Month: December 2024

This is my last blog for the Compass (and our website) on this Christmas Day 2024. I am resigning as a pastor of Crossroads at the end of December. My wife needs surgery and subsequent medical treatments in the Netherlands, and I need to be with her. For the next season of my life, my sweet, courageous, energetic and loving wife is my congregation. It has been a shocking, emotional, roller-coaster ride for the two of us, for our family and also for some of you. A thing I don’t wish on anybody, but I know happens to many people at the most unexpected times. I don’t think you’re ever really prepared for it. In the summertime of 2024, we did a preaching series on ‘Keep The Change’. One of the topics was ‘Change that happens to us’. It was a sermon series that really echoed in people’s minds. It now sure echoes in my mind. I am a planning freak. I used to be an auditor, and I like to have my ducks in a row. My friend, Brian Newman – who preached in Crossroads last November – would come to my auditor’s office when he was senior pastor in Amsterdam and the first thing he would do is mess up the pens on my desk in my corner office. Just to make fun of me. My pens are all over the table now. I don’t have my ducks in a row. My planning has gone haywire. Still, I hear the Lord whispering in my heart: “I’m the bottom in your existence; you can’t fall deeper than me.” I can’t imagine what it would be without a gracious Lord to walk us through all of this. This is what Habakkuk wrote a long time ago: I heard, and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. Habakkuk 3:16-18 On this Christmas Day, we look up to Jesus, Emmanuel; God with us. God with you on your Christmas Day. God with us on our Christmas Day. Either in good times or in bad times. God doesn’t limit his presence and his goodness to good days. Yet, I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God, my Saviour. It was a great privilege serving in Crossroads for almost 6 years. Leila and I loved every minute of our time in Basel. We have come to love the country, the Crossroads community, the interaction, the great movement of the Spirit. You are a great bunch, and it was surely not difficult to be your pastor! We hope that the good Lord will grant us to come back to Basel to say proper goodbyes to you in the springtime. We can’t tell yet when. We’ll carry you in our hearts. And we desire and pray that God’s work in and through Crossroads Basel will continue with the same energy and intensity that we were able to be part of. When you say ‘bye’ in Basel, people often say ‘Addee’. That is a simple Swiss form of the French ‘Adieu’. I give you to God. I recommend you to God. I leave you in the hands of God. With my last blog, I say ‘Adieu’, I give you to God, who is able to keep you and sustain you in the next chapter.

Granddaughter is visiting us with her daddy, our son. We have fun together when she visits. When we got back in town she said: “Aha, my horsies are back again!” She is entirely thrilled by horses and ponies and opa and oma must be put ‘in the harness’ and we have to gallop around the house.  It is time for lunch. My wife puts together the food on the table and we sit around the table with the four of us, the little one on her throne, the children’s chair. She eats like a horsy herself and we talk and laugh. “Wow, she eats a lot”, is what my son says. Yes, that happens when you take the time and attention to sit around the table and enjoy a meal together! No phones, no laptops, no quick bite in between other activities.   Connection happens a lot more when we’re taking intentional time for it. That happens with families when they sit around the table. That happens with workers in a company when they listen to each other. That happens in a church where people get and take the time to meet. That happens in small groups where people get together to read the Word, share their lives and pray together.   We live in a very scattered world together, where attention is absorbed by many screens. And consequently, it can’t go to people. Look around you in the tram, train or the bus; about 80% of the people are looking at their phones, so they’re not looking at each other or the world that goes by. They don’t see an elderly person enters the bus and needs a place to sit or an helping hand to land safely in a chair.  I’ve learned that in Switzerland, when you clink glasses together and wish each other ‘Santé’ or ‘Prost’ or ‘Cheers’, you must look the other person that you’re clinking with, in the eyes. If you don’t do that, it is considered impolite. So, remember that next time when you clink glasses and there are Swiss people in the mix!  But much rather, let’s make it a habit when we meet people, to look them in the eye. Connect. See them. Appreciate them. The people that are right in front of you are more important for the moment than the people that are WhatsApping you, pinging you, messaging you or posting on social media.  Real connection happens a lot more when we take the time to see each other, sit down, talk, exchange, swap stories and listen.   Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your friendliness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. – Philippians 4:4-6  Let your friendliness be evident to all. Through that friendliness, it will be easier to rejoice in the Lord and not to be anxious about anything.  

