New-Reformation in English

The Western European Advancement Team has taken a closer look at what used to be Staff Conference and then became Connect. This big annual tradition has to serve many purposes: training, teaching, fun, international missionary relationship building, holiday/vacation, a time for supporters and board members to meet staff, in-house communication, inspiration and soul care, networking among nationals, recruiting new people to the CA “tribe”, kid and youth ministry — just to mention a few. As we considered all of the purposes we are trying to fit into a single box, we quickly concluded one single event cannot serve every single purpose well. So, we challenged ourselves to think outside the box. And we began to imagine some possibilities. What about a slimmer version of Connect that is simpler and cheaper with focus on intentional community, spirituality, and learning from each other? What if we allowed the growing annual Leadership Summit to cover some of the original purposes of Connect? ...

William, Musician

Douglas, Project Coordinator

Every month our sending church in Ingolstadt, Germany receives a short clip with a specific prayer request. They would show it in their service and then pray for our ministry. Here is the clip that has been showed today. Since the prayer request for October is a sad and important one I would like to ask anyone to pray for what Rob is sharing. Thank you!

Did you know that ”flesh” and ”meat” is the same word in some languages? The German word Fleisch for instance. When I read, ”the word became flesh” I could also read ”the word became meat” – an interesting thought as we think about the meaning of “taste and see, this is my body…” isn’t it?! Anyway, this wordplay made me think about Christmas. With so many gorged bellies in mind, we can clearly see that Christmas has a lot to do with meat, doesn’t it?! At the same time, Christmas is very closely linked with flesh. After all, Christmas is the incarnation, Fleischwerdung in German or becoming of meat , pardon, flesh. But that sounds a little like butcher’s language, so let’s stick with incarnation. The incarnation is the ultimate prerequisite to the salvation of the entire creation – as it were all flesh doomed to rot.  No incarnation - no crucifixion; no crucifixion - no resurrection; no resurrection - no New Creation; no New Creation - no hope, no hope - no gospel. It’s more tha...