Pastoral Crisis in Danish Free Churches

Who will replace aging pastors in Danish free churches? In its June 2006 issue, Church News from Denmark, reported that several free church denominations in Denmark are experiencing difficulty finding candidates to replace retiring pastors. Too few free church young people seem to be drawn to the vocational ministry, tending rather to follow other career paths even while remaining a part of the church. One University of Copenhagen sociologist finds it puzzling that free church young people are not drawn to the ministry at a time when youth in general are more interested in religion than ever.

There may be reasons why many young believers from the free churches are seemingly deaf to the call of God and are bypassing pastoral ministry as a career. Some of the free church denominations and the local churches are themselves aging and have perhaps lost some of the spontaneity, ardor and freshness of their origins. Even free churches can over time develop their own rigid traditions. Whether in Denmark or elsewhere, subsequent generations tend to cool off, lack the commitment of their forebears, and look for new religious experience or affiliations. Young people often find older church members to be inflexible and uncomfortable with change even when the times warrant it. As one young American believer put it, "It's lonely being a Christian my age in my church."

There tends to be considerable divergence in the views of older and younger church members on what the church should look like and on how to go about doing church. As the article in Church News from Denmark suggests, "For the young generation the most important thing is the social network in the congregation, and they do not understand the traditional ways followed by the older generation." Rather than fight the system, many leave. In addition, many of the free churches in Denmark are quite small and struggling to support their pastors, some having only part-time pastors who must supplement their income from other sources. For young people considering career opportunities, such uncertain modeling detracts from the attractiveness of the vocational ministry. Not a few young people are forsaking the traditional free churches to find a home in the new church plants as, for instance, Copenhagen's lively youth-oriented and thoroughly evangelical Vineyard Church and other similar churches in the urban areas.

Meanwhile, the problem of free church pastoral vacancies persists and begs a solution. Dare we say it--were genuine spiritual revival and a new wave of the Spirit to occur in Denmark, it would go a long way toward remediating what is now a challenging situation threatening the future and possibly even the continued existence of some local churches.

Happily, there are several fine training institutions in Denmark where young people who do respond to God's call to vocational ministry can receive sound theological education and pastoral training. Among these are the Danish Pentecostal Bible College at Mariager (www.pvhcollege.dk/danish/english.asp?ID=1); the International Apostolic Bible College at Kolding (www.biblecollege.dk); the Skandinavisk Akademi for Lederskab og Teologi (SALT) in Copenhagen (www.salt-akademi.dk/SALT_english_version.pdf); and the Dansk Bible Institut/Copenhagen Lutheran School of Theology (www.dbi.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=168).

PRAY for young believers in the Danish free churches, who are idealistic and committed and wanting to serve Christ in ministry, but who find it lonely and frustrating being a part of a church more oriented to the needs and perspectives of its older members.

PRAY that older believers in the free churches will become less concerned about maintaining church and denominational traditions and more understanding of and receptive to the passions and perspectives of younger believers.

PRAY for an increase in the number of students preparing for pastoral ministry in the Danish Bible colleges and evangelical theological faculties noted above.

Evangelical Alliance Prayer Week (Bedeuge)

In concert with its continent-wide counterpart, the European Evangelical Alliance, the Evangelisk Alliance i Danmark sponsors a week of prayer each year in the first full week of January. The Alliance's 2007 Bedeuge begins tomorrow, January 7 and continues through Sunday, January 14. There will be scores of prayer groups meeting all over the country and it is hoped that more than 30,000 Danes will be participating. While much of the announced focus is on prayer for evangelical work in Eastern Europe, and rightly so, we believe this week also gives Danish believers a significant opportunity to agree in prayer for revival and renewal throughout the nation's parishes and congregations.

