of all communication is non-verbal. Being someone who enjoys talking, I’m sure that those statistics are hugely exaggerated, but still there is a place for non-verbal communication. And then there is a place for making up your own languages. I get by with a weird mixture of mainly English, a little bit of Russian, and a few Danish words thrown in here and there.

Today I was leading process group here in our home with a group of students. I do manage to pick up more and more of what they say in Russian, as long as I know the topic they’re talking about, but most of the Russian-speakers don’t really get my English. Today, after the serious talk about Bible study and other school-related topics, we made progress though. I pointed at pretty much all the different items that are in our living room and told people the English names, and some of the Belarussians in the group seem to improve their vocabulary drastically through that little exercise. My wife Jeannette has put small pieces of paper on a lot of items in our apartment with the name of the item in English, Russian and Danish. Jeannette is also trying to improve her Danish skills. Thankfully I only have to worry about my Russian:-)

There are many times throughout a day where it’s incredibly frustrating that we just don’t understand each other, but we’re learning and growing all of us in our language skills. So I’m sure that by the end of this school we’ll all have developed our very own versions of English and Russian. So Dobre Morning to everybody :-)

Why Christians don't burn down Mecca

2006-03-19T18:39:00.000+02:00

Here is the article that I have been working on for some time. It was inspired by the whole Muhammad-drawings-uproar, but the thoughts presented in it have been circulating in my head for several years. Comments are welcome. Torben

Why Christians don’t burn down Mecca

Danish flags have been on fire all over the world the past month. For the very first time in recent history Denmark, the little kingdom in Scandinavia, has been on everybody’s lips. People all over the Muslim world have been and are still protesting, demonstrating and burning Danish flags and boycotting Danish products. As a counteraction people in the West started campaigns encouraging customers to buy more Danish products. And all of this because of some drawings in a Danish newspaper which is normally read daily by approximately 153.000 readers[1]. Now this Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, is probably the most sought after newspaper on the Internet. The drawings were published in the newspaper to show how people imagine that the greatest prophet in Islam, Muhammad could have looked like. In classic Danish sense of humor style the drawings were closer to caricature than regular portrait drawings. My job is not to defend Jyllands-Posten, and why they decided to publish the drawings made by different Danes. You can check out their website www.jp.dk where they have an English section where everything about this case is filed.

Crime and punishment

I personally don’t think that it was the best idea in the world to publish the drawings. There is already a lot of tension in a lot of Western European nations between the different ethnic and religious groups, and I don’t think that this will improve the way problems are debated. But the punishment hardly fits the crime! Lies have been circulating on Arabic-speaking television (especially Al-Jazirah) and in Arabic newspapers about Denmark and this whole case. And sadly a lot of these lies have been started by Islamic imams[2], who live in Denmark, but who have been traveling all over the Arabic world spreading lies about their new home country. Just to make a few things clear let me say that: A. Jyllands-Posten is not a government controlled newspaper! It’s a privately owned commercial newspaper just like all other newspapers in Denmark. There have been no state owned newspapers in Denmark for centuries. When Jyllands-Posten print drawings or speak, they DO NOT speak on behalf of the Danish nation. B. Most of the drawings that have caused most uproar in the Muslim countries WERE NEVER published in Jyllands-Posten, but made up in an attempt to cause even more uproar than the original drawings would. C. There is nobody in Denmark who is making falsified copies of the Quran or burning Qurans or anything of that nature!

That being said it is also important to stress that 5.5 million Danes cannot be held responsible for what one Danish newspaper decides to publish. We have a completely free press in Denmark and a very strong tradition for protecting the freedom of the press. A boycott of Danish products seems like an overreaction, and the attacks on Danish embassies are pure madness, but we can only hope and pray that no Danes will get killed because of these drawings.

On the surface this whole uproar is about some drawings, but if we examine it a bit closer, we will see that it’s not about drawings, and it’s not even so much about the fight of Islam versus the Western world. It’s about differences between religions. It’s about grace.

