Association for Mission Studies (CEAMS) to combat the growing number of empty churches in the region, officials confirmed Saturday, November 30.
"The Anglican Church in Britain just said that with the present development there would be no Anglican Church in the year 2030. If that is true for the Anglican Church, it will be true for a number of other churches," warned Birger Nygaard, General Secretary of the International Association for Mission Studies.
"There is a reason why we have 500 million Pentecostals now days. As mission scholars we need to really listen as to what these Pentecostals did that created such a growth," he told BosNewsLife.
Traditional churches in countries behind the former Iron Curtain are believed to be especially vulnerable for a loss of membership, as several generations grew up in a Communist society which discouraged Christian missions and an active religious life.
MEMBERSHIP DECREASED
"After a short renewal – after the collapse of Communism – membership of the main denominations decreased," said Dr. Anne-Marie Kool, the 44-year old Dutch co-founder of CEAMS, which she will likely chair. "In all churches only 12 to 13 percent of members and supporters visit the church regularly."
Membership of the Hungarian Reformed Church, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, decreased from about two million to 1.6 million, according to official estimates. The smaller Lutheran Church saw its support decrease from 400,000 in the early nineties to 300,000 now.
Although Hungary is still a predominant Catholic country, just over 50 percent from the country’s over ten million population considers themselves Roman Catholic, down from over 60 percent a decade ago, show figures from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.
GHETTO
Kool stressed that missions is the best way to combat the church decline, and she welcomed that besides Protestants, CEAMS will include also Catholics and Russian Orthodox Christians.
"We saw that under Communism, churches were forced to live in a ghetto, and were very much focused on what happened within the walls of their buildings," she recalled.
She said the CEAMS aims to educate decision makers, such as pastors, about missions and how to communicate the Gospel in the post-Communist era, as part of an effort to make Missiology a key part of the curriculum in higher education.
Kool is also professor of Missiology and Director of the Protestant Institute for Mission Studies in Budapest, which was created after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
CHURCH WALLS
"Thinking about what is happening outside the church walls is completely new here. That’s why a subject such as Missiology is very important in Central and Eastern Europe," she added. Kool stressed that having "a calling" from God, should not mean going unprepared to the mission field.
"Its also good to learn from those who went before you." She suggested that churches in former Communist countries often suffer from a lack of knowledge about mission and spreading the Gospel.
"They often use methods from the past till they conclude that they don’t work. Or they take methods from America or the Netherlands without critically looking into these ways of working," she noticed.
MINORITY CHURCHES
Kool believes that the "Churches of Central and Eastern Europe can learn from the young churches in Latin America and Africa, who have lived in a minority situation for years. Its the same situation faced by the small Protestant churches in Central and Eastern Europe."
Despite a Communist legacy, East European churches have been sending a growing number of missionary workers to far places in recent years, delegates attending the CEAMS inauguration said.
"Poland with only 0,2 percent Protestants send between twenty and forty missionary workers to Central Asia. Ukraine’s Baptist churches have sent between four hundred and two thousand missionary workers to northern Siberia. The Hungarian Reformed and Lutheran churches are just starting with ten or fifteen missionary workers, " Kool explained.
MISSION KIDS
However she hopes that churches will learn from the returning missionaries. "You don’t have to buy an air ticket to reach a mission field," she said. "Eastern Europe has a large Roma (Gypsy) minority and many Chinese people. A lot of these people have not yet been reached with the Gospel."
Staying home could also prevent suffering for children. "Being a the son from a missionary couple can be difficult," admitted 27-year old American Michael Heneise who studies Contextual Missiology at the International Baptist Seminary in Prague.
"Since I was 3, I stayed in Haiti, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. I did not really have a home. The only place where I was feeling at home was at an international airport…"
