Many vacationers to Germany love to go to the gorgeous outdated church buildings and cathedrals that may be present in each metropolis, city, and even village.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 development started in AD 340. Extra spectacular are the cathedrals in Cologne, Ulm, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, Munich, and Berlin, to call just some.
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 folks. 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 fort church. However whereas all these websites are great 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 pattern will proceed, and even speed up, as the typical age of those that are nonetheless church members is considerably above the nationwide common.
However then, formal church membership will not be an excellent measure for the non secular state of a nation, particularly given the truth that Germany has so-called “state” church buildings. I personally 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 infrequently 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 this present day.
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 known as “free” church, which means a church outdoors of the Protestant and Roman Catholic state-church system. Initially, I assumed they have been a part of a sect. This stays the final notion of most Germans after 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 avoid wasting 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 laborious 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 educated 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, Shiny Hope
Within the final sixteen years, I’ve seen the final pattern 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 overall variety of new enrollments at accredited seminaries and state universities was simply 2 hundred in all of Germany. All of it appears very bleak.
“The clear ring of the gospel is upsetting a recent stirring for true Christianity in post-Christian Germany.”
But I’m eager for the church in Germany. This hope relies each on my data of God and on what I see occurring in our personal church and in different places across the nation. Clearly, Christians can all the time be hopeful. We stand on the aspect 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 for certain for all who belief and comply with him. At some point, 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 era. 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 only some years. Pastor John inspired us to evangelise the phrase and to kind partnerships with a purpose to encourage different like-minded males. In 2011, this group gathered underneath the identify “Evangelium21” for a convention in Hamburg. Ever since, the Evangelium21 nationwide convention has been an annual occasion. Since 2011, the convention has grown to properly 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 educated 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 pattern has led our church in Munich to start out a three-year pastoral trainee program for younger males. Usually, we usher in graduates from Bible faculties and seminaries who’ve obtained 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 pattern, 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 goal to revitalize struggling church buildings or to plant new ones.
Church planting stays 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 era 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 desirous to be educated and to speculate their lives in order that extra folks in Germany and past will hear the gospel clearly proclaimed.
Let the Gospel Ring
At this time, we see stable and rising church buildings proclaiming the gospel in additional German cities than just some years in the past. Whereas the numbers are nonetheless unimpressive, the clear ring of the gospel is upsetting a recent stirring for true Christianity in post-Christian Germany.
Christians in america have performed an incredible half in the latest developments. Lots of the pastors within the Evangelium21 community have been educated within the US. Many nonetheless obtain prayer and monetary assist by way of American church buildings. Certainly, adopting a German seminary scholar, 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 amass the language and get adjusted to the tradition. I’m so grateful {that a} rising variety of US church buildings have began to assist the restoration of the gospel in Germany by way of such partnerships.
Whereas monetary partnership is a good blessing, what Germany wants much more is prayer. In any case, 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 may have mercy and can grant a brand new revival. And reward him for what he’s already doing. Whereas the outdated and spectacular cathedrals haven’t any non secular life, smaller and fewer spectacular church buildings are bobbing up with a brand new vibrancy and pleasure in Jesus.