Jesus as a homosexual

The cartoons, art pieces and movies where Jesus is being mocked and laughed at are numerous. When Jesus lived here on earth he was laughed at and labeled “friend of sinners”[3], and the Pharisees and the other religious people of those days didn’t mean that as a compliment. When he was judged for a crime he didn’t commit, he was laughed at, spitted at, beaten and finally crucified. And since his death the laughing has continued. My feelings are hurt, my heart gets sad and I weep inside when I see the way Jesus is being treated. An American photographer makes a piece of art where a crucifix is hanging in a container with the artist’s own urine[4]. A Danish film director makes a movie where Jesus is portrayed as a promiscuous man who is also involved in homosexual relationships[5]. I become sad and I clench my fists, but I don’t start to hate these people. When Jesus was hanging on the cross he was praying for the people who crucified him saying that they didn’t know what they were doing[6]. I feel the same way, or try to feel the same way, about the American photographer, the Danish film director and the countless others who are mocking Jesus with their so-called art. It causes uproar in Christian circles when people step on our toes and mock the man we claim to follow. Some Christians shrug their shoulders and pretend it never happened, though. But the majority of us get angry, hurt and some people end up hating. Some people write letters to newspapers communicating messages of hatred. Others again choose more extreme weapons when the fight for Christianity and Christian values is being fought.

Blowing up abortion clinics

We have all heard the stories of how Christians have done un-Christ-like things while claiming to do all these atrocities in Christ’s name. The classic example is of course the Crusades where Christians marched all over Europe and in the Arabic world on a quest to bring Christ to all pagans whether they wanted him or not. Much has been said about these Crusades, but I think it’s important for our generation of believers to admit that they were terrible and to seek reconciliation with anybody we know whose country and family were touched by these many cruel acts[7]. There are also more recent examples of Christians responding in wrong ways to their Muslim neighbors. Christians revenging other Christians being killed by Muslims in Indonesia or by Muslims in the former Yugoslavia are two examples that come to my mind.

Of course we also see other examples of Christians taking revenge and judgment into their own hands even though it’s clearly stated in the Bible that God is the one who is judging men today and will one day make final judgment on all people of all times[8]. We hear about Christians committing violent crimes against abortion clinics and abortion doctors. We hear about Christians flashing their hatred against homosexuals in America and other places. In his bestselling book “What’s So Amazing About Grace” Philip Yancey recalls an experience he had at a march for gay rights he attended with one of his homosexual friends in Washington, D.C. where he saw people protesting against the homosexuals yelling things like “AIDS, AIDS...it’s comin’ your way” where as the homosexuals sang “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so”. Things turned upside down. The “sinners” singing about God’s love. The “righteous”singing about death and judgment.[9]

Abortion is as much murder of innocent children today as it was, when it was illegal in most countries. Now the tide has turned and in most civilized, Western nations abortion is a part of everyday life and not something to be discussed. American Christians are still fighting a hard fight against abortions, and sadly some of these Christians go to extreme methods and threaten abortion doctors and women who are going to have an abortion. It’s all wrong. It’s not what Christ would have us do. But Christianity without a true understanding of grace and complete forgiveness will end up like a hollow religion, where it’s also possible to hate people and say that it’s done in Christ’s name. Ironically the apostle John says directly in his first letter that it’s not possible to hate fellow human beings whom we have seen and still claim to love God we haven’t seen[10].

The uniqueness of Christianity

The British author C.S. Lewis was at conference for comparative religions where experts from around the world were debating the differences between the religions. Lewis walked in and heard the experts were discussing what Christianity’s unique contribution to the world religions was and said: “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace”[11]. Exactly. You can only find grace in Christianity. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism or Secularism don’t have any doctrines of grace. In all religions you get what you deserve. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. You steal a piece of bread you lose your arm as it is stated in the extreme Muslim Sharia-law. But not in Christianity. In Christianity you do not get what you deserve. If I got what I deserved, I would have God’s judgment on me now and for all eternity. Grace is about getting what I don’t deserve. Grace means that we can’t do anything to make God love us more or less. At this very moment he loves me as much as an eternal God can love a finite being. So when Christians are not displaying grace, and when it’s not grace that Christians are known for, we as God’s people are miscommunicating God’s message to all people.

