I love these folks. They are doing great things.

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...it is too inspiring.

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In the past it has been quite a challenge, but I now have some help thanks to the Redeemer Church Planting Center. They have compiled a directory of churches around the world affiliated with the Redeemer network in one way or another. Most of them are located in major urban centers and are founded with the same mission as Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, to be gospel-centered churches committed to the renewal of the city. Check it out to see if there is a church in your area.

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Gallup released a new poll recently with a map showing the degree to which each state in the United States values religion. The results are not at all surprising to me.

Church planters, you now know where your work is needed most.

(HT: Feeding on Christ)

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There are a number of great cities in Canada, and the city of Montréal is perhaps one of the most unique. I have not spent a great deal of time there, but the few times I have been I have really enjoyed it. If you are ever planning to visit Canada, be sure that one of the places you visit is Montréal. The video to your left here is a short two-minute clip, uniquely made, giving you a short taste of the city.

Montréal is quite possibly the most culturally-unique city in Canada. Its location and history have created a culture with multiple influences. There is an old joke in Québec that says, "We could have had French culture, British government and American know-how... but what we've really got is American culture, French government and British know-how!" Some have gone so far as to call Montréal "Amerope," as it is shaped by a very distinct blend of American and European culture.

Aside from making this an interesting city to visit, it creates a distinct challenge for church planting efforts in one of the least-churched cities in North America. The Redeemer Urban Church Planting Center has been putting out an e-newsletter for a few years now, and back in 2004 they featured one of the church planting efforts in Montréal. Here's what they had to say about the unique challenges in that city:

So, what makes Montréal unique? Well, first of all, Montréal is bilingual, boasting the second largest French-speaking population in the world. Culturally, it reflects the American life and attitudes. In addition to being geographically located in North America, Montréalers and Americans share an increasing consumer mentality where choice is imperative. Montréalers also value the ease and spontaneity commonly associated with Americans.

But Montréal is more influenced by European intellectual and social values than other Canadian cities. Like Europeans, Montréalers are less forthcoming than Americans and see a difference between 'friends' and 'acquaintances.' They are a bit more clannish and more cautious about allowing people into their lives. Typically, for church planters, this means that it takes longer for people to really open up and become a 'friend.'

In addition to these differences is Montréal's particular spiritual history. In the past, it has been heavily influenced by Roman Catholicism, which today is widely rejected and viewed as being authoritarian, intellectually confining and too ritualistic. French existentialism has also influenced the thinking of those leading the social values of Montréal. But today, this philosophy too is increasingly questioned. The gate-keepers are beginning to understand that they need consensus and community in order to build a society. Similar to the trend in Europe, Montréal is moving toward a softer humanism where unity, cooperation and community are paramount. All these things make Montréal a uniquely diverse challenge for those living the Gospel in Montréal.

That blows the door wide open for the Church to enter through. Church planting efforts will most certainly be a great challenge here, but when a culture is in flux as it seems to be in Montréal and in Québec, it creates a unique opportunity for the Church to renew its presence in the city to play a major role in transforming that culture. Would it be a challenge you would consider taking up?

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Berlinprojekt is a church planting effort in the city of Berlin. It is led by two young German men, Christian Nowatzky and Konstantin von Abendroth. I have met both of them, and Kosta did an apprenticeship of sorts at my church last year. Both are graduates of the Freie Theologische Akademie in Gießen, Germany.

The Berlinprojekt aims to reach young people in Berlin, the postmodern, urban generation. I receive their newsletter every month, and each time I read it I get completely filled with excitement. The work they are doing in Berlin is incredible, and God is blessing their efforts so richly. I read what is going on there, and I hope and pray that God will be able to us me like that some day. Here is a copy of their latest newsletter. I was unable to find it online.

