3W Roundtable II: Cairo

 

I'm here in Cairo, Egypt  for the 2nd annual  3W Roundtable.  Each year I am inviting a group of pastors that are great strategists, organizational thinkers, and missiologists to join me in a different field in the Europe/Middle East region to discuss the last year of events at 3W.  In each case, these are leaders representing churches that have made very large investments into 3W: supporting multiple 3W staff, fields, and churches.  It's part of our effort to be very transparent about the decisions we are making with their donations.

The 3W Roundtable also adds an extra layer of accountability for Jamie and me as we lead the Three Worlds team.  Although we are confident in our leadership, we believe that it must be very clear who leaders are accountable to and that we should always be open to comments, criticisms, correction--particularly from those who are donating their hard earned money to make our work possible.  There's nothing worse than leaders that live in a vacuum.

Our discussions last 3 full days and cover everything from field updates, to a review of how Jamie, Marco and I are doing personally, to discussions on finance and how we can better communicate and relate to these churches that are investing so heavily in the 3W vision.  In this case, we also wanted to introduce the 3W Roundtable to the Oldham family, their home, and their work.  That is why we are hosting it in Cairo this time.  It was in Paris last year.

The most exciting part for everyone, I believe, is the case studies, where we come up with case studies that anticipate future challenges that 3W may face in the future.  Usually there are 3 or 4 on different subjects.  Everyone receives the case study a couple of months before the Roundtable begins and then once we are together, we work through the problems and challenges together.  We don't just deal with the problems and challenges of the current day, but anticipate the challenges that the future might bring as well.  Overall, it makes Three Worlds better and better every year.  And if Jamie and I start to veer off in the wrong direction, they can provide a safeguard to keep us from making mistakes.  But most of all, they are people that we trust, people who have a proven experience of being excellent organizational thinkers, and people that have clearly showed through their actions over the years that they care for our family and our teammates deeply.  We greatly appreciate them and love working with them.

And I'm very excited about the fresh new host of ideas that they have brought to the table and look forward to implementing them in the future.

Farewell to the Varners

 

Last week, Aaron Varner took up his new position as the Administrative Pastor of South Lake Wales Church of God in Lake Wales, Florida.  According to Nicole, "Aaron will be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the church, including overseeing the staff, managing the HR part of the church, coordinating the logistics for the construction of the new building and directing the missions and small group programs of the church.

Aaron served on the XZ Berlin team for 3 years and Aaron and Nicole helped us out for the first 2 years as we launched Three Worlds.  They were an invaluable part of the team, and the whole team greatly enjoyed their time with them.  We all have lots of great memories of our time together.  There certainly was a lot of laughter, and they helped the USA-Germany CHOG partnership to grow closer than ever before.  And they were instrumental in helping 3W establish its presence in this region as they visited different countries introducing our new system to the churches and countries we serve.

Now they have a new job and are anxiously awaiting the birth of their first child, baby Patrick Landon.  We're excited for their new journey into the wonderful world of parenthood.

We're going to miss them.  I'm especially going to miss firing Aaron. Aaron was fired a record 378 times by me.  Usually for liking the wrong kind of music or some other flagrant violation.  He was usually rehired shortly thereafter, since he was the only one who could solve my computer problems.  Daniel Kihm will now be attempting to break that record.  He's been fired once already (for liking girly movies like "the Notebook", but that's a long ways away from Aaron's record of 378.

We're proud of the Varners and we look forward to meeting baby Landon in the future.

3W Emerging Leaders Interview: Peter Kiss and Laszlo Debricini

The Church of God in Budapest is blessed to have two young emerging leaders working together to reach the city.  Peter Kiss (27 years old) and Laszlo Debreceni (33 years old) are pastoring churches that are experiencing growth, unity, and the formation of a vision to reach one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  They have surrounded themselves with mentors from Europe and North America and are looking to create healthy ministries that can impact the entire region.  3W sat down with Kiss and Debreceni at the European Theological Conference in Fritzlar, Germany to learn more about their long-term goals for ministry.