Pastor Rick Warren said at the December 27-31, 2006 Urbana Conference that, "God's timing is perfect. I see a spiritual hunger, I see a spiritual readiness, the willingness to commit, and a willingness to sacrifice; and all of these things coming in together ... has created a 'kairos' moment--the right time for a reformation to take place." As one pastor has reiterated, prayer and worship go hand in hand. He writes: "I believe the pathway for the Church's moving into its full destiny in God's counsels, while retaining a practical sanity and spiritual balance on earth's surfrace, lies in our ability to perceive the true purpose and spiritual dynamic in worship. What has been defined for too long as an hour's exercise on Sunday, packaged by enculturated tradition and preserved in doctrinaire posturing is being redefined, unwrapped, and unsealed today. Worship is being redefined in terms of its form and focus. It isn't that valid traditions must be scorned or discarded but that newness must refill them with meaning." (Jack W. Hayford, Worship His Majesty, Gospel Light Productions, 2000).

That is what happens when revival and renewal occur. Wouldn't it be wonderful were such revival and a new Reformation, bathed in prayer and worship, to break out all over Europe in 2007 and for it to begin in Denmark this coming week! The website for the Evangelisk Alliance i Danmark is http://evangeliskalliance.dk/.

PRAY that the the Spirit of God will move graciously and powerfully among the many prayer groups meeting in Denmark next week with Christ-exalting worship and fervent, believing prayer. Thirty thousand people so engaged could turn Denmark and the whole of Europe upside-down in a mighty demonstration of God's power and blessing.

PRAY for the hundreds of parishes and pastors of the Danish State Church (Folkekirke), as well as the scores of free evangelical pastors and congregations, that they will experience a life-changing spiritual encounter with Jesus Christ through this coming week of prayer throughout Denmark. (For a list of participating prayer locales, see the following website: http://evangeliskalliance.dk/index.php?mainid=6&subid=39.

PRAY that there will be a rebirth of aggressive but culturally relevant and sensitive evangelism throughout Denmark and the Faroe Islands.

PRAY that God will reverse the downslide of Christianity in Europe as believers are stirred to their depths with the urgency of evangelism and revival.

Christmas Greetings

GLÆDELIG JUL OG GODT NYTÅR

We wish all of the faithful prayer partners of Pray for Denmark.com a Blessed Christmas and a Happy and Spiritually Prosperous New Year.

Let's continue to pray that the Spirit of God will sweep over Denmark in grace and power in 2007 to bring revival and renewal in all of the churches and that many will come to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

In His love and grace,

Bill and Brad

Denmark and Missional Churches

The evangelical community is not immune from the coining of new buzz words. Two of the newest of them are "emergent church" and "missional church." These are strange to the ears of some of us who have been involved with missionary service from some years back.

A big word in my era of the 1950s and 1960s was "indigenous church," a term not often heard today. I, for one, am rather conservative on the coining of new words and always wonder what brings on the need for them and whether the new term may in some way be a subtle insult to biblical theology. So it is with "missional church," a term that I am beginning to hear frequently even in the church we attend. Apparently the idea is catching on.

I am truly aware that the world has changed in the past fifty or more years and certain mission methods, strategies and structures that were once prominent no longer work as they used to. The message certainly hasn't changed, but the means and manner of propagating the message have had to change in a changing world. A detailed and useful definition of the term"missional" was offered at the 2004 Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization. Click on : www.urbana.org/_articles.cfm?RecordId=993 for the full article.

Briefly stated, "missional" "is not the same as 'mission-minded,' though they are both important and related. The term 'missional' is simply the noun 'missionary' adapted into an adjective. For example, an 'adversary' is your enemy. Someone who is 'adversarial' is acting like your enemy. Thus, a 'missionary' is someone who acts like a missionary (for example, understands a culture, proclaims the faithful Gospel in a way that people in culture can understand, and uses parts of that culture to glorify God). A 'missional church' is a church that acts like a missionary in its community" (see www.christianindex.org/1657.article).

