Update From Germany: September 2022 

This year seems to be running quite fast as we are already approaching the final quarter. Many were on holidays within this period and a few activities and events held as well.

We attended the Willows Summit, organised by a body made up of Christian leaders and pastors in Germany. The conference goal was to identify the lessons of recent events, including Covid and the Ukraine war, their effect on the church and to decide on the way to move forward. The conference lasted for four days. Several speakers were there to encourage and admonish the leaders and Pastors on ways to reach our communities for Christ, while remaining effective and relevant. We made new connections through the conference. We hope to tap into those connections in the future.

We also attended a weekend workshop on Christian discipleship. Here, we challenged ourselves on ways to reach non-believers in the current situation of the world. 

We visited Pastor Chris and his family in their church in Hamburg during a Sunday service. Chris recently relocated to Germany from London to start the church. Since they have just started and Chris speaks German relatively well, they go out for evangelism on Saturdays and also invite people to their service on Sunday. The LORD has been blessing them and growing the church. We will continue to offer our support to them.

Language: We continue to attend evening language lessons and do online study.

Integration: We are gradually building new relationships with our language colleagues hoping that the LORD will one day provide us with the opportunity to introduce Christ to some of them including our teacher. Recently we went to lunch with them and have been building some bonding and trust with them. We have also joined the local padel sport and leisure centre in order to have more contacts with the locals and make more friends. We need strength to be able to commit to this due to tight time schedule. We are currently in discussion with Friedenskirche Buchholz church to allow us to put a team together to conduct an Alpha course early next year. This will be one of the various mechanisms to introduce the community to Jesus Christ and increase church membership. As a result, we have started an Alpha Training small group so as to identify members of the church that will be joining us to for the Alpha Team.

Evangelising Europe: For some time now, we have been working with some missionaries and missions’ organisations to discuss ways of re-evangelising Europe so as to re-kindle the fire. The church in Europe is dying while more Muslims are flocking in. There is a concern that Europe will be Islamised in the near future if we don’t do something about it. The key is increasing awareness and finding effective ways to make the church more relevant. Matt 28:18-19. We have a job to do, let’s pray for a revival and for GOD to give us wisdom on how to do it.

Prayer:

• Pray for a revival in Germany and Europe.
   
• Pray for a re-awakening in the German churches as many of them are dying and closing up.
   
• Pray for better networking between the Local churches, the diaspora African and Asian churches. We hope that the manifestation of the Spirit of GOD will help the local churches to return to relevance and attract the younger generation.
   
• Pray for the younger generation in Europe as many are staying away from the church.
   

Water baptism, conducted for members of the church at the leisure centre

By the grace of God, here we are at the Baptism programme.