3W: Describe the overall spiritual environment in Budapest.  Are people very religious or very secular? How interested are they in issues of faith and religion?

Peter: I would say most of the people are secular, but they have a deep need for spiritual stuff.  They are searching for the meaning of life, but not in the church anymore.  More like bookstores and esoteric stuff.

Laszlo: They're searching for the meaning of their life, not as a philosophical question. "What is the meaning of my life?"  They would read Paulo Coelho.  If you go into a bookstore, half the books have to do with spirituality, but they don't think the church has anything to do with that.

3W: Is their prejudice against the church.  Do most people have a pretty negative feeling of Christianity and the Church?

Laszlo: Yes.

3W: They would say 'I don't like the church because...' what?

Peter: I think they would say the church is not authentic anymore. It's not real. It doesn't meet the real needs of people. They found in the past that the church didn't live the truth and were separated from the Word.

Laszlo: After the commnist era and the new system, they would still very much think that the church is on the take.  They want to take your money. EIther it's the Roman Catholic Church--big cathedrals and everything is with gold.  And the new Charismatic movement has the same perception.

Peter: People think they are looking for the answer in their own spiritual life, but they think everything is relative.  So I think one reason they would say, 'why go to church,' --they would say you can only find one part of the truth there.

Laszlo: They are very concerned about the Christian church especially. They think it's very exclusive.  We have other religious movements like Hare Krishna which is viewed as more open, as well as Reformed Buddhism.  It's just thinking and going to Yoga classes.  I get something and they don't think of something as institutions that are on the take.  They think they want to give so they feel served.

Peter: What did we do wrong? I would say we didn't listen, but only spoke.  This is a problem. People want to not only hear the truth, but they want to share.

3W: Hungary was one of the first Eastern Block nations that took off, but recently I've heard that there's a lot of negative feelings about the situation right now and the future. WHat do you see happening right now with the society, the economy, and the political situation.  Do you see people in a negative mode?

Peter: Yes, and I would think it's getting worse, because for them it seems hopeless.  We can also see the Right Wing party growing. I think they are very depressed and getting aggressive.

3W: You are young leaders with churches in the European setting, what kind of things are you doing to make sure at the beginning of your careers to make sure your churches are healthy. You have the opportunity that many churches don't have, you are just starting.  

Laszlo: The first step we had to take was to create unity in between our churches, because in the past we had issues about that.  Really it wasn't us. It was God who put us together.  The churches are still different, but we are not quarelling about the differences but using the differences to help each other.  We are chaning the attitude to be more outward focused and into the community.  We have quite a few that come from an Atheist background.

Peter: One problem in the past was the church didn't take care of the needs of the people.  The other thing is that people think Christians are proud and that they are "in" and others are "out."  We are inviting people into the circle. Everyone needs to get closer to Jesus.

3W: What exciting things do you see for your 2 churches?

Laszlo: The next step is a new kind of structure in between our churches and in the future of the CHOG in Hungary.  A simple structure that helps us grow, which is not a bureaucracy system.  We had to re-think these by-laws and structures because of new religious laws.  And right now with Peter, we are thinking of a campus structure, so that we can have more efficient resource sharing if there are new church plants.  We want to be ready by the time we plant a new church next year.

3W: So there is a church plant in the horizon for Budapest?

Peter: Yes, actually downtown Budapest. It's a very exciting place. It's the only place where the 3 metro lines meet and it's very crowded with artists, students, and professionals.  We want to make events that are not sub-cultural, but the music and style would be a part of the culture--and trying to influence these people and sending them out and influencing Budapest.

3W: Tell me about your families.

