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Michigan Congregation to Help Plant German Church
ALLEGAN, MI (March 7, 2005) - Although Christ Covenant Church in this Detroit
suburb is barely two years old, the congregation already is looking to
help plant another church – in Stuttgart, Germany.
The church of 150 attendees was largely influenced to plant the German
church because a number of Germans who came to Detroit to work in the
auto industry have made commitments to Christ and have since returned to
the Stuttgart area – the Detroit equivalent in Germany, according to
pastor Nathan J. Pawl. "You find the same companies," he says.
Pawl recently completed a week-long exploratory and pastoral trip to
Stuttgart. He and his church have been communicating with Jan and
Richard Epps-Dawson, regional coordinators for the Department of World
Mission of the Evangelical Covenant Church, who joined Pawl for some of
the Stuttgart meetings.
The pastor met with the director of church planting of the Evangelical
Covenant Church's partner church in Germany, who introduced him to other
German church planters. Pawl also met with the pastors of neighboring
established churches to discover whether they would be interested in
helping support the church plant.
"They were really excited to have us there," says Pawl. "This went way
beyond what I thought it was going to be. We really were on the same
page." Pawl believes it is important to work closely with the Germans in
establishing the church. Other churches he visited that have been
planted by American denominations feel like "American churches plopped
in Germany," he says.
"It's a local U.S. church responding globally to a need appearing on
their doorstep," says Jan Epps-Dawson, "but it is unique in that they
are truly being sensitive to another culture. The Germans have been
alerted to a need and they are being given a chance to respond rather
than the Americans having all the answers and just moving in and doing
their own thing."
The decision to plant a church in Germany grew out of concern to help
people who had attended Christ Covenant, Pawl says. Christ Covenant was
planted in 2002 with the help of Faith Covenant Church in Farmington
Hills. Many of the people from Faith Covenant who formed the core group
were from Germany, Pawl notes. In time, their friends also came to the
church.
Most of the people were from Stuttgart, working for German auto industry
plants and were in America on temporary work visas, Pawl says. "They
eventually had to return to Germany. When they returned, opportunities
to worship were few. Christianity, for all intents and purposes, is dead
in Germany," Pawl believes.
A significant number of Germans came to faith in Christ while attending
the Covenant church. "They were really devastated at not being able to
find a church" when they returned to their homes, Pawl says. "We knew we
had to do something."
The next step, Pawl says, is to work with pastors in Germany to identify
the appropriate church planter to work with the new congregation.
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