In June, a gathering of European church and network leaders was held in Spain, hosted by Mario and Amuy Monroy. These civilization-wide gatherings started last year as a way for BILD’s global partners to meet face-to-face, share ministry plans from their own contexts, and discuss and plan a master strategy for that civilization. The time is also celebratory and patterned after the way in which the churches of the New Testament gathered.
One of BILD’s North American partners traveled to Spain to participate in this celebration. Scott Canion leads a small cluster of house churches in New Jersey that have been closely tied to church leadership training and church planting in Albania and Kosovo. The trip had a profound impact on Scott, which he shares in some of his reflections here:
“So rarely have I experienced a church community who share their lives together as an extended family - with one another, with their cities, and with other churches around the world - that it is worth pausing to reflect on and write about. …
In Spain this past week, I saw a group of 10 or so families (regular people with regular jobs and regular lives) who have done more to embody Christ’s plan and Paul’s methods in their community. …
This small group of people on the southern coast of Spain have reordered their entire lives to help stabilize and strengthen those in their communities, and to engage in a plan to send gifted leaders to other key cities in Spain and Europe to plant new churches or help other churches become better prepared to do the same thing in their own contexts. (Including releasing the gifted leadership couple who has spent the last 10 years of their lives investing in building this church family.) This past week, their influence went well beyond Spain to help other leaders across Europe, and even beyond the European field by helping shape my own understanding and plans for our small cluster of churches in Northern New Jersey. I walked away with a clearer understanding of what is required of an apostolic-type leader in the early stages of establishing a cluster of churches who will live as an extended family network. And this has helped me in thinking about how to shape our churches here in New Jersey.
• Apostolic-type leaders, and their wives, must be heavily invested in the regular family life of their key leaders in daily, weekly and monthly patterns, in both planned and spontaneous ways. This is the context for life-on-life apprenticeship.
• Everyone must make the space for and be committed to ordered learning, so that the content of the New Testament (a.k.a. the documents of Jesus’ New Covenant) is being accurately understood, and seriously considered, processed and integrated into the lives and habits of the key leaders. This is the context for discovery, clarity and implementation.
• There must be assessment and addressing of any cracks or issues in the lives of the key leadership families and those issues must be corrected and brought into alignment with Christ’s plan. You cannot successfully lead a church family, if you have not figured out how to lead your own household.
• All the leaders must build a new set of habits for personal development, leading their families, and shepherding churches, built around a set of convictions, and a clearly articulated plan, and those must then be put into one another’s calendars, otherwise this will only live at the level of good intentions.
• Apostolic-type leaders must balance pushing young leaders to learn, adjust, and mature while being patient with them throughout the process; developing a skill to measure and assess their progress. Aside from a new understanding of my own situation, I also walked away with a new branch added to my extended family (and by extension, to all of you as well.) By inviting us into their homes and lives for four days of meals around the table, and both structured and informal discussions (not to a conference in a church building), we simultaneously achieved clarity in our thinking, planning for our situations, and meaningful, lasting relationship.
It is easy to underestimate, and difficult to put into words, the significance of a small group of believers who understand Christ’s plan and who are committed to shaping their entire lives around it... together... and are committed to sharing it with those in their cities, with other churches around the world, and with other cities and civilizations, but that is exactly what I see in all of you there in the [southern coast of Spain]. What I experienced with all of you was so much more than a “missionary trip”, it was a visit with extended family to encourage one another, embolden one another and strengthen one another. You are not my family just for the few days we were together, but from now on.
The effect you all have is well beyond your own homes and lives, but that is only possible because you have ordered your homes and lives around Jesus’ plan.”
To read the full report from Scott’s visit, click here: The Heartbeat of Christian Mission: Segunda Parte
Read more first-hand perspectives about BILD’s civilization gatherings here:
France: European Civilization Gathering focuses on implementing ‘the way of Christ and His Apostles’
Latin America: Rooting our lives in 'the way of Christ and His Apostles'
India: Sharing in the global work from a local church family