One of the foremost thinkers these days about the missional church is Australian missiologist Alan Hirsch whose writings include The Shaping of Things to Come and The Forgotten Ways--Reactivating the Missional Church. A major perspective from his writings suggests that the older formulas for growth in the Body of Christ no longer work. His vision for the future includes growth of the church of Jesus Christ in the powerful ways that occurred in the outreach of the early church and its growth from perhaps only 25,000 believers in A.D. 100 to an estimated 20 million in A.D. 310.

The thrust of Hirsch's message is that the dormant potential of the church in our time can again be aroused to early church-like passion, prayer, and incarnational service. If that is what "missional" entails, let's use the term!

Through the sponsorship of SALT (the Skandinavisk Academi for Lederskab og Teologi), the Evangelical Alliance, and Emerging.DK, Dr. Alan Hirsch is coming to Denmark for a one-day session on the theme of the missional church. The conference takes place on Thursday, January 11, 2007 at a locale at Drejervej 15-17 in Copenhagen.

Conferences come and go with greater or lesser impact, but perhaps the input from this brief conference will help foster a new attitude and approach by Danish churches to revival, renewal, evangelism and church planting, or just acting like missionaries in their own communities.

PRAY that Alan Hirsch will be guided by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in what he has to say to Danish pastors and Christian leaders about theory and practice for missional churches.

PRAY that this brief conference with Alan Hirsch will help ignite a greater understanding and vision in Danish believers of what the church was meant to be and do, using culture but not engulfed by it.

PRAY that conferences with overseas leaders such as this one with Alan Hirsch will not "talk down" to Danish pastors and Christian leaders or come across as having all the answers for Denmark, but rather will cause participants to listen for the Spirit's direction to make specific insights gained from the conference work effectively in the Danish cultural context.

The Lord's Work in the Faroe Islands

Back in the 1950s, I was in Copenhagen with my family on our way back from our first term in the former Belgian Congo. While visiting relatives in Copenhagen, I had occasion to attend an assembly of the Christian Brethren, sometimes referred to as Plymouth Brethren. At the meeting, a young man who at the time was studying medicine at the University of Copenhagen gave an unforgettably impassioned and joyful testimony of how he had come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Two things especially impressed me about this young man. One was that he was overcome with emotion when trying to express the depth of his commitment to Christ, filled with praise for having found Him as Savior and Lord. The other was that he wasn't a Dane at all, but rather had come to the University from the Faroe Islands to study medicine. It was undoubtedly the first time I had ever heard of the Faroe Islands. All through these many years since, I have often thought of that impassioned testimony and wondered whatever had become of him, even though I did not even remember his name. I also have warm memories at this assembly of meeting a fine Christian brother, Mr. Paisley, owner of a language school in Copenhagen, and a Christian Brethren missionary and his wife from Scotland, Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Adams. The Adamses invited me and my family to have "kaffee" with them at their apartment in Copenhagen and what a gracious time of fellowship that was. Mr. Adams, a wonderful man of God, was a great encouragement to us and our work in the Congo. Mr. Adams ministered in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark and spoke his own brand of "Scandinavian" that he said allowed him to be understood in all three countries.

As the old hymn declares, "God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform." When I was in Denmark this past spring, I attended a Sunday service at the Baptist church in Viborg. There was a visitor there that morning, Heri Jacobsen, who was from the Faroe Islands. After the service I chatted with him and told him of my experience hearing the testimony of the young Faroese medical student so many years before in Copenhagen. I asked Heri if there was any chance that he might know the man of whom I spoke. Heri reflected a moment and then said, "I think I know the man you're talking about." Heri gave me an address for a Dr. Rodmundur i Lida in Torshavn, Faroe Islands. I later followed up with a letter to Dr. Lida in which I recounted that memorable meeting in Copenhagen.

What a joyful surprise it was shortly after to receive a wonderful letter from the now retired Dr. Lida, who, it turns out, had returned to the Faroe Islands after completing his medical studies and a brief residency in the United States, ultimately becoming the little country's chief surgeon.

