Many vacationers to Germany love to go to the gorgeous previous church buildings and cathedrals that may be present in each metropolis, city, and even village. The oldest church in Germany is the cathedral in Trier. Its building started in AD 340. Extra spectacular are the cathedrals in Cologne, Ulm, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, Munich, and Berlin, to call only a few.
Then there are the Reformation websites — the Wartburg, the place Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, thus making the holy Scriptures extra accessible to the German individuals. Or Wittenberg, the place Luther lived and labored for many of his life and the place he posted the 95 theses to the door of the citadel church. However whereas all these websites are fantastic to go to, they’re however artifacts of instances lengthy gone when Christianity was nonetheless vibrant in Germany.
Germany’s Misplaced Heritage
By most accounts, Germany turned a predominantly Christian nation when Charles the Nice defeated Widukind, the Duke of Saxony, in AD 785. From then on, nearly all of Germans belonged to a Christian church. However the final half century has seen an unprecedented decline in formal faith such that those that are nonetheless members of a Christian church have gotten a minority — for the primary time since Charles the Nice dominated within the eighth century. Aside from revival, this development will proceed, and even speed up, as the common age of those that are nonetheless church members is considerably above the nationwide common.
However then, formal church membership will not be a superb measure for the non secular state of a nation, particularly given the truth that Germany has so-called “state” church buildings. I actually was born and baptized into the Lutheran state church, however I by no means attended apart from an annual go to on Christmas Eve. When the time got here for my Lutheran “affirmation,” I dutifully attended the required class and sometimes joined a couple of seniors for a Sunday service within the in any other case empty church. I can’t bear in mind ever listening to the gospel preached. The usual message was a mixture of half-hearted morality and a few political statements, usually alongside the strains of social and environmental issues.
As soon as “confirmed” at age fourteen, I went again to my once-a-year Christmas Eve custom. This sample is typical for just about all youthful Lutherans to at the present time.
Encountering the Gospel
Rising up, I by no means actually knew something about different church buildings. It wasn’t till my early twenties that I met Christians who attended a so referred to as “free” church, that means a church exterior of the Protestant and Roman Catholic state-church system. Initially, I assumed they had been a part of a sect. This stays the overall notion of most Germans once they hear about free church buildings, whether or not they be Baptist, Evangelical Free, Brethren, Pentecostal, or one thing else.
God, in his nice mercy, used a devoted Christian household from a free church to save lots of me after I was 26. The identical yr, my work introduced me to Washington, DC, the place I joined Capitol Hill Baptist Church and met my spouse. After we moved again to Germany in 2002, I spotted how spiritually lifeless my dwelling nation actually is. Regardless of our connections with a number of American missionaries, we had a really arduous time discovering a stable gospel-preaching church in Berlin.
Throughout this season, God put a burden on my coronary heart to see Christianity revived within the nation the place the Protestant Reformation had begun. So in 2005, we moved again to the DC space, the place I used to be skilled each at my native church and thru seminary research at Reformed Theological Seminary. In October 2008, we returned to Germany, the place I now pastor the Free Evangelical Church in downtown Munich (FEG Muenchen-Mitte).
Bleak Tendencies, Vivid Hope
Within the final sixteen years, I’ve seen the overall development of secularization proceed. Ever extra church buildings are closing their doorways. Curiosity in pastoral ministry is at an all-time low. Within the fall of 2023, the whole variety of new enrollments at accredited seminaries and state universities was simply 2 hundred in all of Germany. All of it appears to be like very bleak.
“The clear ring of the gospel is upsetting a contemporary stirring for true Christianity in post-Christian Germany.”
But I’m eager for the church in Germany. This hope is predicated each on my information of God and on what I see occurring in our personal church and somewhere else across the nation. Clearly, Christians can at all times be hopeful. We stand on the facet of the one who has conquered the grave and defeated loss of life, sin, and Devil. Since Jesus Christ died and rose once more, victory is definite for all who belief and observe him. Someday, he’ll return and collect his elect from each tribe and language and other people and nation. Reward be to our victorious King!
And Christ is at work in Germany even now. We see God’s Spirit working, particularly among the many youthful technology. In 2009, John Piper returned to Munich for the primary time since his PhD research within the early Seventies. He met with a bunch of roughly fifteen German pastors and theologians, most of whom had served in ministry for just a few years. Pastor John inspired us to evangelise the phrase and to kind partnerships so as to encourage different like-minded males. In 2011, this group gathered underneath the title “Evangelium21” for a convention in Hamburg. Ever since, the Evangelium21 nationwide convention has been an annual occasion. Since 2011, the convention has grown to effectively over one thousand attendees, most of whom are underneath the age of thirty.
Whereas the variety of these coming into seminaries or state universities to be skilled for pastoral ministry has dramatically decreased, we’re seeing a rising variety of younger males aspiring to serve the Lord Jesus in full-time ministry.
This development has led our church in Munich to start out a three-year pastoral trainee program for younger males. Sometimes, we usher in graduates from Bible colleges and seminaries who’ve acquired a BA in theology, and we practice them within the context of a church whereas they obtain additional seminary coaching on the native Martin Bucer Seminary campus (which we established a couple of years in the past). Towards the nationwide development, our program is rising. Since we began the pastoral trainee program, we have now seen twenty younger males enter it. A lot of the graduates from our program have moved into pastoral positions, usually with the purpose to revitalize struggling church buildings or to plant new ones.
Church planting stays very important to this work. Our personal church has planted 4 church buildings in the previous couple of years. Different church buildings from inside the Evangelium21 community are additionally catching on to the imaginative and prescient of coaching a brand new technology of devoted pastors who can assist to plant and revitalize church buildings throughout the nation. Whereas the motion stays small, a rising variety of younger males are wanting to be skilled and to take a position their lives in order that extra individuals in Germany and past will hear the gospel clearly proclaimed.
Let the Gospel Ring
Immediately, we see stable and rising church buildings proclaiming the gospel in additional German cities than only a few years in the past. Whereas the numbers are nonetheless unimpressive, the clear ring of the gospel is upsetting a contemporary stirring for true Christianity in post-Christian Germany.
Christians in the US have performed an ideal half in the newest developments. Lots of the pastors within the Evangelium21 community have been skilled within the US. Many nonetheless obtain prayer and monetary help by American church buildings. Certainly, adopting a German seminary pupil, church planter, or church revitalizer is usually a way more strategic and environment friendly missions funding than sending an American missionary to Germany, who first wants to accumulate the language and get adjusted to the tradition. I’m so grateful {that a} rising variety of US church buildings have began to help the restoration of the gospel in Germany by such partnerships.
Whereas monetary partnership is a good blessing, what Germany wants much more is prayer. In spite of everything, it’s the Lord Jesus who has promised to construct his church (Matthew 16:18), and until he builds the home, those that construct it labor in useless (Psalm 127:1). Please be part of us in prayer for the church in Germany, that the Lord could have mercy and can grant a brand new revival. And reward him for what he’s already doing. Whereas the previous and spectacular cathedrals don’t have any non secular life, smaller and fewer spectacular church buildings are arising with a brand new vibrancy and pleasure in Jesus.
