Is Europe "free"? In relation to religion at least...

Ever wondered if there was a relationship between religious freedoms and secularity in Europe? The Nova Research Centre has taken some of the recognised measures of "religious liberty" and charted their relationship with "secularity" and "social hostility" on nifty charts.

To find out more click here.

Just don't ask me what they all mean...!

Three top trends in Europe...?

• If you want the chance to stimulate your thinking about some of the trends we are facing in Europe today... 

• If you want to hear experienced missional thinkers and practitioners deal with the challenges of Migration, Urbanisation and Islam...

• If you want a unique opportunity to network with other leaders involved in Europe with its many unique and changing facets, to share information on current activities, focus and aims, as well as future plans and dreams...

...then come to the European Consultation: Trends in Europe Today conference, lasting 24 hours during 4-5 January 2012.

Some of those leading or speaking will be:

• Robert Calvert (on Urbanisation), formerly of Scotland, currently pastors a church in Rotterdam. It is made up of people from more than forty nations and the team of elders is drawn from four continents.
• Alessia Passarelli (on Migration) consults for the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (Brussels) while also doing PhD research into the relationships between migration and churches in Italy and the Republic of Ireland.
• Bert de Ruiter (on Islam) speaks on issues related to Christian-Muslim relations and has developed a course called Sharing Lives to help Christians overcome their fear and share their lives with Muslims.
• Tony Peck (offering a church response) is General Secretary of the European Baptist Federation and an Associate Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance.
• Chris Wigram (offering a mission organisation response)  is International Director of European Christian Mission, which works in 18 European countries.
• Tim Davey (offering Biblical reflection) directs the Centre for the Study of Bible and Mission at Redcliffe College.
• Ian Nicholson (leading prayer and worship) works with 24/7 Prayer.

For more info click here

Book by the end of October and pay less!

It's really not about buildings

I love churches. I love the windows, the light, the shadows, the pointy bits, the carvings... All the architectural cool details. And when I visit anywhere I try and get into them and take a few pictures. I did that a few weeks ago in Linz, Austria. That is where this picture is from.

From my travels, cities and towns across Europe are FULL of cool church buildings.



What they are NOT full of is people. Certainly not people that know Jesus. Country after country that I go to has an evangelical population of under 3%.

But I will admit -- it is a strange world when it is hard to get a photo of a European skyline that doesn't have a church spire in it and yet my job is to see more churches planted in Europe...

I didn't know there were that many with that few!

Over coffee this morning I was looking at the number of evangelical Christians in Europe according to Operation World.

I was a bit shocked to discover that there are 24 countries in Europe whose populations are less than 1% evangelical! Some of those on the list are Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Poland and Spain. So we aren't talking just tiny countries you couldn't find on a map.

Of those 24 nations, 11 are less than 0.2% evangelical!!

When I compared the total evangelical population of Europe to other continents I discovered that it has the lowest evangelical % of population of ANY continent (except Antarctica for which Operation World doesn't provide data). Africa, for example, has an evangelical % of population that is six times that of Europe.

No wonder one of the ECM missionaries preparing to work here in the UK is from Nigeria and Brazilian missionaries are coming to work in Spain.

One last figure to share, not from Operation World. We need to remember that God loves 100% of the people in Europe. We just still need to help most of them meet him.