God Of This City - Greater things are yet to come, Greater things are still to be done.

Leading up to our time in Dresden, I was asking what God wanted to do through me to proclaim His Kingdom. I doubted the impact I could have at a festival filled with religiously well-meaning people. So my prayer before our departure was short and simple…’Lord use this vessel for your glory, Amen’.

The Church Days Festival takes places once every two years in a different city in Germany. It is a gathering of all Lutheran churches to celebrate, discuss and bond through common beliefs and aspirations, over 100,000 gathered. As the outreach team of 40 people  met up in Dresden, I sensed God would be doing something special these days, so I took a position of expectancy.  

Since I cannot report on every event of what happened these days, allow me to give you a couple of glimpses that sum up how this week in Dresden went for me.

Alex…

Every team member was partnered up with another person to go through the city as a unit for prayer and evangelism. My partner was Alex a 17 year old boy who came to the Lord just two months prior to coming to this outreach. He was very unknowledgeable concerning things of theology, but possessed a simple believing faith that if God says it, he meant it. Alex and I were partnered up for 2 days and in that time he taught me more about child-like faith than any brilliant theologian could have. We spoke to many people; we dialogued, discussed and sometimes even debated with folks who though thought themselves to be bible believing Christians had opinions like 1. Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead 2. There is no heaven and hell 3. God cannot heal 4. All religions lead to the same place and my favorite 5. The god of the bible is only as much divine as Zeus will allow him to be.

The eye opening perspective that Alex allowed me to have was intense. I saw him speak to the elderly and to his peers. Nothing seemed to get him out of his groove to tell of the Good News of Jesus Christ. I was humbled. Every time he would find someone new to speak with, he told me to hang out in his vicinity and pray, which I did. At the end of the two days with Alex, I was able to count seven people come to the Lord through this young, inexperienced ambassador of God. The question I need to ask is ‘how have you and I contributed for the Kingdom lately?’

My main ambition in life is to be on the devil's most wanted list.                    - Leonard Ravenhill

Healings…

I have seen God do some amazing things in places like Africa and South America, but never in the western world. Surely in countries of wealth like this one our reliance is placed more strongly on the success of modern medicine and human ingenuity. Thus I find it rare to see God heal someone completely, not because He isn’t able, but because here we are so unwilling to believe. Jesus lays out specific instructions that are known today as The Great Commission. Towards the end of His speech, He makes it clear that ‘’signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." (Mark 16:18ff)

One of our youth Jonas was burning with passion and zeal to tell the people on the street of Jesus Christ. Therefore he (like many of us) went up to random strangers and began speaking with them about their thoughts on God and religion (it was a safe environment to do so). After realizing that the man he was speaking with was in lots of pain and unable to walk properly, let alone bend his knees, Jonas asked if the man would be open to prayer for healing. The man was willing. Instantly after their prayer, the man expressed how he felt that something had happened. So they began to test if God had intervened. Incredibly, not only was the man completely healed in his knees, but he began to run up a flight of stairs, bent his knees to the ground and gave his life to Jesus. We brought him to our stage area where he reported to many atheists and skeptics of the events that had just occurred. Praise God!

This event led to more healings as Jonas prayed for people in the larger gathering, asking them to put their own hands on the parts of their bodies that were unwell. We saw another 4 people healed, plus a number of people surrender their lives to God. It was an incredible sight to behold. 

"Catch on fire with enthusiasm and people will come for miles to watch you burn." - Charles Wesley

Saved, Saved, Saved….

During our open – air events, we included skits, songs, testimonies and messages. On our third day, I was asked to give a brief gospel presentation with the invitation for people to make a decision for Jesus. So I went up (speaking to a crowd of about 80 people) and gave a short yet passionate message on being justified in Christ though having fallen short of God’s standard. I explained that Jesus had not come to make our life ‘better’, he had not come to spice it up; rather he had come to bring us out of darkness and into the light, out of bondage and into freedom, out of death and into life. Then nervously I asked if there was anyone willing to turn to Jesus…1, 2, 3, 4….5. Five people raised their hands and allowed me to pray with them to get right with God. 

One man who was not able to compose himself due to all the tears, tried to explain to me what was going on at that moment…but he found no words. He was so overjoyed and speechless of the things God was doing in his life – he asked that I would pray with him again so that he would move deeper into the reality he found himself in that moment. 

