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Project Brussels
'91 is an example of how our metropolitan
area..',' can be evangelized.
ByJohan Lukasse
rom the back window of my house I could see the skyline of Brussels, capital not only of Bel- but also of the European Eco- nomic Community. I got into the habit each morning, as I drew the curtains, of p!;1ying, "Lord, bless Brussels." It !}i>~;}me a G2i!y ritual, to open the cur- t?ins, glance at the city of a million peopJe., and say my little praycr.
One day I was shaken when a voice saie) in my heart, "I am willing to bJess EJUsseis. \Vhen are you going to ;;tan'!" I'i shock r started to close the curtains, ht)cause I did not want to face Brussels in its entirety, to reach it with the gospeL Suddenly I realized how complex, confused, and large a place Brussels reaJly is.
Northern Germanic culture meets French Latin culture in Brussels. Since 1970, French and Flemish have been official languages. Brussels has be- come the home not only of EEC, NA TO, and multinational corporation
officWs, but aJso of a variety of ethnic groups through immigration. But God had spoken to me and I decided to share this with a number of other Christian leaders. I visited colleagues, pastors in the city, men faithful to the Bible, leaders of churches of different denominations.
Quite remarkably, we all felt the same way. Yes, this was God's time for Brussels. We must reach the city before 1992, when Western Europe was scheduled to open its internaJ bor- ders and move toward unity. Further, we agreed that Lie traditionaJ evange- listic crusade was not the best way to reach everyone in the metropolitan area.
EventuaJly, a smaJl group of us met in October, 1989. Through the work of Qod's Spirit, we came to agreement It seemed to all of us that this was God's initiative to make a strong, united ef- fort to reach everyone in this city with a clear pre.sentation of the gospel. We
392
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realized that no one church or parachurch organization could accom- plish this. Through prayer, our hearts were knit together and our desire grew for a joint effort. We started to see Brussels as God sees it, and we were moved by compassion
and a wi1lingness to work together.
That was the begin- ning of Project Brussels '91. I tell the inside story here, what we did and why, so that others might be encouraged to try similar efforts in other great cities around the world.
in cooperating. That is why we reached the following definition: "Cooperation in Project Brussels '91 means that: (1) Each church or organization is to keep its own identity. (2) Each church or or- ganization will respect the other's identity. (3) Collaboration is to be limited in time and substance to the goals ..of Project Brussels '91. (4) By coordinating ef- forts we would be able to have an impact on all lev- els of the population."
Purpose statement
In the early days we aimed to reach everyone in Brussels with a clear
presentation of the gospel.
However, as we moved along and more churches and organizations
ac-
cepted the vision and
made it their own, we saw the need for a clearer pur-
pose statement. This
is
what we developed:
"Through Project Brussels '91 we expect to reach the fol- lowing goals: (1) to reach each inhabitant of Brussels with the presenuilion of the gospel given in their own language and appro- priate to their own background; (2) to bring to- gether individuals, churches, and para church or- ganizations in the spirit of cooperation in order to accomplish the task of evangelism and follow- up; (3) to advance church growth and mobilize church members; (4) to have a home Bible study in every neigl;1borhood of Brussels by January, 1992."
.
During our discussions and prayers,
we
also
reaJized that we had responsi- bilities to the poor, and that it would be impossible to preach Christ to them unless we showed mercy as well. AI-
JOHAN LUKASSE, president of the Belgian Evangelical Mission, was president of Project Brussels '91, a yearlong evangelistic outreach. Born in the Nether- lands, he graduated from the Belgian Bible Institute and was a pastor in Genk, Belgium, for 11 years.
Cooperative effort
After our initial meeting to share our common vision, we#saw more than ever before our need for unity. We chose a group of 11 people-called the Co- ordinating Committee- from both churches and parachurch organiza- tions.
We started a monthly prayer meeting open to all the churches, plus a weekly Friday morning meeting for those who could make it at that time. We met at the Sal- vation Army hall and it soon became a holy place, because God started to move among us. He gave us love, and soon a number of reconciliations oc- curred.
Next to our God-given unity we needed a clearly defined way to work together. Everyone needed to feel safe
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though not clearly stated in our pur- pose statement, we agreed that the needs of the lowest class of our society had to be included.
e,
Multiple
action
We started to pray and look for wisdom about how to reach our goals. Since we had agreed that crusade evangelism would not reach every- one in the city, we struggled to find some- thing different. What should we do instead'! Fi- nally, our plan came lO- ge ther based on I hree principles.
