The Council

Another weekend of community, prayer, discussion and seeking God is over. Another Council meeting of Jesus Freaks Germany. Every time I leave I feel such a strong love for those people. Some of them I know for almost ten years, others I got to know just some months ago, but being together in JF always makes me feel that we are bound together by some fate and that we belong together - which is actually true!! A sad fact is that some people who couldn't agree with the recent developments and the "open space"-method which was used in the process kept distance or dropped out.
The location was an old castle - getting there in fog and darkness was the first qualifying test. The aim of the meeting was to adopt a new value paper that lays down the new direction, defines the leadership style and structure of the Jesus Freaks. In general there was a broad acceptance, but since we aimed for a one-voice decision, and there were quite a number of details to discuss, we could not even vote for the first of 13 pages. Maybe that sounds like a big failure, but in my perception we accomplished something very much bigger.
The main achievement in the whole Council is the ongoing process of learning to trust, respect and create space for each other, regardless of his position, opinion or the years of membership. Admitting that Jesus is incarnate in everyone of us and has an important contribution to make. At times there are contradicting views but through mutual trust and dialogue we could find to unity again and again. I like how the "architectural" team has put it in words: "Unity in gigantic diversity - not based on compromise but on miracle!" Jesus Freaks are not a subculture, we are made up from many different subcultures that normally would not get along with each other. Again and again I am amazed by this miracle!

Hierarchy vs Anarchy

In a couple of weeks the next unit of the FreaksLeadershipTraining will take place. This time the issue is leadership, a quite controversial one. Especially because the transition process of Jesus Freaks Germany (das Konzil) is still on the way. So there won't be any "How-to" advices but just a introduction of different extreme positions and principles and a lot of space for everyone to draw his conclusions. I like this concept.
By the way, the FLT is so cheap - incredible 99€!! - because it was sponsored by an American Foundation that wants to help our movement. A nice move! I remember an article on the leftist internet news network Indymedia.de a few years ago that spoke quite bad about the Jesus Freaks and compared it to violent right-wing fundamentalism. It was the time when one of our leaders became (for a very short time) member of the right-wing party Republikaner (hier gibt es keinen Link, ich habe es auf der Seite nicht länger als 15 Sekunden ausgehalten und will das auch niemandem zumuten! Ich zitiere nur "Mach mich nicht an Ali!") and could bring some people from there to Christ. It was a very controversial thing even in our own ranks. But I always apreciated him as a person and leader. Unfortunately he just left not only the blogosphere but also JFI. I am really sad about this. However, he did not leave the body of Christ! I wish him & his family all the best.
One of the points that was held against the Jesus Freaks in the
Indymedia-Article (German) was that we were financially supported by American Christians. That was not true at that time, but now it is a fact.
The hardcore band Preacher has a video on their myspace site where they also put in a picture of the headlines of that article. Click here to watch "when does protest turn into oppression".