Berlin – a world city. I am in love with this city. It is the only German speaking world city. In contrast to many cities of its history and size with 3.5 million inhabitants, Berlin is still unfinished. The 2nd World War and the Cold War divided the city from 1945 until 1990. In only after 1990 began to merge together again. This intensive history of wars, world views and economies have left Berlin an unchurched city, pretty much a post-christian place with less than 1% people confessing Christ. This means that there are only 35,000 confession Christians and 3,465,000 people who are waiting to see culturally relevant expression of the church.
My wife and I moved to Berlin an joined a small group of 15 people who were starting to reach out to their friends. We are emphasising two things: 1) the church is the extension of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is God’s righteous rule in this broken world. 2) The church is to represent this righteousness to those who don’t know Christ. This is done by showing God’s love in a practical way. We are helping each other to get out of debts, to get out of troubles and to live a life that shows Christ’s care. At the same time we are doing the same with those around us. This might be done in praying for someone to be healed or to help people out of their problems.
George has been a friend of one of our protagonists (church members) since childhood. They met again. George had lost his job and had about $ 10.000.00 debts with the IRS. Our friend gave him an interest free loan without any collaterals, to be returned whenever George can. George has gotten closer and closer to God, started tithing, returned the loan and is considering seriously to start to follow Christ, in order to be released to help other people as well.
