I was so much looking forward to spending my whole day in Tonbridge, near London, for the Hillsong Network day. But now there is a 2,5 hour delay on my Easyjet flight… Guess that means I’ll be there just in time for lunch. Perfect for networking, but I would have liked to follow the sessions of Hillsong London’s Gary Clarke ands on their team.
I guess I’ll just have to wait. To be honest with you, that’s not my favorite thing to do. So I figured I would just write this blog while waiting.
Why am I going to the Hillsong Network day? Our church, Thousand Hills International Church, recently joined the Hillsong Network for a two main of reasons:
- The Hillsong Network is a partner network with the Association of Related Churches (ARC), which is the American church planting network we have been part of for a couple of years.
- There is a whole lot we can learn from Hillsong, especially in the area of how they have set up their worship ministry (who does not know their music?) and their approach to leadership (totally unlike the default way to structure Dutch churches, but I believe it works great, even in the European context!).
- We built up a great friendship with Ian Fisher, bass player and former worship pastor of Hillsong Sydney. It’s all about relationships…
So Thousand Hills is part of the Hillsong Network and ARC. Which other networks are we part of?
- Europe Advance: a church planting network I started with a couple of European pastor friends who all have a desire to start something like ARC in Europe.
- Fellowship of European International Churches: a network of international churches all across Europe that are seeking the culturally diversified European population.
- The Verenigde Pinkster- en Evangeliegemeenten (Dutch Assemblies of God).
Besides these connections with networks, we have strong relationships with a couple of churches around the world, such as Seacoast Church, Muldoon Community Assembly, Avalon Church, CFC Belfast, Hillsong Amsterdam and C3 Amsterdam. I’m thankful for all these connections with churches and pastors who have a passion to change the world for Christ!
Update [9:09]: delay just dropped from 2 hours and 25 minutes to only a little over one hour. That’s good news!