Urban Church,Global City: Transforum Berlin 2018

3/14

Friday morning plenary at the Transforum Festival

What does it mean to be a faithful Christian in the city? What does it mean to be church in the city? And in everything, what does it mean to return good for evil? These were the challenges presented at this year's Transforum Berlin 2018, an annual project of "Together for Berlin" and a coalition of other allies.

Gathering at the Josua Gemeinem Church in Spandau were some nearly200 persons prepared to engage in intense exploration from Thursday night through Saturday.
While the offerings were wide and diverse, I will only offer a few "snapshots." Throughout the whole conference, the issue of returning good for evil would be a common through thread.
The conference's commitment to faithful living in our daily lives brought a diverse panel including business people, teachers, children and youth workers, a singer/songwriter from Rwanda and a jazz and soul singer all reflecting on the challenges they have faced and how they have responded with "good."

Another panel brought us a member of parliament who had actually won an election in a hotbed of new right wing activism. He shared with us the effects of ongoing personal attacks and his efforts to engage opponents personally. Singer Jean Paul Samputu

Jean Paul speaks of forgiveness

told the story of meeting and forgiving the man who had murdered his parents. His powerful testimony concluded with the statement "we become what we cannot forgive" and led to an impromptu duet with singer Sarah Kaiser.

We heard about the Micah Initiative and doing good for all creation reminding us that God waited until ALL creation was done before proclaiming it very good. (All we rated was a good.)That in every generation it is our reaction more than our actions that define us as Christians. And from the forgiveness campaign that forgiveness is more for the one who forgives. And the importance of the message of acceptance just as you are.

A wide array of interactive workshops covered practical areas like start ups and healthy city families and maintaining faith in hostile or indifferent secular contexts. And of "respect in mission" in Berlin's multicultural multi faith reality. And the importance of community in facing evil with good. And many more including my own workshop on Income Inequity and its effect on our common life.

Leading the workshop on Inequity

My goal was to explore the experience of what it feels like, what the objective reality is, Biblical and theological resources and empathy as a means towards beginning to invite others to wrestle with inequity. There was a real passion in the group to move beyond personal to communal actions and for ways to engage the political dimension of the issue.

There was a clear conscious effort to make visible a vision of a church where there is "neither Jew nor Greek..." with presentations from many cultures including Africa and an Indonesian youth choir. There was also a clear intent to demonstrate the importance of arts and creativity in the life of the church in the city. Over and over intentional valuing of diversity and inclusion made itself clear, not the least by the offering of multilingual simultaneous translation.

My friend Uli from the Fellowship of Reconciliation

To some degree, the Christians of Transforum operate under the societal religious radar of Berlin with its (still) recognized landeskirche and a (still) strong Catholic minority. Under the general rubric of "free" churches, they range from "church plantings" intended to create new churches in traditional evangelical model to Pentecostals to house churches and intentional communities freed from the worrisome brick and mortar. As a rule, they are deeply committed to serving the communities where they live as engaged neighbors with special skills to offer.

There are of course the accompanying tensions of individual salvation versus prophetic engagement in the society around us, Christian triumphalism versus engaged solidarity with other faith groups. (Together for Berlin is an active participant in Berlin's Alinsky style Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) faith based community organization. The most challenging question of all has to do with the, for the most part, current non-interaction between the historic Evangelishe churches and their evangelical neighbors. A serious conversation about oneness in Christ is essential  to begin. In the meantime, some of the most creative and boundary pushing work on urban ministry is clearly coming  from the circle of churches responsible for Transforum. Understanding our ministry in the urban church in the global city requires the best of all of us. Thanks for the opportunity to participate.