During a recent interview with Zibi Marzec, Leader of ‘Church for the City of Krakow’, he was asked, ‘What is Christianity to you?’ For most people, it revolves around church and its programmes, but to Zibi it is about lifestyle.
“As a church,” he says, “we are NOT going to do evangelistic outreaches where we put hours of time and resources into a few big evangelistic events, but instead, we teach our people to live out their faith every day in their areas of influence and build relationships.“
For Zibi, mowing the neighbour’s lawn, childminding the neighbour’s children is living out faith in practical ways.
Serving those around you consistently is given a higher value than church commitment. This is a fresh approach to downloading the Kingdom of God. Zibi sees his purpose as not to entertain Christians but to transform the community in which he lives.
His highest priority and mandate is to Pastor the city. Saying that out loud can sound overwhelming, but put simply it is finding ways to serve the city with excellence. This approach has led them to be intentional at making friends with the business community that surrounds their church building, asking them for prayer requests and developing relationships. Their excellent care for the elderly in the project they run for the city has given them influence throughout the city. They have now been asked to bring training to the other centres in the city.
Everything they do is intentional in encouraging Christians to reach out to their community. Already the influence this church has in the city is disproportionate to the size of its congregation.
Perhaps it is time to rethink whether the programmes we run are truly having the impact that we desire. It takes courage to change for sure, but for the sake of our cities, we must.
