Holm's Blog

Prayermail "20 Years in Germany!" January 2012

2012-01-07T18:26:00.010+01:00

Dear Friends,

20 years ago, on January 8, 1992, we left for Germany to serve Christ with Greater Europe Mission. Sam was eight years old, Roy was four and we were both thirty-three.

Holm Family 1992

What an adventure that was for us. And to tell you the truth - it continues to be! - Seeing people come to faith, be baptized and then grow in their faith and commitment to the Lord; churches planted; training and mentoring church planters and their teams; directly leading three church plants ourselves and coaching another seven church plants in our region; influencing pastors and church leaders; casting vision among denominational leaders; modeling front line evangelism; seeking creative ways to share the Gospel. In a country where only 3-5% of the population attend any kind of church service regularly, there is still much work to be done. But it has been a great privilege for us to be a part of what God is doing in Germany.

The verse we chose 20 years ago is still our banner. "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness, " made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." 2 Corinthians 4,5-7

Heidi, Sam, Roy Sue, Jason - Christmas 2011

We are humbled and so very grateful for God's provision through you as his people over the years. Without our faithful supporters, we would not be where we are today. We look forward to the next 20 years as we pray for and work toward seeing a second reformation and a church planting movement sweep through Germany and Europe.

Our heartfelt thanks for standing with us,

Jason and Sue

PS: Click here to see our current financial support needs.

December Update

2011-12-02T10:57:00.004+01:00

Dear Friends,
Here are the latest developments in our ministry that we would like to share with you:

Cologne Project
On October 20 we held an info evening for our church plant. It was a time of sharing our history, values and vision with those who have been attending regularly but are not yet fully committed. In addition to our start--team of eight, five people attended. It was amazing for us to hear what R. and C. had to say. R. told us that if it weren't for this church, that he would never have considered drawing near to Jesus as he has the last several months. He said the very fact he was there that evening is proof that God is working in his heart. Both he and C. kept talking about "we" showing much ownership of the church plant. When we talked about how we value loving God and loving each other, C. suggested that we were being too cautious with our words and that we needed to be proactive and "evangelize" the city if we really love the people who live here! Please continue to pray for the Cologne Project - especially R. and C.

City Mentoring Program
In October, Tobi, our church planting intern, and I started a new City Mentoring Program phase one group. Tobi and I are co-leading the sessions. The participants are mostly contacts of Tobi's who are potential team members for the church he will be planting starting next summer here in Cologne. One coupleis commuting from Stuttgart (a 3 & 1/2 hour drive!) each month and spendingthe night with Tobi and Luci. They are considering relocating to Cologne just to be able to be a part of the church plant. It is exciting for us to be a part of mentoring and encouraging Tobi & Luci and their team that is forming. God's Kingdom is being advanced in Cologne!
City Mentoring Program group
Consultation
The Fall gathering of the Consultation for Church Planting was held in Frankfurt in November. In the morning, Erhard Michel, spoke on the subject of how Church Planting first became a top priority in the Evangelical Free Church of Germany. As he recounted the history, he credited North American missionaries who came after WW2 with the ground-breaking work that is now the foundation for church planting in Germany! Sue's father, Reuben Goertz, was among some of the names he mentioned. They were practitioners but also inspired the Germans to be about planting churches themselves. As we approach the two-year anniversary of Reuben's death, we want to acknowledge our gratefulness for the heritage that is ours and the rich tradition of partnering with European denominations and organizations.

turnaround 2013, together for church planting in Germany

In the afternoon we worked together on our plans for the National Congress on Church Planting set for June 2013. With the help of some of our talented GEM colleagues, we now have a logo and an initial flyer. The theme of the congress will be "Trendwende" which means "a change in course" or "turnaround" referring to the fact that the church in Germany is shrinking - in spite of some bright spots where church planting is occurring. We want to see this trend turned around and believe that one important way this could happen is through a church planting movement. Please pray for wisdom and unity as we continue to work on the program and seek to get the best speakers and workshop leaders possible.

Christmas
It was a beautiful November but the driest month on record in Germany. . The Christmas markets opened last week but the weather doesn't feel right. Nonetheless, as we enjoy the advent season here we are especially looking forward to being with family this Christmas. We will be in New York where Roy is searching for work and an apartment now that he has officially completed his remaining coursework at Juniata College. Sam and Heidi are coming from Denver and we look forward to spending a quick week together along with Sue's brother Sam and family and Sue's mom.

Carol Sing Flyer

Carol Sing
On the fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec. 18, our church plant will be hosting a carol sing. Germans love to sing and we are hoping to draw a good sized crowd for this event. Our colleague, Kristi will be leading us and has also recruited other musicians who will accompany the singing and perform several pieces themselves. Tobi will be sharing a brief, evangelistic devotional. There will be candles and cookies and hot spiced Christmas punch and a couple of our neighbors offered to come and make waffles. Please pray that the true meaning of Christmas would shine brightly through the candlelight and warm fuzzies.

As you celebrate this Christmas may you above all know that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. (James 1:17-18)

Your missionaries to Germany,

Jason and Sue

PS: Click here to see our current financial support needs.

September Prayermail

2011-09-08T10:11:00.001+02:00

Dear Friends,

For several years now I (Jason) have been the German field leader for Greater Europe Mission along with a team of three others. This is in addition to the church planting and evangelism that we do. It has been said that leading missionaries is like trying to herd cats and to some extent I agree. It takes independent people who follow God's call, many times with resistance from their own family, who then go through the humbling, painful and faith-stretching ordeal of raising their own support, moving to another country and learning the language and culture and then, with God's help, forge a new ministry and new partnerships. These are the kind of people I have the privilege of leading in Germany. I am humbled and very proud to be serving God with them. In this prayermail, I would like to introduce you to them:

Adam & Bethel in Cologne: evangelism, discipleship, church planting, field leader team

Alex & Wendy in Frankfurt: evangelism, discipleship, church planting, marketplace

Angie in Koenigsfeld: music, discipleship

Brian in Munich: evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Danny & Anne in Cologne: evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Dave & Rachel in Cologne: dance, pottery, photography, evangelism, discipleship

Don & Susie in St. Georgen: music, evangelism, discipleship

Jeffrey & Katherine in Leipzig: evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Jim & Evelyn in Bonn: Bible school, evangelism, discipleship

Jim in Cologne: evangelism, discipleship, worship, church planting

Joel & Tatjana in Giessen: seminary, evangelism, discipleship

Julia in Cologne: evangelism, discipleship, church planting, field team

Kate in Berlin: evangelism, discipleship, church planting, children's work

Kevin & Kathi in Cologne: evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Kristi in Cologne: music, evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Leslie in Berlin: discipleship, evangelism, language/culture coach, field leader team

Robyn in Badenweiler: evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Stephen & Susan in Giessen: seminary, evangelism, discipleship, church planting

Warren & Celia in Cologne: evangelism, discipleship, youth

Here is a photo from our spring field retreat. Not everyone was present as some were in the USA on Home Ministry Assignment.

God is using this exceptional group of people to expand His kingdom in Germany, Europe and beyond. In the last 6 months hundreds of people have been discipled. At least 10 new evangelistic Bible studies have started and at least 3 new churches have been planted in Germany. People are coming to faith. That is exciting! Please pray for us. Pray that God would break through the spiritual darkness in Germany even more and that His Kingdom would come in new and vibrant ways.

Pray for Germany as a country. As the most powerful economy in Europe, Germany is very influential in the world. Its economy, education, politics, philosophies and culture shape modern life and thought. Imagine what would happen if that influence could be harnessed to extend God's Kingdom in the world.

Germany is amazingly connected and therefore one of the most strategic mission fields in the world. Through it's diverse population and activities, Germany has connections with individuals and cultures from around the globe. Economic migration from other EU countries, plus an influx of immigrants from 10/40 window countries, create unprecedented opportunities to disciple the nations.

Germany is needy. That's right... needy. Not in material terms, but morally and spiritually, Germany is adrift and in need of an anchor. It is filled with churches - often empty, abandoned or converted into museums, restaurants and shops. Take away the beautiful church buildings and you'll be hard-pressed to see any hints of Christianity. Sadly, most Germans don't have a life-changing relationship with Jesus or know anyone who does.

We are committed to seeing God's Kingdom spread throughout Germany, Europe and to the world as we follow Jesus and lead others to do the same.

Thank you for standing with us.

Your missionaries to Germany,

Jason and Sue

PS: Click here to see our current financial support needs.

June Prayermail

2011-09-08T09:17:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

Last week, Thursday, was Ascension Day - a holiday in Germany. We normally have Bible study on Thursdays but decided to have a meal with a couple of women who come regularly. Because we hadn't seen them for a several weeks, we also invited our neighbors, W. and H. They responded affirmatively and immediately asked if they could invite a common friend of ours, S. Thursday afternoon Sue noticed that another neighbor was visiting with W. and H. and decided to ask if she too, would like to join us for supper. In the mean time, the original invitees were also inviting more people with the final count of 12 around our table! We grilled 4 different kinds of sausages and some of the others brought various salads (our neighbor H. makes a potato salad to die for!). Well, among other things, S. just happens to be a DJ so at some point she started playing with the remote to my computer, on which I have a lot of old rock and pop songs, and before we knew it the dancing started. It was so much fun! A number of the guests left sometime after midnight leaving W., H., S., Sue and I sitting around the table conversing about our stresses in life. What followed was an amazing opportunity to share with them about our faith and how it centers us and gives us strength for all of life's challenges. We were able to share the gospel in such a clear way. It was amazing.

On Friday night our church plant hosted a choir from our Alma mater, Grace University. We were thankful for the good attendance and were able to make several new friends for the church. A couple from Dortmund was in town visiting friends and had googled to see what was going on Friday night. The search brought up our concert so they came and had a great time. In closing at the end of the concert, I simply invited everyone to come to our worship service on Sunday. The couple from Dortmund showed up once again. Very interesting. As usual, we were dissatisfied with the attendance on Sunday morning but thankful for the meaningful time of worship. Our special music was especially unusual - a husband and wife accordion duo. They played Simon & Garfunkel, Dvorak, and Shostakovich. Fun!

Please continue praying for these dear people who we long to see come to a living faith in Christ: H. & W., S., R., C. and J.

We want you to meet Tobi Saenger, his wife Luci and their three-year-old daughter, Talita. Tobi is a German Bible school grad and his wife Luci is from Brazil. They moved to Cologne last summer to plant a church but have agreed with us to first do an internship in our church plant until next summer through the City Mentoring Program. We are really happy to have them and have enjoyed working together. Please pray that our working relationship would be mutually beneficial and would prepare the Saengers well for their own church plant.

Not too long ago, while Tobi and I were working out on the street as "Contact Person", 3 young Muslim men came up to talk with us. One was quite devout, the other one nominal and after a few minutes of talking with the third one he told me he was an atheist. I asked him a few probing questions and then gently challenged his worldview, adding what I believe. I talked about Jesus and how he shows us who God is because he is God. Suddenly, he interjected: "You know, if I had a New Testament, I would read it to find out more about Jesus. Whoa! I was floored. I told him that I just happened to have one in my bike saddlebag and would be happy to give it to him. At first he did not want to accept it but I assured him that I had more and that I would love for him to have it. As I went to hand it to him, I held onto it and looked him in the eye and said that I would give it to him only if he was really going to read it. He said that he really wanted to read it. I suggested that he start in the gospel of Mark and wished him God's blessing. I regret not having noted his name. Please pray for him. Pray that he would actually read God's Word, encounter him and place his trust in Jesus.

Your missionaries to Germany,

Jason and Sue

PS: Click here to see our current financial support needs.

Prayer update March 2011

2011-03-30T19:53:00.003+02:00

Dear Friends

The romantic valentine's day concert on February 11 was amazing. The concert, which had been advertised in the newspaper, in personal networks, and through various outreach efforts, drew a full house of one-hundred-and-twenty people, only eight of which were from the church plant! In addition to all the beautiful music, I presented a few love poems, including 1 Corinthians 13. I also shared briefly from Scripture about God's love, and concluded my mini-message with these words:

"Tonight we celebrated romantic love. When you fall in love, you are overpowered by it. Love takes over and it's as if you've been waiting your whole life for that moment. You have the feeling that until that point, you were 'incomplete'. Is it possible that this is also true for us and God? Could you be waiting for God's love to fill the void in your heart?"

After the concert people not only commented about the beauty of the songs, poems, and Scripture, but many asked about the church, and showed an openness towards God. Here is a link to a few video excerpts from the concert.

Pray that those who attended will not only have been moved by the music and texts, but that they would also be overwhelmed by God's love for them. Pray that the seeds planted would bear much fruit! May each one of them let God become the One who speaks these words from one of the love duets which was sung that night:

No more talk of darkness, forget your wide eyed fears.

I'm here, nothing can harm you, my words will warm and calm you.

Let me be your freedom, let daylight dry your tears,

I'm here, with you, beside you, to guard you and to guide you.

Let me be your shelter, let me be your light.

You're safe, no one will find you, your fears are far behind you.

