Regional Snapshot

European churches
touch lives

By Donat Picard
European denominational director

PARIS—Following are reports from the WCG congregations in Europe.

Belgium

The WCG in Belgium is a multi-national church with members from Africa, Brazil, Colombia, France, the United States and of course, Belgium. The WCG is a member of the Protestant and Evangelical National Federation.

Church services are conducted in Brussels every two weeks and attended by 30 members who participate in prayer groups where relatives and friends are welcomed.

With our little means, our missionary tools are mainly personal relationships, social and recreational activities and potlucks, where nonmembers are invited. Members publish a monthly bulletin, which is a means to develop teamwork and bonding. Gerard Claude.

France

The WCG in France counts 14 congregations scattered over continental France and Martinique and Guadeloupe. Attendance is more than 700 people. Thanks to steady income, three full-time pastors and one office coordinator are on the payroll. Three lay pastors complete the pastoral team, assisted by dozens of dedicated volunteers.

La Prudentielle (our sister cultural association) publishes a full-color magazine La Vie Chrétienne (3,000 subscribers) and administers a web site www.lemondeavenir.com. Some of our outreach projects include interdenominational meetings and concerts such as those presented by our Antilles churches, collections of school furniture for children in Africa, sending WCG literature and tapes to different French-speaking countries, and financial and pastoral help to Haiti and other Caribbean Islands.

In eastern France, for three years, cell groups have produced good fruit to the point that a new congregation (Mulhouse) was established with 20 members last March. Two others are in the making.

The church in France fulfills Christ’s commission in a post-modern society that has, according to sociologists, lost almost all references to the true God and to true Christianity, and has turned to a new form of paganism, including a kind of a la carte syncretism that leaves the French people spiritually unsatisfied and cut off from traditional institutions. Donat Picard.

Germany

The German-Austrian area includes 230 people scattered in 11 congregations, with two full-time employees.

Since 1994, our doctrinal changes enabled us to become members of the Evangelical Alliance in Bonn and the Working Group of Christian Churches. The church conducts an inter-denominational festival with participation by the Free Evangelical Church, an evangelical association in Germany, and the Church at the Rhine, an ethnic Russian evangelical congregation. We also had contributions from Spanish, Chinese, Bulgarian, Persian and Turk congregations.

Since 1998, our magazine Nachfolge (Discipleship) has tripled in circulation to 9,500 readers. Our sister magazine in Bulgaria has 4,000 subscribers. We have a 20-member congregation in Bulgaria, looked after by Nikolay Nikolov.

Some of our literature is translated into Russian, and we launched Nachfolge in Russian with a circulation of about 1,000.

Since 1998, we have provided our WCG congregation in Togo, Africa, with financial resources for their various projects.

On a national level, we support World Vision, Mercy Ships and the Red Cross. Local churches have their own outreach ministries in Eastern Europe and Africa. Santiago Lange.

Netherlands

We have churches in Zwolle, Doorn and Tilburg, in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Flanders (Flemish Belgium). The 110 members in these congregations are served by Frans Danenberg, Ivo Cuypers and Joop Post, under the lead of Jesse Korver, national director. They are volunteers. No one is on payroll.

A small house group in Suriname in South America is supported by Dutch-speaking members.

Our web site www.lifeblad.nl offers our full-color Dutch magazine Lifeline (5,000 subscribers), and an overview of doctrines, Bible studies, booklets, a Bible course and addresses of the places we meet.

Since 2003, we have been working with seven churches of other denominations in the university town of Tilburg. One of the projects of these seven churches is to start a television program. Jesse Korver.

Portugal

The Portuguese church has 30 members who meet in the Lisbon area.

We contribute to our larger membership by translating literature, which is available on our web site at www.idm.pt. We also print and send copies to members in Angola. We host the Brazilian church’s web site, which contains contact information and articles they have translated. Jose Ribeiro.

Italy

The WCG in Italy started about 20 years ago with some members from other parts of the world. As a result of preaching the gospel through the media, our members are scattered over the country.

We have 13 congregations or groups of members including two in Sicily and one in Sardinia. The emphasis on personal evangelism is starting to bear fruit. In one case, a member has started a Bible study in his own home and draws a regular attendance of 10 to 15 people.

In another case, the testimony of an old subscriber resulted in eight baptized members, giving birth to a small congregation that meets twice a week, and elsewhere, the example of a church family has already resulted in a group of almost 40 people being interested in attending worship services.

The Italian churches have a sister congregation relationship with two U.S. congregations (Clarkstown and Middletown, New York). Daniel Boesch.

Scandinavia

The WCG in Norway, Denmark and Sweden consists of 70 members. The Scandinavian church includes Finland and Estonia as our outreach project. Five booklets are produced (in Norwegian, Danish and Swedish) every year. We have a web page in Norwegian and Danish, with Swedish coming soon. Our home page is www.livetskilde.org.

Estonia

We have 11 baptized members in Estonia with more attending our meetings. Four times a year I go to Estonia and conduct public lectures in the university city of Tartu. The purpose of these lectures and the booklets we produce is to teach what the Bible says and to help people understand their relationship with God, independent of their Christian affiliations.

Anne Schotter, a member in Estonia, was part of a group of eight people who in 1988 decided they would try to help the Estonian people. Today it is the largest private help organization in Estonia, having homes for released adult and juvenile criminals, a home for raped women and a home for street children. Carl Fredrik Aas.

Spain

In spite of little means, our members do their best. Through a food bank, we drew to our fellowship a dozen new attendees, most of them illegal immigrants from Brazil.

As we participate in an interdenominational marriage ministry led by the Christian Alliance and Mission Church, we build a friendly relationship with many couples. Some have expressed the desire to know us better.

On Sept. 4, Marco Silva, a Brazilian leader in the Madrid congregation, and I participated in the March for Jesus, organized by Mission Love.

Verdad y Vida, our Spanish magazine, reaches about 4,000 people.

We would appreciate prayers that God would soften the hearts of the Spaniards and guide us in reaching out to them. Pedro Rufian.

Switzerland

The WCG in Switzerland includes three congregations: two in the German-speaking part, and one in the French-speaking one.

The Geneva church celebrated its 40th anniversary. It was the first WCG congregation on the continent.

A new leadership team is being trained to take the place of aging leaders.

Because their pastor, Daniel Boesch, is also the national leader of Italy, Swiss members step in whenever they hear about needs there. The Swiss congregations also keep up personal contacts with members in Estonia. Daniel Boesch.

United Kingdom and Ireland

The WCG in the United Kingdom is now more than 45 years old. Around 1,500 members meet in 52 congregations scattered throughout England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Eire.

The church has moved its office from the St. Albans area to Market Harborough in Leicestershire. A staff of six attends to the office, financial and technical needs of the church and its operations.

A priority of the church is the support and training of our young people to begin to assume pastoral and administrative roles for the future. A group of such young people calling themselves Regeneration has been formed to organise events and provide a forum for exchanging information and keeping networked together.

Our Foundations in Ministry course gives a solid training base for the young and old seeking more formal support. The Mission House is a charity formed to provide support for young and old who wish to devote time and energy in overseas mission work.

We in the United Kingdom are seeking to position ourselves to be better servants of Christ to accomplish the great commission.

The United Kingdom also gives pastoral support to a group of about 40 members in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. These are mainly Filipino and Indian workers on contract. We also have small groups in Greece and Malta supported from the United Kingdom. David Silcox.

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