Innovative Ministry in Germany Hopes to Share What It’s Learning About Achieving a Post-Christian Culture – Baptist News Global

Head of Urban Ministry Cris Zimmermann doesn’t need Barna or Pew surveys to show him that secularism has overtaken Christianity, that biblical literacy is nearly extinct, and that hardly anyone these days knows who Jesus is.

Zimmermann sees this reality firsthand in his native Germany, which is one of the least ecclesiastical Western nations and an example that many Christian Americans cite with awe as a harbinger of what is to come as Americans more and more abandon the faith.

“I live in a country where less than 1 percent call themselves Bible-believing Christians,” said Zimmermann, senior pastor of Church in Action — or Kirche in Aktion, in German – during a Jan. 12 webinar on the Frankfurt-based ministry.

There are plenty of nominal Christians thanks to Germany’s history as the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation, but average church attendance is so low that a congregation of 100 worshipers on a Sunday is considered a mega -church, he said.

And it’s a difficult operating environment for many faith groups. While the federal government funds the salaries and operating expenses of Catholic and Lutheran churches, all other churches must fend for themselves in a population that has no concept of tithing.

“There is a great tradition, but there is no spiritual vitality,” the pastor said. “There are no religious expressions here in Germany, and unfortunately that’s also true in the rest of Europe. You can come and see that we have great cathedrals with brilliant architecture, but we don’t ‘have no world. We have no hearts that burn for Christ.

Creation of entrepreneurial relationships

Church in Action has used an entrepreneurial and relational approach to thwart these trends in over 12 years of existence. Before the COVID-19 pandemic introduced strict bans on public gatherings in Germany, the group operated 50 ministry sites in five cities in central Germany and held worship services in 16 venues, including cafes, cinemas , retirement homes and bars.

The organization has also run a center for young people, helped the elderly in retirement homes and launched a ministry for victims of sex trafficking in a country where prostitution is legal. “We even baptized a few hundred Muslims who converted,” he said.

He also organized global missions, sending 150 people a year on education, food, healthcare and water projects around the world. “And half of those who accompanied us were non-Christians.”

“There were crazy plans and just fun nights out, and I’d say 95% of the rooms were occupied by non-Christians.”

There were constant fundraisers and social gatherings designed just to build friendships, Zimmermann said. “There were crazy plans and just fun nights out, and I’d say 95% of the rooms were occupied by non-Christians.”

“On earth as it is in heaven”

Inspired by the “on earth as it is in heaven” line of the Lord’s Prayer, Church in Action began with a call to spread hope and love. “We had to go and change the city and bring heaven to the world,” Zimmermann said.

This call was too strong to resist, he added. “I was pastoring a church of 100 people, but what was that compared to the millions of people in the city who have absolutely no idea about the gospel and never heard of it. Jesus?”

The Frankfurt ministry began with pub gatherings in 2010. Without proselytizing, relationships began to flourish, and the pub owner eventually took an interest in the group and offered fundraising space. to help refugees, the homeless and others in need, he said.

No effort has been made to introduce worship services, Zimmermann said. “For the first two years we did nothing but benefits and charity events and made new friends in a pub. We worked our way through Frankfurt’s nightlife.

The ministry’s second location was across town at a cafe he owned and operated. This is where the ministry held its first worship gatherings.

“I was celebrating communion at the cafe. I invited them to come and receive Christ. It was a symbol of receiving Christ into their own lives. And people would start converting there,” he said.

The third Church in Action ministry site was in a home for the aged. Residents befriended the team members and 50 out of 100 regularly attended an ecumenical service offered there.

Two key concepts

Zimmerman and his brother, Philip, created a culture of multiplication based on two key concepts: community in mission and Kingdom communities, small groups that hold gatherings of worship. The Communities of the Kingdom commit themselves as a Community in Mission.

A community in mission is a small group of eight to 10 people who meet on a bi-weekly basis. One week, they meet to exchange ideas, study the Bible and pray together. The other week, they serve together on a chosen project to make heaven visible in a specific area of ​​their city.

These projects range from long-term investment in a brothel ministry to creating a spielmobile, a children’s activity center on wheels inspired by the idea of ​​a bookmobile. Due to COVID restrictions, the spielmobile has been temporarily repurposed to deliver food and offer Wi-Fi hotspots.

The name of the Ministry of Brothels is PE/IX. This involves “street teams” who visit the red light district every two weeks just to sit down and befriend the women of the brothels. For most of these sex workers, the street crew is the only human interaction they get outside of their clients, bouncers, and other women in their house.

The organization’s website explains, “The Church in Action does not visit women to help them find their way back to ‘normal life’ or to ‘rescue’ them from their current life. We are here to help them reconnect with their dreams, to remind them of their worth and dignity as children of God, and to assure them that God loves them and is not angry with them.

As the COVID-19 pandemic greatly tested brothels and the women who depended on them for a living – many women lost their homes and found themselves working on the streets – Church in Action created a visitor center in the heart of Frankfurt’s red-light district. Here, women can come and find a safe and welcoming place to rest, cook meals from their home country, get clothes and toiletries, and connect with others.

All of these ministries intersect with a passion for reaching and serving the huge refugee population in Germany. Only four other countries have more refugees within their borders: Turkey, Pakistan, Uganda and Sudan. It is estimated that Germany temporarily hosts more than one million refugees.

Church in Action owns an apartment building which is registered refugee housing. The building can house up to 60 families and offers them a safe place to land as they strive to integrate into German society. Volunteer hosts coordinate with social workers and government programs to help residents access available resources such as food, work placement, and German-learning classes.

lessons to share

While many of its operations are currently and drastically reduced due to the pandemic, the lessons Church in Action has learned are applicable to churches in other countries that are experiencing rapid declines in attendance, membership and support. interest, said the webinar organizers.

That describes the United States, where a survey released by the Pew Research Center in December reported that 63% of Americans identify as Christian, up from 75% a decade earlier.

Zimmermann explained that churches operating in cultures where they are a minority must learn to be attentive listeners.

“We’ve done a lot of training with people on how to talk about your faith in a way that you’re not imposing your faith or being the savior of the world, but really being respectful.”

Christians in post-Christian cultures must also move away from defining church as a Sunday morning event, he said.

“The mission defines who we are. I’m more like a missionary. I see my city as a missionary would see it, even though I was born here and raised here. But when I walk into a pub, I can’t assume the people I’m talking to have the same kind of value structure or the same kind of ethics as me,” Zimmermann said.

“My thinking is, how about not defining the church around worship gathering, but defining the core of the church around mission, which means sharing God’s love in word and in action?”

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