- Enjoying Saturday International Meeting Point
Kokkola is a city with 45 000 inhabitants, situated on the west-coast of Finland. 14% of the population is Swedish-speaking. This UMC-church-plant was started 2007, as a re-plant of an old, dying Swedish-speaking Methodist parish from 1889, with one active member left. A few weeks before pastor Camilla Klockars was to begin her work with the church, she met 3 couples from the city. They had no church of their own and gradually became part of the project as an in-official church-planting team.
- The mission of this church is to call people into the Kingdom of God. We want to see them become disciples of Jesus, in a real way – not just minister to people from other churches. Our vision statement is changed lives. “Church” to us means relationships – a network of people who have committed themselves to God and to one another. For us, church is not a building, it’s not activities or ministries but people, pastor Camilla says.
- Friendship evangelism is the main strategy to reach new people. The church-members invite others to come. Today, after three years, the church is multi-lingual and multi-culturual. Some 15 nationalities are represented and the services are simultaneously translated into English. People continually come and go in and out of town, since many of the international students stay in Kokkola only for a short period and then move on to other universities. In an average service there are 40-60 people. Every second Saturday the youth meet for something they call “International Meeting Point”, which in practise means open house with focus on food, friendships and fellowship. Prayer-meetings is another vital ingredient in the work.
- The worship style is relaxed and simple, quite strongly influenced by the international people, which f.ex. means African drums and dancing. We use contemporary music, often in various languages. After service there is always a free dinner for all. People stay after service for a long time, just for the fellowship. A super-market in town also gives free food items to distribute to those who are in need. This happens three times per week and is a great help to some Finnish families as well as some international students.
- We believe in cell-groups that strengthen our faith, Camilla adds. It has been very hard, though, in practise, to see new cells be formed. Many of our members are new believers. Others come from church-backgrounds where they have been taught that the pastor does it all. A school of leaders was set up November 2009 to help raise up new people and release their giftings. The school starts again November 2010. The new converts usually go through a new believers’ class, an introduction to the Christian faith, specially designed for those that know very little about Christianity.
- In the church-leadership team are now eight people. Five of them have, more or less, been in the church from the start. Two from the original team have moved to Jyväskylä September 2010 with a vision to maybe start a UMC church there. The leadership team in Kokkola meets regularely, also together with with other group-leaders in the church.
- My main source of inspiration comes from books and authors like AW Tozer, EM Bounds and Henri JM Nouwen, Camilla says. They are no church-planting mentors but they strengthen and challenge my own life with God, which I think is crucial if I am supposed to feed the vision and speak faith into others.
Visit the Kokkola UMC re-plant at www.metodistkyrkan.fi/karleby