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accelerated church planting in the Balkans
Hi! I'd like to give you an update on accelerated church planting in Bosnia and Croatia.
Let's start with a review.
In Croatia and Bosnia there are about 8 million people.
In Croatia there are around 10,000 believers.
In Bosnia, where Islam is the main religion, there are only about 500!
In this tough situation church planting and church growth are slow.
Into this situation came Stephen Bell.
Stephen is an experienced ECM missionary and church planter.
While living in Croatia Stephen began meeting dedicated local church leaders who were making a difference.
They had planted churches and were reaching people for Jesus
They were ready to do more – if they just had a little help.
So what has happened over the last year?
Let's start with 4 men: Jonatan, Nikola, Sasha and Radovan.
There's not time to go through everything so let's look at Jonatan's and Nikola's ministry.
By the time Stephen had met them they had already planted their first church.
It's now about 10 years old and has out grown its capacity of 65 people.
But that hasn't stopped them and still doing outreach events.
Recently they held musical event attended by 600 people in their town centre.
But that's not all. They've also planted a 2nd church.
It's already growing. They have also started a counselling centre where at least 150 people have heard the Gospel.
At the end of 2011 they started a 3rd church.
This is the main one that ECM is going to focus on helping.
They also have a vision to plant 3 more churches into surrounding towns.
They want to make a giant difference to their part of Croatia.
They have also been preparing for the arrival of more people.
Because they simply need more help.
There are not enough dedicated local Christians in Croatia to meet the need.
And that takes us to...
... Brazil and Ukraine.
Stephen wanted to get help from where God was already moving – where the church had experienced „revival“.
Places like Brazil and Ukraine.
For example, Brazil has around 50 million Evangelicals.
All of Europe only has 18 million.
That's a lot of people who could help!
Stephen and others began travelling from Croatia and Bosnia to Brazil and Ukraine -
Sharing the vision and asking, „Does this connect to you?“
„Do you understand this need?“
And this has connected!
In October 2011 Stephen and these 4 men organised a conference in Croatia.
It was attended not just by people from the Balkans,
but also by 6 people from Ukraine and 11 from Brazil.
After the conference they piled into 3 vehicles
And drove around getting a sense of what God was doing
Some people went home and spread the vision.
Some people went home and prayed about coming back.
As I speak 2 Brazilian women have already arrived in Croatia to help.
Money may be tight in Brazil.
But it is easier than it used to be.
The Brazilian economy has just overtaken the UK economy.
A young Brazilian man- a proffesional football player – will arrive in June.
The local church can announce to the local community
that they are running a football club organised by a Brazilian proffesional footballer!
But how about Ukraine? Is no one coming from there?
Nobody has arrived from Ukraine yet,
But an experienced pastor and his wife -
the pastor has already been involved in planting 4 churches -
want to join the project for 2 years and help organise things and train people.
Now may be a strategic time for Ukrainians. Usually they need visas to come to Croatia,
But because of a major sports event until October visas aren't required.
God even uses sports for His purposes!
The project requires more than people.
It requires money.
The first money that helped start this projec came from the UK.
So we have these men ready. We have the ground prepared.
We have people being challenged – and beginning to come.
We have resources being raised. But I've left out partnerships.
Many of those involved are Baptists.
So it is important for the Croatian Baptists to invite the Ukrainian Baptists to send people.
This has now happened. Now the Ukrainian Baptist's top mission people are looking at people
with good mission and church planting experience who they could send to help.
One thing I found exciting when I visited Ukraine recently with Stephen,
was that there is a movement in Ukraine focusing on lay discipleship training
and training people into leadership.
It's been amazingly successful not just in Ukraine, but also in Russia,
And now it's in Kazakstan, Nepal and India. It is literally becoming a movement.
One man who is central to this has helped plant 16 different churches.
He wants to come to Croatia and to Bosnia and to train local people. Wow!
People in Croatia are getting excited too!
It's not just people from outside.
This is important – because the idea is not just for ECM to do more,
But for LOTS more people to do LOTS of things
Churchplanting consultant Johan Lukasse is excited about this project.
He is making regular trips to Croatia to train people from these churches and the new workers
Now he's been asked by the Croatian Baptists to run a national event for them
One of his books on church planting is being translated Croatian as an ongoing resource.
I'm getting tired just telling you all this!But is that all?
No!
The head of one of Croatia's largest seminaries wants to get his students involved .
While doing their 4 year pastoral training they can experience church planting.
They can come, work andsee church planting works.
This could change the expectation of tomorrow's church leaders in Croatia and Bosnia.
Some of these students come from other places like Serbia.
Can this project extend into other countries?
That takes us on to the future.
We are struggling to keep up with all that I've talked about.
but it feels like God is opening more doors
Let me give you a hint of what might happen next.
As I said, one of these areas is Serbia.
Stephen has already had talks with the Serbian Baptists.
They are excited about considering something like this
Then there's Slovenia, where an experienced church planter would take workers today, if we had them.
We don't know where this will lead.
But we're praying that this will result in accelarated churchplanting in Bosnia and Croatia.
Possibly even beyond that.
It would not have happened without your help.
Thank you for making the first year a success.
European Christian Mission „Sharing Christ's love in Europe“