Dear Supporters and Friends,

The first two months of 2006 have been a good start for us into this year. The most exciting thing of the last months has been to see two of our friends, Simone and Ariane, become Christians a couple of weeks ago. Both would tell you that the Berlinprojekt – people in the community and the worship services – awoke their spiritual interest and encouraged them to search for God. Recently they shared about their brand-new faith in our worship service, which was an authentic and touching moment for all of us. Especially for Simone this service was a special one because she took the Lord’s Supper for the first time that Sunday… For us it is an amazing experience to witness their development and to be so closely involved in it. We have been realizing again: for a person that had no background with Christianity – like Simone – to suddenly be fully involved with it means a dramatic change that will create strong internal reactions: a realization of God’s holiness and of God’s love and especially a concern for their non-Christian friends have been very real and very intense experiences for both of them. It motivates many of us here to grasp again how personal and meaningful the gospel really is.

We are very happy to see our still very new worship service stabilizing, both in numbers as well as in terms of the community and content. Over the last few weeks more than 70 people attended, which has been very encouraging. With this size we turn an important corner since the feel of the community really changes with that amount of people in the room. Now the community starts to develops its own dynamic and things are getting out of our (Kosta’s and my) hands, in a good sense… In connection to this we introduced a new organizational structure last week that takes away responsibility and work from Kosta’s and my shoulders and creates concrete, meaningful opportunities for others to help out. To see so many people being excited about the church and many people being motivated to help out we are constantly motivates us to go ahead and try new ideas and initiatives.

For this year we want to continue to dream and trust big, so to speak. At the beginning of last year, with only 9 people besides Kosta and me, we had the big vision of starting a new church within only one year… And God actually put it together in spite of our limited abilities. The question is: when God already did that, starting out with so little, how much bigger should we dream and plan for this year – now that we have 60 people every week?!

My wish for our community remains to move ahead with the same enthusiasm and trust as we did last year. After all we barely made our first baby steps with the first regular service only 4 months ago. For this year specifically we plan to start special evangelistic home fellowship groups, install a home fellowship group system with ongoing training and continue to stabilize and grow our service. We would love to continue to be connected with you in this work to see where God is leading us from the first start he made…

Please pray with us:
- For a stable and suitable venue to have our services in as our current one will soon not be available anymore
- Please pray for a continuing desire to be relevant for and close to our friends and neighbors, instead of becoming content with what God has give us
- Please pray for strength and power for Kosta and me as we are often challenged by the workload and responsibility
- For continuing financial support as Kosta and I are back in the U.S. in March to meet with supporters and friends
- And for a solid core of stable people, who have been believers for a while and are able to lead others, who have stable job situations and a long-term perspective in the city…

Thank you very much! Many greetings,

Christian and Konstantin

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For nearly two years now I have been attending Grace West Church, a PCA church plant in Oakville. I have been able to experience many things there--engaging worship, solid preaching, and an amazing community of believers. But I've also seen the trials and struggles of a volatile church plant. New churches are not easy to maintain, and, among other things, require strong leadership. If this is lacking, the church will be hurting.

In the two years that I have been at Grace West, we have not had a full-time pastor. We had a part-time pastor, who preached fairly regularly, and also performed some of the duties of the pastor, but when he was not available, our leadership team took over. As it were, our pastor ended up moving to Germany to teach at an evangelical seminary there, and so we have been looking for a new pastor, someone to take over in a full-time position. As of yet we have not had success in finding someone. We have had several candidates, but in all cases, both parties agreed that things would not work out.

This lack of leadership also hindered our ability to function as a mission church, which is the dominant part of our vision. We were, out of necessity, focused on maintaining our church internally before we could even think about looking outwardly.

Lack of leadership has been an ongoing problem for our church, and the leadership team has been finding itself more and more burned out as it tried to carry out more tasks than it could possibly handle. This is in no way a disrespect to the team; with what they have had placed on their plate, they have done an incredible job. And this is also in no way a slight against our former pastor; he too did excellent, God-glorifying work while he was here, and was evidently called by God to continue his ministry in Europe.

But this past Sunday, the problem was brought before the congregation, and one of the leadership team members announced that, effective November 6, Grace West Church will stop holding Sunday worship services.

I nearly cried when I heard the announcement. In the first four of the six years that I have lived here, I have struggled with trying to find a church that preaches the gospel, actively seeks to carry out the Great Commission, and tries to engage the culture in a powerful way. I finally found that in Grace West. I was very taken in by it, and eager to be a part of carrying out that vision. I was spiritually nourished and refreshed, and felt so at home in the community.

