Having seen that I have church planting in my DNA and years of exposure to the Church in Europe, Al Barth asked if I would help him with City to City’s work in Europe in 2011. Church planting was exploding there in the 2010s, and I was excited to help. I worked with City to City as a volunteer from 2011-2014. My job was to coach, consult, encourage, and seek to expand the work of church planting and network development in Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Budapest, and Prague.
When I retired after 21 years serving the church we planted, CTC offered me a full-time position where I would function as a catalyst for Southern Europe and North America. It was a wonderful privilege and opportunity to work with gifted, well-trained, and spiritually zealous leaders. I hope I helped as much as I was helped by the people we served.
Here are some observations from my experience and a taste of the wisdom European leaders shared with me.
The Mechanics of Planting
European church planters (CPs) ask many of the same questions that American CPs ask: “Where should we meet? When should I launch? I’ve got this problem with my launch team… Where do I find a worship leader? How can I get help with funding?” — and so on.
Struggles
They also muddle through many of the same emotional, spiritual, and material challenges that North American planters do. I found early on, surprisingly, that I could speak into some of their challenges from my experience as a planter and pastor in the States.
Worship
The format of corporate services is another similarity. Europeans have adopted the styles of many of the leading churches in the U.K. and North America, using contemporary music, technology, and incorporating both traditional and contemporary expressions of liturgy.
Love for the Gospel:
But most of all, my exposure to church planting in both continents found a common love for the gospel and how it impacts all of life — in the individual, the church, and the culture. In both settings, planters love the gospel, love their cities, and want to make an impact for Christ in their mission field.
The fallen world is broken everywhere, but it is broken differently in different places. This being the case, we can learn from the challenges our brothers and sisters in Europe face and overcome. We have already begun to see them here and will likely encounter them more in the decades ahead.
Culture
In general, Europe is more post-Christian, with less biblical background and less church exposure. Europe tends to be more secular and atheistic. Granted, there is a large Catholic and Orthodox presence in Europe, but it is largely nominal, and in decline. Furthermore, the Catholic and Orthodox cultural barriers are significant. It is widely thought that to be Spanish is to be Catholic, to be Italian is to be Catholic, to be Greek is to be Orthodox, etc.
So to convert to evangelical Christianity can be fraught with resistance from family and friends. It is thus harder ground to plow (to reference a thought from Hosea 10:12]) for the gospel there than it is in most American cities. It can take a bit longer for Europeans to taste and digest the gospel message, whether they are entrenched in the dominant catholic culture of the south, or in the more secular culture of the north. Patience in evangelism and good works will reap fruit in due time.
Expectations
Due to this hardness of spiritual soil, evangelical churches are, in the main, smaller and slower growing than their counterparts in the U.S. and Canada. Accordingly, planters’ expectations for church growth in Europe are more measured. Though tempted to do so, I was careful not to convey the picture of the “successful American,” with glowing stories of church plants and becoming a church-planting church. I did, however, share our Cincinnati story — how we planted several churches in 15 years — but I was quick to add that our first plant was a colossal failure. Invariably, my hearers would say, “Tell us more about your failure. How did that happen?” It is through sharing failures that I would begin to gain credibility.
Character
Temptations abound in our culture for young pastors and church planters. Our culture in America is a celebrity culture, a prosperity culture, a status culture, a success culture, a power culture. Many young pastors fall prey to these temptations: they (secretly) want to be rich (because many pastors are), famous (because many pastors are), have a large church (because that gets the attention of the world and their peers), or write a book (because many pastors do and “of making many books there is no end” [Eccles. 12:12]), presuming they have important things to say at the age of 30.
They also want to have thousands of followers on social media (because many pastors do), as they presume thousands of people are interested in their daily musings and activities. It is the opposite of self-denial. It is a platform of self-advancement. There is very little emphasis on, and very few examples of, servanthood and humility in our evangelical milieu. There are notable exceptions, but very few older pastors would echo Francois Fenelon, who advised his young charges to “pursue obscurity.“
By contrast, most European pastors know they will never be rich, never be famous, never have a large church, and never write a book. So, they tend toward more humility, teachability, and contentment with their roles as agents of salt and light as a minority subculture. They tend to be less ambitious, more willing to ask questions, listen, and take advice. Granted, there are exceptions, and Europe has celebrity, wealth, publishing, and social media, but those values have not saturated the Protestant culture in Europe to the extent that they have in the U.S.
These are simply personal observations from 40 years in the American context and 10 in the European. What is there to learn from our European brothers and sisters? We can learn to consistently preach and live out the gospel as a minority culture, practicing servanthood, being content with day-to-day faithfulness, and not being overly concerned with numbers. My prayer for my North American brethren is that God would raise up a generation of pastors who are humble, teachable, and willing to listen and learn; who are eschewing celebrity, fame, and wealth; in oder to pursue a faithful pastorate and pulpit. In a culture that is difficult to influence and amaze, it is not the showy that will provoke deep change, but rather a turn to this subversive, humble, counter-cultural Christian leadership.
