So what is your church like?

I admit, we get this question fairly often...both from folks here, and our friends back home. It's taken us a while to nail this one down, mostly because church here is SO totally different from what we know/knew in the states. Take a deep breath - this a longer post than we usually get out.

Let's start with the building style.
It's a barn.

Literally, that is what it is. But before you think about all the barns you know, consider this. Barns here in South Germany are generally rather nice. This particular barn is owned by a farm that produces apples, grapes, cherries, etc. Not a dairy barn.
We meet in an upstairs loft area that is rather large. Old theater rows are used for seating (attached to plywood bases for easy maneuvering). There is an advanced sound and overhead display system for the services and even a translation service (for us Amerikaner who do not quite catch all of the sermon text).
Downstairs from this area is a restaurant (run by the farm - it's called the "Funfschilling" - literally "Five Shilling") and what is known as KIGO-land. This is the children's area and also where we shared meals with the church community. I use the past tense there, as the meals have stopped in preparation for the Summer break - and also to get ready for a move to a new facility in September.

Summer Break? um, yeah. Most FEG's around here have a break for the Summer. Not uncommon, in fact. FEG, remember, is the Frei Evangelische Gemeinde (free evangelical community) and they encourage the use of small groups - to the extent that when the services stop next week (on Sunday), the expectation is that worship will continue through September in small groups. We are looking into a group that is English-speaking (not being 100% certain of our ability to function in a German-speaking Bible study). Once things start back up in September, there will be a LOT going on. Look for the link at the end of this mssg for info on FEG-Rebland (all in German - welcome to our world, hehehe).

Offering plates.
At the opening of the service, after a song or two has been sung by the praise band, two bags are passed along the rows. One bag is empty, for offering. The other has popcorn in it. Kettle-corn, actually. Some folks in the mission community refer to FEG-Rebland as the "popcorn church".

Music.
Quite good, actually. A praise band meets every week to go over music for the service. There are many 'standard' praise and worship songs sung. Not "Come to Jesus in whole notes" (a reference for the DBC choir director - hi Dave!!! WE MISS YOU!!!!) but generally a really good, solid song. Rock, more often than not (Dave, I know you've added drums to some aspects of the service, now if you can just add more cowbell ...). Of course, the majority of the songs are in German (sometimes with English subtitling, but more often without). There will usually be a guest group or singer at the very start. This week it was a trio, rapping in German, about family and friends. The sermon was on relationship, so that worked.

Youth Group.
This is one area that these folks are nailing pretty well. They encourage the youth to meet in small groups for Bible study (all auf Deutsch, so we are handling this at home for our two oldest, until their German is better enough to dive in) and then they have two tracks, based on age, for the youth. Younger youth have the "Big Games" (BG) every weekend. This is divided by gender (Big Games for Girls, Big Games for Guys) with one joint BIG Big Games each month where guys and girls get together. For both groups, it is more game-oriented. Fußball, mostly. This past weekend the girls went to see "Asterix and the Vikings" in the Kino in Lörrach. I was rather proud that both my girls went to this all-German, no subtitled movie and had a blast. Understood it, too. (And my oldest brought a friend from her school, which was cool). I've attached a couple of pics from the previous BG for an idea of how it looks.

Interesting thing about the BG - no Bible study! hmmmm. It's all about the friendships and relationships - which is how Jesus began his ministry, so why not start that way as well? It is actually a VERY good model for us to follow. As a community outreach, you can get more youth involved just by offering something for them to do together, then get them into smaller groups as you go along. A different model for growing community and discipling than what we are used to, but it seems to be working pretty well in this church.

A quick note: the pics are not from the church, but from another building - the Tonwerk - just down the road. Kind of a rustic place to hang out for the youth.

Sermon.
Interesting. Fresh. German. We have to get this through translation, so some things are literally lost, but the young man who speaks most often (I say young, he's 33) does try to put in a fairly balanced message of biblical truth, contemporary info, and sound theology. I can't be critical on the last bit, as my gifts lie in the realm of Web site design and art, not in hermeneutics or eschatology :-) He's generally pretty good. Other speakers have been likewise gifted.

Does this answer the question about "what is your church like?" probably not entirely. The very word, church, over here is geared so much toward a structure. It is a building (eine Kirche) and not a community. That is why the G part of FEG (the "community" part) is so important. We live in one community, worship in another, work in a third, learn in a fourth. The idea of interlocking rings suggests itself, and it is where those communities overlap that our real work lies.

[for more about where we go each Sunday, check out feg-rebland.de]