Covenant News

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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