While many strategists in Christian circles repeatedly point to the fact that Europe is the only continent where the church is shrinking, they miss one sector that is hard to account for. I’m referring to the phenomenon currently known as Youth Church, or, as a growing number of us prefer to describe it, Church-into-Emerging-Culture.
The national newspaper The Guardian reported in September ’99 that the CU (Christian Union) is the largest club in British universities, “made up by Jesus revolutionaries who easily talk about their love for Jesus as they are prepared to engage over the issue of masturbation and the making of illegal copies of CD”.
The impact of the message of Jesus in the lives of young people is also felt as Christian R&B singers Mary and Mary, this last August ‘00 have their song “Praise you” in the top 10 in the UK.
This is a new generation of believers who meet in pubs, discos, offices and homes, hardly places to count Sunday morning worship service attendees. Nevertheless, this underground movement is reaching dimensions in Europe that are hard to believe. (or, that would have been hard to imagine just a decade or two ago)
In fact England saw the birth of this new breed of churches about 20 years ago. However, those pioneers, in their 40’s today, readily admit that something brand new is happening. Roger Ellis of Revelation Church in Chichester, wrote in his book, “The New Celts,” that…
Last summer 16,000 young people joined together under the banner of “Soul Survivor” an Anglican movement to reach a new generation, to worship, receive training and inspiration to reach their generation. The group met in three different week-long sessions for the venue could only hold 5,000.
Soul Survivor stared a few years ago as the vision of St. Andrews Chorleywood an Anglican parish (just outside London), who rented a warehouse near the town center of Watford a distant location from the St. Andrew’s suburban environment.
This, while an estimated 5,000 British young people leave the church “as we know it” every year! Says Mike Breene Vicar of St. Thomas Crookes in Sheffield.
No one knows for sure, but there is an estimate that in just the past five years, hundreds of new churches, of all types have been established into Emerging Culture in England alone.
These ‘churches’ reach people at raves—dance parties that last several hours into the night, on university campuses, or in town centers at pubs and discos.
St. Thomas Crookes in Sheffield is serving the large university community in its town with cell groups in the various campuses. Worship is varied, from the contemplative to loud sounds accompanied by dance. The current attendance has exploded to 2,000 with 80% being under 30 years of age.
Mike explains that they strive to be a place where people can express their visions and dreams of how church should be. With a light-weight, easily maintainable type of church they are training, deploying and mentoring a new breed of church planters that will reach the “Tribal Generation” of today.
This last February 2000, Pete Greig in southern Britain launched “24-7 prayer.com”. Inspired by the 100 years of prayer started by Count Zinzendorf in Herrenhut, Germany, he sensed that God was calling him to initiate a chain of unending prayer.
The site invites people to sign in to pray for one hour every day during 2000. In the first month they had 30,000 hits and all the one-hour prayer slots have been taken for 2000. “People visited us from all over the world” said Greig.
My wife Donna and I invited Cerys Bowden, a 15 year-old friend from Reading and last Feb 00 joined in at Bojangles “the hottest club in Guilford” for a 4 hour event to launch a 24-7 event of prayer in the town.
300 people from 8 different denominations paid 1.50 pounds sterling (US $3) to come and pray for revival in the town. They brought unsaved friends and a couple of dozen accepted Christ after watching a clip of the Matrix where Neo accepts the red pill (in order to discover the truth behind the Matrix). Pete explained that the blood of Jesus is symbolized by that red pill and if we accept it we can know the truth!
Further north from England, in Norway something new is happening. It has become widely know through the media as Jesus Revolution. Led by former youth pastor Stephan Christiansen, JR is now bringing together 4,000 students in 500 schools all over the nation.
This fall, Stephan, who is mostly an evangelist, has started a church that will equip all those who have come to Christ. The vision is to send a new breed of Vikings all over Europe to reach out to young people and plant churches that will disciple them to become obedient followers of Jesus.
Øyvind Bjoerkly is another young Norwegian whom I have mentored and is working to develop a vision to disciple the Emerging Culture of Norway. He recently noted;
“from time to time I meet young people here that are living a house church Christianity without thinking of it. Yesterday I was in a prayer meeting with six other people that were drinking tea, eating cookies and were spending good time in prayer and worship. The house church message is now shared high and low in Norway and there is an increasing understanding of the need for small fellowships.
