Birmingham: relational bridges

It was a couple of years back. I got off the train from London, hot 'n sweaty in traveling grubbies. Bill picked me up at the station and whisked me off straightaway to a church Valentine’s dinner held in a posh restaurant! I snuck into the men’s room to scrub up as much as I could and went out to face the sport coated attendees. This was how I first met the brothers and sisters of the beautiful Shirley church (who graciously did not bat an eye at my disheveled state). And I also met a lot of other people who were not from the church, friends from Bill Kiddoo’s speakers’ club and from David Schwan’s guitar club.

The guitar club "live"

In spite of my less than British gentleman’s attire, I asked the young man next to me if he was from the guitar club. He replied, “No, I’m the friend of one of the blokes from the guitar club.” I attempted to hide my astonishment and continued the discussion. My mind, however, was processing the information just received. Here was a church that did not just have unbelievers present, but unbelievers who were inviting their friends to the church’s activities!

It was therefore no surprise when, about two years ago, this mission-oriented church sent off a team to begin a daughter work in the nearby working class suburb of Frankley. But that story has been told elsewhere (see Significant Times: Dec. 03, Aug. 04).

In its 20+ year history, the Grace Church of Shirley, England imploded twice. Yet thanks to the grace of God and the tenacity of Bill and Beckie Kiddoo, it became the first European GBC in recent years to begin a daughter church. As an earlier Europe director said, “The Kiddoos have lived through some horrendous years in Birmingham, and yet he (Bill) has hung in there and made something that was a mess into a very beautiful thing.”

Sunday morning at the Grace Church of Shirley - March 2005

Today the Grace Church of Shirley has an outreach intensive persona and is incarnating the gospel in their community. Beckie Kiddoo volunteers as a counselor and administrator for the Family Support Centre and Family Equip which gives her ample opportunity to meet people, showing and sharing the love of Christ. Bill serves with Chaplaincy Plus and leads a Speakers Club that puts him in touch with professionals from all over Birmingham. The church members too have adopted this type of evangelistic lifestyle and are involved in multifarious relational bridges.

Beckie and Bill Kiddoo - British Isles Team Talks '03

Bill is equipping three men to assume full leadership of the church while guiding the members to pursue youth outreach in two other sectors of the city. All of this is in pursuit of the church’s mission statement: to help turn totally irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Christ… and plant other vibrant spiritual communities.

Becky Schwan, intern Matt Carter, Bill and Jim (part of the Shirley church) - Evangelists' Workshop March '04

David and Becky Schwan had prayed for English teammates to begin a new church in a particular working class suburb. John came to Christ through the guitar club, then his wife Dot trusted Jesus as well. Archie first came in contact with David through the guitar club and gave his life to the Lord. He shared with his children and wife, Sam, who decided to follow Jesus as well. The miracle is that both John and Archie are from Frankley, the very suburb to which the Schwans wanted to go! The three couples—Schwans, Sheppards and Greys—now form the church planting team sent out from the Shirley church.

Archie, Sam, John, Dot, David and Becky

The first time I attended a guitar club, I taught the group of 20-30 guitarists a set of finger exercises and showed off a few blues and modal riffs in a song inspired from Ecclesiastes. That night Archie, who has a fantastic Motown voice, strummed on the guitar and sang a song of faith that flowed out of his perpetual smile.

The Frankley Guitar Club

John (in red), David (in white) and Archie (back row in blue)

Becky Schwan, in addition to outreach through counseling, youth work, and gospel reading groups, has a new relational bridge. She is getting the wives of guitar clubbers together to sing in a sort of “guitar club widows” choir ;-)

David, Becky, John, Dot, Archie and Sam love to share the gospel and have seen people entrust their lives to Christ. They have now brought together twenty-some people and will begin weekly Sunday meetings in October.

The fledgling Frankley church

John and Dot Sheppherd

Paul, John and Dot

HOW YOU CAN PRAY FOR THE BIRMINGHAM TEAMS:
For the English-American Frankley team (S-W Birmingham) as they share Christ through: Alpha courses, evangelistic celebrations and Bible studies, choir, guitar clubs, concerts, and mentoring/counseling in the local high school.

For Archie (Frankley church planting teammate) who was recently laid off from work, for provision for his family’s needs and for guidance as he pursues studies for a change of career.

Sam, Archie and their girls

For abundant conversion fruit from the Grace Church of Shirley (S-E Birmingham) evangelistic activities.

For the English leaders of the Grace Church of Shirley to assume full responsibility for the church.

For wisdom as the Shirley church’s leadership develops a plan for future church planting.

Prague: sowing broadly

In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, for free expression of being and sense of transcendence over the world of existence.
Vaclav Havel

Overlooking Prague in the Czech Republic

“God had done so much in the past year. People accepting Christ, Bible studies, Jesus video distributions, baptisms…,” wrote George Swain in his last annual report. The GBIM team in Prague is pointing Czech people to the Transcendent One in whose image they are created.