The Faroes are a group of islands (among them Kalsoy, Kunoy, Vodoy, Eysturoy, Stremoy, Bordoy, Svinoy, Fugloy, Sandoy, and Suduroy) situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Iceland and Norway. The many bays, fjords, and mountains are a feature of the islands' rugged and treeless typography. The land does not support extensive agriculture, though there is a good bit of sheepherding because of the grasslands. A most important aspect of the economy is fishing. Access between the various islands in the past was limited to crossing open water, though now there is a well-developed infrastructure with connecting bridges and tunnels, some of them miles in length.

The Faroe Islands have had a long history with Denmark, but became an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark in 1948. The Faroese manage their own affairs, except for national defense and foreign affairs which are still represented by Denmark. The islands' population is less than 50,000 and the native islanders speak Faroese, a language akin to the Scandinavian languages. The Faroese have a culture all their own, though it has many commonalities with the cultures of Norway, Iceland, and Denmark. A majority of the inhabitants are Lutheran and part of the Danish Lutheran Folkekirke. Ten percent of the population gather with the assemblies of the Christian Brethren (known as Brødrasamkoman), reflecting a strong evangelistic missionary endeavor since the 1860s. There are two Bible translations available in the Faroese language. Many Faroese are involved in commercial fishing. Through the faithful witness of believers connected with the Brethren assemblies, many fishermen have over the years come to trust Christ as Savior and Lord.

Lutheran revival movement efforts are found in the islands. Indre Mission (Inner Mission) has a number of gathering places throughout the country called "mission houses" (www.mission.fo/index.asp?pg=41). There is a Pinse (Pentecostal) church in Torshavn (Filadelfia.net.dynamicweb.dk/). Christian broadcasting is represented by Radio Lindin (www.lindin.fo/index.php?id=283). I expect to include further information about the Lord's work in the Faroe Islands as I become better informed.


PRAY for the people of the Faroe Islands and the continued spread of the gospel of Christ among them through the efforts of the various evangelical churches and organizations.

PRAY for the leaders and activities of the Lutheran revival movement organization, Inner Mission (Indre Mission), centered in its network of mission houses throughout the islands.

PRAY for the elders and congregants of the assemblies of Christian Brethren, the largest of which appears to be Ebenezer Sankoman in Torshavn (www.ebenezer.fo), and for continued growth through aggressive evangelistic and Bible teaching ministries.

PRAY especially for the now retired Dr. Rodmundur i Lida who continues to minister the Word of God in the Faroes and in Denmark (he ministered last spring at Brønshøj Forsamling in Copenhagen -- www.bkrf.dk/).

PRAY for the leadership and ministries of Filadelfia Sankoman (Pentecostal church) in Torshavn.

PRAY for the the workers and extensive outreach of Radio Lindin, the non-denominational Christian radio station for the Faroe Islands, broadcasting the gospel from its studios in Torshavn.

Scandinavian Consultation for Church Planting

Our overriding concern for Denmark is in the areas of revival-renewal, evangelism, and planting of new churches. While we hope and pray for reformation and revival-renewal in older churches, it is an unfortunate fact that the older a church is the less able it seems to be to keep up with the times. Some Protestant churches in Denmark date back many centuries and sadly gather only a handful of worshipers. A great danger is that older churches may become relics of another day and time and fail to meet the challenges of the present. Antiquity offers no assurance of relevance. In fact, relying on a church's history can spell the death of evangelism. Theological considerations coupled with population shifts, increasing urbanization and new housing developments make the planting of new churches an urgent necessity. It is not often that an older church can easily adopt or adapt to new approaches to music and worship, new methods of outreach, or changing social conditions. Unfortunately, there are churches that take pride in not doing so.

