Irmi
How can we present the gospel in interesting and relevant ways and help churches to develop their passion for the lost? This is probably an important issue for all of the 45 participants in Reach The City Vienna this summer (July 14 to 20). God worked in and around us during those days! Every morning we started with prayer, devotion and worship followed by lectures on evangelism by Nathanel Frugoni (church planting in Spain) and Korky Davey (Evangelist from England, he initiated Reach The City). During the afternoon the team split up in different workshops and from 6 to 8 pm we were together on the main square of the city – Stephansplatz – to preach the gospel and get in touch with people who were open to the gospel. There we were joined by up to 20 more local Christians. We closed the days at a restaurant with prayer and feedback from the outreach. Many of us could witness how God was at work in people we reached.
Just a few days before REACH THE CITY (in short RTC) started the city government told us that we would not get permission to be in the city centre but had to do the outreach somewhere else. I appealed and so they checked our case a second time after which they sent us a very friendly letter letting us know that we don’t need a permission at all. Now I have an official document that we can use any time somebody wants to kick us off Stephansplatz. We are also very thankful to the major of Vienna, Dr. Michael Häupl, who gave us his for the official blessing (“Ehrenschutz”) in 2005 and 2006. You may wonder why we then had a refusal in first place. Well, the major and the district government for the inner city are from different political parties.
Irmi was one of the first to register but later got cold feet. During the week she overcame her fear of sharing the gospel and public speaking and did her first sketchboard message right across the big Catholic Cathedral. She did a really super job! After that week she started preparing to go to Poland where she took her newly acquired sketchboard set and helped a church in their evangelistic summer camp. Since then she has become a faithful team member at the weekly city centre outreaches.
On the last evening a group of participants (all from the same church in Vienna) got together to pray that God would change their church getting it more passionate for Christ and evangelism in the city. They already have a small evangelistic team who do occasional outreaches in their neighbourhood.
Here are some of the people we got to know during the outreaches.
He heard the gospel for the first time ever and came back every evening to talk with us. One of our team members invited him to church were Karim put his trust in Christ. Both of them are now working through a discipleship course.
Right in the middle of a sketchboard talk she raised her voice asking a really central question. We could talk to her afterwards and found out that she regularly attends St. Ruprechts church (the oldest Catholic church in Vienna) but is very confused about saving faith and what the Bible is all about.
Dagmar, one of the participants at RTC, met 2 of her students who were very curious to find out what her teacher believes in. They were very surprised that such a hip young woman believes in the God of the Bible. Back at high school Dagmar will definitely have more opportunities to answer questions and give her testimony.
He was interested to find out what the difference are between Islam and Christianity and was very thankful to receive an evangelistic book written especially for young Muslims („Murat finds Jesus“, unfortunately available only in German)
He was fascinated by the excitement of the team sharing Jesus. He came back the following evening and showed interest in staying in touch via email.
We met him after one of the outreaches at the restaurant. He made a profession of faith and is afraid that there will be tensions inhis family bacause he accepted Jesus.
In the name of the organizing team I would like to thank everyone who supported us this summer - whether in prayer, giving or being part of the outreach teams. I want to mention particularly Grace Church who has supported Reach The City during all these years. We are also very gratefull to Korky Davey who initiated RTC. It was fantastic to draw from his enthusiasm and commtiment again this summer. Thanks goes also to Dave Knight who has been coming from Australia every summer to support our team for the last 5 years. We thrilled by the open doors of the Korean church who let us use their facility for training.
During the last 10 years over 900 Christians from over 10 different countries have received training in open air evangelism. The different teams did training and outreaches in Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary and Rumania. We trust that our Lord Jesus will continue to open doors for the preaching of the gospel in Europe and that many people find faith in Him.
The British team: travelling down from England to Vienna – Chris and Shirley Dunstan and their children Andrew, Bobbie, and David with Korky in the Volvo estate. Chris and Shirley Dunstan then went on to Alba Iulia with Korky, with Dave Knight, the children having flown back to New Zealand from Vienna.
The open air meetings were superb. Stefan and his team in Vienna have, we felt, raised the level of professionalism considerably. This showed in the numbers of people staying behind for counselling. We felt the site opposite the entrance doors of St. Stefan's Cathedral was better than the one we have generally used previously in the large space adjacent to the Cathedral.
