“‘They see me…They know me… And they love me’”
Mehr Zusammen (more together) is an annual conference for Newfrontiers in Germany for church leaders and congregation to come together for a weekend. Last year, I served at the weekend away looking after all the kids and I loved it enough to come back! The weekend was full of quality time, good teaching and also giving plenty of room for prayer and prophecy.
I arrived late on Thursday night with some of the gang from England and drove up and up and up right to the top of a hill side. Little did we know of just how beautiful the view and the venue was. It was a youth hostel in a castle! (Germans know how to do youth hostels well).
We spent the weekend looking at the Holy Spirit. Who is he? Where is he in the Bible? How can live with the Holy Spirit? We had two sessions each day, a time for a church update and prayer, and time for prophecy in the ‘boiler room’. We had a lot of fun outside the sessions too! Walks in the Forest, family games night, BBQ, and a scavenger hunt around the castle.
For the churches, the weekend serves as an oasis to be refreshed and as a reset to hear where God might be leading us and their church. For me, this has been part of my journey obeying God to follow our call to make disciples. For some of us we are called to stay and some to go and it’s been on my heart for a while to consider going again (having already served in Austria for a year). It’s been piecing a puzzle together that I still don’t know quite what the picture is. And so this weekend was part of that journey. Enjoying God has he takes me along with him.
But one thing that I’ve been encouraged by from the stories of missionaries and Old and New Testament people is that God’s people are meant to be mobile. We are foreigners and exiles. And in that sense just like in Abraham’s story, it was an act of obedience to follow God’s voice and instruction. Never mind the destination. And for me, pushing doors and going anyway was an act of obedience.
Having gone last year, I loved seeing the families again and how much they’ve been praying for me during the year. They had stories to share with me and I with them. It has a real sense that we were brothers and sisters, partners in the gospel. The kids have of course grown loads and with new people coming I got to hear how God has been moving in their lives and churches. During 2023, I also did the Called To Go course, and having met a family who have now moved to Chemnitz, Germany, on the course, it was so nice to actually spend time together in person.
I think why I love being in these settings is not so much being in Germany (though I love practicing the language and eating the food) but being in a context of ministry pioneers. My day job is working as a missionary in the UK, coming alongside students to disciple them, and to help them share Jesus with their friends. And so in some way, though I went to Germany it was like coming home. They see me in my struggles. They know me in the kinds of weakness. And they love me with the gospel of grace.
And so dear reader, if you are part of a Relational Mission Church, you should consider some of the opportunity to go and learn, to bless and encourage others in RM. You don’t have to be considering long term oversees mission to come alongside brothers and sisters. It is worth taking time to explore options and wait on God to see how he might use you.