andi's perspective

STRASBOURG RESEARCH ACTION

Going down to Strasbourg in a complete faith action to see what we can achieve in 4 days in terms of local strategic research. We, that is Paul Haenze plus son David from Poland, Timotea plus friends from Slovakia and myself.

Here is the official announcement of our "Open Your Eyes" week. The idea is to lead an AJC short term missions team into utilizing research for city outreach.  We will basically send them two by two to "spy out the land" utilizing basic etnografic observation and questions. If the Spirit kicks in, it might actually turn into kind of a Luke 10 thing. If rain kicks in, it might go the other way.

Or as Paul put it: Never prepare beyond 60% to allow the Lord of the harvest to utilize at least the 40% risk margin to His liking. Good thinking! No risk, no fun, for sure... Let's see :)

PERSPECTIVE MATTERS

-> find Europe! :)

STRATEGIC INFORMATION

Here is the announced prototype of our new nation pages for church planters in Europe: Portugal. Check out and feel free to comment. It is work in progress and early days...

The idea is to provide original data, orientation in the mass of existing data, as well as some predigestion and summary evaluation relevant to church planters and missions strategists.

You as a missions-bearer in your place - what would you do with such an information page if it were zoomed down to your city?

emRG NEWS

There is a new collection of emRG research materials and last years' fotos on Paul's new well-designed blog.
Here is also the latest emRG gimmick: Prioritizing Whitespot Areas - how to decide where to go first for a new church plant?

Conventional business wisdom + higher maths formulas + creative application = a new pragmatic tool for church planters and mission strategists. And a great example of productive research collaboration. You are a real creative, Paul! :)

BELIEVERS IN EUROPE

Ruth Robinson's just released European Believers Report (2006 data) estimates the percentage of evangelical believers in Europe to be about 1.4% only.  “Believers” here are defined as those having "chosen a personal, obedient relationship with Jesus, (as) the only way to God and to eternal life in heaven".
Interesting difference in results from Scott Friderich's European Spiritual Estimate (2005 data) which estimated that 4.2% of Europeans "follow Jesus and are actively concerned about the people around them following Jesus".

Obviously the two researches differ a lot in their methodology. I assume this is true for their underlying theology (being reflected in the method choice), too.

Which is true? Well, for sure, none of the two is. And very likely, both are offering a valid perspective on reality: While Ruth is talking about "Evangelical Believers" (defined by a quite precise confession), Scott is talking about "Gospel-oriented Christians" (defined by an intention for action out of a God-fearing motivation). Obviously you would find the first mostly in evangelical churches while the second is not limited to any confessional boundaries.

This very variety and agreement to disagree is what i find refreshing and helpful in research. That both authors are core actors within emRG i count as a good sign for its heterogeneity in approach and unity in purpose.

RESEARCH BLOG

Just a short note  to say that Paul has started blogging regularly on missions research on the new emRG blog page.

EMRGNET.EU

We have redesigned the emRG home page to provide an easier entry into all our material so far.  It is built on wordpress and combines static pages with a running blog. Still work in progress, but feel free to check out and leave us helpful critical comments on the design and layout.

EVANGELICAL EUROPE

One essential contribution to the question of "How Christian is Europe?" is the number of members of evangelical churches. Of course, the BODY is wider than this, but it is nevertheless a very helpful information.
The Missions Atlas Project offers a brand new map on the Global Status of Evangelical Christianity. Very stimulating. Here is a teaser for the Germanic Europe:

Due to its sophisticated people-group based approach, the map is not that easy to read, but it basically shows the % of evangelical membership and combines it with population density (the higher the population in an area, the bigger the circle, notably for cities):

• dark green: >10% evangelical
• light green: >2% evangelical
• yellow/ orange/ red: <2% evangelical
  • yellow: "widespread church planting"
  • orange: "initial church planting"
  • red: "no church planting"

 A foto of the full Europe map can be requested by email.

emRG WIKI

You can view a webpage, share files over a sharepoint, discuss subjects in a forum, author articles in a blog, present information in an elaborate Content Management System (CMS)... But what do you do in order to really create shared knowledge together? How to allow for thousands of people to co-author continually changing and growing information on a subject like "the Kingdom in my area"?
One way we found and got excited about: the WIKI-approach which all of you know through Wikipedia. We explored a series of Wiki variants (like SeedWiki or Mediawiki) on WikiMatrix, and soon found out that structured wikis serve best to provide the combination of wiki and CMS functions that we were looking for. And here we go with the cutting edge of what Wiki development currently holds in store: a TWIKI (pronounce "tweekee").

Now see for yourself where we are at with our own emRG Wiki - for many to collaborate on missions research! Welcome to a work in progress! We are not yet where we want to be in order to offer a full fledged collaborative platform, but we are getting closer every day. Check our WebChanges for the most recent work done. And if you wish - register and join us!
Remember: it's a Wiki - you can change, add or delete all you see. But be aware that everyone else sees what you did. Transparency it's called. So - use the "Sandbox" for testing ;-)

DAWN RESEARCH GLOBAL

In SE London. Just concluded a very fruitful meeting with the new DAWN Global Research Group aiming to support the global DAWN vision of 20 million new churches by the year 2020 (yep, you heard right!) with strategic research. It's great to share experiences and resources with colleagues around the world and to learn from how they pursue research that mobilises for church planting in Africa, Latin America, or India. Jason (Operation World) skyped into the meeting, too. It was good to connect.
"Worldmap" is another GREAT resource for the missional mind. It's basically a global church mapping portal. It's not all that accurate by now, but nevertheless, it's quite impressive.
Thanks to a global family I enjoy superb British hospitality at DAWN friends in an otherwisely unaffordably expensive city :)