Last week I was speaking in Holland at their YFC conference. Whilst they certianly do things differently (ask me sometime about angels massaging volunteers) they were a great bunch of people to be around and share with.

Over meals and conversation it quickly became clear there was a distinct difference in how people were approaching the edgy topics around mission I was teaching. In the uk I am often pinned down by people wanting to argue the theological toss, or perhaps I should say nuances but in holland there a different conversation. It was about how does this connect, how does it help me serve the young people I work with. I think it is in part a cultural openness and difference but more I think it is precipated by their closeness to the edge, their connection on the streets and in the community, where they know things have to be done differently. I was humbled by how even the younger volunteers wanted to grapple with the how the talks should change their practice and structures, how it build community in their context, deep specific and searching questions, that I simply rarly get in the UK.

My post grad work was around how Christian workers/ missionaries responded to the emerging missiology I was developing. one of the interesting things was a link between how open a person is to new ideas that push our orthodoxy around church and how experienced they were in relational based mission. The more embedded people were in the culture they were serving, the more they recognised that old ways of thinking and working werent cutting it and were more open to new ideas around eccelesiology. Yet somehow in the Netherlands even those less experienced recognised and had the desire for change. It was an honour to sit around with so many young people under 20 who are willing to grapple with the real stuff and such a contrast to my experience of similar age groups in the church in the uk.