“The church in Europe is going through a gradual paradigm shift from an institutional, maintenance orientated practice towards the rediscovery of church as a missional grassroots movement. A new generation of pioneers is actively pursuing simple/organic church planting movements that are more relational and have the highest potential for saturation.” DAWN MINISTRIES

What is organic church?

Here is a pdf booklet from www.HouseChurchResource.org.

Explains a little what it is about.

ORGANIC CHURCH Something new in case you might be interested

I believe this is happening all over Scandinavia. We hope to see this spread like a wild fire in Gothenburg!

More coming soon!

Check it out here!

This is by far the best book I read on creating organic community. I highy recommend this book.

Moving from master plan to organic order changes our thinking to a more NT form of Church and community.

Buy it, read it!

Every Wednesday morning I will be hanging out at Kafe’ Fröken Olssons,  Östra Larmgatan 14 in Göteborg from 10:00 am to 11:45 am. Everyone and anyone is welcome to come, drink coffee, talk about life or just hang out.

Hope to be doing a After work soon too.

Tidal Wave gives an insider’s view of the worldwide phenomenon known as simple church. From living rooms to coffee shops, offices to parking lots, under trees in Africa and underground in China, these new expressions of the body of Christ are rapidly multiplying around the world.

20 years through Europe

It was exactly 20 years ago  that I bought a one way ticket to Europe to begin my missionary journey. So much has happened in those 20 years. The world has change dramatically but the gospel is the same; the good news that Jesus came to fix a broken world.

I came to Europe with the desire to plant churches that would change lives. I worked in Eastern Europe via Germany and over 14 years in Sweden working with and facilitating church planting initiatives.

4 years back in Sweden

After a short time in the States, we returned to Sweden as CGGC (Churches of God General Conference)  missionaries in 2005 with a continued longing to plant churches that can reach an ever changing culture. We came by an invitation to partner with Interact, a Swedish denomination that has a desire to plant more churches in Sweden.

Four years ago we moved back to Gothenburg, Sweden where we initiated and began a process of planting a multi-cultural Church. We asked New Life Church, a multi-cultural Church in Stockholm if they would want to mentor a church plant in Gothenburg. New Life Stockholm became our mother church and committed a partnership with us.

A lot has happened in those four years.

We were permitted to use a building to use to start some ministries. Later the building was donated to New Life Stockholm for our church planting initiative.

Three of those years we had a successful children’s ministry called Faith Factory that reached many children between the ages of 9-14. We have seen these children grow in their faith and love for God. But because of many changes with the ministries, the renovation of our building and ages of the children, Faith Factory came to an end.

Much of the early years were about building relationships and creating a working team that would facilitate a church plant. It took a lot of time and many changes but in the beginning of 2008, a team was in place and growing with people excited about working with this new church.

One year ago renovation began on the building. We saw God do so many amazing things during this time in supplying for our needs and providing workers.

On October 19th 2008, we had our opening service and officially became a Church, New Life Göteborg. CCM Director Don Dennison was our guest speaker.

Since that time the Church has continued to grow. We literally have had new faces in our morning worship every Sunday since our opening. We have people from all over the world attending and getting involved in our Church including a Muslim from Bangladesh, a Buddhist from Japan and atheist from Sweden.

In the spring time we came together as a church with the 40 days of purpose studying the book, Purpose Driven Life. This was led by a couple in our Church who are here in Sweden from the USA as expatriates.

Today we are about 80 people who are in some way involved in this community of faith, and we average about 50-70 in our Sunday morning worship.

October 18th 2009, One year celebration

This month we are celebrating one year as a Church. We have a committed core group and a leadership team that has been established by our mother church in Stockholm.

We are also excited to have Jim and Kasie Brinson and their Children from Tulip Church of God in Indiana preparing to come and work with New Life Göteborg. They are expected to be here in January 2010.

New Church Planting Initiatives

As a missionary and a big heart for seeing more churches planted, we are considering starting another project. I have stepped down from a leadership role in New Life. Up through the end of this year, we will be researching where the needs are. We will be exploring how culture or sub-cultures has changed in the past few years and how we can best start new faith communities or missional churches that can reach these cultures. We will also be networking with others that are working in this area so that we can be most effective in these initiatives.