As I woke this morning life began to feel more routine. It has been only a week and a half, but I seem to have arrived at a routine, which for me is a good thing. This past week I was able to sort out my main responsibilities and help out around the office as best I could. I am still getting settled, there is, however, no question that and if you asked me how to say “Schewingen” or tell you where this town is? I would have no idea. None-the-less, life is beginning to take shape here in Den Haag.
My main responsibility will be to help with the small groups ministry at Crossroads Church. I will be focusing on 25-35 year olds, helping them to get plugged into small groups, service projects, and helping to organize social events. I personally am very excited about this task and look forward to working in this area. Kevin, the lead pastor, has told me that this makes up about 40% of the church’s attendees and this group is motivated to get out and start serving the community.
I have lots of ideas of where to go with this ministry and what to do, but before anything can happen, I have to start meeting people. That is the focus of the next month for myself. I want to start meeting with people who are in and interested in that demographic. I do believe this is a perfect fit for my talents and passion.
Outside of work, I am going to be volunteering with the International Justice Mission Project (IJM) here in Den Haag. Crossroads and another church are working with IJM to help set up a Den Haag office. This is in its very early stages and is exciting to be apart of. IJM seeks to liberate slaves around the world through sustainable rescue and prosecution of criminals, specifically as a movement supported by churches. IJM seeks to be the justice arm of the church in the fight against slavery. If this interests you at all you can check out there website here: www.ijm.org or I have a link on the left hand side of my blog.
Personally, I was able to go be a tourist for a little bit on Saturday in Amsterdam, it was a lot of fun, but also a reminder of the tensions that exist within this culture. Not that every culture doesn’t have tensions or challenges, but I am here, so this is what I see. We took a short tour of Amsterdam, only about 3 hours or so. We saw a couple museums, got a brief history of Christendom from our own Andrew Perriman PhD (just so you know, he would prefer that I leave off the last three letters of his name, but I put them in for effect), and were exposed to all sorts of public extreme’s that characterize Amsterdam as a city.
The part of the tour that struck me the most was when we came to the oldest church in Amsterdam. Here you had a scene where the church was literally surrounded by prostitutes in windows. Outside the church was a statue commemorating the Unionization of Prostitution in Netherlands (pictured above). There was so many thoughts and emotions that this scene brought up for myself. I don’t know quiet how to express them here and now. What I saw was the physical church, enormous, powerful in architecture, daunting in size; it had a sense of untouchable ness by any human. This may have been the goal of the architect, if so this person did a fantastic job with creating a building that captured God’s overwhelming ness.
As you turn around you see windows, well doors, doors with windows in them. Dozens of them lined up right next to each other as storefronts; the street was curved so it filled your entire scope of vision. In the windows were prostitutes. In contrast to the church these prostitutes were extremely accessible. Regardless of any moral, ethical, or cultural judgment, what you have here is on one side a representation of a God who is seemingly untouchable and overwhelming, faced to face with prostitutes inviting and enticing.
This is our mission field. This is what we are called to serve and I am very challenged by this. I don’t believe this is a challenge for Amsterdam or even the Netherlands alone. Every city in the west has prostitutes, whether sexual or other, and more than not, every city has a representation of God somewhere in its town. For myself this was the rawest depiction of the gulf that the church has between itself and the world, which it is called to love and serve.
I have had little time to reflect on that event, but I will and I will keep in mind the gulf of reality that exists in our world between the church and people. I am excited to start my work here, to grow new friendships, charge deeper in my relationship with God and to serve the world around me.
I have had a week that has taken me from getting adjusted physically to getting unadjusted spiritually. As always I welcome your prayers, questions, and comments. Thank you all, again, for your support in all its forms and yes mom I have been eating my vegetables…vegetables made of chocolate that is!!! Haha.
Monday, October 6, 2008
From one extreme to the other
Monday, September 29, 2008
The first few days...
The first few days here have been filled with kindness and generosity. It started with Kevin Johnson (the pastor I am working with) picking me up at the airport at 6am. It was nice to see a friendly face right away. The fact that he woke up and drove 45 min to come get me that early in the morning was very kind. When I got to the Johnson’s Kathy, Kevin’s wife, made us some fantastic omelets, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I have known the Johnson’s for about 7 years and this was a great way to start off my time in Den Haag (The Hague).
The second act was that of the Crossroads staff, they prepared a lunch in my honor, which some began to enjoy before I even arrived, because they could hardly hold back there excitement of my arrival…or they were just incredibly hungry. This was a time for me to meet all of the staff at both Crossroad church and the CAI European office. We had a great time getting to know each other and laughed a lot, which is always good. From there I sat in on a Crossroads meeting and was able to get a sense of what the church is hoping to do in the coming months. This was helpful to get myself in the mindset of their mission.
At this point I had been up for about 48 hours, with maybe a 2-hour nap in there and I was tired. We headed off to the Perriman’s house, which is where I will be staying for the duration of my internship. I was welcomed with joy, merriment and a bit of excitement, as they as here. Translation, they welcomed me with open arms. I got a quick look at my room and around the house, and then it was off to a dinner at Kevin’s.
Once at Kevin’s I got caught up on the Twins scores and was delighted/pumped to hear that they dominated the White Sox in all three games, yes, dominated. We then had dinner and I headed off to the Perriman’s. When I arrived Andrew and Belinda Perrriman were just sitting down to dinner, so I joined them and we took some time to get to know each other a little better, as I have met them before. I first met Andrew at a CAI conference, called Connect, over a year ago. We have been in a little contact since then. Andrew has visited Minnesota to visit with Greg Boyd, my senior pastor and then I saw Andrew and Belinda this past summer at the same conference. Where they offered me a place to live during my internship.
