Lausanne World Pulse – Innovista: Reaching the Emerging Generation in Europe and Eurasia
By Frauke Eicker
When Helen began attending the university, she made some Christian friends. One of them was Ruth. After several conversations, Ruth had a hunch Helen was interested in spirituality. She invited Helen to join a “Glad You Asked” (GYA) seekers group. This media-based, interactive, small group resource is built around the things the emerging generation values: friendship, spiritual search and a safe environment to share experiences.
Helen was taken by the idea. She later said, “It was a group of people with completely different beliefs just wanting to explore their questions.” She felt comfortable in the group. Participants would look at questions like “Does God matter?” from different angles. The group helped Helen discover her problems with Christianity and discuss them freely. She eventually concluded that Christianity did offer something beyond the logic she had been holding on to. When Ruth asked if she could pray for her, Helen found herself connecting with God. Helen discovered that she can be both a scientist and a Christian.
GYA explores the most frequently asked spiritual questions that young people in Europe and Eurasia have. In ten sessions people can discover the person of Jesus through expert evidence, stories and personal discovery. GYA includes a leader’s guide and a DVD and is currently available in English, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Russian. For more information and session samples, visit http://www.gladyouasked.org/.
Seeing Churches Change
Living as a Christian among the emerging generation brings its own challenges. Oftentimes we do not know how to meet the needs of the young people around us, let alone know how to answer their questions. Even more foundational than these issues is that fact that we are faced with a need to redefine some of the basics of our own faith.
Alina lives in Russia. She is also a Christian. Some time back something in her heart had been urging her to spend more time with non-Christians. To Alina this just did not make sense. She had grown up believing that “clean” Christians should not mingle with “unclean” non-Christians, as the latter might cause the former to stumble. However, as of late, Alina could not quiet her heart.
During a relational evangelism training session, her heart resonated with the importance of sharing her faith in a friendship context. She started building genuine relationships with non-Christians and applied what she had learned in the training. As she met her friends as equals (and communicated both love and appreciation), she met openness to the gospel.
Alina wanted to help other Christians make this transition, too. She soon became a relational evangelism trainer. Since then she has been travelling through the Western part of Russian, sharing her experiences and helping students and church groups become more outwardly focused. This is called the “multiplier effect in action.”
One person is changed. In turn, that person helps others change as well.
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Seeing Communities Change
Marina, a member of the Ukraine Innovista staff, sees the multiplier effect at work as well. A local church in Kiev is not just taking the training to heart, but has entered a process of evaluating and re-focusing their entire approach to evangelism. This is an example of how an entire community can be powerfully impacted if the person transformed is a leader. Lasting change in leaders will have a lasting impact on the people they lead. A change in attitude toward evangelism will create a community that makes relational evangelism a priority every day.
For this reason Innovista has a special focus on developing missional leaders. Through training events and relational mentoring, Innovista invests in seeing relevant evangelism on the agenda of the people, churches and communities it works with. Innovista also tries to provide the support young missional leaders need to stay strong.
In August 2006 Innovista will be holding “Leading for Life,” its first European young leaders conference focused on the unique challenges and opportunities of leading mission today. Leading for Life will be a place where leaders can be equipped to take personal leadership to the next level.
Innovista seeks to bring change to people, churches and communities for good. We long for a day where every person of the emerging generation has a chance to hear about Jesus in a relevant way.
Endnote
1. New Media Communications Survey. 2000. Spring and Fall.
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Frauke Eicker works for Innovista International in Oxford, UK. She has helped develop MONDAY, a training and outreach experience for teens. She is also the regional Lausanne prayer chair for Western Europe. |