We had our first CologneProject church retreat Feb. 18-20. It was a good time of fellowship and getting to know some new people and regular attenders. We took time in each of our sessions to discuss the 5 main values that we have as a church plant:

1. We seek that which is genuine and good.

2. We want to be well networked in the community.

3. We want to love and be loved.

4. We want to boldly take risks.

5. We want to live creatively.

Please pray that out of our ever increasing network, that more and more people will choose to follow Christ with us in community.

Jason and Sue

PS: Click here to see our current financial support needs.

Prayermail February 3, 20111

2011-02-03T19:17:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends

On Friday, February 11 we are putting on a romantic valentine's day concert. Our GEM colleague, Kristi is a trained musician with a beautiful soprano voice. It is a joint venture along with P, a gifted tenor and L, a talented pianist who is co-owner of the location in which our services are held. They will be performing a colorful selection of solos and duets from musicals and operetta; some schmalzy, some humorous and some, just simply beautiful. My name also appears o

on the flyer as I will be reading Goethe and Shakespeare and 1 Corinthians 13 and sharing a few brief thoughts on God's love. So far L has confirmed with over 60 of her friends who will be attending! We expect probably another 40 from our networks. We are looking forward to meeting many new folks, having a good time and sharing just a little bit about God's love. Please pray for God to bless.

At our last church breakfast+devotional I talked about one of my favorite places in Cologne - the dump. I always get pumped up and excited to go there. Owners of a Cologne license plate can dump their junk for free! As I spoke, I began to draw a diagram on the flip chart. The dump we go to is actually a transfer station and they have a whole series of containers for furniture, small appliances, big appliances, grass/leaves/branches, metal, general garbage, toxic stuff, paper/cardboard, glass, etc. Whenever the need arises, I am grateful and happy to pay the dump a visit because I always leave with a light heart and a spring in my step. I continued to explain that there is a place where I also love to go because I can get rid of my junk there as well and proceeded to draw a simple cross. I can "dump" all my burdens there and also find forgiveness for my guilt. At the end I had someone read Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

After the devotional, as we were still having breakfast, C got up and came over to sit across from me. He was confused. He said that it was nice to know that we could "dump" our stuff at the cross - our frustrations, worries, fears, loneliness, etc. But he had a problem with equating all those things with guilt. I assured him that they were not the same thing but that our guilt was probably one of the biggest things that we carry around with us unnecessarily and can bring it to the cross and experience God's forgiveness. We talked for about 20 minutes and I suggested he start reading Romans. In fact, I said, I would be happy to come and read with him and ask some guiding questions to help him understand better what it means to follow Christ. Later, as he was leaving, I repeated my offer. Would you please pray that he takes me up on it?

Thank you for standing with us as we seek to be a part of what God is doing here in Germany.

Jason and Sue

PS: Click here to see our current financial support needs.

December update

2010-12-12T09:16:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,

We have had an unusually cold start to December - the perfect weather for visiting the amazing Christmas markets in Germany.

Here are some updates and prayer requests for you:

JAMBAG

It was an awesome evening with about 40people attending this artistic event in Cologne, which we hope will expand our church plant's sphere of influence andwill help us build relationships with artists and art lovers in the city. It was a lot of fun to see how people participated in the improvisations - often outside the area of their normal artistic giftedness - and usually in unconventional ways! There was dance, song, drama, pantomime and all kinds of sounds from instruments and whatever else was lying around. It was fascinating and everyone had a good time. There were some spiritual discussions that took place and 15 new people signed up to get our church plant email updates. Pray that these new relationships will result in spiritual fruit. We are definitely planning on repeating JamBag sometime in the spring.

CONSULTATION FOR CHURCH PLANTING

We had our biggest group yet at our latest meeting on Nov 22 in Frankfurt. Over 30 leaders of church planting ministries gathered to work toward seeing a movement of church planting started in Germany. We spent a good portion of our time planning a national conference to be held in June 2013. Our goal is to have church planting practitioners, denominational leaders and decision makers come together for 2 days of inspiration and networking - hopefully resulting in concrete action steps toward a church planting movement. Please pray that God will poor out his blessing. All of our efforts are worthless unless He is the one working through us.

ALLEGRO

Allegro is a hand bell quartet from Calvary Church in Longmont, where I was the minister of music while attending Denver Seminary. They were here from Nov 30 to Dec 9 playing in the (freezing!) streets of Cologne, in the hospital, at a Christmas market, etc. It was an awesome and exhausting week. Most Germans have never heard hand bells before and were immediately attracted to the beautiful sound. We were able to hand out over 160 invitations to our church and chat with quite a few people. We are thankful for this committed team and their partnership with us to reach out to people here through beautiful music. Please pray that God will move through all of the contacts we made while they were here.

CHRISTMAS - TO SHARE OR NOT TO SHARE

Iris, a university student in Cologne, came up to talk to me while Kristi and I were doing our Contact Person outreach. She noticed my American accent right away and wanted to talk in English.

Iris: What are you standing for? (I think she meant - why are you standing here?)

Kristi: Yea, Jason, tell her what you stand for!

Jason: I stand for peace, love and justice, to name just a few.

I then began to tell her that I was a pastor and that Kristi and I were out trying to meet new people and tell them about our new church...

Iris: Well, I'm an atheist.

Jason: Really! Why?

Iris: Well my mom is protestant and my dad is catholic and so we never went to church anywhere and they gave me complete freedom to believe whatever I wanted to. So I came to the conclusion that I don't believe in anything like God or any other higher power.

Jason: Aha. So what do you believe?

Iris: Well, I believe in some of the same things you do; world peace, justice, love.

Jason: That's good. We have something in common then, don't we?

Iris: Yes. And even though I don't believe in God, I really like Christmas.

Jason: Well, I'm sorry, but you can't have it. We are not going to share it with you.

Iris: (disappointed) Oh, no. Well can I at least have the presents?

Jason: I'll have to think about that.

I then explained to her the meaning of Christmas and how it leads to Easter, the most important celebration for believers. She listened respectfully.

Jason: You know what, I have reconsidered. We will be happy to share Christmas with you. (Handing her an invitation) We would love to have you come to one of our church gatherings.

Iris: No promises, but I will consider it - and look at your website.

As she went to leave, I wished her a nice day and God's blessing.

One of my favorite verses is John 3:17, "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." As we share the light of Christmas with those still in darkness, we cling to and celebrate the best news ever proclaimed to mankind.

We wish you a merry and blessed Christmas,

Jason and Sue

september update

2010-09-04T18:42:00.002+02:00

Dear Friends,

Jesus told us to go and make disciples. In a city of 1 million, like Cologne, we are sure that God is at work and there are many who would be open to the Gospel and following Jesus if only someone were to explain it to them. But how do we find those people. We are continually working at trying to expand our existing network through our church plant services and events but we are also looking for new innovative ways to find people that are open and seeking and that God is preparing.

One of our new ideas is called "Ansprechpartner". In English we would say "contact person" but the German word literally means "a person to talk to". It is used in a variety of contexts - from the contact link for information on a web site to that of a counselor, therapist or friend with a listening ear. Recently, Kristi (one of our new missionaries) and I stood in the busy pedestrian shopping district and held up signs with the word "Ansprechpartner." We drew plenty of smiles and several pedestrians who actually come up to us and asked "for what are you the contact person? Why are you here? Is this candid camera? We responded by saying that we are simply there to listen to whatever people wanted to say. We're "all ear" so to speak. No gimmicks, nothing to sell or have people sign up for. Over the course of an hour, we talked with maybe 15-20 people. Most of the contact was brief but there were several who wanted to talk more and were interested in knowing a little more about our church plant. Please pray for us as we continue on our search for people who want to talk and go deeper.

Please pray for the CologneProject. Not paying rent in our present location has proven to have a significant down side as our landlord has informed us several times that we would have to cancel or change dates because he has booked paying customers. Pray for us as we look for a more stable venue, especially in light of our desire to move toward having 2 services a month this fall. Pray that our small groups would grow in depth and breadth. Pray that people who are coming regularly would move from being spectators to participants.

Thank you for praying for us as we traveled in the U.S. this summer. We had great connections in Colorado with our supporters. Pray that new people we met would be moved to joining our support team and commit to supporting us on a regular basis in prayer and finances.

Pray for the next mens discussion evening to be held sometime in September. This second time we want to have a theme and will be using a booklet about the virtues to guide our discussion. Pray for open hearts and that R and H will respond to the Gospel.

Keep praying for a second reformation in Germany! Pray that the church will break out of the stronghold of tradition and that a groundswell of new disciple-makers will impact this post Christian society!

Thank you for standing with us.

Jason and Sue

July 12, 2010

2010-07-12T22:30:00.000+02:00

July 12, 2010

Dear Friends,

A typical day?!

It was a typical day - full of housework, deskwork, interruptions and procrastination. I felt like I was a good hour behind my day's schedule - also typical. I threw on my sports clothes for the obligatory 40 minutes of power walking. I always dread it beforehand but grudgingly do it regularly in an effort to manage my chronic back pain. I needed to get moving in order to shower and dress in time for an evening appointment. As I raced down the apartment stairwell I almost ran headlong into our neighbor, J. She was heaving a suitcase up the stairs with a somewhat weary but satisfied look on her face. After a day at the office she was finally home - but her day hadn't been quite so typical. She had returned early that morning from a 10-day vacation in Israel with a friend. Her flight had arrived in Cologne early enough to get a full day's work in and so she decided to go straight to the office. Impressive! I like J. She usually has a smile on her face, is easy-going, uncomplicated, likes to party but knows how to work hard (carrying a lot of responsibility in her job) and she's a great neighbor. Good neighbors are really something to be thankful for. "Hi J! Welcome home. Did you have a good trip?" I let loose as I ran past her. "It was incredible", she puffed, as she reached her front door. But instead of putting her key in the door she set her suitcase down and turned toward me. This I hadn't expected. With my hand on the front door handle I turned halfway in her direction. And then she proceeded to tell me how truly overwhelming it had been to visit a country with such a long and significant history, including the convergence of three world religions. I walked back towards her as a listened, two voices battling within me. The one saying, "Go, Go, Go; you gotta Go!" And the other one saying, "Let it go and listen". I sighed and worked at being attentive. She went on to relate that she had been surprisingly confronted with her lack of basic knowledge about Christianity, especially the facts regarding the events that had taken place at the many sites she had visited. I wasn't quite sure what she meant by being surprised other than it was a reference to her having grown up in Christian Germany, including the usual religion classes in school and maybe in the Catholic or Lutheran church. Since we have been neighbors, J. hasn't shown an interest in Christian spiritual things. I would describe her as well educated and enlightened but also open minded. I believe she has some interest in Buddhism and/or Hinduism. As her weary shoulders slumped she told me she was looking forward to just doing a no-brainer in front of the TV that night but concluded by saying she need to do some reading up on Christianity and the life of Christ. "Aha", I said and then immediately suggested that a good place to start would be the Gospel of St. Mark because he flies from one event to the next without a lot of commentary - good for getting an overview of the events - and it's a short book; only 15 chapters, that she could even read in one sitting. She flashed her signature smile and thanked me for the suggestion. I walked out the door and crossed the street to begin my walking route thinking what an unusual conversation that had been; just out of the blue and with J., which I never would have anticipated. And then I started to tingle all over as I realized that the Spirit had been hovering around us. As I picked up the pace I prayed for his continued work in her life - that she would open up her mind and soul to a better way; and for me - that I would open up my eyes and ears to discover his presence and work all around me.

The last 4 weeks in Colorado have been a whirlwind of activity - reconnecting with faithful supporters, our 5 supporting churches along the Front Range and making new acquaintances who might be interested in partnering with us in the ministry in Germany. We are exhausted but thankful for God's leading and encouragement through so many of you. As we prepare to return "home", we want to ask you to prayerfully consider becoming a part of this ministry by praying, increasing your financial support or pledging to financially support us as a new partner. We are still in need of $1,500 of monthly pledged support. Would you consider committing to $30, $50, $100, $150, $200, or $300 a month? We want to express a huge thanks to all who hosted us and to the many who have been partnering with us so faithfully over the years.

Click here if you would like to give or give more.
Your partners for Germany,
Jason and Sue

May 25 2010

2010-05-25T19:22:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

Here is our overdue update.

PURPLE SHOES AND AN iPHONE BLESSING

It was a nice warm evening and there were about 50 of us gathered out on the street and sidewalk in front of S's apartment. S is a model, fitness guru, DJ and a TV shopping channel personality. She had invited us to a party she was throwing simply because she had bought a new car and wanted to celebrate. I offered to say a blessing over her and her car and she jumped at the offer. She said that she had never had anyone speak a blessing over her before in her life. I chose the wonderful words of Psalm 121:2-8:

My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;

the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Finally the time came and S turned the music off and handed me the microphone. The guests gathered around us and her new little Fiat and I asked her to hold my iPhone so I could read the blessing while I dipped my thumb in olive oil and annointed her forehead and prayed for her.

We really didn't know that many people but after the blessing I had numerous very interesting conversations. I am not sure if it was because of my new purple shoes or the fact that I read the blessing from my iPhone or maybe because I am American - but I was asked several times "Are you really a Pastor?" -- an open door for me to share about my faith. I was able to invite several people to come to our next church service as well. At one point one group of people waved me over and asked me to explain what happened on Pentacost - which is a national holiday in Germany. What a joy it was for me to share with them in a perfectly natural way, starting of course with Jesus death and resurrection, ascension and then Pentacost and the hope we have within us!

