Hi praying friends,

Thanks for your ongoing prayers for us at Envision Berlin!

If you have been praying for us for awhile, you know that we intentionally use several methods to carry the presence of Christ into places where people are searching for answers for the problems of life - answers we believe that only Jesus can truly bring.

One of those strategies involves being involved in the world of art and creativity - which includes exhibiting art and building community among artists, but also involves visiting museums, galleries, artist's studios, etc.

Another strategy is volunteering and serving our community. Last weekend I had the opportunity to serve as a project leader with a partner ministry called "Serve the City." I led a group of 14 (including me) as we did gardening work at a home for mentally and physically handicapped people. This home was started in the late 1800's, and continues to care for people of all ages.

As we were working, a normal conversation topic is what brought people to Berlin (of my team of 14, only 1 person was from Berlin!) This time, as one young man asked about my church background, the question of who The Alliance is came up. As I tried to describe our church background, he said, "I have started evaluating churches based on..."

How would you finish that statement? What would be your qualitative evaluative measure? How would you say, "This is a church I could be a part of."

For this young man, it was a particular cultural marker. You could insert almost anything in the sentence, but the question for me is - is that really what the deciding factor should be in determining the health of a church?

Theologian Thomas Kelley was wrestling with this in the 1930's and 40's, and he wrote, "Only a decided Christian can hope to proclaim a significant gospel in these days. This decidedness in a Christian is not to be confused with the decidedness of the bigot, or the man with a one-string gospel. It is not a decidedness about a particular doctrine. Such “decided” Christians are plentiful, but they are not the answer to the world’s need. True decidedness is not of doctrine, but of life orientation. It is a commitment of life, thoroughly, wholly, in every department and without reserve, to the Inner Guide. It is not a tense and reluctant decidedness, an hysterical assertiveness. It is a joyful and quiet displacement of life from its old center in the self, and a glad and irrevocable replacement of the whole of life in a new and divine Center. It is a life lived out from an all-embracing center of motivation, which in glad readiness wills to do the will of the Father, so far as that will can be discerned. It is a life of integration, of peace, of final coordination of all one’s powers, within a singleness of commitment. It is the final elimination of all tolerated double-mindedness, and the discovery of the power which comes from being “in the unity.” (Kelly, Thomas R. The Eternal Promise (p. 19). Friends United Press. Kindle Edition.)

Prayer Requests:

1. The German Alliance Church (MAKD) is holding their first gathering since before COVID this weekend. Leaders from all of the Alliance Churches in Germany are invited. Pray for me as I go - I will be helping lead worship and running sound/tech.
2. Rachel Norton has been here for 3 years, 1 as an intern and 2 as a resident. She is on her way back to the US to start graduate school, and flies on Friday. Pray for her as she travels!
3. Things are moving forward, slowly but surely, on the rental possibility for the corner space. Pray that things keep advancing!
4. Stephen Jones is in the US, speaking at several churches over the next 3 weeks. Please pray for him as he travels!

Blessings,

mike