Laszlo: I'm 33 and I'm at the turning point of Gen-X and Millenials.  I married 10 years ago and I have 3 chidlren, 8, 6,  and 1.  Daniel is 8, goes to school 2nd grade. Hannah is 7 and goes to 2nd grade. And Adam is the tiny one  who is 15 years old. My beautiful wife is Bernadette and she has an Irish name.  We live right next to the church that I pastor because we wanted to live there to build up relationships with people. We left a house in the suburbs, we couldn't sell it because of the crisis, and it worked.  In 2010 we changed the name from Rakospalota to our new name "Feszek" and it means "nest."  It's quite a good word in Hungarian because it means "home." So we call it "Nest Christian Community Church."

Peter: I have a wife, she is 27, her name is Szabina and she's pretty hot.  The name of the church is Budakalasz Evangelical Community. We tried to pick a name that can be understandable for many people.  We thought it is important to put the name of the city and to say who were are "Evangelical" and "Community" not just our church community, but the community around us.

3w: And how can the church in America, Europe, and the MIddle East pray for you and support the CHOG in Hungary?

Laszlo: We have big plans with the campus and the church plant and we have set 3 levels of partnering with people and churches.  The first is prayer--it's very important for us.  We'd like to have very committed prayer partners. We'd like to have feedback that 'this are the churches that are praying for us.'  Finances is the 2nd level.  We will need finances and other resources, such as musical instruments and a care.  Third is mission:  you can come and help with the mission, with the church plant, with outreach, and we are in the middle of planning a program for emerging leaders in the Hungary CHOG.  As it's growing, we need to train these people well and quick.  So we need people to come.

3W: We wish the best for the CHOG in Hungary and are very excited about this young emerging leadership.  

 

The Kihms Take the Netherlands!

For the past 10 days or so, we've been busy hosting Daniel and Christy Kihm as they do their site visit to their future home in The Netherlands.  It has been great having them and Baby Sofie with us in our home.  We were all hoping that baby Sofie would first learn to roll-over here in Europe.  And sure enough--thanks to some guidance from Marco--baby Sofie rolled over for the first time!

Also on this trip was Church at the Crossing Pastor Andrew Gale who represents the church that has most been involved in supporting the Church of God in the Netherlands over the years.  Andrew is extremely wise and brings a lot of wonderful questions and observations to everything he is a part of.  Jamie was the leader of this site visit and we prepped with the Kihms in Berlin first, then Jamie and the Kihms and Andrew journeyed to the Netherlands, before returning to Berlin for a de-brief.

These sight visits are extremely important.  They give the future team members an on-the-ground look at how our team works, our region, and their future mission-field.  It's the first time they truly get to interact with the people they are going to serve and the churches they are going to assist.  It's also a time for us to let the host nation know about the life and challenges of missionaries on the field.  Most importantly, it's a time for everyone to get on the same page and make sure expectations are very clear.  Placement is everything--and we are extremely careful with placement at Three Worlds.

Jamie took the group to Cologne, Germany which is near the border with the Netherlands.  That would be their base over the past few days.  Jamie rented a car and took the Kihms to visit various neighborhoods in the Netherlands to look at future housing options.  There was also time to look into immigration issues as well as learn the lay-out of the land (grocery stores, post office, etc).  Then this past Friday there was a BBQ with the leadership from the various churches in the Netherlands.

On Saturday was the key business meeting with all of the leaders from the various churches, which now span the length of the Netherlands from top to bottom.  Saturday night was a very special 3 hour service in which each church introduced themselves to the Kihms via music.  From the Congolese church to the more traditional churches, to the children----they all performed.  Jamie, the Kihms, and Andrew all reported that the evening was spectacular!!  It was quite a wonderful introduction to the Church of God in Netherlands--and to the Three Worlds that exist there.  Our guys were absolutely raving about this service.  Thank you so much to Adriaan Bais and all the leaders who organized this fantastic event.

That evening Daniel Kihm preached his first sermon in the Netherlands and he "knocked it out of the park" according to Jamie.  She said it was absolutely excellent.  I'm not surprised.

