Spring

Spring is my favorite time of year.  Winter is usually cold and dark in Germany.  The days are extremely short and dark.  But, in Spring and Summer, the scenery is so beautiful in the Black Forest, and this part of the country is known to be the sunniest (and therefore, the friendliest) part of Germany.  

The reason that this is my favorite season is not only the weather and flowers, but Easter! Jesus’ birth is celebrated at Christmas.  It’s a wonderful time that I feel we have really turned into something other than a celebration of Jesus.   But, Easter….it’s a celebration of just Him and what he did on the cross for us!  Not only did Jesus live a perfect life day after day, year after year, but after 33 years of this perfect life….he gave it up for us!  At Easter, he paid the ultimate price.  God paid the ultimate price for us, the riff raff of society. 

Jesus was beaten beyond recognition of even looking like a man- so we could have healthy bodies.  His blood that poured out at the cross was to make sure that we could be forgiven….that we could experience the unbelievable joy of being in the very presence of His father!  Jesus knew that if he sacrificed himself for us, that it would produce a harvest of believers that would span the course of time.  

On Easter, we celebrate when Jesus rose from the grave.  When he rose, he gave us hope!  I LOVE THIS SEASON!  It makes me cry every time I think of Jesus’ sacrifice and the joy in His resurrection!  He layed down everything for us…so that we could enjoy everything that God had given to Him!  That’s what the season means for me.  

People are so open to the things of God at Christmas and Easter.  Let’s tell everyone we know!   

Robin

Watermark Easter

We are going to have a huge Easter egg hunt and festival (carnival) for the at-risk kids in our neighborhood this Easter.  We are going to tell them about what Jesus did for them through eggs, juggling, carnival booths, clowns and balloons. Our church is in the middle of what we would call "the projects".  There are so many cultures represented in this area because of the large immigrant population. I can't wait to see what God will do with this outreach!

Not traditional enough?

We had a visit a few weeks ago by a German lady that doesn’t attend any church… and hasn’t since she was young.  She and her wife live on our street.  Her wife loves the church and comes when she doesn’t have to work.

After the church service, she talked with Robin about our church.  She asked why we aren’t more “traditional”.  This lady wasn’t offended, but she thinks a church service should be more like what she was used to in the Catholic Church of her childhood.

Which brings up the “why” question… why aren’t we more traditional? 

I believe my wife gave her an amazing answer… 

Robin told her that I grew up in the Catholic Church and she grew up in the Episcopal Church, with all the traditions, liturgical chants, etc.  None of that meant anything to her until she had an encounter with Jesus.  She never encountered Him in the church she grew up in (nor did I).

But once she went back to her old church, she was amazed at all the Scripture they used.  There was so much there that could have led her to a relationship with Christ.  But it never meant anything to her because the church and its style were so far removed from her daily life.

The reason for our style of church services is so that a normal person off the street can completely connect with Jesus without having had a church background.  Our church is designed to be accessible to the common man, woman and child.

We want people to experience God in all His wonder and grace and build relationships with authentic Christians.  We want people to experience a God that is holy, but is absolutely loving… a God that isn’t afraid of fun, and that wants to be involved in our daily lives.

And it’s working!

Avoiding team frustration

We’ve recently realized that one of the most important areas we’ve neglected so far is failing to train our team members in every area where they will be serving.  And it’s caused some frustration for them.

It’s been so long since we first started serving in a church (almost 30 years ago) that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to be new.  We’ve been doing this so long that we automatically see what needs to be done.  We’re so used to seeing the big picture that we’ve failed to always set our team up to succeed in the small areas.

We’ve also noticed that just because someone says they have a level of expertise in an area doesn’t mean they have the level we need… or that their estimation of their abilities is necessarily the same as ours.  Not that they aren’t doing well, but that we need to invest more time/energy in training.

We’ve done a good job at giving the vision, especially the overarching dream of building a church for those that don’t do church.  But we’ve not done a very good job of training in the specific areas.

So we’re going to be focusing on doing more coaching in the individual areas over the coming weeks and months.  We’ll be bringing in some experts and trainers to help raise their level of expertise and their ability to succeed.

