Church planting in the secular west: learning from the European experience. By Paas, Stefan, 2016 (original) (raw)

Evangelism and the Paradox of Europe and Christianity

Mission theologians and practitioners who reflect on evangelism in Europe, or in a particular European country, usually analyse the socio-religious context from one of the following angles: secularisation, postmodernism, or post-Christendom; or a combination of those. The author briefly analyses how each angle leads to identifying a particular barrier for the communication of the Gospel, and a particular response to find bridges for the message. He then proposes a fourth approach, not to replace these angles but to place them in a wider perspective, namely the paradox of Europe and Christianity. He then revisits the other angles to show how contradictory phenomena are intertwined. Zusammenfassung Résumé 1. Introduction According to Swiss theologian Christine Lienemann, mission is 'the theory and the practice of the Church meeting strangers', that is, people who are strangers to the Church and the Christian faith. 1 This simple and modest definition is very appropriate for the mission of the Church in Europe because it makes us aware that a large part of the population in our countries has indeed become alienated from the Christian world view and religious practice. So much so that one could turn this definition around and say that communities of practising Christians have become minorities, and even strangers, in the modern world. We can simply observe this situation all around us, but the perplexing element of the matter is that this happens in Europe of all places, the most Christianised of all continents where the message of Jesus Christ has been proclaimed for many centuries, in many forms. This makes Europe such a specific context for evangelism. Our subject is evangelism in Europe as a whole – that is, including the countries outside the European Union. When we look at such a vast field, our approach can only be a generalist one. This is a deliberate choice, for I am persuaded that when we try and see the overall picture of Christianity and religion in Europe, we will gain a better understanding of what happens in each particular country on this continent. Together they constitute a specific context for the communication of the Gospel. This is a vast and fascinating field of study. Those who reflect on evangelism in Europe have different angles from which they try to understand the characteristics of this context. In this article we shall shortly discuss the three most frequently used ones. We will then propose another approach, one that does not replace the three preceding angles but rather places them in a particular perspective and should be useful to understand our European context.

THE STORY OF THE CHURCH -PART 3, TOPIC 6

As American Protestants, our spiritual heritage is dependent upon more historical movements and personages than we realize-and more than we would like to admit. We contend that we get our religion directly from the Bible without mediation, but such a thing is impossible and, even if possible, quite untrue. We are influenced by every single one of the occurrences we have been studying. In particular, for those of us who are Northern Europeans, the introduction of Christianity into our normally Gentile family history has been dependent upon two major historical movements: the Christianization of the barbarian tribes in the early Middle Ages, and the Protestant Reformation just a few hundred years later. Today we give a quick overview of the Christianization (not necessarily conversion) of those Northern European tribes.

Church Planting and Church Growth in Western Europe: An Analysis (published in IBMR, 2016)

Church planting is often seen as the best way to grow the church numerically. However, there is surprisingly little research examining this claim in any detail, and the research that exists turns out to be not very well-founded or unclear in terms of sources, definitions, and so forth. Recently, research has been conducted in three small Reformed denominations in the Netherlands, comparing older and younger churches with regard to converts and returnees. The results show that the younger churches gained approximately four times as many converts and five times as many returnees as did older churches. Three explanations seem the most plausible: younger churches are more often in good demographic locations, they spend more time and energy on outreach, and their leadership is more entrepreneurial.