Emily Graves spoke with Matt Long to find out more about the missional community founded by Gerard and Chrissi Kelly

Matt: I think one of the big things that we do is put a massive emphasis on prayer. Each day our teams gather in the city centre or in a public place and we spend time praying and worshipping and trying to ask the question: What is God doing in this city or in this town? And how might we be able to join in? The other thing is we do a lot of prayer where we say: God what are you doing? Or what do you want to happen? Then we try and begin to write prayers and to declare the future that we think God wants for it. I guess very practically what that looks like is a couple of years ago we had - you were there in fact, Emily - in Freiburg, every day we spent an hour praying down by the river in the city and then each day as we went back and as we prayed we got this incredible sense that our prayers were joining with those prayers of probably thousands of people around the city who were praying for God's breakthrough and God's Kingdom to come. It was just this weird sense that we were in this together with these people that we didn't even know: it was like we were joining this group of unknown intercessors who are all asking God to do something. There was this sense of being a part of something bigger and a part of what God wanted for this place. That was a really powerful time.

Emily: So how do you see God building the Church across Europe?

Matt: I think it's massively different. I think one of the main reasons we work in Europe is that Europe is ahead in terms of it is massively post-Christendom: it's a massively secular place. So the missional questions and how Church works in Europe over these next few decades will then have clues and ideas that then will make a difference in the rest of the Western world. We work with a lot of international churches and they're asking missional questions: What does it look like to run services and events and programmes that are both in the native language and in a foreign language? We work with really small churches and we work with bigger churches.

Emily: You used the phrase just then of 'post-Christendom'. What do you mean by that?

Matt: Well, Christendom is this concept where the consciousness of the nation is shaped by the Christian story. Not that long ago in the UK, most people would consider themselves Christians and most people would go to church at Christmas and Easter. The Christian story, the Christian narrative, would be the thing that's shaping everyone and it would just be the norm and that's no longer the case. There's now two, three, or four generations in families that do not know the Christian story and the Christian story is no longer shaping their everyday life. That's what I mean by 'post-Christendom'.

Emily: Do you get excited about what you are seeing, whether it's through the missions or through the connections, of what God is doing in Europe?

Matt: Yes, massively excited! It's just there's so many projects and churches and things that we are involved with or we see happening, where there is breakthrough and there is a taste of something new and the Kingdom breaking out and people being restored and healed all over the place: very small things in very small ways, but I guess that's how it starts, doesn't it?

Emily: So what would you say your prayer for Europe is then?

Matt: I don't know really, I guess we spend a lot of time praying for individuals and also individual nations, because nations have totally different needs. I guess that's the beauty of Europe: it's got so many different cultures and so many different nations in it, all packed in a very small space: it's quite a smorgasbord of things, as one of my friends would say. There probably is something smart about praying for something specific for Europe, but I tend to pray more specifically into the nations.

Emily: Let's just talk a little bit more about closer to home. You are based at the missional community at Bethanie which is in France. So what does a missional community actually look like?

Matt: It's quite simple really. We just have a very simple rhythm of prayer, shared meals and times together as a community. In the day-to-day, we pray together as a community each morning Monday to Friday and then on the Friday we've been doing a 12-hour non-stop prayer: we each take an hour and pray through the day. Once a week we have a community meal all together and everyone pitches in: someone does a starter, someone does a main, someone writes a grace, someone sets up the room with candles and whatever, so everyone pitches in. Then we have a number of community meetings once a week and we clean together once a week and then outside of that everyone else has their specific tasks in terms of what we're doing as an organisation as well.

Emily: So you've mentioned a number of times how prayer is a big part of life for you guys. Why is it so important?

Matt: Because I think ultimately the best question to ask wherever you are is: What is God doing? And then the follow-up question is: How do I join in? The only way you can begin to get a handle on what God is doing in a situation is by asking, which means you're going to have to pray.

Emily: You mentioned earlier on about how you're in the process of buying Bethanie, the community base in France. What is so special about Bethanie and the reason why you are buying it?