In the Peter’s Chapel in Luzern, the Catholic Church has made it possible to go to confession, while you are interacting with an AI (Artificial Intelligence) Jesus. It is an avatar of Jesus that is sitting in the box next to you, listens to your questions and the avatar answers you, based on ‘intelligence’ it gathered on the internet. The ‘intelligence’ is based on a wide variety of sources. The sources include Biblical, Christian sources, but of course, it will not neglect liberal theological sources, non-Christian sources and sources that interpret the Bible and what it says from a critical angle, as if the Bible is wrought with mistakes and half-truths. “Garbage in is garbage out” is very much applicable to this AI-Jesus. This AI-Jesus is man-made, man-produced, and as such it has many features of what the Bible calls an ‘idol’. Instead of wood, stone, gold and silver, it is made of bits and bytes, information technology and algorithms. One more thing that struck me: the avatar very much looks like a long-haired, scruffy Westerner. Really? However, AI goes a step further than producing the information it acquired. It is supposed to be ‘self-learning’. That’s where it gets tricky. Not only for the AI-Jesus, but for all applications that use AI. Already for a long time, AI-specialists warn against the uncontrolled, unbridled use of AI and its self-learning qualities. Who controls AI and the ‘knowledge’ it learns? Who checks if this knowledge and its applications is something we want and wish to implement? Bits and bytes don’t have any morals, no inherent sense of right and wrong. The real big thing about Christmas – you will have heard this last Sunday in church – is that God chose to become a human being. Not an image. Not an avatar. Not a 3-D image in the sky. No, a human being. Like you, like me. So that we have a Leader and Saviour who knows what it is like to be a human, but still reflects to us how God really is like. In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Hebrews 1:2+3). If you’re looking for a quick way to connect to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I won’t recommend you go to Lucerne. There are many other reasons you want to see Lucerne: Lake Lucerne, Titlis, Rigi, Seebodenalp; but not for the AI-Jesus. The distance to connect with Jesus is about half a meter: where your knees touch the floor. To find answers to your questions, you will need to do some tough work: pray, dig into God’s word, the Bible, listen to the Spirit guiding and leading you and listen to good teaching. Do not trust in instant answers that are generated by AI-Jesus, because remember: “garbage in is garbage out”.

I read an article about Advent Calendars on the Dutch news site NOS. It is quite the thing these days. “When Advent starts, I start every day with a laugh. I enjoy it every day. Every morning when I get up, I get a present. Not all of them in one shot, that is not how it is supposed to be done. In the little cubicle for the 24th of December–Christmas Eve–there is usually the biggest present.” If you think this is the ‘testimony’ of a child who finds chocolate behind every little door, you’re mistaken. This is a grown-up who has an Advent Calendar from some beauty shop. The little presents are eyeliner, eye shadow, foundation, mascara, perfume, lotion, lipstick and the like. It seems that the Advent Calendar originates from 19th-century Germany. The little doors or drawers of the calendar contained Bible verses or Christmas figurants like shepherds, angels, wise men and of course baby Jesus. It helped to catch the attention of the children to help them understand what the Christmas story is about. This concept was commercialized quickly. Soon, chocolates or sweets were included behind the little doors and nowadays we also have Advent Calendars from pet shops, so that the dog or cat can also celebrate Advent. The dollar, franc and euro soon took over quickly and decisively. In the article, some psychologist also puts in her two cents worth: “We have little control about the things that happen around us. An Advent Calendar offers some security. It can be comforting, such a ritual. Opening a little door every day can give you some rest.” Wow… security, comfort and rest… from an Advent Calendar! We have an ‘Advent Calendar’ too in our home. Look at the picture and meet our Santa. It doesn’t offer security, comfort and rest, just chocolate calories. Since my wife and I both don’t really need the calories and we don’t have our granddaughter living at our house, at the end of the Advent season, many little drawers are still chocolate-filled. I prefer to get my security, comfort and rest from another more secure source. Here is the best Advent advice I can give you, for myself and for everybody who wants to take it to heart: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28+29). The good thing is that His kind of rest is not only good for 24 days in the last month of the year. It is good for every day, every sleepless night in which things look dark and gloomy, each rainy and grey day, in good times and bad times. Happy Advent folks! Hope came into our world and wants to invade it permanently!