SHOW TRANSCRIPT   

00:00:47
Gray. Hey, what's happening, everybody? This is Dr. Derwin Gray, and welcome to Transforming the Church Podcast. This is a bonus episode. I have a friend from Berlin, Germany, with me all the way.

00:01:00
He's actually here in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area church for the multiethnic church roundtable that we've done since 2015 to equip leaders in Gospel-centered, Jesus-focused multiethnic missional ministry. What does that mean? It means after the model of the apostle Paul, Jesus not only forgives sins, but he creates a family with different colored skin. This family becomes the very people that the kingdom of God is express through. So I want to introduce you to my new friend, Dave Schnitter, lead pastor of Mosaik Berlin.

00:01:35
I had the honor and privilege of preaching at Mosaik Berlin. The first service was in German, which I had a translator for. I was hoping for the gift of tongues, but it did not happen. The second service was in English, and before I introduce him, because he's humble, you guys, you got to understand this. In Berlin, to have a church with two services and them to be jam packed standing room only in a post Christian culture is something to behold.

00:02:06
And so I thought it would be great just to hear his story. So, Dave, welcome. Thank you so much to the United States of America. Come on, USA. Be careful saying that too much.

00:02:17
Yeah. It's good to be here. Thank you so much for having me on. Yeah, man. So just by way of introduction, what part of Germany did you grow up in, and what was the Christian faith like you for you growing up in Germany like, sure.

00:02:33
Yeah. So I had the privilege of actually growing up in a Christian family. My dad, he worked for an organization called Trans World Radio, Christian mission radio station. Actually, their headquarters is in Raleigh, not far from here. And so their whole thing was radio waves can go where missionaries can't.

00:02:54
And that was big, especially during the Cold war, and that they could send from Germany Christian radio programs all the way to the east, you know, and that shaped me. That marked me, I think, even when I was a little kid, that my dad, to this day, he has quite an urgency, you know, like, we gotta tell the world about Jesus, you know? Yeah. You know what, before you go, I think this is so important. You said during the Cold War.

00:03:18
Sure. So for some of our Gen Z's and younger millennials, can you describe the Cold War and what that means? I was a kid when the Berlin Wall fell, so I can't say I grew up in it. I was still a child. But there was, after World War Two, Germany was divided into east and west, and east was kind of ruled, governed by, or influenced, for sure, by soviet communist governments.

00:03:47
And the west was much more free, you know? And so I grew up in the south of Germany, which was west, which was freer. My dad being formerly from the east, when he was 16, he still managed to get over before they actually built a wall to divide Germany into east and west. And then Berlin, the capital, was divided as a capital. There was a wall going right through the city, which is mad.

00:04:10
And then in 1989, it all, the cold war ended, and then the wall fell. And since then, Germany is unified again. Yeah, yeah. And I remember in high school, my senior year when the Berlin Wall did fall. And so it's important to understand that contextualization with the Gospel, that the Gospel transcends culture, but it has to be contextualized to culture.

00:04:34
So why are you a pastor of this great church, Mosaik? Why Mosaik? Why the name Mosaik? Okay, so the church actually started. The first kind of group that gathered was already 2009.

00:04:48
There was a pastor there from England who got a group going, and they met. And then a few years in, he had a. Without going into too much detail, but he had terrible moral failure, lost his job, lost his ministry. Do you mean that happens in Europe as well? That happens as well, yeah.

00:05:04
Which was painful for the group that he's already gathered. The sending church, if you will, from England, felt a responsibility for them. And they said, we're going to pastor you through this crisis, and then we're going to close this, because forget about the church plant that's done like there was in the press and everything. And then after a while, this group of believers, met in a home. They said, hey, but we had vision to plant a church here.

00:05:27
Why do we let the enemy win? And so they said, let's rebrand, let's. Mosaik would be such a. What's such a strong name for us in the idea of restoration? What if God takes all the broken pieces, and puts them back together?

00:05:40
Yeah. And so that's where the name comes from, actually. Not even so much looking at, like, cultural diversity, but more about the God of restoration, putting together a new community again. And then over the years, it has now become quite a multi everything church. And, yeah, so I wasn't planting the church.

