Churches planting churches in Sweden, Greece and the Balkans
Reports coming in from projects that have received Union Mission funds are a real cause for celebration! We are seeing not just single churches planted, but the emergence of church planting hubs with a vision to reach beyond local boundaries.
In Southern Europe, Giotis Kantartzis leads the City to City Balkans initiative, based in Athens, Greece.
“The purpose of City to City Balkans is to contribute to the creation of a movement of church planting in the cities of the Balkans. Our goal is to provide inspiration, research, training, and coaching that will lead to a new church-planting movement in various Balkan countries.
“Funds received through Union Mission were used to train 9 church planters from Greece and the Balkans. Several other congregations were established in Athens as the churches that were planted began to plant new churches. Exarcheia church started the Urban Chapel and is working on planting an intercultural church. The Glyfada church planted a church in the Pagrati area. The First Church started a new parish in the area of Neos Kosmos and has also planted a church for the homeless and the marginalized in the center of the city.
“In May 2022, we organised the First City to City Balkans Conference in Athens. Church leaders and pastors attended from Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, and of course Greece. They all were very interested in church planting. They believe that this conference was a unique opportunity to inspire and motivate the planting of churches in the big cities of these countries. There have been many helpful presentations and many strategic relationships have been established.”
Our goal is to provide inspiration, research, training, and coaching that will lead to a new church-planting movement in various Balkan countries.
In Northern Europe, Johnny Lithell is spearheading a church-planting ministry from Gothenburg, Sweden.
“We are working for a reformation in Sweden through a three-stranded strategy: (1) church planting, (2) pastoral training and (3) indigenous publishing. In 2020, when the donation was made through Union Mission, I was training two dozen pastors in different cities, along with two core teams preparing to plant. God is giving growth and a great gospel interest in many places in Sweden. I have given lectures and done extensive pastoral training via Zoom, which has worked very well.
“We can praise God for a good number of pastors with a renewed vision of their pastoral ministry in addition to two new churches planted in Stockholm and Örnsköldsvik. The greatest challenge is that the ministry outside of our local church is limited to me – I’m the only one training and mentoring pastors and newly planted churches. I have addressed the problem by equipping two key leaders who can help carry the load.
“Poya Shahsavari used to be a Muslim drug dealer who came to Christ through a series of miracles. Through his ministry some of his drug dealing friends also became Christians. He started preaching on the streets and ended up planting several house churches. However, when he saw how these churches were torn by conflict and bad theology, he reached out to me for pastoral training. He joined one of my courses in ecclesiology and was growing voraciously.
We can praise God for a good number of pastors with a renewed vision of their pastoral ministry in addition to two new churches planted in Stockholm and Örnsköldsvik.
“With a renewed and gospel-centred theological and ecclesiological vision, he gathered a group of friends, which he and I trained for more than a year until they finally covenanted as a church in their hometown, Ekklesia Örnsköldsvik. He is now one of the two key leaders I’m equipping to help raise more leaders throughout Sweden so that more churches can be planted, and the true gospel preached.”
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