In the classic film Chocolat we see the amazing protagonist open up a chocolaterie in the middle of a closed off, overly religious and legalistic French village. The mayor and other prominent villagers ensure she is made very unwelcome yet, one by one, she brings life to the more excluded villagers through a non judgmental attitude, an ability to see the potential in each of them and, of course, through amazing tasting chocolate! Relationships are restored and the village transformed!
In some ways this really resonates with what we are aiming to do in Munich. We are not seeking to find a place within church walls to which people can come to us. We are seeking to set-up our lives outside of formal church structure and encounter people with whom we can share a bit of the life of God with. Similar to Chocolat it is important that we are non-judgmental, look for the best in others and, of course, eat great food together!
Many people have recommended we read Alan Scott’s Scattered Servants book that came out last year. It is a very special book that exhorts its readers to bring life to the cities they live in, not through great quality church meetings, but through scattering throughout their neighbourhoods and loving people wherever they find them. This is what we love to do and this is what we believe God has called us to!
“You are My children and I have given you good things to share. As you follow Me, you will encounter people who are far from Me, who are fighting for faith, struggling in their marriages, longing for healing, wondering if I am alive. As you meet them, share what I give you for them. Don’t worry if it feels like you have nothing to offer. It is My pleasure to send you out empty but bring you back full.”
SCATTERED SERVANTS, P44
On Sunday 29th October we hosted our first public event as a church plant. As we are a small team we needed to enlist a lot of help from friends [*credits below] but it was a great feeling to make a positive statement about who we are, what we believe, and what we are dreaming of.
We hired a room above one of Munich’s most iconic beerkellers hoping to make the statement that though we are an international team we desire to plant a German church! So the location was stunning and we did our best to put together a programme that pointed to God and communicated about his heart for the city of Munich and the nations.
We were enormously blessed by a team of 8 wonderful individuals from Trinity Church London. For 48 hours before our event hey prayed, they prophesied, they walked the streets, they sat in cafes, they encouraged, they connected with people – anything to build the kingdom of God. Thank you!
We hope this event will be regular but it certainly won’t be frequent. The nitty gritty of what we do as a church planting team is meeting with people individually, informally and semi-formally. We really believe that the work of discipleship in this post-christian era is achieved through spending quality time with people, not through getting people to attend church meetings. With this in most of our activities for the rest of this academic year will all take place in cafes, bars, work places and round dining tables.