Reconciling the irreconcilable

Thankfully there are Christians who do understand God’s message of reconciliation between two irreconcilable parts, a holy God and sinful man, and spread the message of grace and reconciliation. A few years ago I visited the former Yugoslavia for a month, and I was glad to see many Christians being involved in reconciliation ministry. I met a Christian Norwegian freelance journalist who had been doing reports from war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan and who had spend a few years in ex-Yugoslavia, who told me that the more he studied the civil war that took place in ex-Yugoslavia in the late 80’s and early 90’s the less he understood it. Reports about how good neighbors all of a sudden decided to shoot each other are numerous, and mass graves still being found today more than a decade after the war officially ended paint a sad picture of a nation that fell apart due to nationalism and hatred. My Christian friends in Serbia-Montenegro were involved in projects where they brought Christians from Serbia-Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina together and taught them about grace and reconciliation and urged them to forgive and forget the crimes committed between the different regions and countries in the civil war. They started with the evangelical Christians and hoped that the message would spread to the Muslims and the Orthodox Church. Another example of reconciliation work takes place through the Messianic Christian organization Musalaha[12] that works to bring Israelis and Palestinians together and experience understanding and reconciliation. One of the projects they are involved in is organizing trips where they bring young Christians with Israeli and Palestinian background out in the middle of the desert and sit them down around a bonfire to talk. For some of the young people it’s the very first time they have an actual conversation with a believer from another background. In Israeli schools the kids are taught that all problems in the Middle East are due to the Palestinians, and vice versa in the Palestinian schools. Again the organization starts with the Christians and hope that the message of reconciliation will spread. In Denmark Christians run free Danish classes and show people from all nations and all religions that there are people in Denmark who go against the mistrust and suspicion they meet in society at large. Small drops of grace. Small drops of reconciliation. Small signs of God’s heart for all people. But does that really make any difference against the hatred we see from Muslims these days and saw in 9/11 and in many other cases?

Love your neighbor

I am by no means a scholar of Islam, and I don’t have the needed knowledge to dissect Islam and look at the good things and the problems of the religion, but I know one thing: Jesus called me to love my neighbor even if he is a Muslim fundamentalist! According to Jesus we’re called to love all people. Even our enemies. Muslims are enemies of Christ’s cross. They don’t recognize him as the son of God. They don’t worship him, and they are eternally lost if they don’t turn to the true God of the Bible. But they are no more lost than the mail man who lives with his girlfriend, your grandmother who is nice lady, but doesn’t believe in Jesus, the person who goes to church every Sunday, but doesn’t know Jesus or Anton Delavey who wrote the Satan bible. According to the Bible we have all fallen short of God’s commands, and our only hope is to believe in Jesus and through him attain eternal life with God[13]. Many Christians of 2006 seem to operate with a worldview where Muslims in general and Muslim fundamentalists (which for many Christians seem to be most of the Muslims!) especially are in a special category of lost people. But they are not. Muslims need Christ, so does your nominal Christian-neighbor and your street corner-prostitute.

Will it get worse?

I think we have only seen the top of the iceberg with this Muhammad-drawing-uproar. There will be more clashes between Islam and post-Christian Europe and America for that matter. It could possibly get worse next time. What will Europeans do next time? What will Muslims do? I don’t know and I don’t really want to think about it either. Thinking about it and fearing it doesn’t produce any positive results, only headaches and wrong conclusions. Fear is never the answer. Millions of people in the Western world live in fear for the next terror attack. I’m sure my country’s capital, Copenhagen, has moved closer to the top of the hit-list for the next terror attack, but fear won’t help anything. If a bomb explodes in a Metro, people die whether they are afraid or not. A terrorist doesn’t board a bus and ask people who are afraid to exit, because he’s going to blow up a bomb. Fear doesn’t protect you, and God doesn’t want any of his children to live in fear. He says that his perfect love drives out all fear[14]. We have a Father in heaven that cares for us and who is protecting us and loving us. He knows our needs, and we can lean on him no matter what happens. Jesus said that we would have trouble in this world, but he reminded us that he has overcome the world and we have received his victory[15]. The irony of the whole situation with the Muhammad-drawings is that maybe some of the Islamic countries are digging their own political grave. The people living in all the Muslim nations have seen the freedom of the press in action in free countries, and it must be difficult to avoid comparing with their own situation where freedom of press is as likely as a snowstorm in the Sahara desert. Maybe this will lead to political uproar in these oppressed nations where the people will demand more freedom to speak and act they way they want? Only time will tell.

