The European Collaboration

— by Joel Morris

Introduction

Unashamedly, I straddle the business, grant-making, and ministry space. I came into running a charity (and inherited a failing seminary) from a background in aerospace and nuclear engineering. Sure, I was an obvious choice! I’m the Executive Director of Union Foundation, strategically working to serve church growth across Europe. We work through training, publishing, research, and church planting. Through various friendships and partnerships, we have come together to create a missional ecosystem where the church can sustainably grow and bear fruit. This is a ‘grand project’ developed over several years with likeminded businesspeople, donor networks, churches, seminaries, publishers, and networks—all working together to see God’s kingdom grow in Europe. We can only do this together because of the scale of the challenge.

Missional friendships

As we survey the history of the church, every unique movement of God was birthed through fellowship. History seems to highlight only single heroes of the faith, but rarely does anyone achieve anything for the kingdom of Christ alone. The German Reformer, Martin Luther, welcomed many friends around his table for mutual instruction, advice, planning, and humor. Among Luther’s friends were fellow reformers Philip Melancthon, Caspar Cruciger, Justus Jonas, Vitus Dietrich, John Bugenhagen, John Forster, and others. A merry band of brothers united around one vision and were mightily used by God.

In Geneva, John Calvin also gathered a company of men to train pastors to plant churches in France, Hungary, Scotland, and even Brazil. Calvin desired deep friendships—a band of brothers committed to the same vision, loving each other, and serving shoulder to shoulder for the growth of Christ’s church. Europe was profoundly impacted due to this deep mutual affection that existed in Geneva and eventually spread throughout the world.

During the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century in North America and the United Kingdom, a fellowship was formed among key leaders around preaching, church planting, mission, and publishing. In 1748, when gospel patron Lady Huntingdon visited Trefeca, Wales, she met Howel Harris, Daniel Rowland, Griffith Jones, and Howel Davis. She began funding the building of a seminary to train future gospel preachers. This group of friends commenced a preaching tour around the country, which eventually included William Williams and George Whitefield, who had crossed the Atlantic to the American colonies, joining Jonathan Edwards in a ministry partnership.

Such vivid examples have served as the impetus for our work, which fosters friendship around a mutual gospel vision. This vision is rooted in the common desire to see the church of Christ grow in Europe. We aim to see the church built up, purified, fruitful, growing, and pre-eminently glorifying to God. We hope to provide support and fellowship for all who stand for this vision through collaboration.

Genuine biblical fellowship doesn’t create solitary oak trees standing alone but fosters a forest of friends standing together for the gospel. Ecclesiastes 4:2 illustrates such togetherness in the image of a three-fold cord so tightly woven that it becomes virtually indestructible. This is our hope for our grand project—friendships and fellowship that are indestructible in mission and ministry because they are anchored in Christ.

Unity around the mission

When we think about multiplying churches across a whole region or continent, it helps to think in a big-picture, joined-up way: Not short-term, small, pragmatic, although it helps to be practical; but longer-term, sustainable, and generational growth. Our grand project began with a dying residential seminary in South Wales, UK—nothing grand in the capital city but something quite insalubrious and unremarkable in a field in South Wales. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?[1] As unlikely as something significant starting in South Wales, a friendship sprung up between what was known as the ‘Bryntirion’ College and SaRang Community Church in Seoul, South Korea. It came about through one of its members, businesswoman Sung Joo Kim, visiting Wales for a Christian conference, and when struck by the dire need, she wanted to do something to help Wales. The CEO of German fashion brand MCM was able to bring together a Korean mega church and a struggling Welsh seminary through a historical missionary connection long forgotten in Wales.

Providentially, Mrs. Kim met a student from Bryntirion, which was the last evangelical seminary left in Wales, and connected the college with her Senior Pastor in Korea. The Pastor felt a sense of spiritual debt to the church in Wales because of Welsh missionary Robert Jermain Thomas who had been martyred in Pyongyang in 1866.[2] A truly remarkable story, Thomas had briefly stood on North Korean soil before he was beheaded, killed along with the crew of the American merchant ship, the General Sherman. His executioner took the Bibles Thomas was handing out and papered the inside of his house with the scriptures. As his family and guests read the wallpaper, they were saved by the Word of God. This house became the first church building in Korea. The Korean protestant church can trace their 150-year church history back to a long forgotten Welsh missionary.