The next morning, the team was split up visiting different churches.  Daniel preached in the Congolese church. Throughout there was time with Pastor Bais and his wife Uschi as well as other socializing times.

Finally, on Monday, I picked up a very tired, but extremely excited crew at the airport.  We spent the next couple of days debriefing about the trip and seeing some sights here in Berlin.  It was Christy's first time.  Daniel had previously had an XZ Berlin experience here that was one of the things that really solidified for him that this was the part of the world he felt called to.

This morning, I took Dan, Christy, and Baby Sofie to the airport.  They are now back in the USA.  They did an outstanding job throughout this hectic week (get used to missionary life---it's really extreme and crazy most of the time).  It was very fun to have Sofie here and she was extremely good throughout all the travels on planes, trains, and automobiles.

We thank all of those that have signed on to support the Kihms as they raise funds for the Netherlands.  We have no doubt we made the right choice by adding them to the team.  All of us are anxious to have them over here, living with us, and helping to bring dynamism to this region.  I'll be adding more photos in the coming days.

 

The Kihms Visit Berlin and the Netherlands

   

 

 

 

This week, we have 3 of our newest team members Daniel, Christy, and Baby Sofie Kihm with us here in Berlin, Germany and the Netherlands.  As part of their preparations for their eventual move, they are here on a site visit to familiarize themselves further with their new country:  the Netherlands, get to know the leadership, and receive further instructions and guidance about life at Three Worlds.

They are accompanied by Missions Pastor Andrew Gale from Church at the Crossing in Indianapolis.  Andrew is about as sharp as they can possibly come, and CATC has had a long, wonderful partnership with the Church of God in the Netherlands.  All of us are looking forward to this partnership growing and the possibilities growing as we work together in the future.

Placement is real important to us, so we have spent a long time preparing the path for the Kihms, having discussions and multiple trips to the Netherlands, we had the National Leader of the Netherlands in our home in August, and there have been a lot of conversations and emails.  It's exciting for the Kihms as they come one step closer to realizing their dream of being in cross-cultural ministry.

We've had lots of time to talk formally and informally, and Andrew Gale always adds a great deal of brain power to every conversation.  Having the Netherlands' close partners CATC involved in the process has also been helpful.  And David and Kathy Simpson (utilized in yet another 3W role) are playing an important support role as well.  They will be tracking with the Kihms as we will as Regional Coordinators.

The Kihms are looking forward to being a support for the Langfords in Liverpool who will be a short and cheap 45 minute flight away.  And the Langfords will be lending support to the Kihms--especially in regard to Sofie since Audrey will be developing a program to support and encourage Missionary Kids in Three Worlds.

We had a great time last Tuesday with the Simpsons, Andrew, the Kihms, and our family. A lot of laughter which is always a sign of health. Next Monday we will be adding Rhonda and Christian Philips to the party before Andrew heads back to the USA.

Today, I took Jamie, the Kihms and Andrew to the airport and they flew to Cologne, Germany where they are tonight.  Tomorrow they will drive across the border into the Netherlands and start 3 days of BBQ, meetings, and worship services with the churches in the Netherlands.  On Sunday, Daniel is scheduled to preach at the Congolese church---getting his taste of the Three Worlds Complexity right off the bat.  They will also do research on areas to live and all the other kinds of things you have to consider when moving to a new country.  Andrew will preach in one of the Dutch churches.  I am staying home with Marco on this trip.  It's so great to have a wife that can go on trips alone and take care of a lot of the business.  She's a great leader.

Monday, I'll pick up the gang and we'll have 2 1/2 days to de-brief with the Kihms about their Netherlands experience.  We do a lot of processing at 3W and it's very helpful to all of us.

We have all really enjoyed having 3 month old Sofie with us this week.  She did great on the flight over to Europe, and she's a doll.  It's so fun having a very small child on the team now.  Previously we just had Kelley Philips.  Ha!  I crack myself up.

