Testimony of Conversion
On the 2nd of April 2000, I got off the train in the town of Ishøj. On my way home, I noticed that a tall, beautiful African lady came running after me. Since that did not happen to me very often, I slowed down to find out who she was and what she wanted. Her name was Florence, and as it turned out, she wanted to invite me to church the next day. I agreed to go, but the next day, when the worship service was over, I thought, “good for them, but not for me.” Florence and I became good friends; sometimes, we would meet in town and sit together to eat and talk. I remember how she would tell me about Christ and the sacrificial death on the cross. She also spoke about judgment day and the reality of hell; what she did not know was that I was trembling on the inside. One day, I was going to study for my exams, and one of my majors was religion. I read portions of the Bible, like “The Sermon on the Mount” from the Gospel of Matthew. To get a good grade, I thought it would be a good idea to call and ask Florence if I could visit her and ask her some questions. Perhaps she, as a dedicated believer, would be able to give me some good insights into the Bible that might be useful for my exam. Florence agreed that I could come, and when I came, another fellow believer by the name of Peter was also there. Peter and Florence answered all my questions very politely, and when I had left, they came together before the Lord, in agreement, to pray that when I sat down to read God’s Word, it would minister to my heart.
The very next day, as I sat down to read “The Sermon on the Mount,” something entirely unexpected happened to me. The words of Jesus seemed to leap off the page and penetrate my heart. A warmth came upon me, and my eyes filled up with tears. At that very moment, it dawned on me that what I read was the truth. I also realized that I needed God’s grace and forgiveness as a sinner. I reached out for my phone to call Florence and tell her about my experience, but at that moment, I hesitated. I hesitated because I knew that if I called Florence, I might have to become a Christian, and I knew instinctively what that meant. It meant I had to repent and forsake my sins, and I did not want to do that. I still loved my sin too much, and I was not ready to abandon them right then and there. Therefore, I tried to flee from God, and the truth, much like a criminal seeks to flee and hide from a policeman. But some months later, I got out of bed one Sunday morning, feeling very miserable, knowing I had to go to church that day. I don’t remember so much from the worship service, only that afterward, I knew that I had to get to know Jesus Christ. I went home with Florence that day and asked her if she had a Bible because I wanted to read God’s word. She gave me a Bible, and I remember asking her, ‘What is happening to me? Am I becoming a Christian or what?’ I was! I did not understand it, but God was irresistible, drawing me to Christ, and it felt fantastic. I could not resist it, I could not stop it, nor did I want to. The following Sunday, 18th of November 2000, I knew that this Sunday was the day when I would be ‘born again.’ Because on that day, I went forward to pray the sinner’s prayer, asking Jesus into my heart. In reality, I had already been born again for a week or so, and I had already been on my knees in my apartment before publicly going forward to confess my faith, but I did not understand these things at the time. But at that time, my life completely turned around. I repented my sins and began living a new life in Christ. I started walking with Him, and I have never looked back. Around the same time, another revelation also came to me: Florence was indeed the one who was to be my wife. Thank God she agreed and we married on the 27th of July 2002.
In 2007, a month before our son David was born, we left the charismatic word-faith prosperity church we had been attending for a long time. As I began studying my Bible more and more and my eyes were opened more and more to the truth, I began asking very serious questions concerning the false doctrines in the church. It got me into one conflict after the other, and one day, it came to the point where the senior Pastor and his wife, the ‘lady pastor,’ had had enough, and so they confronted us and gave us a choice to either submit to them and their teachings, or leave the church. We chose to leave, and over the course of the next two years, a series of events made it so that we got in contact with a new network that was forming in Denmark called “Back to the Bible.” Through this network, we were exposed to reformed theology for the first time, and little by little, we started realizing that these doctrines were true and Biblical. Christ, our good shepherd, in answer to our prayers, had let us to where the pasture was no longer trodden down, and the water was no longer muddied (Ez. 34:19). He had led us to greener pastures and the still water, and we have made our abode with Him there.
Call to Ministry
Right from the very beginning of my Christian walk in the year 2000, I remember how I would imagine myself preaching to many people. However, my imaginations were also very naive at that point, thinking God would use me to do all sorts of miracles. Fairly quickly, my pastor at the charismatic church where my wife and I attended began to recognize that I had a zeal and a passion for the work of ministry. He, therefore, also quickly began to give me responsibilities, such as leading the worship service and a cell group. Before God began to open my eyes to the deception of word-of-faith doctrine, he also had me preach a few times. That all came to a halt, of course, as I began to question some of the teachings and false doctrines held by the church, but as God opened my eyes more and more to the truth, the inner desire, and the call to the work of ministry, only seemed to grow stronger and stronger.
