November 9, 1989 is a day that significantly changed our world. On this day, 20 years later, we share in the anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. Berlin was the centerpiece of the Cold War and the clash between the West and the East. The public did not anticipate how quickly communism would fall in Eastern Europe. The same was true of the events in Berlin on Nov 9, 1989. Being here today to celebrate “freedom” is a great blessing.
The following is a short interview with the current German Chancellor. She is from former East Germany and was in Berlin on that night, 20-years ago. Worth a quick watch.
The following video highlights a few of the church planting efforts underway in our region. This is a teaser for the upcoming Berlin Church Planting Partnership Summit that we are hosting on April 13-16, 2010. Berlin Summit Info.
“The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church.” – George McLeod
The common person in eastern Germany sees the church as marginalized in society. Misperceptions create a large jump for them to look to the church for answers. To multiply the church requires us to move away from primarily asking people to ‘come to church’ and to be equally active in taking the church to them – ‘going to them’.
A focus of the ReachGlobal-Berlin team is to stimulate approaches in the marketplace (the places people gather), which engage people outside the traditional structures of the church. We partner together with Kingdom-centered business leaders and local churches to develop projects that moves the gospel relevantly into the marketplace.
Our means to do this is to develop, empower, and release marketplace leaders, through:
BAM Projects: To catalysis entrepreneurs to start Kingdom-based businesses which also stimulate growth in the church or establish new communities of faith. ReachGlobal BAM projects aim to achieve a ‘triple bottom line’: 1) a positive social impact on individuals and the community; 2) a positive ministry impact: people reached for Christ; and 3) a positive financial impact: profitable business and stimulating giving to the local church.
Training/internships: To further equip business leaders to think and act theologically (gospel-centered) within their full-time calling into the marketplace. To develop cross-cultural internships which equip young leaders operating in the marketplace.
Partnerships: To partner together organizations, churches, and individuals towards innovative approaches to being actively present in the local marketplace.
This is a new area of development for the ReachGlobal-Berlin team. We are seeking and developing new partners in this effort. Inquire at berlin@efca.org
ReachGlobal exists “to glorify God through multiplying healthy churches among all people” by focusing on developing, empowering, and releasing indigenous leaders. In everything that our team touches, there is an intentional question about how we can further develop, empower, and release leaders through all we do. This area is at the core of what we seek to do day in and day out.
The Berlin City team currently engages this in three different areas:
Church-based training: Spiritual formation in the context of the local church is an essential part of obeying Christ’s instruction to make disciples. It is a foremost question to ask how we can help further efforts within the many different local church contexts in our city to develop leaders.
Mentoring/coaching: Church and ministry are the context, but personal heart-to-heart interaction is also essential. Each member of the RG-Berlin team sets aside time to mentor and/or coach leaders one-to-one.
Internships: Using our existing ministry partnerships to equip the next generation of leaders. The value of practical experience is very high in our cultural context. Berlin offers a complex laboratory for learning leadership and ministry principles. We also find that short-term experiences often lead to a long-term commitment to the city. Internships go both ways: people coming to Berlin and indigenous leaders going to other parts of the world.
Practical examples of developing, empowering, and releasing leaders are found throughout the stories of these web pages.
A significant part of the development strategy is to partner outside churches with the German church plants. We have done this effectively in the other parts of East Germany (Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, and Magdeburg). With the momentum building in Berlin, there is a need for more help, and I am focusing some of the new visitors here.
To that end, the months of April and May were full of activity from the U.S. partners:
Two Rivers Church (Knoxville TN): Continued walking alongside the FeG Chemnitz church, influencing them in prayer, strengthening their leaders and members. On this trip we began the process to develop a partnership between 2RC and the Berlin International Church (BIC) which will focus on several prayer initiatives for the region.
Team from Two Rivers Church serving in Chemnitz
Cornerstone EFC (St Louis): Jerry Orf and John Ritland visited the FeG partnership in Magdeburg. We had the chance to interact over their existing partnership and talk about future direction. The visit to Berlin also showed them another ministry context in our region.
Fellowship Church (Knoxville TN): Kevin & Vicky Huggins (staff), Lee & Joyce Bell (elder) visited Berlin as part of an evaluation and advisory trip related to the ReachGlobal ministry in eastern Germany. In addition to seeing many aspects of the ministry, several suggestions were made to strengthen the work here.
EFCA Central District Pastors: A group of pastors from various ministries in the Missouri/Iowa area visited as part of a three-city tour. This is part of the process of identifying global connections for their churches and possible strategic partnership locations.
FeG/BrookLink: Dietrich Schindler, the leader of the FeG Inland Mission (church planting), and Lee Hayward, BrookLink, visited as part of the initial exploration of a new project focused on beginning an English-speaking church in Berlin.
Pray for:
* Further partnership connection with the church planting projects in Berlin
* Further application of resources to this planting projects.
“The cross must be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church.” – George McLeod
