These last years there has been so much talking and writing about the emerging church, the emergent church, the house church, the slow, organic, simple and missional church. One thing can be said about many of the people representing these different flows expressing church; they have the time, the energy and the tools to get their message “out there in space”. They are good at marketing, writing, discussing, and public relations as tens of millions of hits are identified in a fraction of a second on the Internet.
Some of the ambassadors of these movements (and they is a wide variety of them and many shapes, sizes and colors!) advocate the above-mentioned expressions in contrast to what they consider “traditional churches”. What is traditional? Does being a traditional church mean having a church building, employing staff, preaching 30-minute sermons, defining the vision and mission of the church, or having a budget? There is a strong reaction against such things as if they would hinder an authentic, relevant, missional, effective and trust-worthy expression of the church.
In this blog I would like to identify what I believe to be of utmost importance in being church as connected and tested against the backdrop of ministry in Stockholm, Sweden. In the eyes of the not-discerning observer we, as church, might look like any other traditional church as measured by the above-mentioned characteristics, since we do use a bigger building, have employed staff and define membership. The main question however is: how do we look at church and how do we live it? Let me share some of the main characteristics that we practice as a fellowship here in Sweden.
We identify with Jesus and with His mission – Missio Dei
The sole reason why we are church is that we are called to identify with the mission of Jesus; from the very start of the church we focused on this and we showed through our ministries that we were called to “reach new people” who had not heard the Good news of Jesus Christ.
For all our years we have been mainly focused outwardly – realizing that in our history we had seasons as church where we had to reunite, re-evaluate, refocus, and be renewed in our mission, vision and life as church. During these years it has become second nature to the people in the church to relate to friends, family and colleagues with the result that we experience this phenomenon that literally dozens of non-Christians are part of our different worship gatherings that have different styles and where we speak different languages. We believe wholeheartedly in the “Go” aspects of the mission, yet, dozens come in through the front door of the church as “Come” guests. We do not create high visible entertainment-like, and seeker-sensitive programs, people just come and as they come we try to meet them in a relevant way while we also try to minister to the needs of the believers.
We try to “impact our world with hope” – the mission of our church
In everything we do, we ask the question does this initiative, whether a personal one based on special gifts, or as a body, impact our world with hope? We believe that our whole lives, including our jobs or educations, our living circumstances and all we have and own (including time, resources and money) is an integral part of our confession and life as a Christian; there is no compartmentalization between the secular and the sacred, it is ONE. This has a direct effect on all our relationships, the way we treat people, and the way we consider every person we come in contact with as a gift to us from God.
A community of faith.
The reality of life in our materialistic Stockholm is that unless one has much money, that there are not many opportunities to create community in the sense of “living together and sharing ones life with one another within a house/household.” Most cannot afford to buy or rent houses and apartments big enough to facilitate that. However there are a number of such communities within our church and people look for openings and opportunities to live in close vicinity to one another to live out their faith on a daily basis in close fellowship to one another. In spite of these logistical hindrances, life in the church is characterized by close and caring relationships in spite of geographical distance and time consuming travelling. Many of our cell groups are great examples of care and support structures for people who have been in need and are on the fringes of society. The simple examples of sharing resources with one another and to share hardships and blessings is so natural that you’ll often find people in tears as they pray with each other, somewhere somehow.
Welcoming the strangers among you…
One of the main qualifications of an elder is to be hospitable… which means to be a lover of strangers. Jesus was inclusive in his approach. He shocked the Jews out of their socks, as He demanded them to be inclusive. He also told them that God’s house was to be house of prayer for all the nations! Are our churches houses of prayer for all the nations or do we apply the homogenous principle in reaching people because it is so much easier? My deep conviction is that a church is no real church unless it is multi-cultural in its nature – (unless it is impossible to be that because of the absence of other nations in ones surrounding or because of language issues).
New Life Stockholm wants to be a haven for people who are “strangers”, we practice “belonging before believing”. People in our church come from over 50 different nations although the majority of us are Swedes. We have many contacts with refugees, with “papperslösa” – illegal refugees, we have many relationships with people who are detained, with drug addicts, alcoholics, and others have been abused in different ways; people from all walks of life, from professors to students, to illiterate people, you can find this wonderful enriching blend of people in many different cell- and ministry groups. Hospitality, in the Biblical sense of the word, is lived out in so many different ways as we are “lovers of strangers!”
This was part one of the introduction of how we do and experience church. As I said before there have been times that we had to reunite, re-evaluate, refocus, and be renewed in our mission, vision and life as church. It hasn’t been an easy way, actually it has been a rocky road, but God’s grace upheld us.
Soon part 2 will be presented here, until then; this is the Way I experience it!
John
