Chatting with Church Planters

Nate and I sharing about our strengths and goals

 Last Monday, we attended a cookout with a group of missionaries, internationals and Austrians interested in church planting on the northeast side of the city. It was an exciting time to meet others with a passion for church planting in Vienna and an opportunity to discuss vision, strategy and goals.

There was one other American missionary couple there, one Austrian/Australian couple and many Austrian couples who already live in the northeastern district of the city. They are excited and eager to start something new and passionate about thinking outside of the box. They want to ask questions like, "what should church look like and what does it need to look like? How do we create a church environment that is welcoming to non-believers?" They want to limit the amount of church programs and activities, so that Christians are freed up and have enough time to actually meet and socialize with non-Christians outside the church. They expressed a desire for practical Bible teaching and creating a place where it's less about the music and style and more about community and doing life together.

Chatting about vision over coffee and dessert

At this point, Nate and I are unsure what all of this means for us. We are still very early in our journey and not ready yet to join a church planting team. We need to set aside more dedicated time for language and culture study, as well as some time serving in an existing church. We have a lot to learn still. But we are excited about where God is leading this group of people and curious to see where they are in their journey when the time comes for us to switch our focus to church planting. A few years down the road, this could be the team for us. We're not sure, but we want to keep communicating and praying.

Please pray for this passionate group of church planters. Pray for unified wisdom and vision. Pray that God would be preparing the way for them in the Aspern neighborhood. Pray for the Holy Spirit to lead them in what steps to take and when.

Reconnecting with the BEG

Reinhold, Nate and me at church last Sunday

When we visited Vienna in the Spring of 2011, we had the privilege of meeting Reinhold Eichinger. Reinhold is a leader in the BEG (you may have heard us mention this before...it stands for Bund Evangeliker Gemeinden or Association of Evangelical Churches). During our meeting last year, we got to hear Reinhold's story of how the BEG came to be, the birth of many evangelical churches in the '60s and '70s, and where they have come over the years. We clearly saw his enthusiasm for ministry and for seeing more Austrians come to know Christ personally. We discussed our involvement in church planting with the BEG, and he was excited about our arrival.

Fast forward to last Sunday. We joined fellow missionary friends at a BEG church up in Floridsdorf (a community north of Vienna). And we ran into Reinhold! Not only did we get to see Reinhold, but we ended up being blessed with an hour of his time after the church service. We spoke mostly German (hooray!) and Reinhold was able to confirm a few important things for us:

• There is still much work to be done here
• There are several communities or "pockets" in Vienna with a high population density and NO evangelical church
• Reinhold is eager for us to get started, but he understands the important of us focusing on language study until we are ready

We were so encouraged by the surprise meeting with a visionary leader of the association we'll be working with.  We talked about meeting in the coming months to pray and continue to discuss future plans. We look forward to working with Austrians and missionaries, under his leadership, to plant churches in the spiritually needy country. Thank you, God, for this encouragement!