DAWN Fridayfax 1996 #11

DAWN News from Italy, Belgium, Germany

Italy: Church-planting 'a la Napoli'

Church-planting in Italy? Here's another model which shows that nothing is impossible. Over the last 15 years, Michele and Tonio Romeo have planted 25 new churches in the harbour town of Naples.

How did they do it? The movement's approach in the "Quartiere Spagniole", one of the town's more infamous quarters "where you can find drug addicts, criminals or prostitutes in almost every family." We were told that the last evangelical church closed around 20 years ago. In the first phase of church-planting, the pastors "want to be present as Christians" and point to God's presence. 15-20 people enter the area to hold open-air worship services or simply make music in the piazza, with no sermon.

After a period of around 2 months, an evangelistic phase starts, with street preaching, tracts and friendship evangelism leading directly to planting a church. The Quartiere Spagniole's first convert provided a shop for the new church to meet in: he had been trying unsuccessfully to rent the shop out for some time, so gave it to the church, which is now led by 25-year-old Gaetano.
more from Italy

"Citadella Evangelica" - a church is given a football field

Tonio Romeo, long-time leader of an evangelical church with 400 members in Naples' suburbs, was given a football-field-sized plot of land to build a church in a new estate. Normally, the Roman Catholic church is given these plots for communal good, but this time, very unusually, it went to an evangelical church.

Tonio Romeo didn't wait long before building a "Citadella Evangelica" - a church centre - on the 5,500 square meter plot. The main room alone has space for 2,000 people, and the building also houses a Bible school, a guest house and, perhaps most importantly, a huge pizza oven to feed the hungry guests.

The church says that it experienced one wonder after the other while building their new centre. For example, the boss of an earth-removal company was so co-operative that he made the church the following offer: 1. The Mafia wouldn't have its finger in this deal; 2. The company would do the work at cost price - about 20% of the normal price; 3. The church must give the boss a Bible. Naturally, the church accepted the offer.

Including Tonio and Michele Romeo, the independent Pentecostal movement of 25 churches with a total of 1,500 members is led by only 4 full-time and fully-paid staff.

Source: Kim Portmann, Milan, Fax (+39) 39-513520

"Mission to Flanders"

"Mission to Flanders" is the name of a new prayer initiative aiming for a "spiritual breakthrough" in co-operation with the Evangelical Alliance UK in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of northern Belgium. According to Renaat Godaert, one of the initiators, the best research shows that no more than 3 of every 1,000 Flemish people have a personal relationship with Jesus.

In Flanders, says Godaert, there is only one Bible-believing church per 40,100 inhabitants, and in Wallonia only one for every 65,000. "Mission to Flanders" has printed a 24-page prayer booklet with the aim of uniting the local believers. Their target is to mobilise 1,500 intercessors by the end of the year and to assist in creating many new prayer groups.

Source: Renaat Godaert, 75344.3036@compuserve.com

Germany: Please do not copy - Alternative Service

It really doesn't happen only in town: an "Alternative Service" was started on the second Sunday in January 1996 in Setzingen, a village between Ulm and Heidenheim. Instead of the usual attendance of 75, 230 new visitors came!

Most said that they "did not usually attend Sunday services." In February 1996, there were already 2 services in addition to the normal Sunday morning service: around 240 adults and more than 60 children attended one of the services at 4pm and 7pm. Pastor's wife Helen Hofmann: "The times were chosen because many people work on the farm from 5-7pm."

On Sunday 10 March, despite a confirmation ceremony in the church in the neighbouring village, 210 adults and 60 children attended the services in Setzingen, which the organisers see as a positive echo for this sort of service in Germany. Typically, the service contains contemporary worship music with a band, a children's programme, video transmission to a separate room for parents with small children, relevant preaching, gift-oriented opportunities for laypeople and the fact that the service is not pastor-centred and is actually 'robeless'. What advice would the organisers give anyone interested in the services? "Please do not copy us! Work out your own model for your area!"

Source: Helen Hofmann, Tel. (+49) 07345-5121

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