Some spotlights:
- One newspaper headline about the Kirchentag (Church gathering) read: "Germans want one [unified] church." We also wanted one unified nations - but now 10 years after the wall came down are still in the process of learning to accept, understand and love the members of the "other" Germany....that had been separated from one another for 40 years. How can unity and understanding work in the "nation of the church" after 500 years of separation?

- I asked a pastor what characterized the spiritual power of the Waldense Christians that survived persecution, inquisition and all the rest of it. He simply said: "Their live. They took the sermon of the mount litearal!"

- Talked with one member of the Normal Generation band a christian band popular in Germany, about Christians and artists. He said that most christian (music) artist find it hard to see that anything that is not explicitly worship music can be art, too. We spoke about the fact How God enjoys to be worshipped by beauty and general expression of mankind even if it does not have an explicit christian label on it. He recommende I read Imagine. A vision for Christians in the Art, in his opinion the one book he would give to every Christian artist in Germany if he had money....
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When 150.000 protestant and catholic Christians come together for a unified gathering in the land of the reformation this is amazing. For me this is a reason for joy as one of the definitions of the greek word for reconcillion is "mutual exchange". There has been some, but only little mutual exchange in the past centuries.
On the other hand this makes me cry as I realize how deep the wounds are.
During the time of the reformation the catholic and protestant state churches unified to persecute the free churches (the anabaptists)....brilliantly researched in The secret of the strength. Thousands of free church believers were martyred during this time - leaving deep distrust on both sides. .
And then later turned against each other - in the war of thirty years of protestants fighting catholics whole regions were wiped out. In my hometown only 7 people survived the "christian" attack. The next town was more lucky. They had 30 survivors.
Now coming together is a sign of a beginning. But there will be deep issues that will need to be talked through and resolved. It makes me cry because I do not know how these can be resolved in a true way - not just covered up by having a nice time together - which we do. It is a lot of fun.
On Saturday a number of us will gather for a special time of prayer where we will try to pray deeply into these issues. Being Germans and being the way we are we are very much aware of our history and we know that we cannot "just live on" as if nothing had happened. But we need to openly, frankly (often too direct for other nations) face them and deal with them.

The other big question is: What is the church? In a Nation were for centuries everybody was forced to belong to the church and until very recently most people did belong to the church this question is not easy to answer.
For Lutherans the answer is that in the visible church (the official state church) the true church (those who really believe in Jesus and follow him) is invible, but there. They say that IN THE CHURCH wheat and weeds grow together. And those pastors who truely (whatever truely would mean) believe in Jesus would try to use their job in the visible church where they have to baptise, marry and bury everybody to enlarge the invisible church.
For free church people this different. They want to have a church where only true believers are inside. And try to evangelise to have more people join the ture church.
Can anybody send me a real good definition of what the church really is. And can anybody tell me how we can solve this conflict?

Okay. I am being too German here. Thinking about all the deep stuff, rather than just enjyoing the sunshine, the singing of chorusses on the streets, meeting people, having fun, learning new stuff, hearing great concerts...and somehow trusting Jesus that in all the muddle he has his way of building his church...dancing on the streets, looking at sun hungry half naked Berliners in the park where a lutheran brass orchestra is playing "take a look at the beautiful gardens of God"....and just being together....

Have a look at what Jesus looks like or what people think he might look like....

Yesterday I went to a concert called "Klezmer and Tango" with the world famous Clarinette player Giora Feidmann, and italian Jew who lives in Israel. He shared about his pain living in a land where every morning he wakes up to hear news of more and more killing. I was deeply moved when he said in a mixture of English and Germnan. "You are beautiful. Here wir Juden und Deutsche (we Jews and Germans) can be together as friends. In my land this is not possible!" It moved me deeply. A jewish man calling a German audience beautiful - I had never been called "beautiful" by a jewish person...and a God restoring relationships that were far more torn than the relationship between nations that were far more torn than the relationship between Jews and Palestininans nowadays. I could see how this gave him hope.

I am longing for a comfortable, rich, peaceful quiet live...and to move cities, mountains and nations for Jesus. Unfortunately the two never come together.

"Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
Anonymous

29 Policemen were injured, one of them seriously, last night as some violent people messed up a peaceful gathering in one of the parks. If you can please pray for deep peace and more strategic rain (as the police calls it) as left wing and right wing extremists gather in the city today to demonstrate for their convictions.