PRAYER TEAM IMPACT

It was an amazing and exhausting week (May 8-14) with the prayer team from Sue's home church in Ontario. We prayed through the streets of Cologne and met and prayed with reps from 5 different church plants in the area. You can't imagine what it meant for us to have them come because they were experiencing our context first hand, they began to really share our burden for the people of Cologne - to cry with us for the lost. Our German partners were overcome with this act of service. Instead of coming with a finished program and all the answers, these people came to listen and to pray. The language barrier dissolved as we poured out our hearts to God. It was so encouraging for us and for the German church planters we partner with. It might be an exhausting prospect, but I would love to have a constant flow of teams like this coming over. Thank you so much to the people of Calvary Baptist Church for sending us this team. Who's next?

MEETING WITH MEN: June 11

On May 9 we attended a birthday party of some dear German friends of ours (M and G, both lawyers) who we have been sharing the Gospel with. Toward evening I had a fantastic talk with R, a fellow that I had not yet gotten to know very well. He is a successful dentist/surgeon. After asking him if he minded giving me a little dental advice on his day off, he proceeded to ask me if I minded talking a little bit about the current situation in the Catholic Church from my perspective as a Free Church Pastor. The dialog that resulted was amazing as we discussed the claims of Christ and how our faith can impact us in our roles especially as fathers and husbands. He had never really heard the Gospel before and wants to talk more. He and M and I decided that we needed to get together regularly to continue talking about these things. We are going to meet on June 11, possibly inviting 1 or 2 other men to join us. Please pray for wisdom and boldness and that I would love these men as passionately as Christ does.

TREK TEAM IN COLOGNE: June 1-15

TREK stands for Tangible Minsitry, Real Relationships, Extreme Adventure, Kingdom Advancing; 9 weeks, 3 countries and 1 team. After attending boot camp, the team will travel to Europe and partner with Greater Europe Missionaries (GEM) and nationals. In each of the three country locations, they will be engaged in tangible ministry while engaging in real relationships with their team, the missionaries on the ground and the nationals they will be serving. We hope they will catch a vision for what God is doing in Europe and bring hope to a lost generation, while having a blast doing it.

Preparations have been heating up. God has opened doors so that the team (6 college/grad school age students) will be spending time in various high school English classes in the area. Hopefully through these classes, they will start building relationships and be able to engage with the students after school in a park or the Christian Youth Café we are partnering with. They will also spend time on the University campus doing a survey in English in an attempt to get into conversations with the students there. Also planned are a couple of events at the youth café in conjunction with the soccer World Cup.

Please pray for the TREK team and pray for us as we provide the ultimate leadership for those 2 weeks. Pray for lives to be changed and for many young people to put their trust in Christ.

COLORADO TRIP: June 16 - July 11

We will be in Colorado to visit our 5 supporting churches there as well as numerous individual supporters. We are looking forward to connecting and sharing personally about what God is doing in Germany. If you would like to host a dinner party with some of your friends at which we can share about our life and ministry - please let us know. Please pray that God would give us strength for this trip coming on the heals of such an intense month of ministry. Pray also that our support shortfall would be eliminated through our encounters.

Your partners for Germany,

Jason and Sue

Movement in Germany!

2010-03-23T21:09:00.001+01:00

March 23, 2010

Dear Friends,
There are few things that excite us more than getting together with other church planters, to share stories and talk and pray about new opportunities and challenges. It's hard to top that - except - to meet with a group of young Germans that God has called together to plant their very first church. They are motivated and passionate and asking God exactly where they should move to. They are from all over Germany and together with their leader, Stephan, are meeting every 6 weeks in a different city to spend the day with local Christian leaders and getting to know the city. Stephen contacted me to see if I had time to spend with them on February 20. What a surprise when later that day, I got an email from Bjorn and Andrea, a young couple who graduate from Bible School this year, to see if I had time for them on February 20 to talk about them moving to Cologne to get involved in our church plant (www.koelnprojekt.de) while Bjorn pursues further studies here. We all ended up having a great lunch downtown followed by a time of prayer outside the cathedral for Cologne and for God's direction in their lives.

On March 12-14 we held our yearly GEM German field retreat, this time in a castle about 2 hours south of Cologne. In addition to some limited business and planning sessions most of the time was devoted to fellowship, sharing and praying for one another. With children and a couple who came to minister to them, we were a total of 50 people this year. What a privilege it is for Sue and me to work with such a group of dedicated, gifted and fun group of missionaries. God is using them to have an impact on this country for His Kingdom. Please pray for me as I seek to challenge, nurture and lead them.

The day after the field retreat I was up early to head to the two day Consultation for Church Planting near Frankfurt. God used our special guest, Øivind Augland, from Norway as he shared with us about all the churches that have been planted through multiple denominations over the last decade in Norway. After learning how things began to move in Norway through a national congress with ministry leaders and practitioners - the 29 German participants in the room began to dream in new ways of how a movement could maybe begin in Germany. We immediately began planning a similar national congress for 2013. Please pray about this idea with us. We need to be certain that God is in it. We will need to form a working committee by this fall. Pray that God will work in the hearts of key denominational and ministry leaders so that they will not only attend but get behind this project. Please pray also that we will be able to recruit several key German business leaders to sponsor and promote the congress.

The church plant in Cologne has entered a new phase as we recently went through the difficult process of having one couple leave the start team. As things have been progressing this last year, it became more and more clear that some of our core values were not in alignment, leading to ongoing misunderstandings and stress. Although the separation has been difficult, we can see God's hand at work on many levels and are grateful that the situation didn't explode. God helped us to part ways in a healthy way; blessing one another as we move on in separate directions. Praise God with us for that and pray that God will lead us clearly as we regroup and move forward.

Rejoicing in the hope of resurrection,

Jason and Sue

PS: Please pray for our urgent financial situation. Some of you will be receiving a letter soon about this from the president of GEM, Henry Deneen.

February update

2010-02-04T18:55:00.002+01:00

February 4, 2010

Dear Friends,
Yesterday the door to our parking garage got stuck. This changed the day for us and most of our neighbors as well. Our cars were held captive underground. Either we had to alter our plans, or at the very least our mode of transportation. Luckily we have excellent public transportation here. Some of us had to get creative. Others had to just do without. Fortunately the repairmen came today and were able to open the door and order the parts to get it permanently fixed.

Often in our ministry we have had the door get stuck and have had to get creative and change our plans. We often pray that God would either open or close doors for us so that we can know how He is leading us. But I am not sure that we are always very sensitive to the fact that He is closing the door. Instead we react by getting frustrated or looking for ways to get through the door by force. Ministry by force is probably never a very good idea. How often have we made plans, believing that God was in them, only to eventually see Him lead us in a completely different direction?
Actually, we do possess a force that can open closed doors. That force is persistent prayer. Jesus even admonished us to keep knocking at the door of heaven until the Father responds and gives us what we are asking for. We would like to ask you anew this year to join us in persistently praying for God to break through the spiritual darkness in Germany and grant us much spiritual fruit. Please pray with us:

- for our current church plant, Cologne-Project. Pray that our guests would go from being attenders to committed, reproducing disciples of Jesus. Pray that the networking we are doing with influential people from the art, design and business scene in Cologne would bear fruit. Pray that God's word would take root in people's hearts through our liturgical worship services and our small group ministry. Pray for unity and grace in our start team.

- for the GEM German field retreat March 12-14. Pray for me (Jason) as I lead this. It is mainly a time of sharing and praying and encouraging one another. We also will be doing some strategic planning.

- for the Consultation for Church Planting meetings on March 15-16 with special guest, Øivind Augland, from Norway who will be telling us about an actual church planting movement there. We want to learn from what God is doing in Norway and discuss and pray about principles that could apply in Germany. It is exciting to hear stories of movement occurring in modern Europe!

- Pray for God to provide in an astonishing way financially for two exciting, vital, cutting-edge ministries our GEMers are leading in Cologne. Cafe 362 is located within walking distance of 4 different schools and from the day they opened this last fall the kids are coming - many of them hearing about God's love for the first time in their lives. Pray for provision and the blessing of fruit. DBKunst is the new studio of Dave Byers, artist. He is a gifted potter and photographer and has opened his doors to all who would enter - telling stories of restoration and the gospel through his work. Pray for the needed funding for keeping this shop open.

Thank you so much for standing with us at God's door and knocking!

Yours,
Jason and Sue

Merry Christmas from Jason and Sue!

2009-12-09T11:26:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends,

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 60:1-3

Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Luke 4:21

According to Henry Drummond, this is the Program of Christianity. Upon reading Jesus message our hearts rejoice in their personal application even as we look around and see cause for despair in the great need and work that is yet to be accomplished. Let's join hands as we proclaim the Gospel of hope and do the work of salvation.

Christ Jesus is born - Emanuel, God with us.

Joy to the World!

_____________________________________________________

As we write this Sue's father, Reuben Goertz (83) is in the ICU in Tulsa with several of his organs faltering. Please pray for him and the entire family. In the midst of this worry, we are excited as we count the days until Roy, Sam and Heidi come home to Cologne for the holidays. It has been 2 years since we last saw Sam and Heidi.

Thank you so much for standing with us as you pray and give.

finding hope in the Savior,

Jason and Sue

PS: Please pass on these links to your college age friends and family. Two exciting opportunities to serve the Lord in Europe next year: TREK: www.gemtrek.org

EXPLORE: www.gemexplore.com.

PPS: As the year draws to a close and you consider your budget for 2010 - would you prayerfully consider supporting us financially, either with a special gift or with a pledge of regular support? Perhaps you have been giving to our ministry and would like to increase the amount or send a special gift to help us out. Click here to download a faith promise pledge or click here to fill out GEM's secure online form.

November 9 - a significant day

2009-11-09T16:52:00.001+01:00

November 9, 2009

Dear friends,
Today is the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall. There is much talk about this in Germany with lots of television coverage and events celebrating this amazing event and the peaceful revolution that led to it. Unfortunately, most accounts fail to give enough credit to the role churches played in toppling the East German regime. The prayer and candlelight vigils for peace at the historic Lutheran church in Leipzig were the main catalyst that led to the toppling of the Wall. For years people on both sides of the iron curtain didn't dare to hope for it. As the groundswell grew, so did the tension and fear of violence. In my opinion, the only explaination for the lack of a bloody crackdown is God. In His sovereignty, he responded to the prayer of thousands and moved to break through what many thought was a hopeless situation.

Prayer is a force that we haven't even begun to understand. When the almighty God responds to our prayer, mountains move and walls come tumbling down! On this historic day, as your missionaries to Germany, we want to ask you to PRAY as you never have before for God to BREAK THROUGH the spiritual darkness that prevails in this important country at the center of the new Europe. PLEASE PRAY for His will to be done in Germany as it is in heaven! PRAY that thousands of people will turn their hearts to Him and that a second reformation will sweep through Germany and all of Europe and on to the rest of the world.

Yours for His Kingdom,
Jason and Sue

PS: In Germany, when talking about dates, we put the day before the month; just the oppisite as in North America. In Germany, today is 9-11-2009. Interesting, isn't it? On this significant day, please pray with us for a BREAKTHROUGH!

PPS: As the year draws to a close and you consider your budget for 2010 - would you prayerfully consider supporting us financially, either with a special gift or with a pledge of regular support? Perhaps you have been giving to our ministry and would like to increase the amount or send a special gift to help us out. Click here to download a faith promise pledge or click here to fill out GEM's secure online form.

Update from Ontario!

2009-10-28T12:51:00.001+01:00

October 28, 2009

Dear Friends,
As we mentioned in our last update, it has been 3 years since our last Home Ministry Assignment so we have decided to take 3 shorter trips over the next year to the different areas in which we have a concentration of churches and friends who support us. We are currently mid-way through our first trip to Ontario and the Detroit area October 15 - November 18. Thank you for praying for us. We started out the trip with both of us being quite sick - to the point of having to cancel some of our meetings in Oshawa. I recovered quickly, but Sue has been struggling for some time, but I am pleased to say that she is now feeling better. Please pray for a full recovery.

Due to the continued weak dollar and the recession, we have a monthly shortfall of $1500. That is the main reason for this trip.

As the year draws to a close and you consider your budget for 2010 - would you prayerfully consider supporting us financially, either with a special gift or (more importantly for us) with a pledge of regular support? Perhaps you have been giving to our ministry and would like to increase the amount or send a special gift to help us out. Click here to download a faith promise pledge form or click on and print out the form at the bottom of this email to send in your pledge. Or click here to fill out GEM's secure online form.

After almost 18 years of ministry in Europe, we are humbled and grateful for all that God has done and for how He has provided so faithfully through people like you. Thank you.

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason and Sue

September 22, 2009

2009-09-22T15:08:00.005+02:00

Dear Friends,
A hopeless case... Those were the first words of my sermon about the 10 lepers Jesus healed (Luke 17:11-19) In those days, there was no cure for leprosy. People who contracted this awful disease were banned to the outskirts of town to a lonely existence of suffering. These 10 pitiful men cried out to Jesus to have mercy on them. In their hopelessness and great need they believed in the one who could fulfill their need like no other.

