Evendays

Today is “new webpage day”. With each seekers’ conference in Geneva, with the new flyer and the distributions that we do, we also prepare a new web page/site. Actually, I plan it, design it, write up the text and ask for suggestions. It’s not a bad process, and it allows me to learn something new and be relatively creative.

I’ve worked on sites with titles like: whatareyoulookingfor and whathaveyoufound (in French, of course). There was one called ibelieve and another called 3encounterswithjesus (also in French). I buy (or is it rent?) the domain names for a year, and when the year is over, the site goes on to dead domain heaven (Google archives, I think).

This year Robert Mc–, French professor from Harding, will speak the first evening on buildingyourlife and the second evening on choosingyourarchitect (both in French). I’m going to use the program Sandvox webpage builder. It’s got some nice templates and is easier to export than iWeb which is not very flexible when trying to publish.

I hope the webpage is more exciting than this post. Sorry.

Last night, the Chorale Harmonie from Marseilles sang in the nearby mountain village of Leysin. It’s a good group, especially the tenors, and not just because one of them is Son 2 (of course, that helps). The accappella chorus sang gospels and hymns, praise and spirituals, in French and in English. The audience at the local Catholic church was very responsive and the three short messages on resurrection were well received.

10 of the group are coming down from the mountains this morning. The other 7 were at our place. This afternoon they will give a concert at the local retirement home in Lausanne, just up the street. Later this evening, they will be in Geneva for a concert at the Church of Christ.

This gives us a chance to spend some time with Son 2, but even more importantly, to reach out to a not-yet-believing world with a message communicated through song. A powerful message. A powerful means.  

Here’s a quote from page 723 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after Harry’s long, plot-explaining conversation with his old mentor, Dumbledore:

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” (emphasis mine).

What’s real? Is real what goes on inside your head (especially after having been smacked with a killing curse)? Is it as real as your family, as real as your love for them, as real as the past you’ve shared? Is it as real as your God, as his sacrifice, as your hope?

I remember speaking with a young lady about hope. I mentioned the resurrection of Jesus and that hope was based on this past event. I asked her: Do you believe that event happened? And she replied: I believe that, for you, it happened. But for me, it didn’t happen.

Wow. There were two ways of seeing history: For me the tomb was empty. For her, it wasn’t. The same event. Two realities, and reality inside the head trumps the truth of the actual event.

Immigrant populations can often be open to Gospel while “Europeans” are not. The churches of Christ in Paris are essentially focused on the “changing France”, that is, one of the churches is largely made up of French citizens from the Caribbean (blacks) while the other is made up of French-speaking Christians from sub-Sahara Africa. Of course, many African immigrant children will become European citizens, possibly opening the door to new missions.

The Marseilles church is in a rather poor area of the city. Their members come, for the most part, from the neighborhood. On any given Sunday, you will find North Africans, native Marseillais, several European French who are retired people who cannot afford to leave the neighborhood. The church there is a reflection of the neighborhood.

The same is true in Lausanne and Geneva. There are ethnic Swiss, French, other Europeans, South/North Americans, and Africans all worshipping together. The church is a reflection of the city and the neighborhood. As long as this is the case, local churches appeal to all ethnic groups.

In general, it has proven difficult, for example, for predominantly African or Caribbean churches to attract “white” Europeans. As a church reaches out to specific ethnic groups and its identity is partially defined by that ethnicity, it may be “stuck” in that ethnicity until popular thought changes and that specific ethnic group is no longer marginalized.

People are evolving in the way they approach truth. It must be experienced, tactile, self-authenticated, rather than revealed through some outside authority. This is challenging to those of us who believe that faith comes through revelation (the light came into darkness), through God’s incarnation, through living and telling God’s story, through the Son who is Way, Truth and Life.

I’m not saying that Christianity shouldn’t be existential. The Relationship must be lived and the Will carried out. But the new creation in Christ calls us to pour our experience through the filter of the Message, rather than the Message through the filter of experience. 

Most Europeans believe that they have already heard the story and are not open to hearing it again. We tackle that problem through the formation of youth who experience the story as new. They are already capable of reaching their peers (who do not think in the same way as we older folks). What we strive to do is to form the mind, not by the means of today’s thought, but through the transformation of thinking that comes about through Gospel. Postmodernism will pass away. The Message, and its transforming power, will not.

The high cost of doing missions can discourage workers and sponsoring churches, for workers must spend much time finding new support or convincing current supporters to continue.

Weariness can set in on the part of the supporting church, on the part of the worker, and on the mission church.

