David Shead tells the story of how he was forced to change tactics while doing ministry in Slovenia.
“We got more than we bargained for”. It’s a lovely phrase, conjuring up images of unsuspecting tourists trying their hand at a bit of marketplace haggling. However, when they examine their purchases later, they get a nasty surprise: weevils in the food or a visit from the constabulary about stolen goods. Getting ‘more than you bargained for’ pinpoints that sobering moment when your lack of control is exposed: you planned and prepared well, but somehow—and you’re not too sure how—things didn’t turn out the way you expected.
This pretty much sums up our ministry in Slovenia: we got more than we bargained for. But thanks to God’s goodness, the outcome was much better than we planned. We thought we were going to Slovenia to make a start in university ministry, but somehow—we’re not too sure how—we ended up planting a denomination!
Initial intentions
In 1999, we went to Slovenia with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) to join their university ministry team. CMS had first sent missionaries to Slovenia three years earlier to pioneer a student movement under the umbrella of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). But with Christian resources thin on the ground, IFES asked CMS if we could be sent as well.
We arrived to find evangelical Slovene Christians doing it tough: they are an embattled minority forming only 0.03 per cent of the predominantly Roman Catholic population. (Slovenes view Protestant groups as dangerous, brainwashing sects.) As well as being numerically weak, Slovene evangelicals are under resourced, with many of the Christian materials we take for granted either nonexistent or in limited supply. There are no evangelical theological colleges or ministry training schools; the majority of pastors are laymen who labour in the secular workforce Monday to Friday, and look after their churches in their spare time. This means that the quality of Bible teaching across the country is patchy. There is a very limited range of good Christian literature in Slovenian (apart from the Bible). There are no annual large Christian conferences, conference centres, youth ministry departments, Christian counselling services or Slovene mission societies. And there are only a few parachurch agencies. Understandably, Slovene evangelicals tend to keep their heads down, holding to a siege mentality and becoming consumed all too often by the petty concerns of church politics at the expense of mission.
In the midst of this, our plan was to do student work. We wanted to support and build up local churches by helping them raise mature, well-trained young Christians who could lay a solid foundation for the church in the future. Church planting was definitely not on the agenda. On numerous occasions I explained to our Australian supporters why we would not be church planting: we believed that we could best serve the gospel by preparing a few Slovenes for the work of expanding the church, rather than engaging in expansion ourselves. Of course, we knew that new churches would need to be planted (0.03% of the population is hardly saturation point!); we just didn’t think that we were the right people to do it.
An about-face
So what caused the about-face? The short answer is that, despite our principled protests, God gave us people and opportunities that forced us to recognize that formally establishing a new church was the best thing we could do. The actual train of events was, of course, far less orderly than this summary, and it isn’t possible to go into details. However the final catalyst came in a proposed change to Slovene law which would restrict the formal registration of religious groups (a cover-all term which includes churches) to those with a membership of at least 100.
At the time this proposal was being debated, we were involved with an informal gathering of believers—most of whom had no viable church alternative either because they felt squeezed out of other groups or because their own church had folded. While it was clear that this group fulfilled the function of church for a number of its members and that, sometime down the track, this reality would need to be formalized, we had no intention of formalizing it ourselves; we were very aware of the pitfalls of foreigners creating churches in their own cultural image, thereby compromising their future viability.
But the law change left us little choice. In a climate as hostile to evangelical faith as Slovenia, how could an unregistered ‘sect’ of about a dozen adults ever hope to gain the further 90-odd members required to officially become a church? If we thought that church registration was something we would ever need to do (and we believed that it was), we had no alternative but to act. So we engaged in a race against time to get our application through before the new law came into effect.
Despite some official attempts to obstruct us, by God’s grace in October 2004 our application was finally accepted, and REC (Reformed Evangelical Church) was formally born. So how did one church become a denomination? Well, the standard format of a religious group’s constitution under Slovene law includes a section on provisions for expansion. So as a registered religious group, REC has the right to plant more churches sharing the same registered status. When that happens, REC’s constitution already provides for how those churches will relate to each other and be governed. In other words, at the moment REC is a denomination consisting of one church, with the possibility of becoming a multi-church denomination down the track.
Final reflections
As I look back over what happened, a number of things stand out. Perhaps the biggest is the relative unimportance of our plans compared to God’s work. As responsible ministers of the gospel, we must engage in careful and strategic planning about what is the most faithful way of promoting Christ and building his church. But we must do so humbly, remaining open to the people and opportunities God gives us. The best planning in the world can never pre-empt everything God brings into the mix; we must always be ready to shelve one plan if something better comes along. Our strategies are a starting point, not a straightjacket.
Of course, this isn’t easy. It’s not as though our initial ministry was a failure; far from it! Young Slovenes were being equipped for gospel service, and in the long-term, some of them would probably have planted new churches themselves. God just cut five to 10 years off the process. Working out what direction to take is almost never a simple choice between the good and the bad; it’s a matter of deciding carefully what is best.
Deciding what was best and then changing was not easy. There was plenty of confusion and doubt, and, at points, it put us at odds with trusted Christian brothers and sisters. This forced us to test our decisions and motives repeatedly, and to seek advice from wiser heads. The most difficult thing was watching close Slovene friends suffer, caught in the middle of the turmoil.
So did we do the right thing? At this stage, I’m still convinced we did. I’m convinced for two reasons. Firstly, we did it for conscience’s sake: after all the agonizing, debating, consulting and soul-searching, we became convinced that God had opened a door—a door that would not only be foolish to ignore, ignoring it would also be damaging to the Christians in our care. We firmly believed that it was the right course to take. Maybe in another 10 years we’ll see things in a different light. Maybe we won’t. Ultimately that’s irrelevant. We had to make a decision at the time with the information and situation that confronted us.
Secondly, the turmoil and conflict actually produced good fruit—especially in terms of Christian growth for those involved. We must never seek peace for the sake of peace; our task is to proclaim Christ and build his church. If peace means spiritual torpor, we need to shake things up! The fact is the church often progresses most in times of difficulty when believers are forced to confront what they really believe and what they’re prepared to sacrifice.
So was planting a denomination a big deal? Not really. The denomination called REC is not much more than words on paper. If, by God’s grace, REC grows and more churches are established, those words may prove inadequate, and may need to be ditched in favour of something else. While we were careful in drawing up the constitution, we weren’t precious about it; after all, it can easily be changed. Our structures must serve God’s people, not enslave them.
But even if REC’s constitution never changes and eventually becomes revered as something only a little lower than God’s word, this is no guarantee that REC will continue to look or act anything like the constitution currently envisages. The worldwide Anglican church is proof that you can’t legislate either godliness or orthodoxy.
What ultimately counts is not words on paper, but faith working through love (Gal 5:6)—people trusting Christ, and serving him and his people. Denominational structures can give us many gospel advantages, but they’re not the main game; our task is to proclaim Christ faithfully, love his people, and equip godly men and women to do the same when we’re gone, in all things praying for God’s protection and care.
Who knows? When you’re least expecting it, you may find you’ve got more than you bargained for!