We have rights

All this being said I want to make clear that I am not saying that we should just let Muslims or other people step all over us, just roll over and let them walk all over us again. I’m not talking about not caring. I’m not talking about not taking personal and political stands against the grotesque things that Muslims have done against Danish embassies in this case or in similar or worse cases. I’m not talking about not trying to talk to Muslims and show them that violence, hatred and terror can never be the right answer no matter what the problem may be. My point is just that whatever we do; we must do it in love. Paul advocates in 1^st Corinthians chapter 13 for a unique understanding of love where we as Christians are to do absolutely nothing if we don’t do it in love. He says that even if we give up our bodies and lives for a righteous course but don’t do it in love, we are nothing.[16] So we are to speak the truth in love. We are to tell the Muslims and other people who don’t believe in our democratic rights, that we are not going to move an inch. We stand on our rights to speak and believe what we want. We believe in respect for personal rights. We believe in respect for other people to believe what they want. And we’re not going to tolerate hatred and terror in our countries. But we are to do all of this in love. In the Western world there are countless politicians and media people who are succeeding in closing down any real debate about the obvious problems with refugees and immigrants in Western European nations. They either claim that anybody who addresses a problem is a racist, or the other side claims that all problems can be solved if we just kick out anybody with a different skin color and religion from our countries. I want to fight against political correctness and fight for real debates, but again: I am to do it in love.

The Muslims seem to enjoy burning the Danish flag also because it symbolizes Christianity with its white cross on a (blood) red background. They feel they’re burning the very symbol of Christianity. Would Jesus want us all to travel to Mecca and Medina and burn all the Islamic holy places? Would he want us to make another Crusade? Would he want us to live in fear and hatred? He would want us to use this whole case to show, once again, that he is different. That he is the only answer, also in this present conflict. He would want us to show our love in practical ways in our everyday lives with Muslims wherever we meet them. Jesus died for all Muslims. Also those who burn down embassies and fly planes into buildings.

[1] According to www.jp.dk the newspaper has approximately 153.000 readers during the week, and approximately 200.000 on the weekends.

[2] An imam is a leader of a Muslim community (often the leader of the local mosque)

[3] Matthew 9,10-11and Matthew 11,19

[4] ”Piss Christ”, Andres Serrano, American photographer, 1989

[5] ”The Love Affairs of Jesus Christ”, Jens Jørgen Thorsen, 1973

[6] Luke 23,34

[7] For more insight on the subject of reconciliation regarding the Crusades see ”Living As People Of Hope”, Jeff Fountain, Initial Media, 2004

[8] Dt. 1,19 and Rom. 2,16

[9] Philip Yancey: ”What’s So Amazing About Grace”, Zondervan Publishing House, 1997, pg. 165-166

[10] 1 John 4, 19-21

[11] Philip Yancey: ”What’s So Amazing About Grace”, Zondervan Publishing House, 1997, pg. 45

[12] www.musalaha.org

[13] Rom. 3,23-24

[14] 1 John 4,18

[15] John 16, 33

[16] 1 Cor. 13, 3

Genesis

2006-03-19T18:37:00.000+02:00

Genesis – when a slide show just isn’t good enough

Last Friday we had a Kiev-premier at our family night where the whole YWAM Kiev-family come together to worship and listen to a message. Yesterday was special since we were not just by ourselves, but we were connected to a YWAM-base in the beautiful area of Dalarna in Sweden (if you have ever seen the classic red wooden Swedish horse with beautiful hand painted patterns on you know something from Dalarna, the horses are called Dalarna häste and are hand made in Dalarna, a picturesque area in Sweden). We were doing worship together with our Swedish friends through a clever invention called Genesis. It works a bit like a giant web-cam where we can hear and see what’s going on in Sweden and vice versa. We have a massive screen installed, and the quality of sound and picture is remarkably good.