1. Make an inventNY of what churches wanted
to do ill evangelism in
199], motivate them to c>Lrry out their plans and broaden them, and ask them to do this under one banner, Project Brussels '91. They could use the same logo and slogan, so that even
if
churches devel- oped different ways of evangelism, they would come out with the same presentation in their advertisements, invitations, and publicity. This would make a trcmendous contribution to our collective impact.
We
promised
to
help
one another in coming up with evange- listic plans.
2. Hand out a literature package to every home in greater Brussels. The package would contain one of the Gos- pels and a brochure to explain the gos- pel. It would serve as a bridge-building tool to modem, sophisticated Belgians. We printed it in four colors and in-
Our
plan came
together based on th ree
principles.
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1
394
It was clear that we could
not reach everybody
with the same
gospel
presentation.
.
cluded challenging articles geared
to a
secular,
philosophical, scientific mind-
set. We also had more simple presenta- tions for children and all ages. We in- cluded a response card with different options. People could order a tape, a book, a subscription to a youth magazine, and so on.
We also decided to include the first lesson of a Bible correspondence course. Many people are nervous about coming to the door and discussing religion, but they might want more information, so we gave them a chance to respond in an impersonal way.
The package was at- tractively wrapped and sealed in plastic. The overall appearance was appealing and non- threatening. We decided to present them as gifts
from the evangelical Christians of Brussels. They were published in
French
and Flemish, and in many cases
they included material in Arabic, Turk- ish, and English. Eventually, every
home in Brussels received
a
package. Generally,
they
were very well re-
ceived, even by Muslims.
3. Our third principle we labeled specific activities. We worked
hard
to
make a public impact. During seven months
of Project
Brussels
'9] we or-
ganized more than
100 concerts and nearly 200 open air
meetings. What a significant variety we had: preaching, drama, mime,
quizzes, children's ac-
tivities, sports,
a bicycle rally, youth
Mission
force and
mission
field
To discover
how bet-
ter to
reach
Brussels, we decided to do some
re-
search. We wanted to discover the mission force:
the number of
churches, their member- ship, and how many
Christians would be available
for the
project. Second,
we wanted to find out more about
the
mission
field
(Brussels),
its
social
lev-
cis and
ethnic groups, and the
specific, overriding needs
of each group.
We discovered more than 25 na- tionalities. Out of a million people, 26.5 percent are non-Belgians.]n some
areas,
the percentage of
non-Belgians
was as high
as
57.5 percent. Most of the non-Belgians come from
MoroccO
and Turkey.
The
majority
of Belgians
identify
with the Roman
Catholic
Church, al- though less than 10 of]oo
babies born today
are
baptized
in the church. The
rallies, barbecues, and rock concerts. Each
organization contributed some-
thing
out of its own
expertise,
includ-
ing Youth With a
Mission, Operation Mobilization, Youth for Christ, and
agencies specializing
in children's
work.
The multiple use of all of our principles in the same time frame and under the same slogan and logo eventually made an impact. People
throughout Brussels be-
came
aware of
what was
happening
and started talking about it.
second largest religion
in
Brussels, and
by far the most militant,
is Islam.
]t was very difficult
to get
accurate
information
from
the churches,
but we concluded that
"the evangelical Protes-
tants represented ~o more than 4,000 people, gathered
in ap-
proximately
55 churches
of various denomina- tional affiliations, with no less than eight differ- ent languages." ]n one area of Brussels there
was
only one evangelical
Protestant
church for
74,500 people.
iii
Special events
It was clear that we could not reach every- body with the
same gos-
pel presentation. So we organized different task forces to plan different approaches for the vari- ous groups we had iden- tified. This turned out to be an
exciting adventure.
For
example,
the group studying how to reach the poor discovered that there are many different kinds of pov- erty, and that there is no one single way of reaching the poor. So they
formed
even smaller task forces: one to reach the
prostitUlCS (3,000 in Brussels. plus
1,500 male prostitutes); one to reach the refugees; one to reach the
homeless. At one time
we handed out
100 meals a day, plus 300 packed
lunches.
In cooperation with some other
organizations, we opened a
small
restaurant where
we served meals 10 the homeless,
gave
free
medical and
legal advice, and gave a living presen-
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