In line with our concerns for the church in Denmark, I have been delighted to hear of a Scandinavian Consultation for Church Planting that will take place in at Copenhagen's Culture Center on November 23. The event is sponsored by DAWN Scandinavia in cooperation with SALT (Scandinavian Academy of Leadership and Theology). This is the second such Consultation, the first having taken place in Malmø, Sweden, in January 2005, unfortunately with only a few Danish leaders in attendance. But with this year's Consultation scheduled in Copenhagen, the hope is that many Danish church leaders and church planters will participate. The purpose of the Consultation is to provide a gathering for church planters in the Scandinavian countries for the building of relationships and learning from each other.

The Conference is ecumenical in nature, so that representatives of state-sponsored as well as free churches will be in attendance. Church planters from Norway and Sweden will also be present. Danish leaders expected to participate include Claus Grønbæk, church planter and founder of a free Lutheran congregation in Copenhagen; Anders Michael Hansen, Dean of Copenhagen's Scandinavian Academy of Leadership and Theology (a theological seminary of cooperating free evangelical organizations, denominations, and churches), pastor of Århus Valgmenighed, and director of the European Church Planting Network; Hans Henrik Lund, leader of the Churches' Integration Service in Denmark working with ethnic churches throughout Denmark; Svend Løbner Madsen, who works with the organic church movement and is a part of the Network of Free Churches in Denmark; Flemming Mølhede, pastor of Copenhagen's Vineyard Church and leader of the Vineyard movement in Denmark; Birger Nygaard, theologian and missiologist, national director of Areopagos; and Andreas Wolf, leader of the European Research Network focusing on church planting in Europe. For further information about this important Consultation, contact Niels Christian Storgaard at nes@paradis.tdcadsl.dk.

PRAY that those in attendance will acknowledge the necessity for the presence and leadership of the Holy Spirit in this important Consultation.

PRAY that concerns for church planting will be coupled with the vision for active evangelism through the country. As someone has well stated, "God has no grandchildren." Evangelism is needed in every generation.

PRAY that the presentations by seminar leaders will be informative and challenging and lead to fruitful discussions and interchange of participants experiences and strategies.

PRAY that this Consultation will result in a resurgence of Spirit-led church planting efforts throughout Denmark and an increase in the number of committed evangelical church planters.

YWAM and "Resurrect Denmark" Campaign

Michelle Geraty, who works with Youth with a Mission (YWAM in Denmark is called Ungdom Med Opgave) has informed us of plans for a campaign to affect Denmark through a 24/7 prayer network together with a nationwide series of evangelistic tours and follow-up discipleship ministries. The campaign is to be called "Resurrect Denmark."

Michelle writes, "We want to call forth praying, Great Commission-minded Christians to establish networks of prayer across the nation. Also, another part of this campaign is to train an army of young people." For this purpose, YWAM is planning to launch an Impact Discipleship Training School beginning January 14, 2007, focusing on prayer, evangelism, and discipleship. "We believe that passion for Jesus fuels passion for the lost. So, we are very excited about what God is going to do during the six-month school." For further information, visit the YWAM Denmark website: www.ywam.dk. The mailing address is Randersvej 195 (Sjellebro), 8544--Morke, Denmark.

We'll add prayer requests to this website as the "Resurrect Denmark" campaign begins to take hold. We want do everything possible to help foster prayer support for this promising campaign.

PRAISE the Lord for this new and zealous YWAM-sponsored nationwide prayer and evangelism initiative in Denmark.

PRAY that the Ungdom Med Opgave leadership and workers will have the Spirit's direction and great wisdom and profound insight into Danish church history and evangelical culture in seeking the cooperation of local churches and other ministries for the "Resurrect Denmark" campaign.

PRAY that the framework of the campaign will from the first meet with a positive and enthusiastic response from Danish evangelical leaders and ministries all over Denmark, and that many Danish believers will become involved in the nationwide prayer network.

PRAY that there will be a large number of applicants for the Impact Discipleship Training School scheduled to begin at YWAM's Sjellebro campus this coming January.

PRAY that God will supply the personnel as well as financial and prayer support for an effective launching of the "Resurrect Denmark" campaign.