All in all it was a divinely appointed time in Dresden. We were able to count 304 people come to the Lord in total. We have numerous reports of healing and almost 1500 people reached altogether. The blessing of working together and obeying the Lord’s instructions continue to make themselves known to us today. In Dresden I was reminded that the Lord’s heart is with His lost sheep.  Jesus said that ‘’those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’’

"Salvation comes through a cross and a crucified Christ." – Andrew Murray

Leipzig - Germany gets an Easter gift like none other

With a team of 25 people I travelled to the former East German city of Leipzig to experience Easter with a renewed focus and resolve to see the resurrected Christ preached. We called our weekend Easter2Go which focused solely on preaching the risen Christ to a city that is often referred to as the Atheist Capital of Germany. As believers we need to be so aware that this is the biggest weekend on the Christian Calendar as it is Resurrection weekend. Christ has risen!! Hallelujah! The power of salvation, the invitation to come into the family of God and to proclaim the coming Kingdom of God is just as real in 2011 as it was the year the first disciples celebrated our Lord and Savior raised from the dead just out of Jerusalem .

We took our first evening together to build community, to pray, to worship and to dig deeper into the Scriptures so that our weekend would be drenched in the confidence of the Holy Spirit's anointing. Some of us were experienced in evangelism, some of us were new to the faith, some of us are educated pastors and others are taking their first baby steps into the Great Commission that continues to be excercised today. And though we came from various parts of Germany and with different set of experiences, we came to proclaim one Lord, one Savior and one Hope for the world, namely Jesus Christ...the Risen One!

The words of Martin Luther followed me to Leipzig ''The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wantes to be among firends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ. If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?''

On our first day of going into the inner city, we came into contact with a host of different people. From those who wanted to sunbathe in the burning sun, those who walked aimlessly through the streets shopping, those who called the streets their home, tourists, strict atheists, devout believers and everything in the mix. We put up a cross and began singing through the tunes that believers have sung through the church age. What was our theme you ask? The Risen Christ!

Were we welcomed? By some yes. Many were grateful to be reminded of the message and the life that Jesus offers. Some have heard it for the first time. It is absolutely astonishing to see a person hear the gospel for the very first time and receive it in faith for what it is. I am so grateful to the gospel that I have been able to study at bible college, but the opportunity of presenting it simply to someone who has no foundation of faith...I must confess that was a new challenge even for me.
Many were aggressive toward us, denying any fantasty to do with faith and calling us perthatic for wasting our time. One man in particular placed himself in the middle of the street for everyone to see, yelling with everything that His lungs ''JESUS WHERE ARE YOU??? WHY ARE YOU HIDING?'' With full conviction the man turned toward the team and said with an anger that I have rarely encountered...''If I could, I would nail all of you to that cross too!'' Is the spiritual battle real? I think so.

We were able to see a total of 31 people come to the Lord that one single day. Some team members expressed that the conviction of the Spirit was very strong on some of these individuals who decided to give their lives to follow Jesus. Though we do not know some of the reasons behind those decisions, yet I rejoice that the Lord will continue to work in the lives of each of these individuals.

On day two we performed various skits that presented the gospel through open air preaching. We invited people to come to the Lord for salvation. We had a number of disturbances that came from punks and homeless who wanted to distract the audience of people that had gathered to hear and see what we had to say. One 82 year old woman who I came in contact with spoke to me about having lived her hard life without ever needing a god, so she asked me why she needed one now. I in turn asked her where she receives her hope for this life and for the one to come. Her response saddned me deeply; with the deepest of convitions in her eyes she said to me ''Dear boy, I have no hope!!'' I was able to pray with her, but she continued to battle the existence of God. We sent out groups of two and three into the city centre to be lead by the Spirit to speak with people who needed to hear the gospel. On day two we were able to record another 21 people making decisions to lay their own lives down for the life that Jesus offers. It was a weekend to rejoice! As Jesus foretold ''The harvest is plentiful'' (Matthew 9:37). Our hope is that people will heed the words of Jesus and participate in the work of the Kingdom of God.

The Easter weekend may be over, but what happend on that day generations ago in the small land of Palestine still has signficant ramifications for us today. The life of Jesus is still as powerful as it was two thousand years ago and we can still see the Spirit of God renewing us to go out and preach the best news that has ever been told to the world....

...''The grave is empty...He is Risen!!''