Gospel Training in North Macedonia
Mite, a pastor at FEC Good News Church in North Macedonia, tells us about the country, the experience of the church and why they’ve just opened a Union Learning Community.
In its short 30-year history as an independent country, Macedonia has faced many challenges: political instability, intense ethnic conflict that culminated in armed conflict, economic deprivation and social insecurity. All this means that Macedonia is among the top five poorest countries in Europe. In the last ten years, more than a half a million young people have left the country and that wave of emigration is still increasing. People live without any hope for the future. From a religious perspective, about 65% of the population are traditional orthodox Christians (of Macedonian ethnicity), 30% are Muslims (primarily of Albanian ethnicity) and less than 0.2% are evangelical Christians. In this turmoil of differences, we believe that only the Gospel of Christ can change the dark reality of Macedonia.
FEC Good News Church formed in 2005 in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. Skopje has a population of around 600,000 people - a third of the total Macedonian population. FEC Good News, like most of the evangelical churches in Macedonia, is a small community with around 30 members and few visitors. The church is oriented to deepening the knowledge of Christ through regular teaching of the scriptures. Expository preaching on Sundays is the norm, and during the week we meet for in depth bible study, discussion and prayers. As a result of the thorough devotion to studying the bible, we managed to publish some bible study materials and the evangelism team put on street events each Sunday afternoon. As a church we are also involved in ministering among vulnerable children in the area.
We have recognized the need to raise up equipped servants in our church, a need also shared by churches throughout Macedonia and so we have established a Union Learning Community. The opportunity of acquiring theological education without leaving job, family and the local church is the big advantage of the Learning Community concept. We believe that the quality education provided by Union School of Theology can train not only good servants for the church, but faithful, humble Christians who will reflect a Godlike character in all spheres of life. That is a great need in a society plagued by moral degradation.
We’d appreciate your prayer that God would bring more people to realise the need for theological study in order to serve Christ’s church well. We also need prayer that God would continue to open and soften the hearts of unbelievers. We also need God’s wisdom as a church to find different ways to be more present in society, to serve the people in the world so they can see the love of God and to be drawn to Him. Pray also for an abundance of resources from God for the service we do for His glory.
Discover more about the North Macedonia Learning Community here.