I finished the message with an illustration about the sweet spot on a golf club. When you find the sweet spot on your driver with the golfball you know it immediately. It feels so good. There are no extra vibrations; just a lovely PING and the ball sails perfectly down the fairway. For a moment, all is right with the world! There is no spot like the sweet spot.

The same is true in life. The sweet spot in life is the exact point where we recognize our hopelessness, our need, and allow God to fill it. It is the place in our existence where we recognize that we cannot, but He can! It is the spot where the creature reconnects with the creator. And like the one leper who came back to thank Jesus, the PING in our lives is the sound of our thanks and worship. The sweet spot. That's where we want to live our lives.

There were 40+ people at our CologneProject service on Sep. 13. Many of them were there to see Ralf and Julia's little Theo be dedicated - like Ralf's two bosses. How was I to know that they play golf, and know all about the sweet spot. One of them said he found the whole service so good that he plans on returning and bringing friends!

Praise God with us for the lives that were touched that day. Pray that God would continue to work in the hearts of those who came. Pray that we would be wise and bold as we engage with those from our individual networks at other social gatherings. One of our dearest friends who we have shared much with is opening a new store downtown and we have been invited to an opening night party. Pray for good encounters and open hearts.

Our field is growing. Emilee Head arrives in Cologne on Sep 23. Emilee will be helping us with the church plant and be looking for ways to reach out to the homosexual community in Cologne with the healing love of Jesus. Please pray especially for a good apartment she can share with a roommate.

Please also be praying for the upcoming City Mentoring Program (CMP) conference on Oct. 2 in Berlin with 70+ participants. CMP is program to train and mentor men and women, who have a strong passion, the potential, and mix of personality, ability, education, and spiritual gifts, to lead major city church plants - or more correctly, major city church planting movements - in city centers of German-speaking Europe. This is the first time we are bringing together participants from around the country for a day of training and vision casting. I will be taking part in a panel discussion with several other veteran church planters. Please pray especially for Stephen Beck as he leads this conference and ministry.

It has been 3 years since our last Home Ministry Assignment. Instead of coming home for 3-6 months, we have decided to take 3 shorter trips over the next year to the different areas in which we have a concentration of churches and friends who support us. Please pray for our upcoming trip to Ontario and the Detroit area October 15 - November 18. Pray for safe travels and that God would go before us. We need quite a bit of new financial support as we have lost support due to the recession and continue to suffer under a very weak dollar. Let us know if you want to get together while we are in your area!

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason and Sue

more pictures from our July 5 service

2009-07-22T17:23:00.009+02:00

Prayermail 20 July 09

2009-07-19T21:45:00.002+02:00

July 20, 2009

Dear Friends,
We had 20+ people at our CologneProject service on July 5 - a warm summer day. This being our third monthly service, we were more relaxed about our liturgy but intense about lovingly preparing everything carefully to honor God and inspire our guests to worship with us. This time we had 2 musicians: Abel, the Spanish guitarist who participated in June, accompanied our singing and Dorothee, a relative of one of our team members, travelled up from Frankfurt to perform on her Cello doing several pieces throughout the service and playing quietly during communion. The acoustics were ideal and her music filled the room, even drawing tears from some it was so beautiful!

I preached on Luke 6 about logs and splinters. Why did Jesus always have such hard words for us - calling us hypocrites and like the blind leading the blind. The answer: His great love for us. He wants us to recognize the truth about ourselves so that we can grow. He relentlessly pursues us, never giving up on us because he wants so much more for us! He paints a picture of a people who don't judge or condemn each other and who forgive each other and are so generous with each other that the blessing will overflow - pressed down, shaken together and running over! After the service we had a delicious meal in the courtyard and enjoyed getting to know the guests that came.

One of our values is to do everything simply but well. During the next weeks we will be working on getting our web site up and running and starting to plan a retreat for October - inviting about 30 believers and not-yet-believers to join us. Included will be morning devotions, evening vespers, cooking together and having significant times of fellowship at the table and a special interactive session to discuss the claims of Christ. Please pray for us as we plan. Pray that God would already be moving in the hearts of those He wants to attend.

After a two month wait, we have finally received notice from the German authorities, that the CologneProject received official non-profit status! This is another milestone in the development of the church plant for which we are grateful.

Because of lacking financial support, we are planning a 4 week fund raising trip to Ontario starting mid October. The recession has hit us hard. Last month we had to take a 30% salary cut. Ouch! Please pray for us in this regard - and give if you can. Thanks.

Your missionaries to Germany

Jason and Sue

invitation to the next KölnProjekt service this Sunday

2009-06-29T07:44:00.001+02:00

Prayermail June 25

2009-06-25T11:42:00.003+02:00

June 25, 2009

Dear Friends, Thank you for praying for our second CologneProject worship service on June 7. The service went really well. The atmosphere was great and the meal afterward was delicious. 24 people attended service.

Check out this story on the GEM website about a couple we met the week before at an Italian restaurant who came to the service!

Please pray for our next service on July 5. Abel, the young Spanish guitarist who was referred to us, had such a good time on June 7 that he was more than willing to come back and accompany our singing next time. We have also invited a cellist to perform several solos. We are praying for at least 30 people to come. Pray for me as I prepare my sermon on Logs and Splinters (Luke 6:36-42). Pray that the neighbors and friends we are inviting will come and sense God's love and presence and respond to His word.

Our City Mentoring Program group has it's last meeting this Friday in the form of a celebration meal in our home. Please pray for the 10 participants and the potential of at least 4 new church plants they represent. Pray for us as we seek to follow up with them, encourage them and mentor them. Pray also for the contacts we have had for our next group which will start in the fall.

We try hard to avoid talking about money in our updates but feel compelled to do so this time. This is the second month in the last 3 that we have had a significant reduction in our GEM salary and have not been able to be reimbursed for our incurred ministry expenses. God is working in our ministry as never before. There are so many open doors and exciting opportunities! We are 100% dependent on God providing through His people and churches in North America. If you are able to send in a special gift, pledge to begin support or increase the amount you already give - now would be a good time! Please let us know if you can help.

God bless you.

Loving Greetings,

Jason and Sue

June 6 Prayermail

2009-06-06T19:05:00.001+02:00

June 6, 2009

Dear Friends,

Please pray for our second CologneProject worship service tomorrow (June 7) at 11:00 am German time. Our first service on May 3, with 22 in attendance, went well considering how stiff and nervous we all were. There was also some tension afterward in regard to my gospel sermon. Some thought that I came on too strong. We are working through that but in the mean time we are excited about the service tomorrow. The theme is: God's extravagant love (1. John 4:7-12) We have a Spanish guitarist doing music and a German actress doing the scripture and dramatic readings. Combine that with an American preacher (yours truly!) and we have a very international flair.

Pray that those we have invited will actually come. Pray for unity and a spirit of love and grace. Pray that God will speak to all of us and that many will stay for the dinner we are providing afterward. Fellowship around the table is key to building relationships and engaging with people on a heart level.

Thank you for standing with us as we seek a breakthrough in Cologne.

Loving Greetings,

Jason and Sue

Prayermail 27. April 2009

2009-04-27T18:35:00.003+02:00

April 27, 2009

Dear Friends,

Please pray for our first CologneProject worship service set for May 3 at 11:00 am. After almost a full year of planning, praying, laughing and dreaming it is hard to believe the time has come. We are very thankful for the 3 other creative couples who have joined us on this journey. As we began planning this first service we had the opportunity to teach our German friends the expression "where the rubber meets the road". The differences in our backgrounds and expectations were uncovered as we went from discussing our liturgy to actually deciding on what elements we want included in our first service. We are very excited about this and are getting encouraging confirmation from the very people we hope to reach. We have commissioned a communication designer to design a logo and corporate design for our printed material and web site. As he interviewed us to get a feeling for what we are all about he became quite animated and ended up giving us a price well below half of the market value for his work. The owner of our rental location is granting the rooms free-of-charge for this first service. At a recent party celebrating the new offices of our architect couple, we spoke with several different influential business people who were very interested in what we are doing and plan on coming to check it out. Please pray for the many remaining details that need to be covered before Sunday. Pray that God would be glorified this weekend and that people would be inspired to put their faith in Him and join us in giving Him glory.

To begin with we are planning 4 monthly services to be held in a restored factory building. The space is normally used for various kinds of receptions, business or artistic events. We have decided that we want to do a soft start without advertising, simply inviting a few friends and neighbors. We need to practice our liturgical style and don't want to put ourselves under too much pressure. During this time, we will be working with our designer to get our web site functional and contacting musicians and artists to make guest appearances in our services. This Sunday we have the joy of having our friend Floria Nica, a concert guitarist, playing for us. If we feel that we are ready, we are thinking of planning a grand opening for September to which we will invite many more people including business leaders and dignitaries.

Please also be praying for our next house concert on May 16 with our colleague Durand Robinson who has a wonderful, folksy voice and musical style of story telling. We already have several neighbors and friends who said they want to come. Pray for good connections as we mix our church friends with our other friends.

Thank you for standing with us as we seek a breakthrough in Cologne.

Loving Greetings,

Jason and Sue

February update

2009-02-27T19:42:00.002+01:00

February 18, 2009

Praying for a breakthrough

Last month Sue and I celebrated the 17th anniversary of our arrival in Germany. We are grateful for all that the Lord has done; for the people who have come to faith and the churches that have been planted. We are thankful but not satisfied. Germany remains a very needy mission field.

Recently our mission leadership approached us with an idea that we immediately embraced. Cologne has been named a "breakthrough" city by our mission, along with Sophia, Bulgaria. The 9 GEMers who live here have been praying intensely about what a breakthrough in Cologne might look like. The vision God has begun to reveal to us is to see His Kingdom breaking through the spiritual darkness in Cologne through a movement of rapidly reproducing churches. We are urgently asking God for thousands of new and growing Jesus followers across Cologne. To start with, we are on a manhunt for at least 100 Persons of Peace (Luke 10) who would then be a part of the planting of scores of new churches.

Prayer is not just the basis of breakthrough but our primary strategy. In order to see breakthrough, we ask you to join us and pray persistently and unashamedly until God acts. To that end, we have begun a new wave of prayer walking in Cologne. Going out two by two, at least twice a week and simply praying; praying for the people we see, for the schools, hospitals and businesses we pass. And as God leads us, we are engaging with people along the way, offering to pray for them and trying to discover if they are open to spiritual things and hoping to ascertain whether they are a person of peace or not.

Breakthrough cannot be achieved on our own. We desperately need to mobilize and partner with existing churches, local believers, and students passionate about church planting, and other Mission focused groups - both European and North American.

Our aim is to recruit and train national as well as international young people to plant churches, offering them a 1-2 year internship. The initial focus will be prayer walking, and connecting with people of peace - with expansion to disciple making and church planting.

Recruiting multiple short-term teams from North American churches that will come for 1-2 weeks and join with us in prayer walking and finding persons of peace is also a part of the strategy. We also hope to recruit many more long-term church planters to move to Cologne.

Please pray with us as we enter this new and exciting phase of ministry. We expect great things from God.

Also, please continue to pray for our other church planting efforts:

The liturgical church plant in Cologne: We had hoped to hold our first service on March 1 but have decided to postpone. We just need more time to formulate our shared values and to determine what our liturgy will look like.

City Mentoring Program: There are 11 people participating in our present phase 1 group. We meet every 3 weeks for a 3-hour session to discuss the various aspects of church planting. Our most recent session on Monday was all about developing a philosophy of ministry. It is energizing to be speaking into these people's lives. One couple drives 3 hours from northern Germany to participate.

New Missionaries! We have had three new missionaries arrive on the field and another 3 expected still this year. God is answering our prayers for more workers to join in the harvest! Please pray for these people as they go through huge adjustments living in a different culture and learning the language.

The next consultation for church planting is scheduled for March 23-24, our first 2-day meeting. We have the privilege of having Michael Frost speak to us. He is the co-author of a fascinating book on post-modern missions: "The shaping of things to come." This book is really challenging my thinking and I highly recommend it.

Thank you for standing with us.

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason and Sue

Christmas 2008

2008-12-28T18:57:00.003+01:00

October Prayer Letter

2008-10-20T18:25:00.002+02:00

October 20, 2008

Dear Friends,
The Lord is giving us so many new opportunities to reach the German people we love, through church planting and evangelism. We want to ask you to pray intensly that God would move in a powerful way. We invite you to join us and thousands of others on Thursday, October 23, for a special day of prayer for Europe. Please go to www.GEMission.org/pray/strategic and check out the strategic and current prayer requests with pictures.

Here are some things that we especially want you to pray for:

- Pray for the cell phone film brainstorming meeting on November 2. Pray that God would give us an excellent idea.

- Praise God for the good attendance at the first two monthly worship services in Hennef. I will be preaching there on November 9 on the subject "What if God were silent?"

- Praise God for the 20 German participants at our first City Mentoring Program recruiting/training day on October 10. Pray that many of these experienced church planters would catch the vision to multiply themselves by signing up to be mentors for young church planters.

- Pray for the third Consultation for Church Planting set for November 24 in Frankfurt. Pray that this meeting of key church planting leaders would result in concrete steps toward a church planting movement in Germany.

