andi's perspective

DE - SOCIAL RANKING

Spiegel featured an interesting Social Ranking of the German Länder basically confirming the two well known intra-German divides:

• West > East
• South > North

Compare to the estimated high response rates to Gospel exposure.

Interesting (and challenging) time to live in the German North-East indeed...

CHAMPION OF THE HEARTS

It's just unbelievable to see how deeply Germany got impacted by successfully hosting the recent world championship. One week after Germany ended with a bronze medal "only" black-red-golden banners are still decorating streets and cars. That would have been completely unthinkable before!!

• Germans have declared their team "champion of the their hearts" and have celebrated the third place as if it was the first. Even we, we don't need to be perfect to be happy!
• Politics, arts and media are talking about a new and healthy patriotism, a positively changed self-perception of the legendarily self-critical German.
• Football coach Klinsmann has been labelled "messianic" and "reformer", and indeed he "saved" the future of German football.  More than that he really modelled innovative team-oriented leadership. Most remarkable! He will remain a major role model for Germans in the future.

Rejoice with me over some of the impressions found here:

  

 

----DEUTSCH----

Unglaublich was sich in unserem Land bewegt hat. Stefan siehts ein weniger mehr deutsch-skeptisch, aber im Moment freue ich mich einfach riesig über das Geschenk dieser WM und schließe mich dem großen DANKE an :)

Danke Herr, für dies Vorbild von Innovation, Leidenschaft und guter Leiterschaft!
Danke Herr, für eine neue deutsche Selbsterfahrung: humorvoll, entspannt, beziehungsorientiert, begeisterungsfähig, dankbar und unverkrampft schwarz-rot-gold!

Ich freu mich riesig :-)

BRIDGES NO WALLS

It is just great being able to stroll around Berlin's "wall area" with a group of friends and business colleagues you would never have met if the Wall still persisted. Had a business meeting at Alexanderplatz, former East Berlin's downtown center and spontaneously hugged my Romanian and Lithuanian business partner ladies when we passed "the wall". 
Here our group is standing in front of Berlin center-center: cathedral - TV tower - palace of republic (under deconstruction!). The lady third from left is my dear East German business colleague (for 6 years by know) and the guy is our Israeli project partner. I love international business. Much more stimulating than "church as we know it"... Why couldn't we invent a church that is as challenging, colourful and rewarding as good business?

PERSPEKTIVE DEUTSCHLAND (D)

"Wohin Deutschland?"

Zum fünften Mal läuft mit "Perspektive Deutschland" gegenwärtig noch Deutschlands größte gesellschaftspolitische Online-Umfrage. Die Umfrage steht unter der Schirmherrschaft von Altpräsident von Weizsäcker, zog letztes Jahr eine halbe Million Bundesbürger an und stellt eines der besten Mittel zur direkten demokratischen Mitwirkung dar.

Deine und mein Sichtweise notwendiger Reformen und diesbezüglicher Opferbereitschaft stehen diesmal im Fokus des Interesses. Die Umfrage läuft nur noch bis 31. Januar. MITMACHEN!!!

DOCH IN DIE POLITIK?? (D/E)

Große Koalition, schwarze Kanzlerin, neue und vor allem alte Politgesichter - ok.ok.ok...
Warum frage ich mich dieser Tage, ob es die Liebe zu unserem Land nicht doch nahelegen würde, mich politisch deutlicher zu engagieren, "mitzugestalten" wie es so schön heißt?! Wer heute eine neue Partei gründet, sollte spätestens bei einer gescheiterten großen Koalition inkl. massenhaftem Vertrauensverlust in die Politik der großen Mittelparteien echte Chance aufs Mitgestalten (sprich "politische Macht") haben, oder?!

Oder ahne ich, dass unser Herr - gerade zugunsten der Gesellschaft! - eben doch bewusst keine Partei gegründet hat (um das System top-down zu verbessern), sondern stattdessen eine Volksbewegung angestoßen hat (um das System von innen heraus zu verändern)?! Sollte das am Ende doch wieder was mit ekklesia zu haben???

--- ENGLISH---
Germany 2005. Political un-rest, un-decision, un-easiness. Asking me repeatedly whether the love for our country would not demand more "Christian" (but please: not under this label!) political activity... It seems to be an extremely apt time for starting new political parties which might even get unexpected chances once the newly established "Grand Coalition" fails...
On the other side it seems like our Lord - out of His love for His country and His world - did quite purposefully choose NOT to enter the political arena, but rather to concentrate on the instigation of an under-cover grassroots-/ people-movement which would literally re-shape society in the long-run...

Deutschland?! (E)

"Deutschland? Aber wo liegt es? Ich weiß das Land nicht zu finden." (Goethe)
"Germany? Where the heck is this? Can't find that piece of land." (own translation...)

Sharing the typical German feeling of doubt and insecurity about my own national identity, I am really, really thrilled by the fact that I sense an increase in the international appreciation of our country: Germany gets mentioned remarkably often in current prophetic and emergent circles! Many of my friends seem to look to Germany with an expectancy of the things to come and not few even consider moving here for the purpose of joining forces in whatever the Lord holds for His common cause across all our lands.

-> check out this book if your heart is for Germany (and you can do the language)!

"Kingdom Status" of Nations

As emRG we are in the process of conceptionalizing a small national level survey on the harvest dynamics in the European nations. More like a rough starting point for later finetuning on a broader and better informed basis.

A year ago I tried a similar approach to capturing the "Kingdom Status" of Germany like in a nutshell. These ppts were the result of my superficial micro-research as I presented it in Manchester on the European Church Growth Conference as "German Case Study". It is more words than numbers and more subjective assessment than science, but I am still passionate on opening up these questions and starting to pursue this sort of investigations together on a national, regional and local level. Feel free to engage on that - if you bother to take the time delving into it :)

--- DEUTSCH ---

Hier eine kleine Präsentation (englisch) über den "geistlichen Zustand Deutschlands" - gemäß meiner subjektiven Einschätzung vor einem Jahr, als ich diesen Vortrag auf der European Church Growth Conference gehalten habe. Feedback jeder Art ist sehr willkommen :)