Tübingen Church Reaches All of Germany

Tyler and Shalynn Crawford serve in the university city of Tübingen, Germany where they were originally part of our campus ministry there called Unterwegs. During those years working with college students, the Crawfords formed a ministry partnership with the Kreuzkirche, a local church in Tübingen. The church supports the work of Unterwegs and, in 2020, invited the Crawfords to expand their work beyond university students and into new age groups. Here Tyler shares about a recent live national broadcast from the church.

Last Sunday, we had record attendance for a Sunday morning in the Kreuzkirche: 650,000 people.

Of course, most of the attendees weren't on location. Even if we put out our extra seating, we'd be hard pressed to accommodate a crowd of that size - and forget about the parking nightmare.

That attendance was possible due to the presence of German broadcaster ZDF that had set up cameras, crew, and a live broadcast team in and around the building of our primary church partner, the Kreuzkirche in Tübingen, to do a special live national broadcast of a Sunday morning church service.

The whole thing started about two years ago when ZDF approached the German association of free churches with the idea of broadcasting a live service, and the association recommended our church in Tübingen for its outstanding character: good music, a diverse congregation, personal teaching, and wonderful hospitality.

A year of talks turned into months of planning, which turned into weeks of preparation, which turned into an intense weekend of volunteer-assisted technical setup, training, and rehearsal. Millions of Euros worth of lights, cameras, and digital communication equipment were trucked in for a one-off live broadcast.

On Sunday morning, after the audience had been briefed and warmed up, the executive producer gave the signal, the band lit the room up with music, and the broadcast went live.

Even if the service was differently formatted for television broadcast, the content remained the same: music and stories, biblical and personal, that pointed to hope in Christ in difficult times.

After the service, church volunteers manned the hotline until late evening so that viewers could call in to react to the broadcast. People from all over the country (and even some in Austria and Switzerland) called in with overwhelming appreciation for what they heard and delight at what they saw: a church, filled with all ages, dancing to the music and energized by the Gospel message.

But the effect locally was even more interesting. Many people around us who aren't church-goers turned into church-watchers, even if it was just for the weekend. "We saw you on TV," said one a father on the following Monday, when I was bringing the kids to daycare. "We don't usually go to church, but when there is a national broadcast live from the Kreuzkirche, well, we just have to see it," he said. "It really got me thinking about hope," said a mom.

Just a few weeks before the church building was a broadcast studio, it was a theater for the local elementary school musical production that brought in hundreds of first-time visitors - and weeks before that it was the stage for the church community Open Mic night that brought in record attendance.

God continues to open doors for new partnerships—some we’ve hoped for, and others that completely surprise us. Every partnership brings us in contact with new people to share faith with - in word, in deed, and in relationship.Because of your support, we're well-positioned to step into these opportunities as they come, and to share the stories of transformation that grow from them.