- Continue praying for our liturgical church plant in Cologne. We have set a target date of March 1 for our first service. There is still much preparation work to be done until then. Pray for unity as we discuss our shared values and for God to lead us to just the right place to hold our services.

In an effort to increase the intensity and level of strategic prayer we would like to challenge you to consider organizing a small prayer team of 5-8 people and come over for a week of intense prayer in Germany. The week would include strategic prayer walks in and around Cologne and informational prayer meetings with our German led church planting teams in the area. If you are interested, please let us know.

Your missionaries to Germany,

Jason and Sue

september update 2008

2008-09-18T17:35:00.003+02:00

Here is your update in video form. Enjoy

July Prayermail

2008-08-22T15:16:00.002+02:00

July 27, 2008

Dear Friends,
Last Tuesday I met with two German Christian media talents to discuss ideas for a new way to use cell phone and internet technology to spread the Gospel in German speaking Europe and eventually all of Europe. Andreas Kranzler is an independent filmmaker that I know from our former church in Cologne. Chris Cuhls is a multi-talented young media producer who has worked on major secular and Christian productions. It was exciting to see how we shared values related to excellence, cultural relevance, risk taking, etc. A joint vision began to emerge for producing an evangelistic series of short films (2-3 minutes) targeting 18-28 year old Germans in a format that can be played on and easily forwarded to cell phones and video ipods and also platforms like blogs and youtube. We envision the segments to be intelligent and catchy, with touches of irony and humor but dealing with issues that are on the minds of young people today and with just enough bait to get people excited about catching the following episode.

We are planning on meeting again at the end of August and inviting several more creative people including a couple of screenplay authors to brainstorm potential story concepts. We think it is important to include people who themselves are in the target age group - including several non-christians on the project would also be helpful in challenging the message and keeping us relevant.

I am excited about the potential this project can have for reaching 20 somethings in Germany and Europe for Christ - using cutting edge technology that can propagate and spread like wildfire. My role is one of catalyst and networker with maybe some creative input. Please pray that God will give us excellent ideas and people of excellence who will want to work on this with us.

QuarterChurch
Our startteam is becoming increasingly excited as the vision for the church comes into focus. We are discovering shared values and, to top it off, we like each other! Please pray for Monika & Reinhard, Ralf & Julia, Magnus & Christine and us. Pray that God would give us a spiritual unity out of which would flow much energy and power for our work. At a recent conference we learned about a theory for speeding up the conversion process. For most Germans the decision to trust Christ is a process that often takes years. The theory is that the more Christians one gets to know, the faster the process becomes. He/she sees and experiences more of Jesus in each life and the Christians, in turn, begin to love and pray for this person. To this end, we have developed a VIP list on which each of us has included several friends. We have begun praying for each others friends and are planning at least one party or event each month so that we can get to know them. In June it was Reinhard's birthday. On July 31 it will be Monika's birthday party. On August 30 Ralf and Julia will be having an open house in their new apartment. We would especially like you to pray about the Hauskonzert we are hosting in our apartment on August 22 to which we have invited all our neighbors and a few other friends. Floria is a Romanian Christian who is studying classical guitar in Cologne and coming to our new small group. She will be performing along with a friend of hers from the music school. We already have some neighbors who have said they will be coming.

Please continue praying:
Pray for Sascha and Anke Rützenhof who will be moving to their target city of Mönchengladbach Septemer 1. Pray that their core group would continue to grow in size and unity.

Pray for Adam Gascho and his team "Cologne in Motion" as they contemplate making a big change toward a house church model. Pray for courage and faith but also for lot's of love and grace as they discuss this change.

Pray for the church planting team in Hennef. They are due to begin holding monthly public worship services in September. Pray that God will bless them with a good place to meet and that many new people in Hennef will be touched with the Gospel. Pray for continued unity and joy in the leadership team of Wolfgang and Petra, Paul and Anna.

Pray for Uli and Nanja Thomas as they move to Rheinbach this summer to start up as associate pastor at the Ev. Free Church with a view to work toward a daughter church plant in nearby Euskirchen. Uli is a participant in the City Mentoring Program. We recommended him to Pastor Andreas Hildebrandt a few months ago. Praise God for how he worked in the church body to call Uli and Nanja to come even though the church initially was not looking for an associate pastor!

Thank you so much for standing with us in prayer and support as we minister with and reach out to the great German people.

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason and Sue

May Prayermail

2008-05-30T07:18:00.001+02:00

May 27, 2008

Dear Friends,
Lately we have felt like kids – full of visions and dreams and cool ideas; high-fiving each other in the kitchen for the latest enhancement of the plan. The last few weeks have been exhilarating and exhausting! Here is the latest:

www.viertelkirche.de

Don’t bother clicking on that link yet because there isn’t anything there yet. We just recently reserved this Webaddress. ViertelKirche means QuarterChurch. God has been deepening and expanding our vision for a high church – free church from one church to 86 – one for every neighborhood, or quarter, of Cologne. We believe that there should be a witnessing fellowship within reach of every person in town.

Thank you for praying about this. Since we wrote last, we have had 2 small group meetings with 4 of us at the first and 6 at the second one. We are using the ancient practice of “lectio divina” in which we read the same passage of scripture 4 times with reflection and sharing in between. It has been encouraging to experience how God speaks through His word – without a lot of commentary.

God has also led 3 other couples to join with us to form a start team. From the outset, it has been important to us to set the right tone so we have each shared 3 names of people we know and would like to pray for – people we want to invite to come into a relationship with God and into the new church. Then, as we envisioned these people actually coming to faith and attending church – we read Luke 15 where Jesus tells three parables illustrating how important the lost are to him. After that we spent some time praying for these people.

Please pray that God would give us courage and unity as we begin to work with the start team to sharpen our vision and determine our shared values and formulate a mission statement.

Consultation for Church Planting

On April 14 the second German Consultation for Church Planting took place in Frankfurt. Thank you for praying. There were 24 people in attendance representing many of the national church planting ministries and denominations in Germany. It was a great day of seeing such a diverse group of people come together in a spirit of unity. After some good discussion, we unanimously approved a mission statement, vision statement and strategy. This is what we came up with:
Mission Statement: The consultation fosters church planting in Germany through cooperation at a leadership level of State Churches, Free Churches, Ministries and Movements on the basis of the Lausanne Movement.
Vision: Saturate Germany together with living churches.
Strategy: Networking, Learning, Research and Goal Setting.

We agreed together that we don't want to just talk and discuss strategies. We realize how much we need to do it in the power of Jesus. We don't want to say that lightly but want to also be much in prayer together as we meet.

We scheduled future meetings for Monday 24, November in Frankfurt and then again from 23-24 March, 2009, in Kirchheim for a two day consultation including a guest speaker. We are trying to book Michael Frost - Founding Director of Centre for Evangelism & Global Mission at Morling Theological College in Sydney and well known expert on reaching Post-Christian cultures.

It is exciting for me to be involved in the steering committee for this. It is hard to say at this point where this is all headed but we sense that God is moving as these various groups are willing to work together and focus on what we have in common (which is much) rather than on our differences (which are few).

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason and Sue

March Prayer Letter

2008-03-31T17:26:00.003+02:00

March 31, 2008

Dear Partners,
We have some interesting and exciting developments to tell you about.

For several years we have had the vision of starting a different kind of church in Cologne. For lack of a better term we call it a "high church-free church"; a church with liturgical elements providing a flexible structure to worship and allow for creative forms of expression but at the same time be centered on and filled with the Gospel. We dream of being able to better reach many of our friends (and a sizeable segment of Cologne!) who are well educated, traditional Catholics and Lutherans, have a high regard for asthetics and the arts but have distanced themselves from the church.

God has led us to begin taking concrete steps to make this dream a reality. Please pray for us as we begin meeting with potential launch team members and start a new small group in our home. We are energized but also well aware of the amount of work it is going to take in addition to the other church plants we are mentoring and the responsibilities of being field director. Please also pray that God would provide us with German leadership early in the process.

The church plant in Hennef is growing! On Feb. 24 Paul & Anna Klassen had their first child - Thea. Please pray for them as well as Wolfgang, Petra and their four kids. Pray that God would protect their kids and bless their marriages.

Also pray for the city wide "Worship Night" they are planning in Hennef this spring. Pray that the launch team would grow and that they might begin planning "test services" soon. We are thankful to see how unified they are as a team.

Continue to remember Sascha & Anke Ruetzenhof and the church plant in Moenchengladbach. Pray that the launch team would grow and reach a critical mass so that they can move into planning concrete outreach events.

Pray for the Cologne in Motion team in Cologne as they wrestle with the issue of renting facilities. It is difficult to find the type of space they need for a price they can afford. Pray that God would lead them to just the right building. Thank the Lord for the unity that they have on their team. Pray for them as they strive toward multiplication. It would be great if they could have a few leaders selected yet this year to lead a first daughter church plant.

Please pray for the next Consultation for Church Planting on April 14 in Frankfurt. Pray for concrete collaborative, cross-denominational efforts that result in exponential growth in church planting in Germany! If we were to look at that which divides us - we probably would have already given up hope and yet when we focus on the important points that unify us - we see great potential for the Kingdom of God in Germany. Please pray for unity and discipline as we meet. Pray that God would help us to focus on the big picture and the immense need in this great country. May His will be done and His kingdom come to Germany!

Roy has decided to take a break next year from his studies to live and work in Alaska. Ah to be young again! Please pray that he would finish his sophomore year well and be able to earn enough money this summer for his travel and settling costs. Pray that God would use this next year in his life. Roy's desire is to have a clearer understanding of where God is leading him in the future.

The last we heard from Sam he was in Colorado Springs looking for work. Please pray for a good job and that God would protect him and reveal Himself to him (and Heidi) in new and unexpected ways.

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason and Sue

February Prayer Letter

2008-02-07T13:54:00.000+01:00

Feb. 6, 2008

Dear Friends,
God is working through the City Mentoring Program (CMP). Please check out our 5 minute video update filling you in on the latest:

Pray for the CMP board meeting this weekend - that God would give us wisdom and faith as we plan for nation-wide impact.

The Consultation for Church Planting on Nov 17 in Frankfurt was a success. We all agreed to meet again in the spring. Please pray for the planning meeting scheduled for March 20. We do not want to be content with just meeting and communicating - as good as that is. We want to see concrete collaborative, cross-denominational efforts that result in exponential growth in church planting in Germany!

Pray for Wolfgang & Petra, Paul & Anna in Hennef as they continue to lay the foundation for the church plant there. They are planning to start "test worship services" every 6-8 weeks this spring and are looking at launching the church this summer. Pray for our next meeting on Feb. 18.

Don't forget to keep praying for Sascha and Anke Ruetzenhof as they work toward the church plant in Moenchengladbach. After a lot of networking in Moenchengladbach, Sascha felt it was time to see if he could pull a start team together. He sent out an invitiation to an informational meeting hoping and praying that at least 10 people would come. The following day he called me with the great news that 20 people came! Pray for him as he is in the process of getting to know these people better with a view to selecting a few to make up his core group.

Please be in prayer for Sue as she speaks on Feb 16 to women attending a new womens ministry designed to encourage younger women in their spiritual and personal growth. Pray that God would use Sue in a powerful way in the lives of these women.

We had a wonderful Christmas with Roy and Sam and Heidi (Sam's girlfriend) in Cologne. Please continue to pray for them as they work and go to school and consider their futures. Here is a picture taken Christmas day (from left to right: Jason, Sue, Roy, Heidi and Sam.)

We would like to say a special thank you to all those who supported us in 2007. We are grateful for the ongoing support as well as the special year end gifts. God has provided for us in a wonderful way through you! Thank you so much for standing with us as we minister and serve in Germany!

Gratefully,
Jason and Sue

correction - reformation tour phone number

2007-12-16T15:57:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,
There was a typo in our November posting. The correct number to call concerning the German Reformation tour is 1-800-436-4488 extension 139.

Sorry about the confusion.

Yours,
Jason

Christmas 2007

2007-12-16T15:49:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends,
The small elementary school classroom was full at the new church plant in Esch – a northern suburb of Cologne. We were looking forward to seeing what God had done since the group began holding services in September. As it turns out, there were several new people there for the first time. One of them was a tall handsome young man named Simon. He had returned just months earlier from a year as an exchange student in Ohio where he had been very active in church. When he got back to Esch he was disappointed to learn that even the Catholic church was closed for the summer due to lack of interest! There was nothing for him. He knew of no other place to turn to. Then one Sunday morning he saw the people stopper sign up in front of the elementary school in his neighborhood where the new church in Esch has been meeting. He decided to check it out and even brought his mom. He was so excited and thrilled to learn that on his very first Sunday there an American was guest preaching!

Germany is a needy mission field. There are literally thousands of areas with no Gospel witness. Many young people like Simon are interested and open to the Gospel but do not know where to turn. We are praying and working for a true church planting movement so that every person is within reach of a witnessing fellowship.

As we celebrate the riches we have in Christ this Christmas, including the wealth of churches we have in North America, please pray for Germany. As we worship the Christ Child let us continue to pray that His will be done and that His kingdom will come on earth (in Germany!) as it is in heaven.

