Jesper Ertmann Oehlenschlӓger is a Danish Lutheran pastor, serving at Karlslunde Strandkirke in Roskilde, a suburb of Copenhagen. In the United States, we are accustomed to hearing stories of Christianity’s decline in Europe, but Oehlenschlӓger’s church sees some 200 to 300 in its worship on Sundays.
There are multiple pastors on staff, and the congregation is active in missions and evangelism in Denmark and abroad.
It is a state church, drawing from a “stiff Lutheran tradition,” but it also incorporates elements of the charismatic renewal movement.
Oehlenschlӓger, who was recently in North America on sabbatical, was interviewed by Jason Byassee for Faith & Leadership. He spoke about leading and growing a vibrant church amid the secularization and now massive immigration in Western Europe, and about the gifts of Danish Christianity to the world. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: In the U.S., we hear often of the decline of European Christianity. It is surprising to hear about a thriving parish in greater Copenhagen. How has that happened?
There is some growth within the state churches in Europe. It’s mostly among those who would call themselves evangelicals. Within the dominant Lutheran Church in Denmark, there is a thriving renewal movement called Oasis, which can be traced back to the charismatic renewal movement in the 1970s.
The church I’m pastoring had a leading role in launching that renewal movement. We’re trying to build on what we’ve inherited, to develop what we’ve received and give it a new shape.
Q: I imagine the word “evangelical” might have different connotations in Denmark than in North America.
I don’t use the word often. When we describe ourselves, we talk about our theology. We’re in a state church, and so we’re liturgical in practice, but we also have a blend of traditional liturgy and hymns with contemporary worship, a time for prayer, intercession for one another and even a prophetic word.
We draw from very stiff Lutheran tradition but also from more vibrant or exotic free or charismatic churches. Our liturgical style is a comfort for some. They know we’re still Lutherans.
But they also sense something else -- a spirit of renewal. We speak of a personal encounter with the Lord and of the gifts of the Spirit, and that has attracted people.
Our church started out as a new parish. My predecessor, Pastor Helge Pahus, started it in a hut that housed something like your Boy Scouts.
From the beginning, we involved a lot of people as volunteers. A key to growth has been that the pastor doesn’t try to control people. Hundreds of people have keys to the church, so if they want to start something, they can go ahead.
The pastor is in the middle of all kinds of ideas and initiatives. That’s a key part of it -- setting people free.
Q: How should Americans view European religion and culture?
Let’s look at the bright side: every third person coming to church in Copenhagen is a foreigner. Every third person! From among the recent immigrants, some 30 to 40 percent come with a Christian background. Ethnic churches are huge in numbers.
There is also a growing awareness of mission within the state church. Several of our bishops are open to mission and embrace Fresh Expressions of the church.
We realize we live in a post-Christian era, and we don’t believe the church should be the center of the local community. We’re actually on the edge, trying to do mission from the edge, instead of being the center of the universe. On the edge, you do mission as if in a foreign context.
When young people come for confirmation classes, I can’t assume they’re familiar with the basic narratives of the Bible. We actually need to re-evangelize our own youth.
I myself came from a non-Christian family. My mother thought I should go to confirmation and find out why I didn’t want to be confirmed. She had some Christianity left in her bones -- she was a believer but perhaps not a disciple. (She has become one subsequently.)
Q: You’re a frequent traveler to and observer of North America. What strikes you about faith here?
I’m struck by what a high percentage of people go to church on a normal Sunday. In big cities like the ones I was just in on sabbatical, Vancouver and Calgary, as much as 5 to 10 percent of people might go to church. I saw a huge number of young couples attending.
Also, you North Americans have liberal churches that are very alive and focused on being relevant to the neighborhood. We don’t have much of that in our part of the world.
Here, you can have churches with low awareness of their doctrines, or mixed churches of different backgrounds and doctrines and theologies.
An observer like me might ask, “Which kind of church is this?” and be told, “We’re a blend of this, that and the other thing.” That’s quite different from our context.
Q: It might surprise some American critics that church folks in Denmark appreciate talk of leadership. Some Europeans would recoil at that topic in principle.
There is some resistance here to talk about leadership in the church, because we’ve seen it done badly elsewhere, and folks often don’t see a pastor as a leader -- just a pastor.
But there is a growing awareness in both state and free churches that we need to talk about leadership. And when we do, we can’t fall into the trap where we take all the secular leadership material and give it a Christian name and put it into the church.