00:06:01
I got involved later in 2020, just before COVID actually, we transitioned to leading Mosaik, which is obviously a dream now. So tell me about the ethnic diversity of Mosaik, but for our listeners, what is it like? So I think I counted before we came here, I think there's now about 60 plus nationalities represented. So we're talking about in Berlin. In Berlin, 60 plus nationalities are part of Mosaik.

00:06:30
Yes. Yeah. From all over the globe who come to Berlin to study, to work for different reasons. And we get to be community together. Yeah, yeah.

00:06:40
So you mentioned that, like, you have Arabs and you've got people from all over the world. Yeah. How does the Gospel help you equip your people to navigate through these ethnic crises all over the world? Like, we've got what's going on in Israel with Palestine and just so forth and so on. How has that helped you as a pastor?

00:07:05
Oh, it's huge because in our church, we have Israelis, we have Lebanese, we have Palestinians, we have Ukrainians, Russians. So this whole, like, the stuff we read on the news or we see on the news, it's really close to us. And there's people in the church who have families in the affected areas. And that changes the way you pray for these areas and changes the way you pray for the sides as well. You know, like, I've stopped praying.

00:07:36
Maybe this is controversial. I don't know. I said, we're not going to pray for the Ukraine. We're going to pray for Ukrainians. I'm also not going to pray for Russia.

00:07:43
I'm praying for Russians. I'm not praying for Israel. I pray for Israelis. I pray for Palestinians. I don't know.

00:07:49
Not everybody may want to do this, but that's helped us a little bit to be like, hey, there are image bearers of God on each side, and the Gospel is for all of us. The Gospel is the key to understand how we need to relate to each other or how we are community with each other, because it's the Gospel. Is Jesus taking our sin away. And not just saying, you're free to go, he's saying, you're free to come. And that means all of us, regardless of our passports or our skin color or our language.

00:08:23
Yeah. You know, as you were saying that it reminds me of Paul's words in Philippians two when he's writing to the multiethnic churches in Philippi, he says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but consider others better than yourselves. Look out not only for your own interest, but for the interest of others. And then he goes into this beautiful kenosis passage of how Jesus God, eternal son, becomes a man, dies on a cross, right? So in order to have that type of brotherhood, sisterhood, unity in Christ, there has to be a cruciformity to almost.

00:09:01
We can't be partisan in the kingdom of God. We have to be Jesus focused. So, like, what we have here in the states is we have this huge divide ethnically, politically. And so one of the things that we do here at transformation church is I'm constantly moving people to a cruciform life of this. We're not the donkey Democrats.

00:09:23
We're not the Republican's elephants. We're people of the lamb. Now, you can vote however you choose to vote. Just don't put ultimate salvation in that vote. But then how do we treat people who vote differently?

00:09:36
How do we treat our brothers and sisters of other ethnicities? Because if we are all in Christ, and as Galatians 327 says, we've put on Christ, when I see you, I see Christ. When you see me, you see Christ. For me to look down upon you is to actually look down upon Christ. Like it is the ultimate sin to say, Jesus, you're not good enough.

00:09:57
Your blood was not good enough. The righteousness you give us is not good enough. And so what it comes down to, though, is when I hear you speak, it's faith. Because a lot of times we think we have to do more than the Gospel. And, you know, we start trying to implement all these programs, and it's like, no, if you transform the heart and people live by faith, to treat everybody as though Jesus died for them, the kingdom of God can happen, and these incredible barriers can be bulldozed by the grace of God.

00:10:29
So let me ask you this. So German Germany is a post-Christian culture. And so let me explain that post-Christian does not mean that everybody in Germany at one time was a born again Christian. What it means to be a Christian nation is the Christian stories are symbols like Dave slaying Goliath, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, the resurrection, Christmas, Easter. People may not actually believe those things, but that culture shapes their lives.

00:11:05
America is becoming more post Christian that people don't know about Noah. Like, my wife did not know that in Genesis six, the rainbow meant that God would not flood the earth again. Like, she didn't know we were post Christian. So how do you navigate and lead a church which is 500 people or more? Yeah, four or five.