Loving Christmas Greetings,
Jason and Sue

November Prayer Letter

2007-11-13T11:42:00.000+01:00

November 13, 2007

Dear Friends,
Thank you for praying. Last Wednesday night we had a group of in our living room to start our first City Mentoring Program phase 1 group. It was exciting for us to see thier eagerness to learn and ask questions. There are at least 5 potential church plants represented in this group and many more if they begin to multiply, which is one of the key values we will be teaching them. Please pray for wisdom and creativity as we continue meeting and teaching. Some of them have some preconceptions that need to be challenged in regard to church planting and the ugency of being proactive while still giving the Holy Spirit freedom to lead and work.

Continue to pray for the Consultation for Church Planting this Saturday, Nov 17 in Frankfurt. Pray that the national train strikes won't affect attendance and the God would work in this diverse gathering to build His kingdom in Germany. We are praying for a 2nd Reformation in Germany!

Announcing the exciting New Reformation Tour!

New Reformation Tour Summary:

Visit the sites of events that have had a powerful impact on the world: the conversion of the Germanic tribes, the Reformation, the Holocaust and more. Familiarize yourself with exciting ministries that are working to fulfill GEM's vision: "a witnessing fellowship within reach of every European".

Travel with professors from the German Theological Seminary, a GEM partner institution, who have extensive knowledge of Germany's rich religious history. Gain a sense of Germany's present spiritual need and celebrate the beginnings of a new reformation in the heart of Europe.

Date: September 13-20, 2008

Travel Logistics: Approximately $1,995 per person; Fly through Newark to Cologne, Germany. Arrive on a Saturday and depart on a Saturday. (See more trip details below).

Travel Details: GEM will secure hotels, tickets and transportation. Cologne, Germany is the best airport to fly into. Continental Airlines is offering competitive direct-flight connections from Newark. We estimate that trip costs (March round-trip airfare from/to Newark and tour-related costs) will be approximately $1,995 per person.

We'll stay in excellent hotels and travel between sites in a state-of-the-art tour bus. No trip between sites requires more than three hours travel time. Breakfast and dinner are included in the trip cost.

Itinerary: Saturday: Arrive and get settled in Cologne.

Sunday: Cologne: See the city's Roman antiquities, its world famous cathedral, and important Jewish sites. Visit Cologne in Motion, GEM's cutting edge ministry team.

Monday: Muenster, an important center of the Anabaptist movement in Germany, and Fritzlar, site of the conversion of the first Germanic tribes under Bonifatius (the 8th century monk who chopped down Thor's oak tree and lived to tell about it).

Tuesday: The Wartburg, Eisleben, Wittenberg: Three must-see sites for anyone interested in Martin Luther and the Reformation. All in one day!

Wednesday: Berlin will come alive as you tour world renowned Holocaust museum, the Brandenburg gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the onetime headquarters of the East German secret police, and much more. Also visit an innovative church plant in the heart of the city.

Thursday: Weimar, the cultural center of Germany's Golden Age, the city of Goethe and Schiller.

Friday: Buchenwald concentration camp will shock and sadden you, but also give you insight into Germany's present spiritual state. The tour will conclude with a banquet at the German Theological Seminary and a chance to reflect on all you have learned.

Saturday: Departure.

(You are welcome to build additional days of personal travel on either side of the above tour days). Please join us on this truly unique tour!

Please contact us if you are interested or call Lynn Hoffman at GEM in Colorado at 800-436-4488, ext 139 if you have any questions.

The Weak Dollar

We are excited about all that God is doing in Germany and are thankful for how He has provided for us to serve here. We have not written about our financial needs for quite some time but find it difficult to refrain any longer. The U.S. dollar continues to hit record lows in value against the Euro almost on a daily basis. The weaker the dollar gets, the more we need just to stay even. Everything has become extremely expensive for us. Yesterday we filled up our little Honda and paid a whopping US$8.73 per gallon! © 2007 by Prof. Werner Antweiler, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, Canada.

We would like to request that those of you who are supporting us financially prayerfully consider increasing the amount and/or give a special extra gift to help offset the shortfall that we have. If you are not yet supporting us, perhaps you would consider joining us at this crucial time. Drop us an email to let us know if you can help.

Thank you so much for standing with us as we minister and serve in Germany!

Gratefully,
Jason and Sue

October Prayer Letter

2007-10-22T07:26:00.001+02:00

October 21, 2007

Dear Friends,
This month, instead of our normal Prayermail, we have put together a 5 minute video update for you. Just turn on your sound and click on the video below. (if that doesn't work click here.)

Enjoy!

Jason and Sue

September Prayer Letter

2007-09-13T16:58:00.000+02:00

September 13, 2007

Dear Friends,
We wanted to get this off to you before this weekend. My sister and husband are coming on Friday from Charlotte and we using the opportunity to take an overdue vacation. We've had a terrible summer in Germany and are hoping to find some sun in the south!

Here is an update on what God has been doing as we seek to be part of starting a church planting movement in Germany.

City Mentoring Program

We now have a logo and are working on a web site and flyer for the City Mentoring Program.

I met with the 5 seminary grads on September 2 here in Cologne. It looks like only one of them is coming to Cologne to do an internship and to take part in the City Mentoring Program at this time. Please pray for Esther as she finalizes her plans to come and that some of the others would participate in the future.

I am scheduled to present the program at the Neues Leben Bible school on October 30. Please pray that we would find several interested students. Pray also for the groups that we want to start in Landau, Giessen and Berlin. Pray for our next board meeting on October 9 in Berlin as we have some strategic decisions to make. Pray that God would give us wisdom, courage and unity!

Divine appointments in Moenchengladbach

When Sascha told me the name of the former Baptist pastor he had contact with in Moenchengladbach, I had to ask him to repeat it for me. I knew pastor Tosch from our days in Porz - over 10 years ago. We met occasionally for fellowship and led our churches in some cooperative evangelistic efforts. Now they are in Moenchengladbach and very much interested in the church plant - even though it is not a Baptist project. We quickly scheduled a get together and met at the Tosch's on August 28 for coffee.

Pray for Sascha and Anke as they continue to network and prepare for the church plant. Pray for more divine appointments. Pray for both of us as we hit the streets on October 11 & 12 to conduct a survey and try to talk to as many un-churched people as we can. God knows the people we will be talking to. Pray that many of them will be open to further contact.

Where there's smoke - there's fire!

Originally we were hoping that SPARK would have more mass appeal in Germany to help spark a church planting movement - but it seems that God is using it more like a fine surgical instrument. On August 30 I attended a meeting of the German Baptist national forum for church planting in Kassel with Fred McRae, one of our GEM church planters who is working with the Baptists in Rheinland-Pfalz. I wanted to show them that we stood behind Fred in his work with them and also that we as a mission want to encourage them and help them as a denomination as much as we can.

Pastor Manfred Beutel, who participated in helping produce SPARK, is the newly appointed leader of this group. At one point he shared with us how God used the making of SPARK in his own heart. He said that the very questions I posed as we interviewed him helped him see clearly how important church planting is to him. A short time after that when he was asked to lead the forum, he did not hesitate to say yes.

Please pray for two upcoming SPARK presentations: On August 13 at Wolfgang and Petra Stolz's. We are having supper with them and Paul & Anna Klassen. Afterward they have issued an open invitation for people to come and pray with them for Hennef. After prayer we will present SPARK. On November 4 I will be presenting SPARK at the Evangelical Free Church in Krefeld. This church wants to partner with Sascha to plant the church in Moenchengladbach.

Please keep praying for us as we are ministering on so many fronts. We are more dependent on God's wisdom and strength than we ever have been. Pray that our vacation will truly be one of rest and rejuvenation.

Thank you for standing with us.

Jason and Sue

Prayermail - report on the weekend at the castle

2007-09-01T06:59:00.001+02:00

Dear Friends,
Thank you for praying for last weekend while we were at the castle. It was an awesome and exhausting time. We drove down Friday afternoon, checked into a nearby hotel and then headed over to join the other guests for supper out on the lawn below the castle wall with a beautiful view of the vineyards and farms out in the distance. The sun was just beginning to set and they started lighting the candles and torches. After greeting the hosts and a few others we know, we headed for the buffet and then sat down at a table of people we didn’t know. We all introduced ourselves and agreed that everything was really special – almost like a fairy tale. It didn’t take long and we were just chatting about our day. At one point I mentioned how I start my day by reading the bible in the form of a daily email I receive (www.studylight.org/plan/byemail.cgi). I guess none of them had ever heard of anything like that. They were very inquisitive and asked us a string of questions. For quite a while we were simply able to share about why God’s word is important to us. As the evening progressed we moved on and simply enjoyed visiting with people. We finally headed for the hotel at around midnight.

On Saturday we slept in and eventually joined the crowd, which was now even larger, at the pond, down below the castle vineyards. Water games were on the agenda! The 4 hosts were prepared with rubber rafts, and different colored hats for the 4 teams they divided us into. The sun was shining and fun was had by all. Much laughter and silliness! Late that afternoon we retired to our hotel to rest, shower and get ready for the evening.

8pm: the men, dressed in light summer suits, and the women, looking beautiful in their summer dresses gathered in the courtyard for supper. An entire pig had been roasting all afternoon and the aroma filled the warm evening air. There was assigned seating splitting up the couples. This gave both us plenty of time to interact and share our lives with our tablemates. The sun set. The candles glowed. They had set up some colored spotlights on the courtyard walls. Everybody was having a wonderful time. We were all relaxed and the conversations lasted for hours. We thank the Lord for this awesome opportunity to share our hearts. We finally decided to leave at about 3am.

After such a wonderful party, we wondered how many would show up for the worship service planned for 10:30am on Sunday. The chapel – located within the castle wall – holds about 60 and there ended up being standing room only. It was a simple service with prayer, scripture reading and several traditional hymns. My sermon lasted only about 10 minutes. I simply explained what it means to be a Christian. I began with a quote from C.S. Lewis talking about how standing in a garage doesn’t mean you are a car – just as attending church does not mean you are a Christian. I finished by quoting one of the last songs Johnny Cash recorded: Your own personal Jesus.

Several people came up to us afterward and said that they had never thought about their faith in such a personal way. Please pray that God would continue to work in their hearts.

Jason and Sue

newsflash

2007-08-23T06:54:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
Please be praying this weekend for us. We are leaving on Friday afternoon to celebrate our friend Philipp von Kunhardt’s 40th Birthday at a castle near Nuernberg. It should be a very interesting weekend. 150 guests are expected (4 of the them are celebrating their 40th). A lot of activities are planned including Saturday afternoon at the lake and a formal dinner that evening. Interestingly, Philipp was able to convince the others to hold a worship service on Sunday morning in the castle chapel and invited me to preach a short gospel devotional. We have no doubt that we will be involved in many conversations and will be free to share our faith. Please pray that people will be receptive and that the Spirit of God will work in people’s hearts.

Thank you for standing with us,
Jason and Sue

Interview on Moody's Prime Time America

2007-07-26T17:01:00.000+02:00

If you missed our interview on Moody's Prime Time America - click here to here it!

Jason

July Prayer Letter

2007-07-23T08:32:00.000+02:00

July 23, 2007

Dear Friends,
We are stoked! A few weeks ago I met with Stephen Beck (GEM seminary professor) and five of his students in Giessen. Christian, Esther, Bobby, Jochen and David are all graduating this fall. They had to take Stephen’s class on church planting this last semester and God met them there. They are sensing His call on their lives to plant churches. A couple of them had never even considered church planting as an option for their lives. When Stephen first told me where they were thinking of coming he instructed me in his email to pick myself back up off the floor. They think God is leading them to Cologne! As we sat there in Stephen’s living room the discussion got more intense and exciting as we went. David was struggling. He had already been offered a job as youth pastor at his home church. But the others kept telling him that he knew that that is not where his heart is and he wouldn’t be happy there. After 2 hours of speaking into one another’s lives, we began to pray. David began to weep. He was clearly torn between an attractive youth ministry with a nice salary and stepping out in complete faith to plant churches and build a youth ministry from the ground up. Please pray for David and the others. I invited them to come to Cologne on Sept. 1 to talk more concretely about the opportunities here and how we can help them. I have also invited them to enter into a mentoring relationship with me as I start a new CMP group in October in Cologne.

In case you were wondering, CMP stands for City Mentoring Program – a 2-3 year, 3-phase training and mentoring program for church planters. The first phase takes place in a group setting in which we discuss the philosophy and theology of church planting; drawing on the Word, our experience, and a manual for church planting from Redeemer Church in New York. The second phase involves a mentored internship in a church plant. The third phase is an actual mentored church plant. Stephen Beck has created this program and we are trusting God to use it in a powerful way. This fall, in addition to the group I am starting, there will be phase one groups starting in Berlin, Landau and Giessen. Please pray for the solid startup of these groups.

Parallel to this we are planning a Consultation for Church Planting on November 17 in Frankfurt and have invited key leaders of church planting ministries from across the evangelical spectrum. The initial response to the invitation has been very positive. Please pray for this one-day round table discussion. Our desire is that the evangelicals in Germany will intensify their cooperation and communication to such an extent that the way is cleared for God to grant us a true church planting movement.