Next Thursday and Friday I will be part of a network gathering for youth leaders in the Pentecostal movement. I have been asked to share on Church Planting. I will share the great need to plant more churches in Norway and Europe. The people that are setting the pace among the youth leaders in this movement is all very much for Church Planting. Our challenge now is more to prepare and equip them for planting”.
In Germany, a group called the Jesus Freaks was started in Hamburg and mostly reaches out to punks who, while still wearing their chains and earrings, now speak of the love and power of Jesus to change lives.
The largest church in Switzerland is a emerging culture church. The Friday Fax reported that:
“In November and December 1999 alone, the congregation of Zurich’s International Christian Fellowship grew by 800. With an attendance of 2,500 every Sunday, the ICF has become Switzerland’s largest Protestant church,” writes the Dawn European Network’s Reinhold Scharnowski. The movement, established in 1996, targets Zurich’s yuppies. The mix of “radical spiritual convictions, high-tech Sunday services and house-church-type cell groups (called ‘Workshops’)” is causing furor. “They have conservative values and progressive methods,” says Scharnowski. One Swiss pastor describes them as “the Swiss event of the century”. The ideas don’t all come from ICF itself; leaders Leo Bigger (31) and Matthias Boelsterli (38) are happy to learn from anyone: Willow Creek, Ralph Neighbor, Rick Warren and others. “ICF has simply realized how to effectively copy from others,” says Scharnowski. The focus is on not-yet-Christians, who are considered VIPs. Every ICF member prays for three VIPs, and has regular contact with them, with the aim that at least one of the three chooses to follow Jesus every year. In addition to prayer for them, they are invited to parties and Workshops. “The Workshops are the real church,” says Leo Bigger. Workshop leaders have a free hand; central control happens through vision-sharing alone.
Although ICF strongly discourages transfer from other churches, the attendance is divided into three equal parts: Christians who have moved from other churches, new believers and Christians previously without a spiritual home.
In the meantime, 4 new ICF churches have started in Switzerland, with a total of 10 planned by the end of the year 2001. The church plants are not always planned: Matthias Boelsterli held a wedding for a young couple from Basle, at which “the Holy Spirit moved so powerfully that some 30 guests decided to follow Jesus.” The result was new workshops in Basle for the new believers. The ICF churches are organized as a network, not subordinate to the mother church.
In Sweden, a movement under the name of New Generation International led by Magnus Persson is right now in the midst of the development and production of a house-church planting concept with leadership manuals and 50 different gatherings/episodes on videotapes and DVD. Different issues, topics and values are incorporated for reaching young people in Generation X and Y.
The vision calls for developments in the two coming years in order to gather 1000 key young persons for hands-on training for two days and then send them back home with the house-church planting kit, with the leaders’ manuals and videotapes/DVD.
They gather a group of about 10-15 friends (unsaved and saved), hang out and have some snacks. They then watch the video episode 1 (25 min). With the questions in the leaders’ manual they start to discuss the issues and values in the video. They then get into the action plan: a practical “how-to-implement this stuff in everyday life,” complete with goal and challenges.
The vision is to see the reproduction or multiplication of every group. Persson says, “We want to form a network of these house churches built up around a website as an apostolic ministry base for information, communication, vision casting, training material, resources, back-up support, news and up-dates about what is happening and lots more.... We want to make it international and fit for the Global Village Emerging Culture” affirms Persson.
Is this only a European phenomenon? Not at all, stories could be told of similar developments in many nations all over the globe.
In Indonesia, PPRG (The Youth Church Fellowship) started just few years ago seeks to empower people in the Emerging Culture with a vision to see the nation transformed making a covenant with God to:
1. Promise to love one another as one body of Christ.
2. Promise to honor and to develop a loving relationship with parents and leaders.
3. Promise to love this nation by: living in holiness (living in virginity till marriage) avoiding drugs, alcohol, and brutality,
4. Love and honor one another without seeing differences (religious, ethnic, etc).
5. Live in integrity to develop this country, so Indonesia can be a blessing to the nations.
Indonesia represents one of the nations where the Church is facing strong persecution. In this kind of context the Church into the Emerging Culture seems to thrive.
There are many examples which help us understand that this is not just a fad but instead it is the demonstration that when the Church comes to where people are and presents Jesus in a way that they can relate with, people will respond.
This is one of the many stories that I have heard illustrates what is happening.
A young man who is a new convert recently came back to a local fellowship after being absent for a while. He lives with his four brothers and they also love the Lord. They have formed a cell which provides a place of sharing, accountability and learning.