00:11:28
Yeah, more. 400. Okay, 400 for sure. We'll round it up. All right.

00:11:32
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's kind of like on a day of Pentecost, like 3000 people came to faith. Like, who was counting one? Hey, Peter, 3000, bro, it's 3000. Okay, so a church of 400.

00:11:48
How big is that in Berlin? Sure. Yeah, we have. So what, you're talking about post-Christian, right. So Germany.

00:11:56
Berlin has huge church buildings that would seat a couple thousand of people even, you know, but they are sitting empty or they're now concert venues for symphony orchestras and stuff. So, like, to have a church service for people gathering in the hundreds is already big in Berlin. You know, it's just when that's the reality. Church, like, even counting is. No, it just is no longer such a numbers game.

00:12:25
It's just we need to use different metrics, I guess. You know, that's good for our pride as well, or for our feeling of feeling inferior or superior to whoever's. Whoever's ministry is bigger or smaller. That's not really the game we play anyway. Yeah.

00:12:46
So for me, when I went to Germany and I was able to experience Mosaik and see the post Christian culture, for me, it's not about numbers of big or small, about people going to hell and people experiencing Christ. And so that's one of the areas where I challenge and encourage pastors in Europe is man. The reformation started in Europe. The two times I've been to Germany, I was in erfurt, and that's where Martin Luther, who was a catalyst in the Protestant Reformation, there's a big statue of him outside of the school where he went, and Germans just walked by. And I was just in awe, like, man, this is.

00:13:28
God used this man, and now in his own country, he wouldn't even be allowed in his own denomination, possibly. Yeah, yeah. And so when I talk about numbers, I'm talking about this urgency of reaching people and believing that Jesus still saves. So that's what I mean by that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:51
So as you said, so you guys. Are one of the biggest churches in Berlin. That's what I'm trying to. I didn't want to brag with it or anything because it is really like glory to God. But it's not the norm anymore to have a room with 400 people on a Sunday who come to worship Jesus.

00:14:08
So why are they at Mosaik Berlin if it's not the norm, but it's the norm at your place? What is God doing specifically through Mosaik Berlin in this post Christian culture that we as Americans and other internationals listening, can understand? Sure, it's a good question.

00:14:29
I want to say I don't think it is overly complicated, the Gospel of Jesus. I've made it my life mission, if you will. I have such a desire for it. I read the Book of Acts or I hear of what the Gospel seed is accomplishing in other cultures and contexts around the world, and I have a jealousy for it, for Germany, because I see the barrenness in my land and I am aching for it to come to life again spiritually for the Gospel. I don't think the Gospel seed has lost its power.

00:15:09
The soil is harder. So we need to maybe ask the Holy Spirit to help us prepare the soil. But I'm longing to see, and I think we get to see some evidence of it. Not crazy in terms of numbers, but we get to see. Maybe not yet, but in the lives of the individual, it is new life.

00:15:25
Praise the Lord. What a miracle. So yeah, it used to be that the churches that I refer to, the big cathedrals, they were full with worshippers on a Sunday. But now Germany has moved from Christian to post Christian, which means we've lost the influence with churches move to the margin. Some people say Berlin is the atheist capital of the world.

00:15:46
I don't even know if that's true. I think it's maybe the most agnostic city and there are people like faith is just not a question. So everybody worships and everybody has faith because that's just the way the human psyche and soul is wired.

00:16:34
So for the agnostic, they have faith that they don't know for those of you. So the word agnostic means not to know. So like, I don't know if there's a God. I don't know. But that's still an act of faith.

00:16:45
That's still an act of worship. You're worshiping something. Worship is where you find what you think is love, identity, worth and purpose. So my question is, where do Germans find what they think is ultimate love, identity, worth and purpose? Where are they finding it at or trying to.

00:17:06
There's probably, you know, there's 80 million Germans. There's probably 80 million answers to it. I do think Germany is now much more alike what the culture or what society was like for the early church in terms of. It's very pluralistic, just like the Roman Empire was very pluralistic. People had all kinds of Gods that they went to, to worship to get identity and life and hope from.

