Church plant
This month we organized a conference with Voddie Baucham on the theme: “The Reformation – why it was needed and why it still matters.” This was held just before the Pope was visiting Sweden on Reformation Day, as if the Reformation was not needed. So we were very glad to be able to have Voddie addressing this issue in a few sermons. Among the participants we got a lot of good feedback about how thankful they were that somebody took the initiative to address this topic. Somehow a lot of people from evangelical backgrounds in Sweden are being influenced by the Roman Catholic Church. People desperately need to hear the gospel and we thank God that Voddie was able to come and show that what Sweden most needs is to return to the Bible and the gospel. Pray for the church in Sweden, that the gospel once again will be in the center of its preaching.
One Sunday this month we had a breakfast for the members in the church where we shared our challenges with each other and prayed for one another. This was very helpful for us in growing in body life and how we can care for one another. Otherwise I’ve continued with the regular duties of pastoral ministry, such as discipling, preaching, counseling, evangelizing and pastoral visits. While there are challenging things in church planting work, I am so delighted to see when people are growing in their walk with the Lord. That’s such a delight to see.
Reformedia/Evangeliecentrerat
The book on Martin Luther by Steven J. Nichols has been well received and ordered by many. A great surprise was that the bookstore that was responsible for the official book sales when the Pope visited Sweden ordered 200 books to have available for people! Pray for those who got this book that they would read it and that we would see fruits in terms of conversions and that people would discover what the Bible actually teaches and how it differs from the Roman Catholic Church. When it comes to the webpage evangelicentrerat.se we had as our focus during the weeks before and the week after the Pope visited Sweden a focus on the Reformation and its necessity for today with articles and subtitled videos that have been translated into Swedish. It was very encouraging to see that the traffic on the webpage went up a lot during this season. Pray for it to have remaining influences.
On the 11th of December we will have a Christmas potluck were the gospel will be preached. This is often the most visited Sunday of the year to which we try to invite people with whom we’ve been sharing the gospel and are reaching out to. Please pray that the right people would come and that the Lord would open hearts for the truth of the gospel.
Please pray for the preaching, that God would move upon the hearts of people and for sinners to come to repentance. Also pray that we would continue to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bound of peace (Eph 4:3) and for us as a church plant to grow in having a culture of discipleship.