Hopefully we'll have some photos to post in the coming days of the experience.

 

 

3W Staff Meeting III is in the Books.

This week most of our Three Worlds team was in Cairo, Egypt for our annual Staff Meeting.  Not with us were Daniel, Christy and Sofie Kihm who are still in the USA and raising funds to join us next year in the Netherlands (Holland).  We were also missing Zach and Audrey Langford who are also in the USA raising funds for their new assignment in the U.K.  The next time we have our Staff Meeting, we hope to have them with us.

The Staff Meeting is a very intensive time together that focuses on the overall goals and strategy of Three Worlds.  It is very much a time of business.  There's not much sharing, or dealing with personal issues.  That is for a different kind of meeting---a retreat.  These meetings are very intensive.  We begin at 9Am and go to 5PM and then return for more meetings from 7pm to 9pm.  Last night's meeting didn't end until 10:30 PM.

We cover a massive amount of issues during this time:  Recruitment, budget issues, tax laws, property issues, media presence, relationships to churches in the USA,  an in-depth review of what is happening in all of our mission-fields, report from each 3W team member about what they are doing with an opportunity for others to speak into it, and we look very closely at our 3 main goals and review everything we've done throughout the year:

We look at the 3W prism which focuses our regional goals into a top 3:

1) Engaging young people in cross-cultural ministry

2) Supporting empowered and ACCOUNTABLE leaders under 45 years of age

3) Creating inner-connectivity in the CHOG throughout the region and beyond.

We look at all the work that we've done in detail and see if we really are accomplishing 1, 2, and 3 in the work that we are doing.  This is my favorite part, because each year, we see that, yes, indeed, we really are finding concrete ways to engage the young generation, support leaders at critical times, and the region is experiencing ever-higher levels of connectivity.

Under our system, all of the missionaries work regionally and have the opportunity to speak into each other's mission-fields as well as speak into the work we are doing as Regional Coordinators.  I love this because the whole team--every member and every mission-field, gets more refined as we process together.  New ideas are generated, new connections are made, and we add to each others' work exponentially.  And all of our 3W missionaries are all so full of ideas and bring a lot of varieties of expertise to the table, so I find myself learning a lot and getting a lot of great ideas that we latch onto.

So many great connections have been generated: Between Hungary and Bulgaria, between Bulgaria and Germany, between Germany and Italy, between France and Holland, and on and on and on.  Three Worlds serves as a mechanism to create that inner-connectivity and strategically empower great work being done throughout the region.

Despite the long meetings which went all day long, there was a lot of laughter and great sharing.  The team chemistry is wonderful and that too takes intentionality and a common ethos.

It's also been nice to see our MK's (missionary kids/Third Culture Kids) have such a good time being together and relating to each other.  We're proud of all of them.

And it was great getting to spend the Sunday service with the Cairo Christian Fellowship where the Oldhams are the pastors.  Our team is very much interested in being an encouraging presence in our churches from Rome, to London, to Egypt.

One of the most surprising things that came out through the meetings is how many of us have great stories from the past year that we simply cannot share on the internet or even in newsletters.  There's various reasons for this: security concerns, sensitive issues pending as we solve problems, prejudice against Christians in some regions of Europe, and being sensitive to the privacy of those we deal with in Europe--especially when there is so much skepticism about people in our line of work.  There are so many great things we CAN'T Report on, or that we have to wait months and even years to unveil.  But we really proceed with  maximum caution in this region.  We have, for instance, a number of new initiatives that we have been working on for over a year that we hope to unveil in the coming 6 months.  There's a lot of stuff like that too.

But all in all, we focus a lot on the long-game, collecting up micro-wins as we go that we believe will have huge pay-offs in the future.  In many cases, we are already seeing the fruits of our labor pay off after 2 years of working with this 3W approach.