We had a good drink and some good laughs, then they went to bed and I went out and sat in the garden, outside my room. I sat there overwhelmed with tiredness, but also with the way I had been received here. The kindness and generosity of everyone was fantastic. Everything that everyone here has done has made my transition that much easier. I thanked God for where he had led me and prayed that my time here would be blessed and that I would be able to bless these people who have opened their lives to me in simple amazing ways.
It has been a few days since my first day, and I have been to a couple services, a grand party, which lasted until 330am and a trip to the beach. I am beginning to get my bearings here and my jet lag seems to be fading. I know this year will have its challenges, but right now I am in the honeymoon stage and it is very nice.
I will be praying for all of you back in Minnesota and around the world, as I hope you will continue to pray for me. Right now the biggest requests I have are surrounding how I will fit in to the ministry here. We are going to be meeting this coming week around this very topic. I have a few ideas, but we will see what happens.
Take care and God bless,
Jason
p.s. if you are on facebook look me up
p.p.s. please email if you would like: jascut@mac.com
Monday, August 4, 2008
Connect 08
Thursday, May 15, 2008
My support Letter
Dear Family, Friends, and Respected Acquaintances,
There’s a lot of wisdom in the well-worn cliché, “never say never” but, as we all know, wisdom like this is rarely wasted on the young. It certainly wasn’t imparted to me as I made “my list” upon entering seminary. Rather than a list of all the things I hoped God would let me do in ministry it was mostly a list to let him know what I’d never do. I was never going to work in a church, be a missionary, work weekends and absolutely never “raise support.” So, it’s as much a shock to me as it is to you that I want to share my decision to: join a church, on the mission field, for nine months and I desperately need your support. (Never say never...)
Faith is a journey and my journey hasn’t always lead me places I expected or even anticipated. I believed I’d be opening doors, but didn’t realize God would start with the doors in me. I knew God was going to take me different places, but I didn’t realize the destination might actually just be the journey itself. I thought I was already free but am now discovering a new freedom in knowing what the creator created me for. This journey is a gift to be given away and my quest has been to find how. I’ve decided “how” is in serving the church. However as I’ve prayed these last two years I’ve come to realize I would need a “where” as well. My where is Crossroads Church in The Haag.
Crossroads church is a 10 years old thriving community of 300 believers in the Netherlands. This church has a heart for reaching out to their community through service to the community and the witness of their daily lives. While at Crossroads I will be in assisting in several ministries that already exist, such as, Alpha, service evangelism and different dialogue based outreaches. In addition to serving at Crossroads, I’ll be working in the European Office of Christian Associates International (CAI). CAI is a church planting organization striving to plant Christ centered communities throughout Europe. Currently they have 28 church plants in different cities. With CAI I will be assisting with organizational assessment of thriving churches to help understand their success and scalability to other church plants. In addition I hope to aide in the strategic development of future church plants and supporting ministries. After many years of anticipation and wondering, I can say with confidence, that I feel like this the next step of the journey for me.
Someone asked me this week what was the hardest part of this process. I told him it was the support raising but not for the obvious reasons. Its true, financial topics are never easy and I don’t think most people enjoy asking for money but that’s not really what’s difficult for me. For me raising this support is hard because its where “the rubber meets the road.” It’s where faith meets provision. I can have this passion, belief, calling.... whatever you want to call it, but it means nothing if not backed and affirmed by the provision of God through my community. My prayer is that as I try to muster the courage to stand vulnerably in front of you, saying here’s what I feel called to do, you courageously ask yourself, what do I feel called to give. I can go nowhere without you.
Bluntly put, I need to raise $32,000, and that’s hoping the dollar stays strong. The only way I’ll achieve this goal is not only through your prayerful and financial support, but your relational support as well. Please pray for me and for Crossroads. Please write a check as generously as you dare. Also, would you please share my information with people you know? I really do pray that not only will you be blessed for supporting me, but you’ll truly feel apart of a work going on 4,000 miles away. So, you have three options, you can pick any or all of them:
1) If you’d like to give me a one-time gift you can send it to:
Christian Associates Int’l
18950 Base Camp Road
Monument, C0 80132-8009
Reference my ID #50395 in the memo field of your check.
2) If you’d like to make an electronic donation you can click on the link in the top left corner of this page or go to: www.christianassociates.org
3) If you’d like to talk about this adventure and what I hope to do in the coming year you can drop me a note at my blog, which is where you are now, and we’ll set up a time to get together.
Whatever you decide, please know that I value and appreciate what each of you have meant in my life and ministry and pray that we can continue to walk this road together.
Peace be with you,
JASON
http://jasoninthehague.blogspot.com/
Thursday, May 8, 2008
One Down
I had my 30th birthday this past monday and that was a lot of fun. Thank you to all who wished me happy birthday and to those who made it out to the party, it was a night to remember. I couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of driving around two members of the CAI theological team and sitting in on a meeting they had with Greg Boyd. This was an amazing experience to just sit and listen to the discussion that these great minds had. For most of the conversaiton I was just trying to keep up and it showed me that I have a lot more reading and thinking to do. This was a very encouraging experience because I was able to get a feel for where I could be of help with the academic side of CAI and it looks as though I will be able to make a contribution.
I have been challenged and excited about all that has unfolded the past month. Being approved by CAI, and getting a better idea of where I can fit into this organization has been a comfort to myself. With that it gives me a better idea of how to be preparing myself for what is to come. A lot is happening on the personal side of my life and that is good...lots of friends having babies and getting married, always cheerful events.
Prayer requests are:
1) That I would continue to be connected with people for support.
2) That God would continue to shape me and challenge me in these last months.
3) That I would be free from illness over the next couple of months.
I thank you all for your support in all its forms and continue to pray for all of you.
Blessings,
Jason