Charis Partners in Madrid: Report (part 1)

(brrrring!) I woke up from my reverie with one of those unsettling “already-but-not-yet” feelings in my gut — already good people, but not yet enough.

Marie and Fred were sent from the Lyon, France GBC to serve with the GBIM team in Madrid. Fred organized and hosted the Charis Partners in Madrid encounter

The Grace Brethren were born in Wittgenstein (Schwarzenau near Marburg) out of the German pietistic movement in 1708. Flight from 18th century persecutions wedded with a heart for mission have today resulted in Grace Brethren people living out their faith in 28 countries around the globe. Unhappily in 2007, one finds limited numbers of the Grace Brethren in Europe (1).

Among them, however, are some truly Europe-class people. Some are lay workers, others receive remuneration in order to dedicate larger quantities of time to disciple and church multiplication.

Susanne and her husband, Rainer, have been on mission in their home country, Deutschland, for over two decades

Concerning the remunerated-to-serve Grace Brethren in Europe, well, in my opinion our ratios are inversed. We currently have a team of 42 Americans who dedicate their full workweek to mission, but only 13 Europeans.

(Nota bene: we are experimenting in order to uncover sustainable complements to the “full-time” paradigm.)

So our remunerated team ratio is 3/4 American to 1/4 European. Why is this? What if… we were to reverse that ratio?! How could we do it?

Alfredo was formerly the Portuguese General Secretary for InterVarsity. He also initiated the handwritten Bible project that swept through Portugal

My dream is to see European-led, multinational gift-based teams prayerfully make and mentor disciples who in turn spawn spiritual communities.

Don Quixote de la Mancha, the idealist, and his faithful compagnon, Sancho Panza

The Charis Partners (2) gathering in Madrid (Feb. 23-28) was orchestrated to present my ideas on why our ratios must be reversed (3) and to have Europeans deliberate how that might be done.

So 15 of us gathered together, not as Europeans or Americans, but as sisters and brothers in Christ, to prayerfully ponder the overarching question, “How might we see the Charis Partners multiply in a dramatic way?”



I will forego a blow-by-blow account of our six rich days together, but here is a list of our discussion topics that we established, inviting the Holy Spirit to guide us as we dreamed together about seeing the Charis Partners dwarf the GBIM Europe Team.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

“State of the Union: the Charis Associates speak out !”
“Our common guiding principles and values”
“Our vision, purpose & objectives”
“Where & how do we find people of common heart & vision ?”
"The origins of Charis International and Charis Partners.”
“The creation of a Charis Europe mission agency ?”
“Coordination between the European Grace churches, Charis Europe & GBIM.”
“Tips on keeping in contact with and stimulating prayer for Charis Partners.”
“Financial, administrative infrastructure for Charis Associates — support, expenses, medical and retirement.”
“The sending church’s perspective on the strengths and weaknesses of the current Charis Partners strategic, financial, administrative systems.”
“Why must we see the Charis Partners dramatically increase their numbers? political, sociological, economic and missiological reasons."

30+ year veterans Larry and Vicki DeArmey shared highs and lows of life on mission in Europe. Fred, Alfredo, Rainer and Susanne shared their perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of being a Charis Partner in Europe today.

Eating together was not listed among our guiding principles, but you can see why it is highly valued. But one of the purposes of this gathering was to deepen our relationships, for if we want to journey together we will need strong ties. In Europe, community most often happens around the table. Twinky certainly knows how to build community!

Florent was Charis International's first president. His church has sent missioners to Madrid, Marseille, Dijon… !

In addition to missiological principles, I shared about resurgent anti-Americanism and the abysmal exchange $/€ exchange rate (which explains the sneer)

BIBLE MEDITATIONS
John 3:30: “He must become greater; I must become less.”
Edite posed the question, “Why did John need to become ‘less’?”
John 20:21 “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
Alfredo expounded on “what it might be like for us to be on mission in 21st Europe in a way similar to Jesus’ way of being on mission in 1st century Palestine.”
Matthew 9:38 “Ask the Lord of the harvest… to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Louise passed out postcards cards that served as “prayer cards.” Just as in a soccer match, a yellow or red card stops the game, whenever someone felt we had reached a critical moment or sensed a need to pray, s/he held up her/his card and we prayed.

