Yesterday morning we left Copenhagen to go to our next stop Hamburg. We took a train on this portion of our trip. If you look at a map we had to go over the sea. I must admit that it was a first for me when our train pulled onto a Ferry and we took the boat across the water. When we got to the other sides. The ferry emptied; Cars, trucks, people and a train. Simple things amaze me.
I still have some afterthoughts of Copenhagen. We had a lot of walk up conversations with people there and most every person there spoke English and at a very good level. This would be important for churches who may want to partner with a ministry or church plant here. You can get into some good conversations in English. You may also want to look on our video playlist of a short clip we took of Matt Elkins at the Village Church about missional discipleship and short term teams.
You may also want to read a post by Almost M. He talks about what we can learn about the culture through their literature. You can check out this post here.
I have also been thinking through some gospel implications for this city. There have been several studies that show that Danish people are the happiest people in the world. Other studies talk about their contentment. We talked with several people there who told us about studies showing Copenhagen as the best city in the world to live in. From my perspective it would be a great place to live.
We talked to several church leaders there both from the state church and a person from the bible society who told us that 80 – 90 percent of the people are members of the state church of Denmark. However they said less than 2 percent of the people actually attend.
Thinking of these aspects of their culture I wonder about how do you give good news to someone who is quite content and happy? I have in many ways been brought up to believe the gospel rescues us from our sin and despair. The gospel is certainly good news for the sinner. How would a non believer’s contentment affect the gospel message? What would you do?
Those are great questions to ask…I think part of the issue is that the Danes view faith as just another aspect of their culture. So they’re satisfied with the role of faith in their life….which is minimal.
I think the key is to help them realize that a relationship with Christ is different than just having a place to be baptized, married and buried.
[...] First up is my friends at The Upstream Collective who have been in Copenhagen all week. You can read about how they are learning to be cozy and content. [...]