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EPISODE NOTES
In this episode of Transforming the Church Podcast, Dr. Derwin L. Gray and friend Dave Schnitter, the lead pastor of Mosaik Berlin, delve into the dangers of the Prosperity Gospel, ministry in Germany, and a message to American Christians. Schnitter’s background growing up in a Christian family in Germany, the founding of Mosaik Berlin, and the church’s response to ethnic diversity in a post-Christian culture offer valuable insights for pastors and church leaders navigating similar challenges. His emphasis on the power of the Gospel, the need for spiritual revival, and intentional discipleship provides a compelling perspective for those seeking to engage with shifting cultural dynamics in the contemporary church. Schnitter’s passion for Gospel-centered ministry and his experiences in Germany make this episode essential listening for those seeking to understand the profound impact of the Gospel in a rapidly changing world.
A Few Quotes From This Episode:
I think a lot of American pastors probably should wake up and not assume that the people in their pews know the Gospel. You’ve really got to be bold to preach the Gospel that’s maybe so, like, basic, but it’s… I hear a lot of, like, self-help talk and just good psychology, and I’m sure there’s truth in it, but the power’s in the Gospel. – Pastor Dave Schnitter
When the church is transformed, the world will be transformed. – Dr. Derwin L. Gray
The powers in the Gospel. If there is a growing percentage of the population who does not know who Jesus is and what hH has done for us on the cross, please, please tell them before the whole nation becomes post-Christian, and you have to start again from scratch. – Pastor Dave Schnitter
In This Episode, Listen For These Key Takeaways:
Understanding the Shift: Faith and Family Decline in the US – Explore the impact of societal changes on the church and family dynamics.
Leading with Diversity: Multiethnic Church Leadership – Learn strategies for building inclusive and diverse church communities.
Relevance in Today’s World: Gospel Contextualization in Modern Society – Uncover the power of adapting the timeless message of the Gospel to resonate with contemporary culture.
Pathways to Discipleship: Nurturing Spiritual Growth in Church Ministry – Gain insights into effective discipleship methods for guiding individuals in their faith journey.
SHOW TRANSCRIPTION
00:00:47
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.
