I’ve been involved in church planting in post-Christian Europe since 2011. Sweden is one of the most secular countries in the world. These are some of the posts I’ve written about mission, church planting, and what it means to follow Jesus in a European context.
Church planting in Europe
- Church planting in Europe
- Church planting essentials: setting your pace
- Planting a church is lonely
- 3 mistakes to avoid before going full time
The European context
Bi-vocational leadership Many church planters in Europe work bi-vocationally. See the bi-vocational leadership page for more on that.
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Nobody is discipling them well
I recently picked up the point made by Harvey Kwiyani that the future of European Christianity may, to a fair extent, lie in the hands of third-culture kids from Africa, Asia & Latin America. Harvey returned to this in his most recent Substack newsletter and again makes points that are worth thinking about. Unfortunately for…
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Is the future of Europe African?
One of the things that grabs my interest are the big trends and changes that we experience either within a culture or across cultures. These are the currents that move the oceans of our culture, the tectonic plates on which our nations rise and fall, they shift imperceptibly most of the time but every now…
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Putin uses the nuclear threat
We are, we are told, on the verge of war. However, because no western country really cares all that much about Ukraine then it is unlikely that we will go to war. There are though compelling reasons why we should consider doing more to be on the side of Ukraine than our present stance of…
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This is injustice
Most of the northern hemisphere are eagerly awaiting their chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The speed at which governments, big pharma and research institutions around the world have combined to produce a vaccine has been unprecedented and impressive. And those countries that have paid the most will get it first, so rich first and…
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The weirdness of life not in lockdown
Yesterday afternoon my wife cycled home from work at her pre-school, and my kids came home from school (they’re 9 and 11) as usual. Then a little later I took my son to his swimming training and I went for a run with a friend through a nearby forest. As we ran the trails, we…
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Will a pandemic turn Europe back to God?
Europe is currently the worst affected region of the world during this current pandemic. Although I’d be surprised if it remained that when all is said and done. Europe is also the most secular of continents1 and has significantly moved away from faith in the last half-century or so. So will this massive shutdown of…
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Unthinkable (in Europe anyways)
There are several topics that very clearly demonstrate the gulf that exists between an American and European mindset. The clearest example for me is guns. In the UK I only know one person, as far as I’m aware, who owns a gun and that’s for clay pigeon shooting and I only met him last year.…
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Pioneer CONFERENCE 2019
I don’t go too many conferences each year although sometimes I feel like I could spend my whole year doing nothing but go to meetings and conferences. So the ones I do go to had better be worth it, right? When you live in Sweden an end of September conference in Malaga is an excellent…
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Church planting in Europe
At the end of September I was privileged to be at one of my favourite conferences. I don’t go to many but this is my favourite. For one it was held in Malaga, so while Sweden was fast heading into a cold and wet autumn, for a few days I got to go back to…
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The rise of a non-Christian Europe
New research confirms what we have known for a long-time: Europe is a post-Christian continent and post-religious too. As the focus of the study is on 16-29 year olds Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in London and author of the report is probably correct when he…
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The Curiosity Index (25.01.2018)
Spain surpasses 4,000 evangelical places of worship for the first time On the whole, there isn’t a lot of good news for evangelicals in Europe, but this would seem to be one of them. What the Hell do Bible Scholars do Anyway? Pronounce on whether public transportation is cursed or not apparently. The astounding growth…