00:17:28
And so just, I think that's true. But people are done with church or institutional church that they've done with it. Been disappointed too much scandals, you know, and also, I think Germans, by and large, we distrust. That's also because of our history. We're more distrusting now of people telling us what to think and what to believe.

00:17:49
We've been down the road with that when Hitler and Goebbels brainwashed a whole nation. And I think since then, there's just been a bit of a suspicion with ideologies and worldviews. So everybody's like, hey, you figure out your own thing and just leave me alone with it. I think what you said is really important. And here in America, a lot of Christians don't do well with the ugly past.

00:18:15
You know, our ugly past is what happened to Native Americans, the enslavement of black image bearers. Here in America, pastors say, well, let's don't talk about that. But if you don't talk about it and understand it, you don't understand how we got to where we are. And if history is doomed to repeat itself if we don't acknowledge it, and more not stay stuck there, but realize this is how we got to where we are. Why do you feel freedom as a German pastor, to be honest about the atrocities and how it shaped to where Germany is now?

00:18:53
Well, I would say this. I think it takes a certain amount of pride to deny yourself repentance in the sense of, I think every person has a broken identity, even Americans do, Germans do. Every person has a broken sexuality, whether you are gay or straight. We all have a broken sexuality. We all have a broken identity.

00:19:22
I might say that we all have a broken ancestry. We all have a broken ethnicity. To assume I don't have anything that I need to deal with at the cross. That's pride. To me.

00:19:39
And I think for us, as Germans, our history is quite obvious to us, especially in Berlin. If you've been in Berlin, we walk through the streets and the recent history of the city just screams at you from the buildings. It would be quite arrogant to say, like, yeah, we've got nothing to deal with here that we need to repent of. And you know what's interesting? As I listened to you speak, you seamlessly took personal responsibility, but also national responsibility, which is very biblical.

00:20:12
When you look at, say, Nehemiah, when he built the wall, he confessed his personal sin, but also the national sin, not that he did it himself. And a lot of American Christians really struggle with understanding the systemic part of it, that you don't have to do it to be mournful of what took place or to repent that it took place. And I think that's a very healthy spiritual formation, rhythm of grace to go, you know what? I personally may not have done that, but I've benefited from that. So what's your church's strategy, Mosaik Berlin?

00:20:53
What's your strategy to equip your congregation, to live on mission, to reach this post-Christian culture? Good. Very timely question because we're just about to launch a new initiative. We call it that. We call a discipleship pathway a three-year pathway.

00:21:16
We've asked, I was actually, I was on a Zoom call with a guy in New York, John Tyson. I think you know him as well. And he, in a side comment, he asked a question that says, in all the right ways, it haunted me ever since then. He said, oh, every leader has to figure out what is it I'm trying to reproduce. And then he came with this conversation.

00:21:33
It's like, oh, I don't think I'm actually being intentional about what is it we're trying to reproduce here. So someone who's part of Mosaik, what is it we want him to not just know, but do and live and what life changed in his heart and his soul. What do we want to see happening in him or in her? Like, over the course of three years, that seems to be the Jesus thing. Three years.

00:21:57
And so we're now trying to roll out this discipleship pathway of just different workshops, retreats and seminars and books to read. And so it's like, hey, we really want to be on a journey together. So that after three years, here's someone who can boldly share their faith, someone who understood generosity, someone who understands the cross, someone who can do intercession. Like it just maybe the one on one of what it means to follow Jesus. I realize we can't just assume that people picked us up just because they come to a church service.

00:22:29
Even if they've been there for years, they can be quite faithful in their attendance and be baby Christians. So we want to be more intentional about it. So I wish I could say, here is what we are doing. It's more we see the need and we want to do something about it. Yeah, absolutely.

00:22:43
And I mean, you've been a lead pastor for four years, and so it takes time to learn the people, learn the culture, and develop, and we're always learning here at Transformation Church. A couple of ending questions. One is, what would you say to American Christians that they can do better?

00:23:04
Oh, man. Can I just be bold? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 100%.

