"Every Day...An Explosion of A Car"
Sleep-deprived due to sharing a flat with college girls giddy to be in a foreign country, I sluggishly pulled out my audio recorder, a pen and paper. It was 2016 and I was in downtown Athens, Greece to film a mission trip among Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) students from Athens, Georgia. My job that week was simply to show why college mission trips matter and the importance of RUF and Mission to the World’s partnership.
On our first day the pastors of the church we’d be partnered with for the week, Tim and Alex, gave what is one of the best presentations I’ve heard on why they wanted to plant their church in the specific neighborhood they planted it.
You see, they planted their church in an anarchist neighborhood. Anarchists do not believe in institutions being imposed by some kind of hierarchical structure outside of their community. They are against most forms of government and institutions. One of their mottos is “no gods, no masters.”
In 2008 a 15 year old boy was killed during a clash with police as demonstrations are regularly held in Exarcheia. This led to riots all over the world for 3 days to support the riots in Exarcheia. In fact, 152 cities and 40 countries saw protests and demonstrations of some kind to support Exarcheia.
This worldwide attention led to a sort of tourism for anarchists where anarchist groups from all over the world would come to visit and live in the neighborhood considered a utopia. Regular clashes with the police began to occur in Exarcheia.
Soon after, Tim and Alex were ready to move into the neighborhood with the calling to plant a church. After their move into Exarcheia, for a few months, every single day there was an explosion of a car.
So, why plant a church in Exarcheia?
In Athens, things happen at the heart of the city as opposed to suburbs. Word traveled around the world fast in 2008. For this reason, Tim and Alex call the neighborhood the heartbeat of Athens.
Alex says “If we can reach this neighborhood with the gospel, we will have succeeded in reaching much more than just the people of Exarcheia.”
But Alex and Tim say that at the same time, it is the heartache of Athens. When they moved in there were zero churches in Exarcheia. Tim and Alex found it vital to address the needs of this part of the city.
Alex and Tim moved into a violent neighborhood, right at the height of riots and economic issues in Greece. When they moved in, they didn’t start programs or do anything but get to know people. For two years all they did was live among the people and pray.
Tim Coomar preaches a sermon in the first building of Exarcheia Church in downtown Athens, Greece.
Lots of prayer and relationships made led to planting their church. Over a couple of years many people came to their services but they noticed no one was coming to faith.
So what did Tim and Alex do?
They prayed.
They created a notebook of people they hoped to see come to Christ, wrote down their names, and they committed to pray for each of them.
For years.
During my one week in Exarcheia I had the privilege of meeting some of the people whose names were once written on the pages of that book, now leaders and evangelizers in their community.
My trip to Greece was one of the first trips where I found myself pulling out my recorder to record any and every conversation I had with missionaries and locals to better understand the context I was filming in. I was so fascinated by this Exarcheia place and why these men had the courage to plant their church there. There are so many stories of God working through this one neighborhood and I have many of them recorded.
But to this day, every one of those stories lives on a hard drive.
It wasn’t the reason I was there. The funding wasn’t there to produce some of these stories. And there were no other avenues besides short marketing videos to tell what were complex and intricate stories that would need more creative distribution opportunities to get in front of people.
How many stories like these are out there and we don’t even know about them because the resources aren’t there or the church planters and missionaries don’t have a way to tell them?
This summer we will be sharing stories from Exarcheia and other places with you that help address our “why” as a ministry.
We are not simply making films around the world. Over a decade of serving ministries, nonprofits, missionaries, and Great Commission workers has lead us to understand several gaps in storytelling and options for ministries to get stories out there. These gaps are what we feel called to address.
Please join us as we dive into the mission of Doxology Studios and as you do, please prayerfully consider joining us as a financial partner to continue to make the telling of these stories possible.
Thank you for being a part of this journey with us,
Claire
“We live in this neighborhood and surround it with the love that comes from the face of Christ.'“
From the mission of Exarcheia Church in Athens, Greece.
From our Founders
We would love for you to be praying for our meetings with potential donors, churches, and initial investors in our first campaign to get our ministry going on the right foot. Please also pray for stamina and direction as we navigate the many opportunities to tell necessary stories and how best to serve those in need. We are so grateful you are on this journey with us.
Love,
Murray, Claire, and Mackie
"Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain." - Psalm 127:1
