(In front of the statue of Pope John Paul at wawel castle in Krakow)

(Evangelical Christians singing and witnessing a Krakow park. Look at the faces!)

(Birkenau Concentration Camp near Auschwitz)

Poland is unique in several ways.

1. In the suffering that it has seen. It has been partitioned three times with Germany and Austria occupying part of its territory and Russia another part. During WW II it was attacked by both German Nazis and Russia at the same time before the Nazi turned on the Russians. Three millions Poles died in WW II; as many as the Jews who were killed. Then at the end of the war the Communists under Stalin took control.
   
   
2. In its welcome to the Jews. Though they were oppressed at times, for the most part they were allowed to live in peace and develop their own communities from the early Middle Ages. Many settled during the inquisition in the 15^th Century. When Nazism arose the greatest concentration of Jews in Europe was found in Poland. Our tour guide at Auschwitz said that one reason they were not able to protect them was that they had not rebuilt their army from WW I. There were many other work camps in Poland Auschwitz was unique in that it was built ten years into the Nazi persecution of Jews as a "death camp" to bring about the final solution.
   


3. In the resilience of their Catholicism. We saw churches filled in Krakow. Some had seven services a day and more on weekends. Poland is unique in Europe in that 40% still go to mass. But attendance has declined by 6% since 2003. One of their theologians commented "Polish religiousness tends to be based on turning to God to escape distress. When that disappears, so may God." There is still a window of opportunity before secularism takes hold. Poland is following the path that other traditional Catholic peoples like Quebec and Ireland have followed. Yet the church is alive as we witnessed while walking downtown in a park. We pray that many will be reached before indifference sets in.
   

Church Planting in Europe

Our reason for going to Poland was to meet with church planters gathering from all over Greater Europe as far as Cappadocia, Turkey and Kiev, Ukraine. We had appointments for every meal and some during our breaks and free time. There was good participation in the church planter forums. We discussed "best practices" in several areas. The 3 issues/challenges that stand out in Europe are:

1) The difficulty of evangelism in secular, post-modern countries,

2) the challenge of finding local church planters to work with, and

3) the danger of missionaries slipping into a pastoral role and how to avoid that.

As we spoke with church planters we saw that the further west on worked in Europe (Portugal, Spain being the extreme) the harder the soil was for the gospel. Some central European countries, though the curiosity has eased, are still experiencing solid church growth. We spoke with several teams working with Muslim Ministry background people. God is doing a work among Iranians in Europe. Friends who have been sowing among the Turks in Germany for almost three decades are seeing more fruit among Iranians in the last few years. There is an encouraging work in Berlin that is raising up new workers and resulting in multiple church plants. We talked about how to sustain the momentum and keep it from becoming resource dependent.

I believe God wants us to invest in Europe in spite of the challenges. Why?

The invitations of the planters themselves. We had several invite us to spend time with them, especially teams beginning their ministry and teams transitioning to a partnership with local workers now that a foundation has been laid.

Then one day Linda spoke with me about a sense that we should visit church planters on site right after I had had the same thought. Could this be the leading of the Holy Spirit? Later I met with our Mission's associate executive director and he encouraged us to explore this further.

"No church planter left alone" is one of our mottos. Although we have several experienced church planters who could coach others locally, none of them are ready to take on the role of Point Person for all of Europe at this point. Until God raises up that person it seems that direct coaching is a valuable and needed investment.

Yet the needs are great and resources limited. Where should we go Cappadocia Turkey, Berlin, Lisbon, Birmingham England, and Toulouse, France? We would love to help workers in all these places we need God's word about this. In March 2010 there will be a Church Planter Training Institute in Amsterdam with national planters from all over Europe. Gene has been asked to participate. We did our church planting internship in Paris. We understand the challenges first hand. Who would have thought that God would call us to come alongside so many church planters in Europe twenty-five years later?

To those of you who know Europe much better than I do, I invite your comments and counsel.