Edite gave Tim, Susanne and Rejane 10 minutes to put together a puzzle. But there was one condition… they could only speak in their mother tongue (thus English, German and French)

This was the context in which we dialogued, hoping to pray and plan our dream into reality. (To be continued…)

(1) I am not concerned with denominations here. This is simply the origin of a particular Protestant Evangelical tribe that issued from the widespread Anabaptist tradition. History matters to Europeans and most people find their family genealogy fascinating —knowing one's "roots" is an integral component of identity.
(2) I will develop the new profile of a Charis Partner in my next entry. These people, formerly known as Charis Associates, were nationals involved vocationally in evangelism and church planting ministries.(3) I believe that a good team composition would be 50% European, 50% International — Africans, Asians, S. & N. Americans, Antarticans…

French media & Evangelical demographics

Evangelical visibility in France, well as the Fab Four once sang, "It's getting better all the time."

When I was in elementary school I wanted to have shoes just like Paul's, n'est-ce pas !
To answer the question that my daughter would ask just to make me feel old,
Paul is the 2nd from the left :-p

The March 1, 2007 edition of the weekly Catholic magazine La Vie published "Exclusive: The Map of France's Religions: department by department where the believers… and the atheists are." So here is a quick FYI sample from the current “Evangelicals-in-the-French-media” season.
La Vie's research shows that France is:

• 64% Catholic
• 28% Without religion
• 3% Muslim
• 2% Protestant
• 0.6% Jewish

I found this report helpful and evenhanded. Just one monolithic statement crept in that would have been true during the 20th century, but not in the 21st. La Vie proclaims, "Catholicism remains the only national religion." As Aerosmith sang, Dream On!

France has become religiously pluralist due to the growth of Islam. As La Vie admits, “Islam has become France’s second religion.”

Aerosmith somehow seemed cooler than this when I saw them perform in the ‘70s
(My older brother took me to the concert)

A FEW OBSERVATIONS

While 64% of all French people claim to be Catholic (1), only 2% of all French people between the ages of 18-29 are regularly practicing Catholics (2).

French Protestants are subdivided into three major branches: Lutheran, Reformed and Evangelical. Once the number crunching is done, France is somewhere around 1% Evangelical.
Between 1993-1999, the percentage of French people between the ages of 18-29 who claimed to be "without religion" rose by 59% (3).

Back in 2001, The World Christian Encyclopedia claimed that France's Muslim population was 7.1% (contra La Vie's 3%). That figure has certainly risen in the past 6 years. France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.

A mosque is being built about 100 meters from
the Protestant Evangelical Church of East Dijon (where I attend)

La Vie classifies the Côte d'Or, the department in which I live, as having 10 to 20 mosques. There are only 7 Evangelical churches in the department (pop. 500,000).

La Vie cites the French Evangelical Federation (FEF) of which the Dijon church is a member. Map source: www.lafef.com/protestantisme-29-40.html

The things that struck me about the La Vie articles is that Evangelicals were taken seriously, were quoted more often than Reformed officials, and that we are seeing terms like "Evangelical dynamism" creep into articles.

This was straightforward report with no negative overtones. Such neutral, respectful reporting is much appreciated and helpful. C’est La Vie!


(1) David Barett's World Christian Encyclopedia, 2001 gives the exact same figure.
(2) In 1993, 4% of the 18-29 age group claimed to be regularly practicing Catholics. By 1999, the figure had dropped to 2%, a 50% decrease in just 6 years. Sources: INSEE Les jeunes (143) and Les valeurs des français: évolutions de 1980 à 2000 (137).
(3) There are numerous indicators of a resolute French departure, irrespective of age, from institutional religion in general.
(4) Sébastien Fath, one of France's leading sociologists of religions, asserts, “in terms of regular practitioners, the [Evangelical] proportion [of all Protestants] goes beyond two-thirds, possibly even three-quarters." Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, oct-dec 2002. Fath states that in 2002 there were approximately 350,000 Evangelicals in France. Compare this to 500,000 French Buddhists and Hindus, and 13,000,000 "without religion."

Evangelicals and French media

In the past few years, French Evangelicals have gone from being invisible, to portrayed as potentially dangerous, to sociologically fascinating.
The youth culture mobilizes through imaginary. So in France, during the days of evangelical invisibility, the media broadcast reports that nefarious cults were lurking out there somewhere, scary and dangerous. Because evangelicals were unseen, we were unknown. And that which is unknown is suspect and potentially dangerous.