In 2011, SaRang Church committed a million dollars into restarting the ministry with the purpose of blessing Wales, the UK, and Europe. Then, the church also began to fund church planting projects of students through the seminary. The response to what the Lord was doing through the seminary was to reform the charity into a foundation that ran a seminary as well as to facilitate grant making to churches. Bryntirion became Union School of Theology which pioneered blended and decentralised training through local church learning communities, and many in turn have become church planting hubs. This has become the ‘Union model.’ There are currently 30 learning community partnerships with local churches and other training providers from Helsinki to Rome and Edinburgh to London. Union Mission became the grant making arm of the charity to connect graduates and partners with financial resources. We settled on the name ‘Union’ because it’s inclusive and stands for friendship and collaboration. It says: We’re going after this together in union.

In 2019, a donor collaboration called the European Great Commission Collaboration, set up by businessman Adam Walach, joined our initiative to fund church plants from Union as well as other church planting networks, such as M4 based in Estonia. The EGCC is made of donor networks from several European countries funding indigenous ministries across Europe. In partnership, together with SaRang Church in Seoul, they have been funding European projects together. Since 2015, Union Foundation has awarded grants totalling 1 million pounds to over 130 projects across Europe. Union has been serving donor partners as fiscal sponsor, carrying out due diligence on each project and reporting progress.

It’s wonderful to see the impact that collaboration has been having in countries like Greece, through our learning community in partnership with the Greek Bible College where leaders are being recruited, raised up with the local church, deployed, and financially supported to plant or rejuvenate churches. As an entrepreneur and engineer, it has been satisfying to see friends come together and work effectively toward a shared vision. God is moving and bringing churches, organisations, and people together for His great mission.

Then, we added the ability to publish our own books and digital resources to the missional ecosystem. Union was able to create its own publishing house in collaboration with Canadian publisher H&E Publishing. We want to give opportunities for future leaders to develop as authors and to write the books for their generations. Gnowbe[3] (USA) has enabled us to provide micro courses for learners online through their mobile first platform. Micro-Learning Courses (MLCs) are self-paced digital courses. The production of accessible, theological resources works to help people delight in God, grow in Christ, and engage with their callings—some of whom then go on to join our School of Theology or another seminary. Union Publishing helps fuel the School, and everything drives through to mission.

Union’s Research arm began in March 2021 as another important part of the model, as we develop pastor-theologians, thinkers, and writers who can help grow the church—fortifying the church’s mission through theological excellence and building long-term sustainable growth in church movements and networks. So, we set up Newton House based in Oxford, England, in partnership with scholars and institutions from around the world as well as Tyndale House, Cambridge.

This ‘grand project’ continues with friends and partners, planters and pastors, churches, foundations, business leaders, publishers, and students, working to see a God-inspired solution for Europe to be reignited for the gospel once again; to see a new generation of leaders raised up; and to see churches growing and multiplying. Walking where others have gone before, friends working collaboratively and strategically to advance God’s kingdom. We can look back to the past to see how God worked in the past and also to see what God is doing now. He has perfect strategic foresight; He has plans to prosper His church.[4] We need to be in step with Him as we plan ahead. Such movements of God involve all parts of His church, from gospel patrons to gifted preachers, pastor theologians, writers, scholars, and more to further the cause of the gospel. Instead of being tribal, partisan, or just about furthering an institution, if we are about actually serving the church and blessing the world, then together, we can see past our own agendas to national and international gospel transformation.

 ——

[1] John 1:46

[2] Stella Price, Chosen for Choson (Emmaus Road Ministries: Essex, MA, USA), 91-96.

[3] https://www.gnowbe.com

[4] Jeremiah 29:10

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s 2019 Global Event.

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