John Mark McMillan's "No Country" & ICF Rotterdam Noord
It's a double entandre
A little over two years ago I took my first journey on a double-decker bus. It was a rainy and gray English morning- everything you’d expect it to be. Two days prior, late into the night, I rode into Heathrow Airport on a one-way ticket. I planned to stay with a friend for four months. After that, I wasn’t exactly sure.
I had left my hometown in the United States having just lost an important job there. I hoped that journeying to this new country would help me find those elusive next steps.
So I sat on the second story of that bus- taking in the new sights and the excitement that comes with it. Still, however, I was holding the loss of what was behind in tandem with the uncertainty of what was ahead.
My Spotify was on shuffle and as I was contemplating these things, a song from John Mark McMillan came on…
No Country
In a lot of ways, “No Country”, became an important anthem for me during that time. I felt it woven into my experience in many ways.
There were the obvious connections like leaving my home country- unsure of when I’d return. Or of living in a different part of the world in something of a self-imposed “exile”.
Then there was the spiritual side. The disillusionment I was facing with my home environment as a result of losing my job. What that situation revealed and made clear to me hurt a lot. The result was that I no longer felt at home in a place I had invested so much time, energy, and relationships. I had become disconnected from my country.
For a while, this song bummed me out. It reminded me of all that I lost. But, of course, a certain level of hope remained. Something about not having a country led me to a deeper dependency on God. This dependency eventually led me to where I serve and live today, the church of ICF Rotterdam Noord here in the Netherlands.
And it’s at ICF that this song has taken on a newer and impeccably gorgeous meaning.
ICF Rotterdam Noord
“ICF” stands for Intercultural Fellowship because our church is intended to be “a church of all nations, for all nations.” It’s through this lens that we approach worship-
you can read more about that in my last ministry update.
This approach is quite impactful in a city like Rotterdam with all its diversity. Where the vast differences in culture and origin can make genuine connection and community far from easy.
Pentecost wasn’t too long ago and anyone familiar with that story knows well that the Church of Jesus Christ not only has space for diversity but invites it.
And that’s one of the Church’s many strengths- the fact that the Gospel is so wide that it can encompass (and intends to) all cultures on the planet. Just look at Revelation 7v9-17 and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Seeing this on display at ICF (with 30 some nationalities represented) has been one of my favorite things about this church. And during my time here, I’ve come to see myself in them and vice-versa. I’ve come to learn that this song of John Mark McMillan wraps around them the same way it has wrapped around me.
A majority of us at ICF are expats who left our home countries for one reason or another. Of course, we carry those countries with us in different ways but the reality is that we no longer live in the lands that raised us. And it goes deeper still.
We could’ve joined churches that, culturally, are close to what we’re used to. But that’s not what we did. We sought to be surrounded by people from all corners of the Earth who themselves, largely, come from church cultures different from our own.
So perhaps having “no country” wasn’t a decision for some of us. But in some ways, I think it was.
Misfits, Wanderers, Brothers & Sisters
I was having a chat with ICF’s pastor, Fred Kappinga, a few months ago. We were discussing the diversity of our church and the different ways it manifests when Fred said something that caught my attention.
He suggested that our church, in a certain sort of way, is a church of exiles and misfits. Men and women who didn’t quite fit their home countries and cultures, nor the larger church culture within them. As a result, we all came together here, in this place, in a culture not narrowly defined but, instead, encompassing all sorts of people from all over the world.
Fred remarked that this was even true for the Dutch members of ICF like himself. Despite being in their “home country” they never quite felt completely at home in the Dutch churches- whether reformed, evangelical, Catholic, or what have you.
This, then, creates the great paradox that is ICF Noord. In having no country and coming together as people formed by such, we, in turn, end up creating a place where we’ve never felt more at home.
Now there are many good lines in “No Country” but a few in particular, I believe, really gets to the heart of what I’m talking about. It comes at the end of the song, reiterating some lines from the chorus while adding a few extra…
And yeah when the bomb went off
We were dancing in the kitchen with a neon cross
Yeah when the call came back
I was standing in the shadow of a panic attack
Yeah, I don’t know where I’m at
I never saw it coming, never thought I’d wake up
With no place to call my country
There are a lot of ways to interpret these lines. Here’s how I interpret them in light of my own experience and that of ICF Noord…
For all of us, expats and Dutchies, who left their churches, there was some cause behind it. A “bomb” that went off, moving us from the environments we were raised in then to the unknown, and, eventually, to here.
The blast was different for everyone. For some, it was as simple as taking a new job or continuing their education. For me, it was the loss of a job that encompassed many other parts of my life.
For others it was quite severe- I think of Kostas and Alla from Kyiv for whom the bomb, tragically, isn’t just a metaphor.
Then, of course, there’s the struggle after you take those first steps in a new place. The adjustment, the questioning, the finding your way in a foreign area. Again, the severity differs for many. Perhaps it’s not always a panic attack- but mental and emotional distress is quite common when such a change comes.
The shadow of what is behind looms overhead and uncertainty of what’s to come next taunts us. Many of us never thought we would be in this place. I know I never did.
Yet here we are all the same.
Built By the Blast
In World War 2, Rotterdam was completely devastated by a vicious air raid from the Germans. The city was practically leveled so, once the war was over, it had to essentially be rebuilt from the ground up.
That destruction, as painful and tragic as it was, led the way to what my architect roommate calls “the Architectural Mecca” which is modern-day Rotterdam.
The point here is that there’s a certain level of pain and trauma associated with having no country. But by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, such a situation provides an opportunity to turn our gaze heavenward (toward our true country) and to be rebuilt for what He has ahead.
This is what I believe we’ve found at ICF. This is why we are such a strong family. We’ve all had to endure losing a country in one way or another. But it’s also taught us what it truly means to have a home. We’ve seen that God takes the ashes of trauma and grows a family from them. A family wider than blood, culture, and, of course, country.
He calls this family the Church and it has no borders.
Again, it’s a paradox. I have no country now. Except I do. Rotterdam is my country. ICF is my country. England and the US are my country.
Our country is wherever the cracks of the Kingdom of Heaven show and the light of God comes through. Our country is wherever men and women are willing to deny themselves, take up their crosses daily, and follow.
We are not defined by our losses nor should we seek to be. But I’d be lying if I said they didn’t provide an excellent opportunity to grow communities of love that would never have existed if the bomb didn’t go off.
"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
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General:
So this is what you meant by “thebomb.com” :)
Beautifully written Jon! <3