We can read the books, sure, but when we do that, other things can slide in through the back door -- their worldview, the way we measure success instead of talking about faithfulness.
I am very indebted to Dallas Willard and other North American thinkers. We’re trying to take in as much as we can but develop the materials in our own way.
I came across the Arrow Leadership Program while reading “Growing Leaders” by James Lawrence, who directs Arrow in the U.K. He showed me the kind of effort required to train pastors to raise up lay leaders.
I went through the Arrow program in North America for two years, with five-day intensives, with all kinds of inventories, assessments, books to read, mentoring groups, one-on-one mentoring.
I learned that character is what causes the most problems among leaders. Folks either break down or shut down or fail because there is something on the inside they’ve not dealt with, and when they come under pressure it can break them.
The foundation is the interior life. You are the biggest threat to your own leadership. Not someone else.
Our former pastor was quite famous. When I arrived, folks would speak of the great weight on me, the big shoes I had to fill. That scared me. I tried to work hard to get people’s approval. But I learned that you can go into a negative spiral where you work to meet the demands of people, harder and harder, and they’re still not satisfied.
I learned that you must say to yourself, “I’m not here to please them; I’m here to serve the Lord.” Pleasing and serving are very different.
We become aware of our dark side as leaders, and Arrow gives a language with which to deal with the dark side. We all have a dark side. When you’re under pressure, you often go into these patterns. I understand now how I’ll react under pressure, and knowing that helps me stop myself.
Q: It would be surprising to some that favorite Danish son Søren Kierkegaard could be helpful for talking about leadership, given how scathing he is in denouncing the church in his time (1813-55).
After the Bible, every pastor should have Kierkegaard’s “Works of Love” on his or her desk -- it should be a constant companion. It’s a profound piece of work elaborating on the command to love God and neighbor.
The second part is on building people up, giving hope, and it explores love in the most profound way. That’s the heart of leadership in a Christian perspective -- to lead like Jesus.
Jesus always leads by love -- that’s where we can get a lot out of Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard does have some issues with the church; in fact, he’s harsh on it! Yet church people seem to love him anyway -- they forgive his becoming a grumpy old man.
Q: Denmark seems to have punched above its weight theologically, also giving the world the short story and film “Babette’s Feast.” What’s unique to Christianity in Denmark that the rest of the world should learn?
“Babette’s Feast” is a story about the gospel, even though Karen Blixen [also known by the pen name Isak Dinesen] was not a believer. From the first page to the last, it’s a profound gospel message about sacrificial love.
The protagonist, Babette, literally gives up everything for a bunch of people who don’t know what they have in her. And the only one who gets it is an outsider -- a Swedish general (it’s a shame he’s Swedish!). He’s the only one who knows what’s going on. It has quite a strong christocentric message.
In Denmark, we’ve always had a strong communal awareness. Communal efforts helped found the Danish welfare system that we’re all proud of. In America, you might call us all “damn communists.” But people in our society are very equal and proud of our communal awareness. That’s why we agree to pay quite a high percentage in taxes.
There is some dispute over whether that percentage should be, say, 49 percent or 51 percent! But we all see the advantage of such a high system of taxation; education and medicine are free, for example.
On the other hand, the downside is that we think the government will take care of everything. Since we tend to think the state takes care of whatever problem arises, Christians tend not to give very much to church collections.
In North America, you’re used to paying for everything yourself, so folks give more.
Q: What is your greatest hope?
For us to become better at sharing good news for people very distant from church. Here’s the thing that the church constantly needs to do: to re-evangelize people, even people already in church, sharing the gospel over and over again.
I learned this about preaching from Darrell Johnson of Carey Theological College in Vancouver: there is lots of good advice in our preaching but not much good news. That’s striking. If the church doesn’t share the gospel, who else is going to do that?
I also want us to become more aware of how to engage the current culture without being afraid or protective or building a wall around the world, as if the danger were “out there” and not in our own hearts.
Our church has been very involved in receiving foreigners, by offering Danish classes, for example.
Some ask, “Why should we give so much attention to this?” I hope this immigration crisis does something to the church -- that we see we have a role to play in the local community.
A few of the immigrants came to our house to celebrate Christmas with us. When you hear their stories, you become more humble and aware, and you realize, “It could be me.”
