Urban Hope Podcast

A European city case study: Piet Bringsma is an urban theologian and facilitator of a Christian city network in Amsterdam. Before that, he worked as an engineer in the IT sector. He has been extensively involved in researching his city and in this podcast he also describes his own faith journey towards a holistic understanding of mission that seeks shalom for our cities. Very inspiring! Hosts: Katie Dudgeon and Rainer Schacke 

Our new episode of the Urban Hope Podcast - God and the City is all about urban church planting and Gospel movements. Our guest today is Stephan Pues, European Director of City to City, a global organisation that promotes church planting in big cities. Stephan talks about his own church planting experiences in Frankfurt and gives further examples from other European big cities where he mentors teams. Stephan answers questions like: Why church planting at all? And explains why "sheep steeling" is a no-go! We learn more about the basic principles of successful church planting: How does it all start? Do you need a certain founder gene? How do you build a team? How do you analyse the neighbourhood? How do you protect yourself before and during crises? And how can we work towards sustainable Gospel movements in our cities? Look forward to hopeful examples that can help you take a fresh look at your city and the topic of missionary church development. Listen in, it's worth it!

In this new episode of the Urban Hope Podcast, Katie Dudgeon and Rainer Schacke talk to Oxford cultural anthropologist and theologian Dr Usha Reifsnider about cultural diversity in our European cities. They talk about Christians in migrant churches, racism, intercultural togetherness and cooperation in the churches and a better way of interacting in our cities. Usha Reifsnider has a Hindu background. She has been working in intercultural mission since 1988, with a special focus on working with migrants. Usha has a PhD from the Oxford Centre of Mission Studies. She is Regional Director of Lausanne Europe and a member of the Board of the European Evangelical Alliance as well as Director of the Centre of Missionaries from the Majority World.

This episode is about God's mission in the cities of Europe. Our guest today is international speaker and founder of the Gather Network in the UK, Roger Sutton. We take a look at Christian city networks and unity movements across Europe and the world. What do they contribute to positive change in cities, what models are already existing? Roger has plenty of experiences, inspiring examples and many hopeful stories to share!