He was drug addict, he earned money from gambling (snooker, billiards). After repenting his self image was so bad, that he didn't have confidence to give his testimony.
But since returning to the fellowship he is on fire for Jesus. He shares his faith with other drug addicts and other are coming to faith because of his testimony. One of the new converts dropped from junior high this year. He lives far from Jakarta (about 2 hours). So he stays home with his new found friends from Friday to Sunday so he can join the service. They exhibit a great hunger for the Word of God.
One of the leaders that God has raised in Indonesia is Hengky Hartono. He became a believer in 1990 and God gave him a burden for souls. He told the Lord “Send me anywhere that has never heard the Gospel”. He began a process of discipleship and leadership development in his local church, Abbalove Ministries.
In 1997 the issue of new tribes and the need for alternative services to have their own identity emerged for Hengky. And the GANG (God's Anointed New Generation) was born.
In 1998 he became staff in Abbalove. In 1999 their Sunday service multiplied to two areas, and they started to pray for Bikers. For six months we did special outreaches, once a month. These included drams, concerts.
In 12 February 2000 they started services in downtown, with 170. The focus is on building relationships through discussions that seek to answer the questions they bring.
“These people get bored with our rituals” Hengky says, “so church needs to look like the kinds of things that are part of their lives”.
Hengky sees a high degree of ownership for he invites young believers to work alongside him. His approach is I do, you watch; you do, I watch; you do and I move on.
Hengky’s vision is for a large new network that will encourage many to reach out to those lost new tribes in Jakarta and in cities all along the nation.
Theodore Buntario, is a professional events coordinator also is involved in reaching into the Emerging Culture of Jakarta. In 1997, he was organizing a Don Moen. The event was a great success even by secular standards.
In 1996 before going fulltime, God allow him to win the best Music Video clip award for Asia MTV. This opened new understanding of the kinds of things that would attract the young people.
He established a new cell church with an emphasis on discipleship and mentoring. It also includes outings to the mountain/ beach for all. Here we share "The Fathers heart of God (inner healing), Self esteem and finally, deliverance". After these times, Buntario says “we see lives changing as they become radical for Christ”.
Two important things that Buntario has identified as critical for the things they are doing is to consistently run against the flow and to seek unity in the team (pray & serve together as one without any personal interest).
Another example comes from Herman Soegeng. He was a student in United States when a Pastor (now became his Pastor) invited him to join is a short mission trip (4 weeks) during summer holiday.
Herman went to Europe minister to the Indonesian community in Europe, and during this trip God put something new in his heart. He went 4 more times on summer missions to Indonesia. During these times God spoke stronger and started to stir in his heart a vision for the Emerging Culture.
He wins the heart of young people by serving them. He says “we build a relationship, we give them food, educate them (give them scholarship in order to attend school). That is the way we win their heart to Jesus”.
Herman believes that we can disciple this generation. Lift up their economical status, their intellectual status, their spiritual life, their mental health. These people need to understand the vision for this generation and the practical ways to reach them.
Reaching into the lower economic levels of society they face the practical problems of a nation in serious economic crisis. Therefore they seek for practical and tangible ways to serve. For example one of our groups, is collecting money every month to help one of their friends. She was out of school, because her family rejected her because she believes in Jesus. (She was a Muslim) She had no place to stay and no money to continue her studies, and she was only 15. So we decided to help her, give her place to stay, and put her back on school, and disciple her. Another example is Jesse, he
takes care of 10 men at his house. They are born again Christian. They used to be drug dealers, pickpockets, some even murders and rapists.
Herman explains that a changed young person seeks to serve the community. Last year we committed to feed 2,000,000 people. We have even worked with a Muslim organization. We gave the people goods like shoes, clothes, toys, and more important books, medical stuff, seeds to plant.
We are teaching needy people how to survive. For example we adopt one community and we teach them how to grow eatable mushrooms. They can make a living by selling the mushrooms and many of them were converted to believe in Jesus.
We are also implementing a scholarship program, this year 800 kids in many different schools are in this program. And none of them fail their exams. They all passed with good grade and some of the are the top students in class.
Herman ‘s group has joined several others and currently they are committed to establish churches in 500 communities all over the nation. Right now they are in 120.
This is a powerful example of the kind of creative initiatives that young people are coming up with to reach their culture and transform their nation.
A poem posted in the 24-7prayer web site wonderfully expresses the amazing thing young people have started in Indonesia
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