Ministry of Bibelgemeinde Berlin

"What is the responsibility of the church in the world? What are we commissioned to do, how should we spend our time? What is the ministry of Bibelgemeinde Berlin?"

These are the questions our church focused on in a sermon series * concerning the anatomy of the church. As the muscles have certain functions in the body, there are different functions, the church is called to carry out - both inside and outside the congregation. Without making any claim to present an authoritative list, as Bibelgemeinde Berlin we see in the following list the central functions of our community and want to give you a brief overview below. Some of them are also linked to other parts of our Homepage to give further information.

Preaching / teaching: The primary function of the church - the church receives the revelation of God, His Word, and is obliged to pass it on. The Bible is the basis for our life, it affects our thinking, talking and doing. We are committed to the task of studying and preaching the Word of God. In our sermon archive you will find numerous sermons related to various Bible passages and topics (listen to or download for free).

Evangelism / Mission: The church is not only for there for itself - but for the wicked world, in whose midst it has its place. We want to give our members a basis for their personal testimony in our congregation and invest ourselves in evangelism. Our "Treffpunkt180", a rented space in a shopping mile, serves mainly for this ministry:  It provides searching and questioning people in this area with a meeting point during the week and has special events on Tuesday (“mother-children-meeting”) and Friday (“open evening”, and once a month “music evening”).

We see our ministry not only in Berlin but also throughout the world. As our church itself is still in the foundation phase, our missionary service is not as developed as we strive for. However, we already support missionaries in various countries. It is our wish and aim to send out missionaries ourselves - as the Lord enables us.

Worship: As "people of God" and His "holy priesthood" we are called to worship God, offer him the praise and devotion of our hearts. While the world and its Lord, Satan, constantly tries to distract our thoughts and fill us with vain desires, it is our goal to be true worshipers of God - through our attitudes and our thinking, but more practically through our speeches, singing, prayer, service, behavior.

Prayer (prayer requests are in the internal area): The Scripture urges us to pray "all time" and "without ceasing". Therefore, we strive with all our hearts, to be praying persons. First of all, this is an attitude that we want to practice in every situation of our daily life, that we are constantly talking to our Lord. But it is also a service of the church, to gather regularly and as frequently as possible with the whole church to have prayer hours.

Discipleship: Jesus invested a lot in the life of his twelve disciples (= "learner"). Likewise, the apostles were preparing God-fearing people to follow their example and again instructed them, "to pass the baton to future generations". Today it is in the hands of many brothers and sisters, scattered all over the world, and also in ours. That’s why we see our responsibility, to learn from those that are more mature than we are, and pass to others, what we were allowed to understand and experience already - true to the motto: "Find someone who knows less than you and tell him all the things you know". We see it as the responsibility of every member of the congregation to invest specifically in brothers and sisters: By teaching the truth, being personal examples and exercising correction - everything in a familiar, loving, personal relationship.

Pastoral Ministry: As Bibelgemeinde we are deeply grateful to be in the good hands of our pastors and to know and experience how they invest themselves fully in their service. But knowing that they are not able to be everywhere and present for everyone who needs them, and secondly encouraged clearly through the Bible, to shepherd ourselves brothers and sisters, we want to be there for other church members, to lead and teach, to keep from falling in the battle of faith - or not get up, when we already fell.

Family ministry: The family is God's institution in which His truth is passed from one generation to the next. However, exactly the families are the target of numerous attacks of Satan and increasingly torn apart by an immoral society. As a church we are striving to strengthen husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, single parents and children in particular to obey the word of God.

Training / Equipping: Our goal as BiGeBe is to show the members of our body how they can progress in their faith. Our various events and educational topics are focused on training and equipping different people with different levels of maturity, personalities and backgrounds. This is not to say that we want to tell everyone, what he wants to hear, but rather that we want to show each one those truths of Scripture, he needs to grow. This happens, for example, through courses in statements of faith or chronological Bible study, sermons and meetings to talk about the sermons, Bible studies and book reviews.

Financial gifts: We see the clear demands of the Bible, how Christians should use their financial gifts to advance the work of God on earth. We impose on nobody a membership fee or other obligation to give money - rather, the Bible teaches to give voluntarily and in secret. On the other hand God commands us in His Word to use our money and material goods for His work. In addition to this imperative, we consider it a privilege to worship God through our generosity and to support those who need it more necessarily - both within and for our congregation and for God's work in the world.

Fellowship: A Christian is not fighting a battle on his own, but part of a community – part of the church of Jesus Christ. Connected with all around the world who love the Lord, as Bible Church in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen we are actually compiled to serve as one body of our Lord Jesus Christ. That service is anything but a working place to which you go in the morning and are happy to leave in the evening. Rather, we know that we are personally dependent on each other and only able to honor God by establishing a deep unity in the church. To realize this, we have fellowship in prayer, singing, teaching / being taught and extracurricular activities - as whole community and in personal friendships.

* adapted from John MacArthur (Grace Community Church, California), studied and preached by our shepherd Dieter Borchmann