Our Swedish friend was leading the worship, playing her piano in Sweden whilst Rachel and Anna were playing guitars in Kiev, and then we were all singing. I think we were something like 20 nations gathered worshiping. It was beautiful! A little foretaste of the worship party we’ll encounter when we all meet on the new earth some day soon!

During the Discipleship Training School (www.ywam.org) we’ll be leading starting this coming Wednesday, we’ll be using Genesis to have teaching from Youth With A Mission’s founder, Loren Cunningham, who’ll be in Lausanne, Switzerland. What a cool tool!! I love being part of a mission, where we have a founder who says that we as a mission need to be cutting edge with all new technology. Way too often Christians are characterized by being at least a couple of decades after “the world” when it comes to technology. Why shouldn’t we use the tools that are available to advance God’s Kingdom and bring more unity to the Body of Christ?

FAQ about cheese....

2006-03-01T22:27:00.000+02:00

FAQ about cheese......

Q: Why don’t you just make a FAQ where you answer all the questions regarding why you hate cheese and never eat it?
A: Here it is!

Q: How can you not like cheese?
A: It’s really not that difficult. It’s not wrong to not like cheese. Cheese is just one food product. It’s really not any stranger than not liking green beans or mustard. It is in fact in fairly few percentages of the world that cheese is something that “everybody” eats. Look at China, India and the rest of East Asia. No cheese. Look at all of Africa and South America very little cheese. And that’s something like maybe 70-80% of the world’s population that is not obsessed with cheese! And I’m okay being a minority in my part of the world.

Q: Did something happen when you were little that made you hate cheese?
A: Hmm.....boring answer: no. More interesting answer: there was in fact one incident where my brother Carsten, you can confirm the story with him (!), took a piece of bread with butter and cheese and a bread knife and tried to force me to eat the cheese. He was so tired of my sister and I talking about hating cheese, and I guess that drove him to desperate means of communication. Today Carsten is a more peaceful cheese-lover who has to live with the pain that his oldest son, Christian, doesn’t eat cheese either. Go Christian!!

Q: Have you always hated cheese?
A: Yes, Always. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hate cheese. It’s been going on for a bit more than 29 years now. My parents used to say that it would change when I grew up. They gave up quite a few years ago.

Q: What is it you hate about cheese?
A: Everything. The texture. The smell. The look of it. The fact that it is a product that has come to be through a process of putrefaction which my dictionary suggests as a proper translation of the Danish forrådnelse. I feel physically bad when I see people eat cheese, especially when they seem to enjoy it. It makes me sick to my stomach. And Jeannette and I have a clear-cut rule that says that she has to eat a piece of chewing gum after she has tasted the forbidden fruit. For some reason she loves cheese:-(

Q: What about cheese on pizza or lasagna?
A: I’m completely orthodox, and I don’t eat cheese on pizza or lasagna either. And trust me: a pizza or lasagna without cheese is wonderful. In fact I dare you, dear reader, to try it and see for yourself. All of a sudden all the other yummy ingredients will taste of so much more when they’re not overwhelmed by the stinking and foul-tasting cheese. Trust me!

Q: Do you eat any kind of cheese?
A: Nope. None. Not even cream cheese or the like.
Q: Have you ever tried cheese?
A: There have been clever people who have tried to trick me into eating cheese. I recall a Norwegian mother who thought she was pretty brilliant when she put cheese in some rolls that I apparently liked. But other than these crimes towards humanity I haven’t eaten cheese with my knowledge.

Q: But how can you not like cheese when you’re from Denmark where they make such good cheese?
A: I’m happy that so many people spend their money on Danish cheese and support my home country that way, but I’m more than happy not to eat cheese products. I enjoy a whole range of other Danish products, so I don’t feel like a national traitor either.

