Reformation History in Vienna

Ask an American about Austria and you probably get a fairly short list. It usually starts with Sound of Music, the Alps and maybe Schwarzenegger. Sometimes Mozart is thrown in there, and don't they speak...German there? I don't blame them, as a mid-westerner I can barely tell the difference between New Hampshire and Vermont. If people have traveled here they talk about the beautiful mountain scenery, the cute villages and the grand cities. We have palaces and castles galore, but we also have churches. A lot of churches. We have many big beautiful churches. We have very old churches and very ornately decorated ones. The next thing you learn is that almost all of them are catholic. Austria is after all a very catholic country. Most of our bank holidays are connected to some saint or someone's ascension. The protestant church is a pretty small percentage of the population, and the free church is an even smaller slice of that slice.

In many protestant communities today is Reformation day. This is not just because they want an alternative to Halloween. On October 31, 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. It was one of the definitive acts of the Reformation.

Charles V

While many people know about the German and Swiss history connected to the Reformation, it is not well known how much of a role Austria played on both sides of the Reformation story. For example, if you've seen the 2003 Luther film you may remember that Charles V was the Holy Roman Emperor that called Luther to the Diet of Worms in 1521. There Luther makes his famous statement "Here I stand, I can do no other." What we often fail to remember is that Charles V was from the Hapsburg family. They were the ones to build up the Austro-Hungarian empire. They were kinda a big deal.

On the other side of it, you have the example of a young Catholic monk that moves to Waldshut in present day Germany in 1521. In the 1500s Waldshut belonged to Austria, because in the 1500s a lot belonged to Austria. His name was Balthasar Hubmaier. He was influenced by the Swiss reformers and reads the writings of Martin Luther and comes to faith in 1523. Five years later he has planted two Anabaptist churches and baptized thousands before being martyred in Vienna. His wife is killed 3 days later. At a point in the 1500s it is said that 90% of Austria was protestant. The gospel had exploded in Austria. "Winkelprediger" - literally corner preachers would preach in the streets, in the mines, and on farms across the country. It was a truly transformational time. Even after the counter Reformation, there are villages in the mountains that remain Protestant to this day. They trace their roots back to this time.

Balthasar Hubmaier

All this to say there is an amazing tradition here in our country which we are excited to celebrate. We also pray that it will help Austrians understand that the free church is not some American splinter group. We want people to see that the values of the Reformation - Faith alone, Grace alone, the Scriptures alone - give us the chance to connect with the creator of the universe!

As we learn more about this and continue to celebrate milestones of the reformation (2021 will be the Diet of Worms, 2028 is Hubmaier's martyrdom and so on) we will continue to share with you.

Where the Ministry Began...

So here is an interesting story from a prayer meeting I went to recently. First, it requires a bit of history. The Austrian free church started here in Vienna in the late 70s and early 80s. It started as a student movement. Most of them were "high school" and college age students. It came mostly out of a prayer and youth group. I need to learn more about this story...but I recently learned about one interesting piece of the free church history: one of its key locations.

I attended a prayer meeting last week. I arrived a bit late, because putting kids to bed is never as straight forward as one would hope. I sat down at the closest open corner, apologized for the interruption, and took part in the prayer meeting. At the close of the meeting, we were encouraged to break into smaller groups and pray for each other. I prayed with the older guy sitting next to me. He is probably old enough to be my father. We are still new to our "gap" church (more on that later) so we end up answering similar questions over and over agai. We've gotten good at telling the short version of how God led us to Austria in both languages. I talked about the vision to plant a church close to where we live along the U1 subway line. I mentioned that the two closest districts of Vienna have the same population as the next largest city in Austria.

As I talked about where we felt God was leading, he got excited. One thing he mentioned to me stood out. He said that he was apart of that youth movement in the 70s and 80s, the one that had started so much of the gospel witness in Vienna. He mentioned that the youth group where much of this started began right where we are feeling led to start a new church. Some 30 years ago, God was working in our area in a movement of prayer. As the group grew and morphed, some of the members went into the city to be a part of the "Tulpengasse" Church (this is a street name, because most churches are named after their address). Others went to go plant the Floridsdorf church, which is where we have been attending since moving to the northern part of the city. Both churches are mother churches that have sent out vhurch plants over the years and contributed in huge ways to the growth of the church and the spread of the gospel in the city. As he told me all this, he made a comment that stuck with me. After awhile, all the people from the original youth group moved on to other churches and a church was never planted in our target area, where the movement originally started. At the time, he was excited to see how God was working, but now he wishes that a church had continued there.

We are praying for exactly the same thing. We know that the gospel is life-changing news, that when we encounter the living God, it can change hearts and lives. It transforms relationships. We also know the importance of prayer. We want to see God move in our town, just like He did 30 years ago. We want to see God do the same thing in the same area again. Continue to pray that God will bring the growth as we seek to faithfully serve Him. 

Exciting News for the Evangelical Churches in Austria!

For the first time in the history of Austria, the evangelical church here is being recognized as an official faith!

Yesterday, this ruling became official and the news is now public. Being fully recognized by the government is something that that has been in process for years and brings with it many benefits for the church here.

Before the church became recognized...

• Many Austrians saw evangelicalism as a "cult", rather than a legitimate faith
• Evangelicals pastors who worked on Sundays were technically breaking the law because of labor laws in Austria (though the law was never enforced)
• Religious worker visas were not available for missionaries or church workers coming here from other countries, as they are for other official religions (which is why we endured our complicated visa process)
• When Austrians are born and registered for the government and their parents wanted to mark their religion on official documents (which is standard here), evangelicals had to check the box "other" on the form
• Financially, evangelical churches functioned as "clubs" here, required to follow some regulations that really didn't apply to them (for example, having regular leadership meetings that had to follow format and voting rules)

Now that the "free church" is recognized...

• It will be considered a true, rather than half-way recognized, faith by many Austrians! It joins a group of 16 other state-recognized religions (to which Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, already belonged)
• It will have easy access to missionary/ministry worker visas!
• Austrian evangelical churches will get the same tax benefits as other churches in Austria
• The news has gone public and talking about this new reality can open up new opportunities to share with Austrians about the evangelical church, what we're all about, and what distinguishes us from other religious faiths in Austria
• The free church now has the right to teach religious education in public schools here in Austria. (I'm not sure of all the nuances of this, but I know it will open up new doors! But it will require the church to provide teachers, so we need to start recruiting.)

Join us in praising God for this amazing answer to prayer. This is a historical day in the history of the evangelical church here and something we've been praying for for a long time (and many have been praying long before we knew about it!).

To read more, you can see an article here. Use google translate to read, if you can't speak German, of course!