00:23:13
In Germany or in Europe, we watch American pastors because you guys are really good at broadcasting and. Yeah, just getting the word out there. And I've noticed a lot of times, if you're saying America is changing and becoming more post-Christian, I think a lot of American pastors probably should wake up and not assume that the people in their pews know the Gospel. You really. You gotta be bold to preach the Gospel that's maybe so, like, basic, but it's.

00:23:51
I hear a lot of, like, self help talk and just good psychology, and I'm sure there's truth in it, but the powers in the Gospel and. Yeah, and if there is a growing percentage of the population who does not know who Jesus is and what he has done for us on the cross, please, please tell them before the whole nation becomes post-Christian and you got to start again from scratch. Amen. Well, you're speaking our language, Dave, because what we like to say here at transformation church is we want the pulpit to be bloody. It is unabashedly about Jesus, what Jesus has done, the endless treasures of his grace, because you can get good advice anywhere.

00:24:37
But the local church should be the place where Jesus is the highlight of the story. It's easy to draw a crowd in America with pop psychology and prosperity Gospel stuff. But that's how a nation becomes post-Christian. As pastors who lead Jesus's church, stop preaching Jesus.

00:24:55
Exhibit a. I want to throw something right now because it just infuriates me. And then sadly, you have a whole generation of people who think that following Jesus is, He's a divine butler to help them accomplish their dreams instead of recognizing, no, He's the king of kings. And through His life, death, resurrection and ascension, descendant of the. By faith, we enter into His kingdom.

00:25:22
So His life, His mission, His purpose, His grace can be displayed in us and through us. If a lot more pastors preach that, their churches would be smaller, but you would have more people who actually know the Gospel. And on the back end, you won't see a nation slip. So a lot of times people go, what's happening? Is it the pagans?

00:25:43
I'm like, no, it's the pastors. It's the teachers and leaders of the church that they have jettisoned Jesus and the Gospel for pop psychology and this prosperity nonsense. Yeah, I'm really passionate about that. So, man, continue to do that. How can we pray for you?

00:26:01
Cause rumor has it that someone came to preach at your church and was like, you need to go to a third service. Yeah. Yeah. And so rumor has it you guys are perhaps getting ready to launch another gathering in a city close to Berlin. So how can we pray for you.

00:26:21
Concerning that would be so great if you can pray for that. So there's a city right next to Berlin. It's almost like a small sister of Berlin called Potsdam, where quite a number of our members already commute in. It's about an hour's drive from them to come to church. And I love their commitment, but they will never be able to bring their friends.

00:26:40
And Potsdam is quite unchurched, by and large. There's a few congregations there, but not many. And we feel that maybe God has a work for us there. And so we are planning this summer to launch our first extension in Potsdam, which is very exciting. We also do need to do a third service eventually.

00:26:58
It's just about okay, you know, stewarding manpower and resources at the moment. So we feel like we should do this first and then do the third service eventually when we get to it. Yeah, that would be great. Let's pray for open doors and open hearts in Potsdam for people to come know Jesus right. Right now.

00:27:14
And for all of our listeners, I want you to join me in praying. Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, the name that is above all names, the king of glory, the great. I am the alpha, the omega, the first and the last. The one who conquered sin, death and evil.

00:27:26
It is in his name and through the Holy Spirit's power that we lift up. Pastor Dave, to you in Mosaik, Berlin, we lift up this Potsdam location, that you would bless it, that those who are far from Christ would just be attracted to the believers, attracted to the message, and they would just fill this new place and then be sent, that they would be filled to be sent into the world. And we lift up Mosaik Berlin, that you would continue to bless it, that it would be a heavenly colony on earth. Bless Dave and Jenny, his lovely wife. Bless them with energy and vitality and to delight in Jesus.

00:28:02
Keep your hand on their children, that their children would walk with you and that you would do incredible things in them and through them for your glory. And I thank you for my friend Dave and just continue to be a blessing Lord. And we pray for all of Germany that there would be revival, that pulpits would ring the glories of Christ. And we pray for America that pulpits would be bloody with the lamb of God, that he would be central, he would be the showcase, he would be the highlight. May we be a part of it, Lord, in your name, we pray.

00:28:37
Amen. Amen. Well guys, check this out. I want you to marinate on that. When the church is transformed, the world will be transformed.