Q: What do you do if you’re in somebody’s house and they serve food with cheese?
A: I do my best to avoid eating it. Obviously I can end up in some social contexts where it’s only appropriate to try to eat whatever is served, but in most homes it’s okay to say that you don’t eat cheese. These days we have people who don’t eat or are allergic to numerous things, so it’s normally not a big deal.

Q: Is your whole family cheese-haters?
A: My parents and my brother love cheese, but my sister is on my team. She doesn’t eat cheese either, and we enjoy being part of our little exclusive club:-)

Q: If you had to choose between killing your wife Jeannette and eating cheese what would you choose?
A: What an insane question. Obviously I would never hurt my wonderful wife, but still....eating cheese.......I’m not sure I could do it. I’m not sure I could swallow it.......Please....if you read this and are into torture and have plans of catching me....please consider another means of torture....:-(

Q: Will you ever start eating cheese?
A: No. I will not.

Bronchitis and 24

2006-02-17T16:06:00.000+02:00

Bronchitis.......not one of my best friends as of lately. This annoying sickness managed to keep me down and out of the game for 11 full days, before the anti-biotics finally killed it. Yep...11 days. I haven’t been that sick that long since I was a little boy, so it was a very new experience to be so sick. I’m still fairly tired after many nights where I couldn’t sleep more than 3-4 hours before very seriously-sounding coughs woke me up.

24....

I did get fairly tired of our little two-room-apartment, but on the bright side I had time to watch a lot (!) of movies and tv-series on my beautiful laptop. As always the King of Queens was a true friend in times of trouble, but also Seinfeld and all three Lord of the Rings-movies were good companions. And then there was 24, the first season. I had never seen any of the 24-seasons, but that sure is an interesting and cool show!! Wow...what a rush!! Jeannette and I watched the whole season within a few days, and I’m not sure I would’ve liked having to wait a whole week between the episodes.

Danish delicacies

I continue to rejoice in the fact that we have a Danish bakery here in Kiev, where I can buy beautiful Danish breakfast products such as birkes, spanske rundstykker, franskbrød, spandauere, snegle, brunsviger and even kanelgifler. The different items are sadly not called by their true Danish names, but that doesn’t seem to annoy my taste buds:-) I went out to get some Danish delicacies for Jeannette and I, together with red roses of course, for Valentine’s Day, and I’m convinced that it wasn’t only the medicine, but also the Danishes that helped kill my sickness. “A Danish a day keeps the doctor away”.

It looks like the whole wave of demonstrations and burnings of the Danish flag is calming down some, but it remains scary to think about the things that have been done. I’m still working on my article about the differences between Christianity and other religions (my brain didn’t work during my 11 sick days), but it’s definitely interesting to be alive in 2006, where the clash between different value systems is so obvious. This is only the beginning of more and more clashes I’m afraid, but I hope that we can start debating our differences in a more civilized way than burning and threatening.

Go Dnjepr!!

The snow is still falling here in Kiev, and my wife and I still don’t really believe the rumors we’ve heard of the beautiful springs and summers in Ukraine. We have only seen snow and cold, and we long for something different. But hey...it’ll probably still be a few months before we hear the birds sing and see the green grass. I love green grass. It reminds me that the football season is about to start. I hope to go and see some games in the Ukrainian league, especially when my Ukrainian heroes, Dnjepr Dnejpropetrovsk, com to the city to play against Dinamo Kiev!! Go Dnejpr!!

Torben

Today's insight: “Nothing has power to tempt me or move me to wrong action that I have not given power by what I permit to be in me. And the most spiritually dangerous things in me are the little habits of thought, feeling, and action that I regard as ‘normal’ because ‘everyone is like that’ and it is ‘only human’” (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy)

Cold...

2006-02-04T21:24:00.000+02:00

It sure is cold in Kiev these days....

How we look

2006-02-04T21:18:00.000+02:00

Here is how we look! Or at least looked. The picture was taken last summer in beautiful and sunny Denmark:-)

And the Danish flag keeps burning...

2006-02-03T16:18:00.000+02:00

Hello! Kiev, Ukraine, February 3, 2006

The Danish flag is known to be the oldest official flag in the world. It dates back to 1219. So far the flag has been pretty unknown to most of the world, but that's definitely changing these days!