Korky received a very enthusiastic welcome at Grace Church, and from the Prokops' church which is now re-named Christian International Fellowship. These people really are heart and soul into evangelism and many of them joined us on several evenings for the open airs. It was wonderful to see them all again.
This town was named by a new Romanian king in 1501 who entered the town on his favourite white charger called Julia! (Alba Iulia means White Julia. Quite an honour for a horse!) This is a most interesting city with lots of 18th Century ruins thought locally to be Roman. The “Roman” ruins they are digging up are under the main square are clearly Bronze Age. Entering the large property acquired derelict by the Wakefields in 2000, really took our breath away. They have done it up superbly to a very high standard with every modern facility. The local team led largely by Traian and Lidia Opruta number a dozen mid- to late teenagers, who are totally committed and reminded Korky very much of the team the Lorings started out with in Erseke, who went on to do such great things. Chris and Shirley fitted in incredibly well, did the shopping, provided the meals, and played a key part in the open air meetings in the park. Chris's open air preaching came on in leaps and bounds and his vision to get a strong team going in his home town of Tauranga in New Zealand has been greatly enhanced by participation in both Vienna and Alba Iulia.
The meetings in the park were unlike anything Korky had seen before. It was only possible to put on one short programme of drama, magic, and sketchboard message as this led to so many contacts wanting to talk to us that we were always stuck there for two hours or more dealing with people individually. The Gospel is a message unknown in Romania. We visited two towns for 2 evenings in each case, one of which was 25 miles out in the country and consisted of an isolated community of around 30,000 – 40,000 with its own radio station. Lots of people were hanging around with little or nothing to do and although the open air site in front of the town hall was situated in a long, narrow high street with no particular focus, we nevertheless attracted around 70 people pretty quickly. The second evening more people came as the word had got round. It transpired that there are around 150 believers in town divided between Baptist, Brethren and Pentecostal. There will obviously be some Orthodox as that is the national Church. Several of the “believers” we met were not familiar with the Gospel message: a couple of Pentecostal lads had never heard it before and thought what we were saying was very strange. One gets the distinct impression that nominalism is a major issue - and not just in Romania. Church membership seems to be the defining issue rather than a living faith. Chris laid hands on a 6 yr. old boy and prayed that his hearing/mind would be made whole. His father was obviously very excited to bring him back the following evening as he was much improved.
It seems to us to be the case that church-planting in Europe has had a negligible effect on the major task of the Christian church to fulfil the Great Commission. The vision of so many Church Managers that we have met has been as if the parable of the Sower has been re-written along the lines of “This is a field of 1,000 acres. God wants us to put all our seed in this one square foot, over here”. In most of these places there does not seem to be any sort of vision or programme to make Christ known, but rather a desire to recruit members so that the Church has become the message, not the Lord.
While in Romania, we were shown the camp out in the mountains near Cluj, which consists of part of the side of a mountain, a beautiful wooden cabin of some antiquity, and a large old barn adapted for meetings with dormitory accommodation over. Well over 100 children have been on camps this summer and this has resulted in a substantial number (around 30?) becoming Christians. The camp programme, which continues throughout the summer and is led by the OAC team, is the main recruiting ground for our part-time workers. We were glad to meet Christi who is a 24 yr. old musician with a Master's degree in Theology. He is now on our full-time staff. He also manages the camp which is near his town. Christi is a very impressive young man who has a band, and puts on Youth concerts which are extremely popular in the area. He is working in the High School where he has a regular programme, and his concerts for local young people in surrounding towns reach around 25,000 through the year.
The Wakefields have done a truly remarkable job involving a number of really significant “Divine” appointments which we believe have laid the foundations for one of the most strategic OAC ministries in Europe. They now shoulder substantial financial commitments in staff salaries, building projects etc., very much as the Lorings have done in Albania. I believe we should all be doing a lot more to assist them in all sorts of ways. Paul's leadership style is relaxed but focused with the over-riding vision of equipping and empowering local nationals. The clarity of their Gospel presentations is far in excess of anything else the Dunstans had ever seen. Paul himself is a wonderful preacher.
11th August 2006