When we finally left the church and were looking for a church to attend, another pastor who had recently planted a church wanted us to come and join his church. One of his main reasons for asking us was because he himself was not much of a preacher, but had heard me preach at our former church, he thought I could be a great blessing to his church. It went very well initially, but since my wife and I were on a journey away from the teachings of the Charismatic Movement and the prosperity gospel, we quickly grew apart doctrinally. We also realized that sin was rampant in that church, and the pastor did not believe in discipline. So we had to part ways.
While we were at that church, God connected us to a new network in Denmark called “Back to the Bible.” It was led by an Australian man called Cameron Buettel, and in 2009 we had our very first conference / Bible Camp. Cameron, an excellent networker, had contacted Paul Washer, so for our first Bible Camp, we managed to feature Paul Washer and Charles Leiter as our leading speakers. How about that! Paul Washer is one of the kindest, most gracious, and most generous men of God I have ever met, but in his last session at the camp, he gave us a much-called-for and very necessary beating. I will never forget how he challenged us! He told us that it was a perfect thing that we wanted to evangelize Denmark and preach the true gospel. That was all very good and well! Then he said, but you are also telling me there are no biblical churches where people can be properly discipled. Then brother Paul asked us a very searching question at the top of his voice, a question that is still ringing in my ears and my heart to this day. He asked: ‘So tell me, WHERE ARE THE MEN who will plant the biblical churches? Many men who were present that day were so convicted in their hearts that they needed to take on the task of planting biblical churches in Denmark. Soon thereafter, a 1689 Reformed Baptist Church called Kristuskirken was planted in Bjerringbro in Jutland. I was very convicted too, so my wife, I, and a couple from the Faroe Islands attempted to plant a church in Copenhagen. I thought my time had come. I thought this was my time to plant a church and be an elder. However, it soon became evident that my time was not yet. I realized I was not as mature as I thought nor as equipped theologically as I needed to be. This was a very needful and extremely humbling experience for me.
After closing down our church plant, we began to attend a church in the Faroe Islands. It was a church consisting primarily of precious grey-haired people from the Faroe Islands. However, there was also one grey-haired elderly Danish gentleman with whom we had already become acquainted at the Bible Camp in 2009. His name is Ernst Haahr, and today, he is my fellow elder at Copenhagen Reformed Baptist Church. We quickly began meeting with him and the Faroese couple privately, and we began to have bible studies together. At that time, I was still licking my wounds from the failed church plant, so I was very content for a while to simply sit down and listen and learn. But not long thereafter, Ernst recommended me to the elders, and he told them that he believed my preaching would be a blessing to the church. So I was asked by the elders to begin preaching the word roughly every six weeks.
I agreed to do that, and the elders and the congregation received my teaching and preaching very well. While at this church, I began attending London Reformed Baptist Seminary, which Dr. Peter Masters run at Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. It is an online seminary that seeks to educate pastors and deacons theologically and prepare them for the many challenges that church officers face. It took me four years, from 2011-2014, earning me a Diploma in Theological and Pastoral Studies. I would regularly travel to attend the Metropolitan Tabernacles School of Theology conference, which they host annually in London. These years were of tremendous importance to me in terms of preparing me for the work God would call me to. In 2014, at our annual Bible Camp, we met quite a few families and individuals who had either been thrown out of their apostate churches or had come into disrepute in their church, both because of their solid stand on the gospel, as well as their growing reformed convictions. We agreed with these people to begin to meet once a week to plant a 1689 Reformed Baptist Church. To find out if we were all on the same page, we spent one hour studying the book of Romans and one hour studying the 1689 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith. After completing our study, we agreed to begin the work, and in the spring of 2015, we began to meet for Sunday Services at the house of one of the families.
At the very beginning, we did not have any elders. We had no sending church that could appoint any, and we were still getting to know and discover one another’s gifts and talents. Therefore, as our Sunday sermon, we would listen to a sermon online. However, due to my former experience in preaching, I was the first one who was given the responsibility of preaching and teaching the Word on Lord’s Day. Sometime after this, my ministry was evaluated, and the congregation expressed that they were delighted with my work and wanted me to continue. As we got to know one another’s gifts and talents a lot better, I was given the responsibility of preaching every second of Lord’s Day. Then every other Lord’s Day would be divided between Ernst and those other men, who were also gifted to teach.
Planting our church was a prolonged process, but eventually, the church came to the point where we all wanted to appoint two elders for the church. By vote on the 17th of February 2019, Copenhagen Reformed Baptist Church unanimously decided to appoint and call two men to this office. The two men were Ernst Haahr and me. For many years, I had this deep desire and inner yearning to do this work. I had spent many years preparing, aspiring, and striving for this noble task (1 Tim. 3:1). But now, there also was an external calling from the Church, a recognition that God had called me for this high office. May God give me the strength and grace to do it and to serve Him faithfully for His glory.