I believe this, more than anything else, will help the undercurrent of frustration that we’ve been sensing.  Our encouragement to church planters… setup a plan to train people in EVERY area where they will be serving.  Then those that are doing well can train others to do it.  We can’t afford to just plug our people into an area and hope they figure it out.

Encouraged, yet frustrated…

As with any startup church, one of the biggest issues is finances.  And especially with a church like ours that is focused on reaching the unchurched and the “de-churched” (those that have walked away from traditional churches), we have to fight the typical stereotype that churches only want people’s money.  This has been a frustration for us, but we knew this was a part of church planting.

But in the things that truly count – people committing their life to Christ, changed lives and people getting excited about using their gifts to impact Freiburg – Watermark is doing really well.  Last Sunday we saw one of our church neighbors give her heart to Christ.  She was invited by one of our team the week before.

And the week before that, a man that told me he is NOT a believer came to church because an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him to come visit our church.  He loved it!  He took a bunch of business cards and said he would invite all of his friends.  He came back last week and was just as excited.

Please continue to pray for Watermark… God is doing great things here and we’re excited to be a part of it!

Free Bible Study Discussion Guides!

A few years ago Robin and I wrote a series of Bible Study Discussion Guides for a local church in Bonn, Germany.  The small group program at this church had become basically teaching groups (old school Bible studies).

In an effort to revitalize the small group program, we started writing our own curriculum, which was translated into German.  The purpose of these Discussion Guides is to both build relationships and learn spiritual principles.  The result was better than we expected!

We have an entire year’s worth of weekly Small Group lessons (52 lessons) in 4 main themes (including 26 lessons on Spiritual Disciplines). And we want to give them away for free.

Click on this link to download the free Discussion Guides (zip file): Small Group Discussion Guides (English)

Miraculous week at Watermark!

This past week was amazing!  A week ago Sunday one of our newest team members asked us to pray for her knee.  She had torn her ACL through a bicycle crash and was told she needed surgery.  She was hobbling around with a stiff brace.

Well, we prayed for her and then she went to a specialist.  He told her he couldn’t find the tear.  He saw the other doctor’s report, with precise description of the damage, but couldn’t find any damage on the newer MRI.  He basically said, “Have a great life… you don’t need me!”

And then some of our team prayed for a lady that had such bad arthritis pain in her arm that it had become unusable.  This is especially bad because she needs to be able to use her arm for the retirement home where she volunteers. So she asked us to pray for her Wednesday night at our Bible study.

She awoke Thursday morning with no pain in that arm whatsoever!

And on Sunday morning, one of our team members was having a lot of headache pain and concentration problems because of a concussion he’d received the week before.  When we prayed for him, he said the pain was instantly gone!

But the wildest thing was that a visitor came on Sunday that had been invited by one of our team.  I had the strangest conversation with this man.

He told me that he didn’t believe Jesus was “the way”.  He instead believed in “the truth”… a universal truth that is overarching, whatever you want to call it.  He felt that Jesus was someone who showed us how to know “the truth”.

Anyway, on Saturday night he had a dream where an angel appeared to him.  The angel revealed to him that he should go to Watermark on Sunday.

He told me he LOVED the service.  Since he’s a musician, he really connected with our worship team (all professional musicians!).  And apparently my message on what love REALLY is connected with what he’s been “feeling” lately.  As he said, “Love is just another expression of the truth.”  God is so creative in reaching people far from Him!

And then he told me he had grabbed a bunch of business cards and was bringing all of his friends!

Keep praying… you’re helping us change the spiritual landscape here in Freiburg, where less than 1% of the population has a personal relationship with Christ, or attend a life-giving church.

Baby dedication

A few weeks ago I was privileged to have our first Watermark baby dedication.  Noah and Malin’s parents committed to raise them to know and love God.

In dedicating a baby, it’s important to note that we are not determining their salvation. We are celebrating with the parents as they commit to raising their children to love God.

And we as a church committed to praying for them as well.  As all parents know, raising kids is hard.. and they NEED our prayers.

What a cool day this was!

PS. At Watermark kids are incredibly important!  God has called us to not only be a safe place for kids, He’s called us to be a place where they are valued and treasured.  Thank God for the incredible kids ministry team God has given us!