MINISTRY / Seeds of the gospel sown in Europe
The Spirit opens doors for mutual ministry
Sometimes the Lord opens a side door and lets someone into our lives and ministries that he has prepared in advance (Ephesians 2:10). We didn't see it coming. That’s what makes it a special gift from God and an encouragement to keep trying new avenues of outreach and study.
A special Christmas present
We recently received a unique Christmas gift in our Grace Bible Institute (GBI) work. I’ll let the teacher describe what he encountered: there’s already a small development. Since this particular student lives in a small country in Europe, and had asked for a local Lutheran fellowship, I asked the WELS - One Europe Team for help. At present there is no suitable church nearby. However, my church has recently started an online service, to help those who are struggling to attend every Sunday.
The student is happy to attend this online service with us, and so we are rebranding it from "Manchester" to be a "Confessional Lutheran Church" online service, open to anyone across Europe or beyond. Another contact of mine in another European, is interested in joining too.
Pastor Schlicht, a pastor of a church in Wisconsin that has been informally "twinned" with ours, has kindly agreed to help with some of the online teaching for that. These developments all occurred quite quickly, so we will give it a few months to see if they stick.
Seeds are sown in far-away fields
What appears on the surface to be a simple invite to study the Bible with other Chinese Christians can develop into long-term relationships. We pray that the Spirit will bless these connections with a deeper understanding of God’s Word and a true commitment to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Here’s an additional outcome of our recent classes through GBI: Another one of the 316Now students lives in America and has a friend in an LCMS church, with a child who is moving to study in Paris. They are asking him to join ECLYPS, which is the online Europe wide Confessional Lutheran study group I run with a pastor from Sweden. We talk together about how to handle that cautiously. But, potentially, we could see this young person jump over to pure confessionalism when he moves to Paris, which would also then give us a contact in France. I have no idea if any of these developing contacts will work out long term: please pray they do.
One seed of the gospel can produce many others
God uses networks of family and friends to carry the joy of salvation and forgiveness in Christ all around the world. Relationships that have grown up organically through family, shared interests, or work can become stepping stones across a barrier (like walking across a river) to a new, sometimes unexplored area.
Pray with us for these connections to blossom and produce fruit!