Value 7- Local Churches
Below is a re-post blog from our dear friends at PLANT NIJMEGEN outlining the key values our network of churches (Relational Mission) holds dear. We recently sent a wonderful couple called Ben and Mikka Parker to be part of the core team that is pioneering the church plant. Ben served as an elder at Redeemer, and Mikka was on staff. They helped plant Redeemer in 2015 and are going again. Head to the PLANT NIJMEGEN website to find out more.
In our previous posts we’ve been looking at 3 doctrinal and 3 leadership values .In the coming 3 posts we will be looking at 3 missional values. We seek to build churches with:
1. Local Church Focus
2. Local, Global and Holistic Mission
3. Contextual Freedom in Application of Values
In this blogpost we will look at what it means to build a local church.
There are a lot of people in the world. 7.87 billion to be precise, 746 million of these people live in Europe, of which 17 million in the Netherlands and 179,000 of those live in Nijmegen. If you were to stand each Nijmegen resident one on top of another, they would make a tower 36 times the height of Mt Everest. That seems like a good way of imagining a lot of people to me! My brain can just about handle the scale of Nijmegen, but struggles beyond that.
God makes himself known to people across the whole world, that’s why churches exist everywhere. But what should we expect these churches to look like? One mega-mega-mega church that can house everyone? Or one global franchise of identical churches? Should a church community in Bangalore look the same as one in Lisbon?
That’s not the sense we get from early churches in the Bible. Instead we see local churches emerge in local cultures, with local customs but shared values. Local churches are the blue print for mission. Churches that reach people in their area and help them to grow as followers of Jesus, who together make up the local church and transform the wider community. Churches are not defined by buildings, or events, though those may well be part of it in some places. The aim is to see communities of believers, worshipping together being apart of their wider culture.
In the Old Testament, God gives the prophet Isaiah an insight into what the church will be - ‘In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.’ (Isaiah 2:2) There is a promise here that God’s church will be one big thing, but will consist of individuals from the whole world. I’m eager to see people of all nations ‘stream’ into our churches!
When we look at the early church in the bible, we already see examples of different local churches starting and growing. We get a sense of how they each look different depending on the culture that surrounds them, but also of consistency in core beliefs and values, and a significant focus on well-maintained relationships between churches.
As such, we are looking to establish churches of people rooted in the cities, towns and villages where they live. We see in Acts that the early church had a clear focus on teaching the gospel, unity among themselves, serving the poor, seeing justice done and supporting those who struggled in society - all done locally to glorify and honour God.
As a church plant, we want to take this picture and all it encapsulates to remind us of how we are to serve one The impact of the local church comes from this: having followers of Jesus properly stuck into the place where they live. Workplaces, schools, hospitals, universities, sports clubs, nightclubs, and so on; are all settings where the local church can and should be at work.
The church, the global, multicultural, people of God is a beautiful thing and is God’s first plan for seeing people saved, through those who already know and love Him sharing the good news. Having a big picture understanding of the global church helps us see how essential it is to have thriving local churches, expressed in ways that are relevant to the cultures in which they find themselves.
I like to garden, know a fair amount about gardening, and could relate to other gardeners across the planet. But my knowledge of flowers, vegetables, pests, sunshine, drizzle, and soil would be different to someone halfway around the world who lives in a different climate, with different plants, pests and so on. In the same way although we are apart of the global church, we outwork our faith by getting our hands into the local soil where God has planted us. It is absolutely essential to be ‘hands on’ in our local communities - geographically and culturally relevant - through the local church. Without the local church, the global church does not exist.
Nijmegen forms just a tiny slice of the population of Europe. Churches are needed in cities, towns and villages across all nations to ensure that people can encounter a living God through Jesus, seeing their lives changed, grow to know him more closely, and live out fruitful lives. Together with our family of churches Relational Mission, we intend to do just that, in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, across Europe and beyond.
Mikka Parker
Part of the Plant Nijmegen team
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