Sascha & Anke Rützenhoff had their second child on June 30th - Tiago Emmanuel. Needless to say, the church planting efforts in Mönchengladbach have slowed down a bit. Sascha will be meeting with the elders of the Ev. Free Church of Krefeld soon in an effort to get that church to partner with him. Please pray for openness and generous support! I will be helping him get started on a street survey this fall. The purpose is to learn what the people in Mönchengladbach think about God and the church and to make contacts so that he can continue building his network there.

The church plant in north Cologne will begin having services this fall in a school. I will be preaching there in October. Please pray for Pastor Michael Höring as he leads this daughter church plant. His schedule is about to get very busy as he divides his time between the mother and daughter church. It will not be easy and he will begin to feel pressure from both groups for more of his time and attention.

Please continue to pray for Wolfgang & Petra Stolz and the church plant in Hennef. Anna und Paul Klassen will move there the end of the month and we will soon begin planning meetings together. Pray that they would be able to settle in quickly and that God would allow the restart of this church plant to flourish and succeed. Pray for the 40,000 inhabitants of Hennef, most of who have never heard the Gospel.

I am enjoying the new challenges of leadership in Germany. My interaction with our missionaries here always proves to be an inspiration and encouragement to me. There are also problems and concerns that weigh on us. Please pray for much strength and wisdom.

Personally, we are busy and extremely grateful for all that God is doing and for how He is providing for us through you. Sue will be flying to Oklahoma for 2 weeks starting July 24 to help her parents move into a retirement village there. I will be attending the GEM annual conference in Hungary Aug. 1-10. Roy had a good summer working in Hillsdale, MI and living with his cousin, Abe. He will take a short trip to see some of his GEM friends in Minnesota before he heads back to Juniata College in PA. He is going to be an RA this year, which will be a new challenge for him. Sam is living and working in Gillette, Wyoming, and is hoping to start taking classes at Sheridan College this fall.

Your missionaries to strategic Germany,

Jason and Sue

June Prayer Letter

2007-06-14T09:44:00.000+02:00

June 14, 2007

The rain was drumming on the car roof. We sat there for a minute knowing it wasn’t going to let up anytime soon so we finally made a dash for the house. Max and Klaudia had invited us once again to their combined birthday garden party. There we stood as Klaudia opened the door - fashionably late and sufficiently soaked. Fortunately they have a large house. Their great room buzzed with chatter as everyone made the most of an indoor garden party. In true German fashion we made the rounds and greeted each one with handshakes or hugs depending on how well we knew them. We proceeded to enjoy the catered buffet and conversation among clusters of quests. Both Klaudia and Max are lawyers and many of their friends as well. Over the years we have gotten to know some of them. But not Johannes.

Johannes is a rather famous criminal defense lawyer in Cologne and always seemed to come across as rather hardened and brash. To be honest, I had always been a bit reticent in trying to talk to him. As the rain slowly let up and the sun came out the party moved outside as well. At one point I was sitting at a table with several others when all of a sudden Johannes plopped down in the seat next to me lighting up his Cuban cigar. He didn’t say anything. We were sort of listening to the small talk of a few women at the table. Finally I gathered my courage and spoke to him.

“So, you’re a lawyer.”
He nodded his head.
“What type of law?”
“Criminal defense.”
“Aha…. I’ll bet you have some good stories to tell.”
And then, out of the blue and before he had heard a word about my faith he said, “You know, if everyone would just follow the ten commandments, the world would be a much better place.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yes, and I don’t see things changing or getting better any time soon. There will always be plenty of work for people like me.”

He went on to tell me a few stories about cases he has had had, dealing with pedophilia and tax fraud and then finally asked me what I do for a living. I shared with him that I am a pastor and help various free churches to start new churches. Being a typical nominal catholic, he had never heard of anything like that before. Through the haze of his cigar smoke I explained to him what I do and why I do it. He rejoined by telling me he really didn’t know if he believed in God or not. “That is not how I define myself,” he said. “I define myself through my career.” And then I think it dawned on him that he was starting to open up to me and he quickly closed the door and moved on to small talk again. As I sensed our little encounter drawing to a close I quipped, “You know, Johannes, what you said before about the ten commandments and there always being plenty of work for you . . . my goal of starting hundreds of new churches would have a positive effect on society and a negative effect on your work load. I’m sorry to tell you that my ultimate goal is to put you out of work!”

He stood up and stretched, puffed once on his cigar, smiled sarcastically and said, “that, my friend, is never going to happen.”

Friends, please pray for Johannes as well as for Max and Klaudia. Pray that they would come to know God personally. By the way – our gift to Max was a German copy of C.S. Lewis, A Mere Christianity.

Please also continue praying for the church plants in: Moenchengladbach, Euskirchen, Hennef and Cologne. We will share more about them in the future. Pray also for our work toward starting a national center for church planting development. More meetings are planned in June and July as we strive toward this goal.

In HIS Service,
Jason (and Sue)

April Prayer Letter

2007-04-25T08:13:00.000+02:00

Dear partner,
Meet Paul and Anna Klassen – a big part of God’s answer to our prayers in regard to the church plant in Hennef. Paul is a high school physics teacher and Anna a certified midwife. Paul is in his last semester of a two-year bible school program in Ireland. Not long ago their name was presented to me as couple eagerly looking to become involved in a new church plant in this area of Germany. I put them in touch with Wolfgang and Petra Stolz in Hennef with whom they have connected beautifully. They quickly agreed that if Paul were able to get a teaching position close to Hennef, they would be willing to move there. This last week Petra called us with the awesome news - Paul had just signed a contract with a high school in the area. Petra was so exited! She said that when they first got the news they started dancing. We personally got to know Paul and Anna on Good Friday and were greatly encouraged by their serving and energetic hearts. Praise God for his leading and provision. Please pray for them as they finish up in Ireland and move to Hennef. Pray for the church plant which now can move forward once again.

It is exciting to see young Germans like Paul and Anna whose hearts beat for Church planting, but unfortunately they are a rare case. If we are going to see a second reformation occur in Germany we need hundreds more like them. To that end, God has given us a new vision that our entire team of GEM missionaries in Germany is pursuing. We see the need for a new, multi-denominational, Center for Church Planting Development and are in the process of inviting the denominational leaders of several evangelical denominations to a round table discussion about this vision. We sense the time is right to initiate this as it seems that some of them are beginning to realize they can no longer afford to think so territorially and are seeing the need to begin working together in order to foster a true movement of church planting in Germany. We envision this center to be a kind of incubator where young church planters can be inspired, trained, and then mentored as they launch new churches across this country. Please pray that God would open the hearts of the denominational leaders we are contacting and that we would indeed be able to meet with them soon. The first meeting will take place at our home on May 5 with the hope that a second one will follow the beginning of June.

Your missionaries to Germany,
Jason (and Sue)

March Prayer Letter

2007-03-21T09:11:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,
Here is a brief update. Enjoy.

SPARK IN RHEINBACH – a supernatural morning
Sunday, March 11 was a mild sunny day in Germany. After weeks of cold and rain it was welcome weather. As we drove to Rheinbach to present SPARK in the morning service of the Ev. Free Church, I was wondering what God might do that day. Andreas, the pastor, was also anxious to see what would happen as his church was challenged to consider planting a daughter church for the very first time. God did not disappoint us. The people were extremely attentive and the atmosphere after the service was electric as several people came up to me to say how God had spoken to them. Although Andreas had never talked publicly about planting a church in Euskirchen (10 miles from Rheinbach), at least 3 people told me independently of their burden for that city. Euskirchen has one of the highest crime rates in Germany. One of them was even in the process of buying a house there in order to have a ministry to troubled youth! What a thrill it was to share later with Andreas about what his people had told me. Please pray about the critical next steps that Andreas will need to take to move ahead. Pray that God would raise up a courageous and unified church planting team. Pray for Andreas as he leads them and for me as I coach them.

FIELD LEADERSHIP – a new challenge
After 2 years of being asked to consider becoming the Greater Europe Mission German field leader and not finding peace about it, God began to work in my heart in a new way and I agreed to take on this responsibility for 30+ missionaries, including children, living and ministering in Germany. They are an extremely talented and motivated group. Someone once said that leading missionaries is like trying to herd cats. It will definitely be a challenge. Missionaries tend to be very independent and strong personalities. Most of them are leaders themselves. Please pray for me as I learn the ropes and adjust to this new role. Pray that I will be wise and loving as I seek to encourage and challenge each one in their lives and ministry. Leslie Kuhn, who works in Berlin, will be assisting me with administration. Pray that someone will also join to help in a more pastoral/member care way. Pray that I will find the right balance between field leadership and facilitating and coaching German church plants. It is an exciting time to be in Germany and to be working with such an awesome group of people as we seek to be a part of a 2nd reformation here. If you are interested in knowing more about GEM in Germany click here: GEM Germany.

In HIS Service,
Jason (and Sue)

February Prayer Letter

2007-02-13T18:25:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends,
What is holding them back?
When the Berlin Wall came crashing down in 1989 the world’s axis was altered. The chunks of concrete that the protesters chinked out with their hammers led to a breech in the wall that couldn’t be stopped. Torrents of people flooded through the ever-widening gaps – at first mostly from the east into the west. But almost immediately, the opposite occurred. Poised for years along this unnatural, manmade barrier were the western banks, investors and businessmen, just waiting for this day. With the fall of communism began an era of democracy and capitalism that could not be held back. Those with money saw massive new markets and dazzling opportunities. Nothing would hold them back.

This is in stark contrast to the evangelical church in West Germany. Having enjoyed complete freedom since WW2 it has remained a minute and overlooked minority. All the free churches combined (Baptists, Evangelical Free, Brethren, etc.) make up less than 1% of the population of reunited Germany. Ask an average German, and she has probably never even heard of a free church and never met a born-again Christian. What is the problem? At over 82 million, Germany presents a dazzling opportunity for the Gospel and yet the church continues on in it’s own parallel world as if the wall it has built around itself can’t be challenged or removed. Oh yes, we have been hearing some hammers and chisels recently, and we are encouraged by the courage of a few assaults on the wall, but they remain lonely sounds in a sea of silence.

What is holding them back? Why isn’t the German church reaching it’s own culture? Is it fear? Is it their critical, analytical mentality or are they just complacent or indifferent to the lost people all around them? Could it be that they are just too maxed out with their own church activities to be able to even think about evangelism or starting a new church? Do they lack vision? Don’t they have enough faith or are they simply not willing to reach out? Please pray for us as we meet and consult with German church and denominational leaders to try to answer these important questions. Pray that God would lead us to even more motivated partners and give us wisdom to be able to significantly help them to start new churches and foster a church planting movement that would once and for all breech the wall that has been holding them back for so long.

Ministry Update
Since arriving back in Germany we have been able to reconnect with all our church plants. I also preached at “Mittendrin”, our second church plant and have presented SPARK at two churches. One of those churches was the Ev. Free Church in Wermelskirchen – about 20 miles northeast of Cologne. The pastor was sick at home that day, but after the service a couple of the elders approached me and said they would like to have me meet with them to investigate ways for them to grow and possibly plant a daughter church in the future. They are an older church and have been struggling for years. It seems to me that they are too small to be planting another church but I sense a real desire for renewal and agreed to come and see what God might want to do there. Please pray for the church in Wermelskirchen. I recently finished producing a short video commercial to promote SPARK and will be sending it out to various free churches in ever widening geographical circles. Although it is in German you might want to check it out on the SPARK blogsite at: http://spark-deutschland.blogspot.com

2 new church planting projects

Meet Pastor Andreas Hildebrandt, pastor of the Ev. Free church in Rheinbach, about 40 miles southwest of Cologne. I have preached there occasionally since the church was started 10 years ago. It has been a delight to see how they have grown. They now have over 100 members with more than 150 in attendance on Sundays. Last fall they built a new building and now Andreas has the vision of planting a daughter church in Euskirchen – just 10 miles from Rheinbach. I met with Andreas recently and was energized by his faith and passion to reach the yet unreached in Euskirchen. I will be working closely with him and the emerging core group as they begin to plan for the new church. Kick-off will be in March when I present SPARK to the entire church. Please pray for Andreas and for the people who will be involved in this new church plant.

Let me introduce you to Pastor Sascha Ruetzenhoff - fresh out of seminary and driven by dreams of new churches! Sascha was recently called to pastor the small and struggling Ev. Free Church in Juelich, about 30 miles west of Cologne. The small church can only pay 50% of his salary so the regional association of churches and the denominational home mission agreed to pay the other half of his salary on the condition that he would be free to pursue a new church plant in Moenchengladbach, about 40 miles northwest of Cologne. I met with Sascha in January and was very impressed with his vision, determination and giftedness. He was very eager to meet together on a regular basis. Please pray for him as he juggles the responsibilities of the church in Juelich with pursuing the church plant in Moenchengladbach.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer.

In HIS Service,
Jason (and Sue)

15 years in Germany!

2007-01-09T09:33:00.000+01:00

Exactly 15 years ago today, we arrived in Germany to start our ministry of starting new churches. We invite you to celebrate with us and thank God for his faithfulness and all that He has done since then. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has been a joy to be part of starting 2 new churches in Porz and Bergisch Gladbach. And now it is exciting to see how God is broadening our horizons and multiplying our efforts as we coach several church plants and work to foster church planting among the Germans nation wide.

We arrived safely back in Cologne as planned on Dec. 29. It is good to be home. More later!