Now the Danish flag seems to be on every news site online. Not because the Danish men's handball team made it to the semifinal in the European Championship and not because the next Crownprince Christian was just baptized, but because of some drawings of Islam's prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. And the flags are not being waved in triumph, no they are burned the same way we've seen so many Stars and Stripes being set on fire in the Middle East.

Wow......people setting the Danish flag on fire....Danish footballers losing out on a new contract because they come from Denmark....boycott of all kinds of Danish products....and lies being told everywhere in the Islamic world about Denmark...

It seems pretty extreme!! I don't think it was the brightest idea in the world to bring 12 caricatures of Muhammad - some of which were pretty sarcastic and disrespectful to say the least. But it was hardly the crime it is being made out to be either.

Let's look at some facts:
- Denmark is a country with a strong tradition for a very free press!
- Most of the drawings that have been published in the Islamic world and which cause the harshest reactions have NEVER been published in Jyllands-Posten!
- Jyllands-Posten is a privately owned, commercial newspaper and it is NOT owned by the Danish state!
- Danes are NOT burning the Quran, falsifying it or any of the things that have been mentioned in Arabic newspapers!

I know that it's a crime for a Muslim to draw pictures of Allah or Muhammad, but Denmark is not a Muslim country. As already mentioned I don't think it was a good idea to publish the drawings.

But what is the reasons behind the massive hatred going towards a tiny country these days? It's about something bigger than just drawings, isn't it? What is the real issue?

There is something bigger going on here. A lot of European newspapers have published the drawings to show their solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, but also to show that they want to fight for the right to make caricatures of whoever they choose to. For secular people this is a fight between religion and freedom of the press. For secular people freedom of the press is one of the highest powers in the post-post-modern secular nation, where religion is rarely mentioned and definitely never defines what the press can and cannot print. Muslims have a different practice where Islam is over everything including the press.

But what about a Christian perspective? What do we have to say. I think this whole case very clearly shows some of the differences between Islam or any other religion and Christianity. How many times have we seen drawings, movies, pieces of art, etc. mocking Jesus in ways that make Jyllands-Posten's caricatures of Mohammad look like nothing?

I'm writing a longer article on this whole subject with differences between Christianity and other religions. Watch out: it might end up on this blog soon!:-)

But for now: please stop burning my flag! I and the other 5,5 million Danes ARE NOT responsible for what one, commercial newspaper decides to print. The pictures today where the Danish embassy in Damascus, Syria was burned to the ground are absolutely horrible, and I can only hope and pray that no blood has to be shed over this issue.

Gud bevare Danmark - God bless Denmark!

http://www.jp.dk/english_news/

Check out the Danish newspaper's website with news in English and make up your own mind!

Torben

Now in English!

2006-02-01T18:33:00.000+02:00

Hey! Kiev, Ukraine, February 1, 2006

This is a world premiere! My first blog ever in English. For a while you've been able to view and read my Danish blog www.riisjensen.dk/torben, but since it's a fairly limited number of people who speak and read Danish, I've decided to make an English version.

I'll be writing on a fairly regular basis on my thoughts on life, my relationship to God and loads of other subjects!

I work here in Kiev with Youth With A Mission, www.ywam.org and www.ywamkyiv.org. My wife and I just came here to Kiev three weeks ago, so everything is still very new.

I was born in Denmark 29 years ago and I've lived there most of my life. I've done a lot of travelling both as a normal tourist, as a bagpacker and as a missionary. I've been to 31 countries so far, but my goal is to join the Century Club (for people who've been to more than 100 countries) before too long:-) This week the founder of Youth With A Mission, Loren Cunningham's sister Janice Rogers has been here to Kiev doing a writer's seminar, and her brother is one of the very few people who has been to every single country in the world! That's of course my ultimate goal, but the next one is 50 countries, then 100 and then I'll go for all of them!

My stomach is telling me that it's time to get some food.

Talk to you all later!

You are of course more than welcome to leave comments, questions and whatever else you feel like!

In Christ!
Torben Riis Jensen