What's Going On?! Could it be ... God?!
It seems like something is going on here in Albania... More to the point, it seems like God may be moving in a new and exciting way. This is purely anecdotal, but consider these examples from my own life all from the last month or 2...
I mentor 4 young men. One got married 2 weeks ago, so he's legitimately out of the picture for a while. But the other 3 are all significantly growing in their passion for evangelism and are beginning to practice it and encourage/exhort others to do the same. Some of that I would like to think has to do with our mentoring sessions, but the fact of the matter is that I have been mentoring for nearly 15 years and this is the first time I've started to see this type of response. Might the Holy Spirit have something to do with it?!
Of those 4 young men, 1 held the first meeting of a new church-plant last week and another is actively and intentionally planning towards the possibility of a new church-plant in the not-so-distant future in the Fresku area (a suburb of Tirana without any active witness for Christ that I am aware of). Again, I'd like to think a passion for church planting and taking active steps in that direction has something to do with the time we spend together, but again I am reminded that I haven't had other mentors suddenly planning and executing church plants. Might the Holy Spirit be moving in a new way in this land?!
A young man who was involved with the CCL over many years in more of an academic capacity has had a dramatic turn in his life recently. Over the summer he and his wife house-sat for some furloughing missionaries and led multiple people to the Lord in that neighborhood, a neighborhood that previously had been pretty resistant to the Gospel. A few weeks back (actually at the wedding of my out-of-the-picture mentoree above) he pulled me aside and presented a new project. He wanted to gather a group of 10 people together who would celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Albania by winning 100 disciples to the Lord during the last quarter of 2012. 100 convert-disciples in 3 months?! Yes, and he didn't want the group to be larger than 10 because he wanted each of us to be significantly challenged to change our lifestyle rather than just continuing on in a "life-as-usual" kind of a pattern. Now this young man has translated several books for me recently which were all about disciple-making and church-planting and I'd like to think that part of the reason for his dramatically increased desire to reach the lost might be due to this literature. But I have to remind myself that he's translated some 20 other books for me in the past and never came to this point before. Might God be doing something special in Albania in this time?!
A couple weeks ago Luis Palau came to Albania and we had an outreach called TiranaFest. Somewhere around 2000 people submitted response cards indicating that either they had accepted Christ for the first time or had recommitted their life to Christ. As our church (Eagles) has followed up with some of these response cards we have seen new people come to church in the last 2 weeks at a higher rate than we have seen in the last year previously! Might the Holy Spirit have something to do with this type of response?!
In 2003 a study of the evangelical church in Albania was carried out by VUSH/AEP. In 2009 the CCL carried out a follow-up study and realized that the church had actually shrunk by approximately 50% during those 6 years. This 2009 study statistically confirmed the anecdotal evidence I had been getting by drips and drabs over the year as I talked to countless discouraged, disheartened pastors who reported 0 or negative growth in their churches. However, in the last month I've talked to pastors of 3 churches who reported with enthusiasm that they were experiencing growth, yes in maturity, but they were also saying (for the first time that I recall in recent memory) numerical growth. These are anecdotes from just 3 pastors (hardly a representative sample), but they fly in the face of the almost unanimous voice of the anecdotal evidence I have been hearing over the past 8-9 years. Might the Church have re-entered a phase of growth? Might the Holy Spirit be moving afresh and anew?!
In the words of Mr. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, talking about the coming of Aslan,
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
Might it be true? Might Aslan be on the move again?! After a period in the history of the Albanian church that I would describe as somewhat wintry, might Spring be on the way again?! I can hardly wait to see what He's going to do next...
I mentor 4 young men. One got married 2 weeks ago, so he's legitimately out of the picture for a while. But the other 3 are all significantly growing in their passion for evangelism and are beginning to practice it and encourage/exhort others to do the same. Some of that I would like to think has to do with our mentoring sessions, but the fact of the matter is that I have been mentoring for nearly 15 years and this is the first time I've started to see this type of response. Might the Holy Spirit have something to do with it?!
Of those 4 young men, 1 held the first meeting of a new church-plant last week and another is actively and intentionally planning towards the possibility of a new church-plant in the not-so-distant future in the Fresku area (a suburb of Tirana without any active witness for Christ that I am aware of). Again, I'd like to think a passion for church planting and taking active steps in that direction has something to do with the time we spend together, but again I am reminded that I haven't had other mentors suddenly planning and executing church plants. Might the Holy Spirit be moving in a new way in this land?!
A young man who was involved with the CCL over many years in more of an academic capacity has had a dramatic turn in his life recently. Over the summer he and his wife house-sat for some furloughing missionaries and led multiple people to the Lord in that neighborhood, a neighborhood that previously had been pretty resistant to the Gospel. A few weeks back (actually at the wedding of my out-of-the-picture mentoree above) he pulled me aside and presented a new project. He wanted to gather a group of 10 people together who would celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Albania by winning 100 disciples to the Lord during the last quarter of 2012. 100 convert-disciples in 3 months?! Yes, and he didn't want the group to be larger than 10 because he wanted each of us to be significantly challenged to change our lifestyle rather than just continuing on in a "life-as-usual" kind of a pattern. Now this young man has translated several books for me recently which were all about disciple-making and church-planting and I'd like to think that part of the reason for his dramatically increased desire to reach the lost might be due to this literature. But I have to remind myself that he's translated some 20 other books for me in the past and never came to this point before. Might God be doing something special in Albania in this time?!
A couple weeks ago Luis Palau came to Albania and we had an outreach called TiranaFest. Somewhere around 2000 people submitted response cards indicating that either they had accepted Christ for the first time or had recommitted their life to Christ. As our church (Eagles) has followed up with some of these response cards we have seen new people come to church in the last 2 weeks at a higher rate than we have seen in the last year previously! Might the Holy Spirit have something to do with this type of response?!
In 2003 a study of the evangelical church in Albania was carried out by VUSH/AEP. In 2009 the CCL carried out a follow-up study and realized that the church had actually shrunk by approximately 50% during those 6 years. This 2009 study statistically confirmed the anecdotal evidence I had been getting by drips and drabs over the year as I talked to countless discouraged, disheartened pastors who reported 0 or negative growth in their churches. However, in the last month I've talked to pastors of 3 churches who reported with enthusiasm that they were experiencing growth, yes in maturity, but they were also saying (for the first time that I recall in recent memory) numerical growth. These are anecdotes from just 3 pastors (hardly a representative sample), but they fly in the face of the almost unanimous voice of the anecdotal evidence I have been hearing over the past 8-9 years. Might the Church have re-entered a phase of growth? Might the Holy Spirit be moving afresh and anew?!
In the words of Mr. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, talking about the coming of Aslan,
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
Might it be true? Might Aslan be on the move again?! After a period in the history of the Albanian church that I would describe as somewhat wintry, might Spring be on the way again?! I can hardly wait to see what He's going to do next...
Today in Eagle's Church we had nearly half of our participants as new, unchurched seekers. PRAISE GOD! HE'S CONTINUING TO WORK!
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