Then came the negative press. Articles in the March 13, 2003 national Catholic magazine, La Vie, amalgamated the evangelical faith with American politics. “The decline of Protestantism and the rise of evangelical and fundamentalist currents.… Bush’s United States lives and drags the world onto the field of religious conflict,” i.e. the rise of the latest strain of Christendom (see Jan.2006 blogs).

Similarly, on the cover of the Feb. 26, 2004 of the prestigious magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur : "The Evangelicals : the Cult that Wants to Conquer the World" (n°2051). The less than subliminal message, "Evangelicals? Just say no !"

Oh well, as Oscar Wilde said, "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, that is not being talked about."

Well, this past week a journalist had some extremely complementary things to say about the Montceau Grace Brethren (evangelical) Church, and that in a city where Protestants were once martyred (see March 16, 2006 blog). The Journal de Saône-et-Loire (Feb. 12, 2007) wrote:

"Sunday morning, at the Cultural Center in Paray-le-Monial, the Center for the Study of the Word of Montceau-les-Mines organized a prayer meeting that assembled about thirty people.

The CSW of Montceau is managed by Protestant Evangelical Christians. The goal of this association is to make known the Bible and it’s relevant message. Songs, worship, meditation…
David Hobert… chose a Psalm as a starting point for his meditation. [The Psalm] says that the one who has faith is never alone. Even in the deepest loneliness, there is someone who is thinking of him, who watches over him, and who is waiting for him.
One must note the good participation of the congregation at this Protestant meeting. Actually, after the reading, everyone gave their impressions and shared a testimony, highlighting the personal relationship between God and men. ‘God is a place of safety for me,’ said one. ‘He is light in the darkness,’ added another. And ‘He shows me the way to follow when I stray,” said a third. These Christians…, families with children, found some comfort, the balm of religion and strength to lead the hard combat of life.

Each one shared his testimony

The main speaker, then chose the Letter to the Ephesians as his starting point; the Bible is the only reference for Protestant Evangelicals. Through metaphors, the passage showed that religion arms believers with the sword of the Spirit, the shield of faith, the belt being the symbol of truth and the shoes representing zeal.

This was a beautiful ceremony. Alas, too rare in this religious capital — the city of Paray-le-Monial.”

Yep, we are seeing progress. French Evangelicals have gone from invisible, to suspect, to sociologically fascinating. And with first-hand information and experience, to spiritually intriguing.

Christian cooperation, an oxymoron?

The ultimate oxymoron?

When I share with someone that I am Protestant, their follow up question is often, "Do you ever have contact with people from other Protestant churches?"

Now you have to understand that I live in a city of 1/4 million people where there are only 5 Evangelical churches (yep, 1 church per 50,000 people). So we Evangelicals know each other well and have a city-wide Evangelical ministerium.

I share, therefore, "Yes, the pastors get together every other month to share news and pray." You can almost hear the unspoken, "Whew! or Wow! I thought all Protestants were fractious, sectarian isolationists!"

Paris' Sunday Night Gathering is a demonstration that "Christian cooperation" is not necessarily an oxymoron. A Baptist church (300 people), a Grace Brethren house group (15 people), and a full-time InterVarsity worker (1 person), are co-laboring together.

Our concerted efforts flow from a common heart and vision for the thousands of young church-less Parisians, who leave the city for the weekend and return late Sunday afternoon, to encounter Christ.

Students in Paris

Pastor Appéré of the rue de Sèvre Baptist church on Paris' rive gauche

Paul Appéré described the first Sunday Night Gathering (Jan. 21st) like this:

"Well, it has been a few years now that some of us have sought a Sunday night gathering. With the arrival of Dennis Martin and Edward Nelson, this project has finally materialized.

The first Sunday Night Gathering took place tonight, the fruit of long, careful preparation. And what we lived went beyond all that we could have dared hope for. More than 70 people were present, of which half were visitors…"

The Sunday Night Gathering is a missional attempt to honor Jesus who prayed to His Father that "they might be one heart and mind with us. Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.… I in them and you in me. Then they'll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that you've sent me and loved them…."