Yesterday night I returned from Switzerland. I was invited to join the leadership of Campus für Christus (Agape’s sister-ministry) in a two-day retreat. CfC Switzerland is in many ways similar to Agape NL, so Hans thought is was a good idea to visit them and to see what and how they have done things. It was an interesting experience, I must say. We gathered in a place called Camp Rock, a conference- and summercamp site in East-Switzerland. My goal was to get to know the Swiss ministry and the financial area specifically. I got a lot more: a two-day insight in the very core of what CfC CH is about. The central question was: what moves the youth? On the first day, Hanspeter Nüesch, National Director, ‘lectured’ on megatrends in society, their consequences in the near future and the christian response to it (see my other post on this). The second day was to find the relevance of all this for the Swiss ministry. The keywords mentioned were discipleship, spiritual parenting, generations. Some of these things sounded very familiar, but others were quite revealing. For example: there is a much stronger focus on the generations working together than there is in Holland right now. The big christian conference ‘Explo 04’ is fully built around this theme.

So, it was a good time. I was impressed with the whole approach in the retreat, the openness and unity among the leaders. I was also impressed with what I saw and heard from their administrative and financial organisation. I talked extensively with the head of administration and the fundraiser and got inspired again for our own ministry. I also found out there are not only similarities, but also quite a lot of differences between the Swiss and us. But we can learn from them and they from us, so I invited them to come over and visit us some time.

And by the way, especially for me the entire thing was done in ‘Hochdeutsch’ , the regular German language, and not in the Swiss dialect… thank you so much guys, I would have felt rather lost otherwise.