One of those people is Blanka. Cindy Swain had the joy of reading the gospel with her, seeing her trust Christ, be baptized and become a participant in the nascent Grace Brethren church in Prague! Cindy says, “She came to us and asked to be baptized. We rented a swimming pool in the center of Prague and baptized two folks, Blanka and Jonas.”

Cindy and George Swain (right)

The Swains met Blanka and many others through English camps and the Jesus video. The GBIM team embarked on a colossal endeavor through the Jesus video distribution as they pursued their vision of seeing “every person in the Czech Republic have the opportunity to hear the Gospel though our ministry." By 2003, essentially every household (over 550,000 — similar in size to Columbus, Ohio) had received an invitation. And the offers continue to spread throughout the region.

Plotting routes for a Jesus video distribution

Alena had received the Jesus video. Larry and Silvia Totzke, who were on a ten-week assignment in Prague, accompanied George to meet with her; they shared about the need to begin reading the Bible. Alena subsequently followed correspondence courses for 16 months, began attending Sunday morning bible studies and meeting with Cindy to discuss questions pertaining to salvation. She claimed to have seen Satan himself, but has now trusted Jesus!

English clubs have also been an evangelistic key in Prague and many, many GO (short term) teams have participated. Petr, doing PhD work in Prague, attended one of these clubs, came to Christ, was baptized and is in a discipleship—Life change—group with George. This summer three GO teams went to Prague for three English camps. As a result, 45 families have requested the Jesus video.

GO team 2004. Kirk (left) and Kay (back row right) return to Prague in September

Fortunately the 2005 Ashland GBC GO team didn't go to Prague just to enjoy the weather!

An English club at the Swains

These clubs have been an effective evangelistic bridge because many Czechs want to learn and improve their English. They study books, like Chuck Swindoll’s “David,” and C.S. Lewis’, “The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe.” During the English camps they live a bit of community together which allows much time for sharing their lives and testimony.

Preparation for an English club

Frank and Marion Plate from the Aalen, Germany GBC are serving in a different part of Prague. Their outreach involves children’s clubs, German language learning and camps. John Pappas took the Aalen youth to Prague to help with one of these camps and the Plates have led a group of Czechs on a cultural exchange trip to Aalen, where the church people welcomed them into their homes.

Marion and Frank from the Aalen, Germany GBC

All told, about 80 people are meeting in various places and times as a result from these evangelistic initiatives. There is a Thursday evening Bible study in Horovice (about 35 miles out of Prague), a Sunday morning study/worship time, a Sunday afternoon women’s study in English and a Wednesday evening bible study, in addition to discipleship and gospel reading groups.

Worship in the Swains' home

How you can pray for Prague:
Give thanks for the people who have come to Christ. George reports that there have been hundreds!

George loves to share the Word!

Pray for these new believers to become disciples, lovingly obedient to Jesus' teaching, and for more to receive Jesus.

Pray for Kirk and Kay who are going to Prague this month (September) to investigate employment opportunities in order to be part of what God is doing in the city.

Kirk and Kay from the Calvert GBC

Men of leadership caliber are the critical need for the budding Prague church. George is now focusing on university men by means of English conversation in order to find such men, read the gospel with them and train them for leadership. George requests prayer for at least ten men. Please pray for Martin, Lukach, Michael, Karl, Petr, Pavle, Quang and others.

Linda (from the Wooster GBC) and Pavels

Historic and contextual tidbits:
John Hus (1372-1415), a catalyst of the Reformation, preached the centrality of Christ and the priesthood of believers in Prague; he was martyred in Constance, Germany.

John, Paul and George

Nikolaus von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) catalyzed a missionary movement that swept east from Czechoslovakia through the United States. The Moravians’ spirituality was so compelling that John Wesley yielded his life to Christ.

On August 21st, 1968, Soviet tanks rolled through Prague. Communism proved effective at squelching Christianity; today, only 0.25% of the Bohemian Czech people are evangelical.

Vaclav Havel wrote:
[Communist rule resulted in] “tens of thousands of lives devastated by prison, sacrificed on the altar of a scientific Utopia about brighter tomorrows.… The fault is not one of science as such but of the arrogance of man in the age of science. Man simply is not God, and playing God has cruel consequences.”

“Totalitarian systems warn of something far more serious than Western rationalism is willing to admit. They are, most of all, a convex mirror of the inevitable consequences of rationalism, a grotesquely magnified image of its own deep tendencies, an extremist offshoot of its own development and an ominous product of its own expansion. They are a deeply informative reflection of its own crisis.” (Living in Truth, 141-142, 146).

George Bush, Sr. and Vaclav Havel (1999)

In 1989, the Czechs became a self-governing people thanks to the sacrifice of dissidents like Havel. In an essay on Havel’s Letters to Olga, Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll underscores a difficulty that the Prague team faces even among those Czech people who seek the transcendent. He writes,

“What we are possibly dealing with here is the manifestation of a new form of religiousness, which out of courtesy no longer addresses God with the name which has been trampled underfoot by politicians.” (Heinrich Böll, “Courtesy towards God.”)