Thankfully, though, the church is only closed temporarily. We are continuing to keep up a significant small-group ministry. The two groups will be studying the program Christianity Explored this fall, and in January, Lord willing, open it up to the community to begin to use it as an outreach tool. Also, our pastoral search will continue aggressively, with the hopes of having one in place in the spring, to begin work on reconstructing the church for re-opening in September.

So this means I have to find another place of worship for the time being. This is going to be an extremely difficult task for me. I honestly have no idea what I will do at this point. I don't want to commit myself to another church because I want to remain committed to Grace West. I can't out of one side of my mouth say that I'm committed to its vision, and then just abandon it in a time of struggle. I might just have to use it as a time of church exploration, visiting lots of different churches in my area. I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, it will give me a great opportunity to learn from other churches, dialog with other Christians, and broaden my understanding of the what the church is and how it should function.

At this time, I suppose all that's left to do is pray. I read today an excerpt from the church father John Chrysostom, on prayer. He writes some very comforting words:

"Prayer is a might weapon, an unfailing treasure, a wealth which is never expended, a harbor that is always calm, a foundation for tranquility. Prayer is the root and source and mother of ten thousand blessings." -- John Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, 5:44

My girlfriend, Robin, always reminds me that God does everything for a purpose, and His purposes are always good. It's at times like this I wish I could understand His purposes.

So I will continue to pray for Grace West, and I ask for your prayers too. And if you're a church-planter/pastor who is looking for a strong core group eager to be a faithful witness to their community, Grace West is looking for you.

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I blogged a while back about city church-planting and I mentioned a German fellow I know, Kostantin von Abendroth. I found out about his plans to plant a church in Berlin next year with a friend of his, Christian Nowatzky, and I had suggested it might be this plant in Berlin. But it's not. I found out today that it's actually a program called the Berlin Projekt. The website is only available in German right now, but in a month or so the information should also be in English.

Kosta's friend Christian preached today at Grace West Church. He's been doing an internship in New York at Redeemer Presbyterian under the leadership of Tim Keller. Christian's message was excellent. He preached on Stephen and how he both modelled the attitude of Christ and leaves us with a worthy example to follow.

Christian and Kosta plan to start their work in Germany in January of 2005. Stephen Beck, pastor of Grace West, has informed me that Berlin is an extremely difficult city to work in, but Christian and Kosta are determined. They ask for our prayer as they embark on this challenging, but Lord-willing, very successful task.

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I lament often about how much I dislike the city. But I think maybe it's just Hamilton. Gideon Strauss has gotten the notion from earlier posts of mine that I want to be an city church planter. At first I vehemently denied this, but I must admit, the idea is growing on me. My recent increase in attendence and involvement at Grace West Church in Oakville has prompted me to begin thinking of this again.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a fellow from Germany, named Kosta. He's been in Ontario for a few months now, studying in an apprenticeship-type setting with the pastor of Grace West, Stephen Beck. Kosta comes from Hannover, and has studied at the Freie Theologische Akademie in Geissen. He came here to work with Dr. Beck, and to learn about pastoring and planting a church. He plans to go back to Germany in November and plant a church in Berlin, and I'm wondering if it's maybe this one..

Kosta's apparent love for this really inspired me. Repeatedly on this blog I've stated the need for the church in the cities, as it is the biggest challenge the church faces already now and in the future. Are my to be involved in this? I don't know. What God has in store for me will be revealed in time. The idea scares me, I'll admit that. It's so different from anything I'm used to. But I like challenges, and though I find it difficult when I'm out of my comfort zone, I'm beginning to get used to it. Grace West is a lot different from anything I'm used to.

But if I'm going to be challenged like this, I really want to be challenged. Thinking about this, I want to do this in Europe. I want to work in cities like Vienna, Stockholm, and Zurich. I've spent 21 years of my life in North America. It'd be exciting to go and work in a different culture and lifestyle. Not to say there's not work to be done here, there most definitely is. Maybe I'll come back here every few years for a hiatus. We'll see.

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