A Special Thanks to the 3W Teammates here in Cairo: the kids who were patient with the long meetings, the team mates who stayed engaged despite the long sessions, and who made a big effort to be here.  And the most thanks goes to the Oldhams for hosting this event in their new home only 10 months after arriving here.  They are fabulous hosts.  I look forward to being back here in 3 weeks for the 3W Roundtable with our donors.

And to the Langfords and the Kihms, we missed you guys and are anxious for you to add your input and experience to all of the work we are doing in this region.  And to the Varners, thanks for all that you did during the start-up phase and we wish you and your growing family the best.  We all missed you.

 

 

 

Time to Laugh: 3W Staff Meeting III: Cairo

This week's "Time to Laugh" is one I post before each one of our 3W Staff Meetings.  It's a great example of how NOT to do cross-cultural work.  It's one of my favorites.  Catherine Tate shows off her less-than-competent interpreter skills. The three of us (along with Dave and Kathy Simpson: 3W Bulgaria) are all on our way to Cairo, Egypt where we will meet up with the Oldhams (3W Egypt) and the Philips (3W Berlin).  Unfortunately, our newest team members the Kihms (3W Netherlands) and the Langfords (3W United Kingdom) are still raising funds and can't join us for this staff meeting.  We will miss them.  I'll write an update from Egypt soon.

 

25th CHOG European Theological Conference

This week we had the 25th European Theological Conference of the Church of God in Fritzlar, Germany.  It was a wonderful event with representatives from Germany, the Netherlands, France, England, Ukraine, Hungary, Lebanon, and other places.  The event revolves around a particular theological topic or issue (this year it was holiness), but it is also a time of fellowship and of receiving updates from the various regions.  The Church of God Bible School in Fritzlar is our host every 2 years for this event.  Aside from being a lovely town, I also really enjoy the fact that it means we get to see many of the young German youth.

Great things are going on throughout the region.  I continue to be so happy with the genuine unity and spirit of cooperation that I see amongst the European churches.  Our region may be the smallest in the CHOG world, but what we lack in size, we make up for in unity.  And that unity is leading to more and more cooperation across borders.  We are seeing the level of inner-connectivity grow dramatically and this has been very encouraging.

It was wonderful to have Pastor Jacques Zola of the French-speaking Congolese church in Holland attend his first meeting as a Church of God pastor.  And it was great to see Pastor Fegali of the Paris Church of God attend and give a great report on the innovative work amongst Arab-speaking churches in Paris.  From the U.K., we heard that the church in Birkenhead (Liverpool) where we are sending 3W missionaries Zach and Audrey Langford had 45 youth attend the Wednesday night service.  This was unbelievably great news!  And it's yet another reason why we need to mobilize behind the Langfords to get full support.  In the Netherlands, traditional, post-modern, and non-Western churches are coming together and cooperating (Three Worlds indeed!).  And the Ukraine had young leaders share with us about their plans to expand their work.  And in Hungary, 2 healthy churches with young leadership are on the brink of starting a new church plant in downtown Budapest.

Overall, what we continue to see in Europe is that churches are willing to re-calibrate, take risks, and do new things in their effort to reach out to their neighborhoods and countries.  I'm immensely proud of everyone and am so happy to be serving amongst the people of this region.

I believe this region is going to set a new standard for cooperation and unity in the Church of God.  Unity, as is well-known, is one of our greatest points of weakness in the Church of God. It requires intentionality and humility amongst the parts of leaders to truly create a regional unity that fosters cooperation and mutual support.  We are seeing this happen here.  Three Worlds is thrilled to be a part of all of this and we are committed to serving the region and helping to bring health and vibrancy to the great work being done throughout the region by CHOG churches.

Above is a video I took of the downtown square of Fritzlar, Germany.  It's always a joy to spend time in Fritzlar and we are grateful to the staff and students at the Bible School who made us all feel so welcome.