The sponsoring church may ask itself questions like: What are we getting out of this? How is it forming our members at home? Doesn’t it make more since to use the resources here than abroad? Does the mission work create excitement and enthusiasm in the local body? Are we putting our money where it can get the biggest bang for its buck?

The worker can doubt his effectiveness or try to compete (or feel incapable of competing) with churches that have greater resources. She may feel that she is wasting her time in a hard field.

The mission church itself may feel like a foreigner in her native land, and may wonder if it’s worth the cost of persevering when so many friends and family members do not understand their “fanaticism” (that is that God has invaded every compartment of their lives).

There are many other challenges: the focus of sponsoring churches on short-term missions rather than long-term, loneliness on "the field", discouragement (how to deal with lack of growth or the loss of members), keeping church identity without becoming sectarian, etc. Some are unique to mission churches. Others are common to all church families and workers.

God loves Europeans. He has a plan for them. That plan is summed up in one word: Glory. And you will meet many French-speaking family members when the Lord comes.

We are but 200 years from the French revolution. For God, that is but a breath. (Remember, Israel spent 400 years in Egypt. Almost 500 years passed between Daniel’s vision of the God’s Kingdom and the enthronement of the Messiah.) Supporting slow-growing, slow-going missions is not a waste of time or resources. It is part of God’s plan and he has gifted people through his Spirit to do it and enabled churches to be partners in that effort.

I believe two things about Europe: What we learn here about “evangelizing” will one day (perhaps in 20 or 30 years) be applicable to the USA as the USA follows philosophically in Europe’s steps (on a material and economic level, Europe follows the USA’s lead…); And we must be present, trained and ready when openness to the Gospel comes. Waiting for that day, then training people, will mean lost opportunities. Spiritual vacuums will be quickly filled with deadly philosophies.

And let me mention, we are planning on staying.

Though there have been periods of great growth since WWII, most churches are still quite small.

As you know, most European countries were, at one time, governed by royal families. Much of their authority came from organized religion. When the French “secularized” during their revolution (1789), enlightenment had forcefully intruded upon Europe. It was out with tyranny and out with organized religion. In many ways, royalty was not the only victim of newfound freedom. God (as viewed by many) was dethroned too.

Interpreted through the Enlightenment, religion had brought the people wars, feudal societies, the darkness of superstition and enslavement to tyranny.

A century of “freedom” brought about the same problems as before, though much magnified. Empires collided in World War I, spurred by survival for some (France and Belgium), “God and country” for others (England). The USA was mostly spared the horrors of that war. The European intellectuals who had discarded God now claimed that his “absence” (how could a loving God—even a rejected god, at that—permit such a thing?) was proof of his non-existence.

Communism and fascism spread across Europe (not just Russia and the Axis), the one denying the existence of God and the other using him (in Germany) to defend nationalism. Once again, on its own territory, the USA was largely spared the horrors of war. Existentialism grew out of the European ashes. The war had proven, once again, that God was dead and that, above all, fanaticism must be avoided at all costs. Tolerance became the chief virtue. There was no room for absolutes for they lead but to destruction.

Trinh was baptized on Monday evening. About two years ago, she came to a Sunday worship with one of our members, her ex-coworker. She didn’t know much about Jesus or the Bible, but the ex-coworker bought her a Bible and during the last two years she’s been reading and coming regularly, more regularly than many “members”, to worship. She’s a third year medical student who was dissatisfied with the life of a bio-chemist. Born and raised here, she is Swiss-Vietnamese.

Anyway, she asked me at the beginning of the week if I would baptize her.

I said yes.

And Jesus welcomed her into his people. Into himself.

I’ve spent at least 2 work days getting a flyer ready for our short Geneva campaign in June. Dr. Robert McCready will be in Switzerland with a small group of Harding University students, all of whom study French. They’re here to help small churches in Switzerland, France and Belgium.

About 18,000 of the flyers will end up in people’s mailboxes in the neighborhood where the church meets. There’s an evangelism committee which prepares logistics and such, and we usually get a good turnout from the folks from church. Most visitors are friends we have invited, but we always meet 10 or so new people from the neighborhood. Others sign up for Bible courses or just ask for a free Bible.

It takes a lot of work, but last year we met a family from the neighborhood and they were converted. They have a Bible study at their place now and some friends come with their questions, looking for answers, reading the Bible together.

Our conference is entitled: “Me, I want to… believe… hope… love.” I’ll also be preparing a web site for the conferences, along with two pages of “studies” that readers can consult.