God doet groeien? Een onderzoek naar de bijdrage van City to City Europe aan kerkplanting in Nederlandse, protestantse context

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contribution of City to City Europe (CCE) to church planting in a Dutch, protestant context in two case studies of church plants connected to CCE: Hoop voor Noord in Amsterdam and RijnWaarde in Utrecht. Data for this is study is collected from both literature review and empirical study. The empirical part of this study contains semi-structured in-depth interviews with key persons connected to CCE and church plants and the investigation of primary data. The study was conducted in Spring 2019. The literature review was intended to formulate a theoretical framework. This framework contains ideas closely connected to church planting in The Netherlands. It shows motives for church planting and ten analytical categories that together determine a strategy for church planting. An overview is given of key players in the field of church planting in Dutch, protestant context. Based on these motives and analytical categories the strategy of church planting of both CCE and the church plants is formulated. The connections between CCE, the case studies and other (inter)national networks and church denominations is described. A comparison of the church planting strategies of CCE and the two case studies shows the unique contribution of CCE regarding the location (city focused), innovation (renewal of understanding and communication of ‘the gospel’) and contextualisation (‘balanced contextualisation’: between adaptation to the culture and stabilty in the message). CCE also facilitates a network that connects church planters to their collegues and has a European and local focus.