Love,
Jason and Sue

December Christmas prayer letter

2006-12-07T08:51:00.000+01:00

We wish you more this Christmas. We wish you a Christmas that gets even closer to the heart of the matter. As we rejoice in His advent, we exult in the most significant missional event ever! Christmas is Mission. If Jesus hadn’t come, we would still be lost in darkness. If he hadn’t left his home and taken up residence among us - we who were lost and needy – there would be no hope for us. As we buy gifts, sing songs, feast in our abundance and remember His coming, please don’t forget those who live without hope, those who are still lost in darkness. As we worship the Christ child this year, we worship the one who gave up everything, His riches, home and very nature - to come and bring us light and save us.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2, 5-8)

With joy,
Jason and Sue

November prayer letter

2006-11-20T20:00:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,
We’re on the home stretch. Our Home Ministry Assignment is drawing quickly to a close. We are very thankful for God’s protection over the many miles driven and for all the people we could see and reconnect with. We are grateful for God’s provision as well. All the bills are paid and a large part of our support shortfall has been pledged. But we are still in need of some monthly support and special gifts in order to return to Germany as planned on December 28. Perhaps you can help. You can learn how at: BACKTOGERMANY.BLOGSPOT.COM.

Not long ago, we got this upbeat update from Uli Rothstein, the German pastor and co-founder of our second church plant: “We were able to have our church weekend retreat the middle of October with more than 70 participants! There was plenty of time for talking, laughing, playing, meditating, praying, singing, learning, eating, and just basically having a great time together. For some who are relatively „new“ in the church, it was a good opportunity to start feeling „at home“ in our fellowship. Shortly after the retreat 8 people interested in becoming members, attended our membership seminar. At the end of November we are planning another Baptismal Service, when possibly 4 dear people will take this important step in their faith journeys.” I am scheduled to preach there on January 7 – just a week after our return. We love going back to see the growth and changes and of course many dear friends and children in the Lord. That will also be the week we celebrate 15 years of ministry in Germany!

Please pray for us as we tie up loose ends and enjoy time with our family these next few weeks. We are grateful to be celebrating our first Christmas in 15 years in North America. We are looking forward to having both Sam and Roy with us and to being close to Sue’s parents and brother Sam and his family in Colorado. Pray that we would be able to return to Germany not only fully supported but also with renewed vision and energy. Pray that God will lead us to just the right future ministry opportunities and give us wisdom as we choose. As our ministry grows, we are being challenged and stretched. Pray that God would use us as never before!

With Thanksgiving,

Jason (and Sue)

October Prayer Letter

2006-10-24T06:00:00.000+02:00

The Needed Power

He came running, half stumbling and half sliding down the hill shouting wildly – “We hit it!” “We hit it!” He caught himself again as he slid down a short patch of gravel and exposed roots. His hands were more callous than skin with months of grime embedded in the cracks and cuticle. He steadied himself with his right hand and in his left he clutched a small rock. His hair was a tangled nest of mud and dust. Tributaries of sweat cut through the dust on his face - his eyes shimmered like diamonds. His mouth couldn’t be open wider with the smile that heralded the news they had all worked so hard to uncover.

They all looked up from what they were doing and knew immediately. The adrenalin instantly flowed collectively through their veins for they knew that their months of backbreaking work were at last going to pay off. They dropped what they were doing and clambered to meet him. Yes, it was gold in that rock he held. And yes, up the ravine where he had just been picking away, there appeared to be more – maybe even an entire vein! The only problem was that they would have to blast past the granite that they had been battling for months, to get to it. It was difficult to say how deep it ran but they knew that there were meters of hard rock that stood between them and the mother lode. They would need a significant and powerful force to be able to pry past the barrier that stood between them and the payoff they had been laboring so hard to reach.

They came to an agreement quickly. One of them would be sent back to the investors in town to secure what they needed. They needed more funding to pay the workers now that they knew they were on to something. But even if the money for the payroll was forthcoming it would be meaningless if they didn’t have what they needed most – dynamite. Without dynamite they could scrape at that hillside until their fingers bled and it would all be for naught. They would never achieve what they all wanted so badly. The dynamite was the key that would unlock the treasure chest. The dynamite was the element that would give their entire struggle and labor meaning. They needed to set a series of powerful blasts that would literally peel away that barrier of rock and expose the precious vein to be harvested.

And so it is with prayer and missions. Prayer has the power to unlock the treasure chest. Prayer is the element that gives meaning to the missionary effort. It can literally peel away the spiritual barriers that so often hinder us and expose the precious harvest that we so long for. When you think of your missionaries – please pray. Pray for God to powerfully move the mountains that stand in the way of seeing churches planted and people come to faith and experience for themselves what the power of prayer can be like in their own lives.

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” (Ephesians 6:18)

Dear Friends, please continue to pray for us and for the church planting projects we are coaching: Cologne-in-Motion, Hennef, Cologne and Monheim. Please pray for us as we continue to travel and present our ministry to people. We would like to return to Germany on December 28. Thank you for standing with us.

Your partners,
Jason and Sue

September prayer letter

2006-09-27T10:13:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
Halfway through our 2-month road trip, we are getting weary but are very pleased with how things are going. We have had many good meetings and reunions with friends and supporters. It has been a great joy to share personally with many of you about what God is doing in Germany and you have been such a blessing to us! God has protected us through many long hours of driving and we have only left a few things behind along the way - which is easy to do. One day we had been driving a couple of hours when Sue noticed the hanging clothes in a car we were passing and looked back in our car questioning, “Jay, where are our hanging clothes?” (Thanks, Bev, for forwarding them to us so quickly ;-)

Thankfully we are progressing toward our goal of needed financial support but still have a ways to go. You can track our progress at: http://www.backtogermany.blogspot.com. To be honest, we are homesick and miss Germany terribly. The Internet has been our lifeline for staying in touch with our partners in Germany. Here is an update on our current church planting projects:

COLOGNE
Please keep praying for the church plant in the northern suburbs of Cologne. About 15 interested people from the mother church have met twice this summer to consider and discuss this project. Please pray for courage and direction for this group as some are still considering if God has called them to do this or that it is the right thing for the church to do. There was also a congregational meeting in September where the church plant was discussed and we are pleased to tell you that the church as a whole has basically gotten behind this project. Please pray that God would directly bless this decision and encourage the church for its vision. Pray for Pastor Michael Höring (pictured at right) – for wisdom and courage to move ahead in spite of some hesitancy in the church.

COLOGNE-IN-MOTION (CIM)
The CIM team is busy trying to keep up with the 20 youth from English Camp who trusted Christ. It’s been a challenge with busy summer and now school schedules. Please pray that they would be able to work it out to connect with these new believers consistently. Also pray that these kids would become more and more connected into the CIM Sunday worship/community gatherings and into their community in general. Adam Gascho, the leader of CIM, has been in communication with the owner of the facility they rented for the World Cup Café this past June/July. They have moved into serious talks concerning the potential purchase of this facility for the dual purpose of intentional outreach into the community and for a training and connection base for the long-term church planting movement. These next weeks will be extremely crucial in this process. Please pray with us that the Lord will continue to clearly lead and guide and that He will open doors and breakdown walls (not literally—at least not yet: ) Amazingly, God has already provided some large gifts equaling around $100,000. They will need significantly more than this, however, to make this dream a reality.

HENNEF
Wolfgang and Petra recently sent us a long update. The church plant in Hennef continues to be on hold as Wolfgang and Petra go through a time of soul searching and adjustments in their lives due to Wolfgang’s recent promotion at work and increased responsibilities there. In addition to that they discovered this summer that their son is hearing impaired and are dealing with all of the implications for them. Sue has and will continue to counsel with Petra as she shares how it was for us to raise a hearing impaired boy. Wolfgang and Petra continue holding on to their vision of a new church in Hennef. However it seems that at least for now, God wants to work in their lives in a special way.

MONHEIM
The church in Monheim has had some struggles this spring and summer with a disrupting couple but has continued to move ahead. They have recently rented some commercial space (inset at right) in the heart of the town – right across the street from their historic town tower (pictured at right) - so nobody can say they haven’t seen it or don’t know where it is. The main room will seat 40-60 people plus they have a several rooms for children’s ministries. Please continue to pray for Detlev and Micha, the two leaders, and the rest of the group. Their firm desire is to be a lighthouse and beacon of God’s love and light. SPARK Even though we aren’t currently in Germany, please continue to pray that God would open doors for us to present SPARK in churches upon our return. It is not too early to begin setting dates. Pray that God would use this tool to motivate German churches to multiply themselves.

Thank you for your partnership with us in prayer and finances.

For Germany,
Jason (and Sue)

Getting us back to Germany

2006-08-31T01:12:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
We have driven app. 3000 miles so far and God has kept us safe – although we are a bit road weary. Tuesday, we arrived in Florida at Sue's brother's house just before tropical storm Ernesto hit – if you could call it that. There was just a lot of rain and hardly any wind L

Please pray for us regarding our financial support. In order to return to Germany in December, Greater Europe Mission requires that we raise an additional $800 in monthly support. This increase is due to the ever-increasing cost of living in Germany (gas is now at US$6.00 per gallon!) and the continued weak dollar against the Euro. In addition to this we need $8000 in special gifts to cover our travel costs while in the USA and to give us a $4000 buffer required by GEM before departure.

We are praying that some of our long-time supporters will consider increasing the amount they give. We are also praying that new people will join with us. If you are interested, you can track our progress in meeting these goals at http://backtogermany.blogspot.com

Thank you for standing with us,

Jason and Sue

PS: Check out our new video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zjg4yrECK8

August Prayer Letter

2006-08-16T17:46:00.000+02:00

June Prayer Letter

2006-06-24T11:32:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
Germany is soccer-crazed! You can’t help but get caught up in the excitement. It is fun to see how the Germans have shed their patriotic inhibitions and are flying their flag proudly. There are literally 10’s of thousands of soccer tourists from all over the world to be seen and with a few minor exceptions Germany has been a great host to them.

There has also been much going on in our lives since our last letter. Sue’s surgery went well and she has been recovering slowly but surely. We are thankful to God for his provision and healing. Thank you for praying. Sam and his girlfriend, Heidi, came to visit us. We drove down to the Black Forest together for Roy’s Graduation. Roy graduated with honors and we are very proud of him. He has been accepted at Juniata College in PA and received a nice merit scholarship from them. Please praise the Lord with us for Roy’s achievement. Pray for us in the provision of the daunting remaining tuition cost that needs to be paid. Please pray for Sam and Heidi as they consider their future. Pray that they would draw near to the Lord and that He would protect and guide them.

Now that we are back home we have hit the final stretch of preparing for our furlough in North America from July-December. We will be based in Colorado Springs but doing some extensive traveling in Sep-Oct. We are looking forward to seeing friends and family but truthfully are not looking forward to being away from “home” in Germany.

Here is an update on our current church planting projects:

COLOGNE
Pastor Michael Hoering has been extremely involved heading up the regional cooperation of evangelistic World Cup outreaches. He has been running from one appointment to the next in addition to his regular pastoral duties. The church plant has therefore taken a back seat. I met Dirk, one of the elders committed to the church plant at one of my recent SPARK presentations. He was encouraged by SPARK but had to admit that he is frustrated with the lack of movement in the church plant project. I will be meeting with him and a couple of others involved on June 25. We hope to meet at a café on bikes and then tour the potential target area of the church plant. Please continue to pray for Dirk. His job situation is still completely up in the air. And please continue to pray for the actual launch of this church plant.

COLOGNE-IN-MOTION
These guys are awesome. They recently signed a short-term rental contract for their “World Cup Café” – a recently vacated grocery store where they are showing all the games on a big screen plus offering other events and holding worship services on Sundays. The weeks before the World Cup were spent painting, cleaning, and running around trying to find everything (furniture, refrigerators, food and drink, decoration, publicity, etc.) they needed to set-up a café. On the opening Friday evening between 70 and 80 people were in the café when the opening whistle blew (Germany beat Costa Rica 4:2). Others came throughout the evening. They probably had close to 100 people in all! A number of 10-12 year-olds have been coming consistently and they keep bringing more and more of their friends. Please pray that many of these contacts will translate into decisions for the Lord and then members of the new church being planted. Pray for strength as they all work very hard day after day at the café. Praise God with us that their team members, Jared and Lori Bridges, finally received their visas. That was a huge concern and now they can fully focus on the ministry.

HENNEF
We have been asking you to pray for Wolfgang and Petra for quite some time; for steadfast hearts and long-windedness! Please don’t stop. For the time being the church plant in Hennef is on hold. After much consternation every single team member has left the group. It is amazing to us what damage one divisive person can inflict. I know she didn’t mean to, but as a result of her constant challenge of Wolfgang’s leadership, one woman caused the team to fall like dominoes as they all became disillusioned with the endless discussions and arguments. Wolfgang and Petra are holding on to their vision of a new church in Hennef. They are planning on holding several special prayer meetings in the coming months to seek the Lord’s guidance and help.

MONHEIM
Our work with the church plant in Monheim is basically finished. It is exciting to see how things are moving along. They have recently rented permanent space in the heart of town. They are planning to move in the beginning of August after renovations. In conjunction with this they will start having their services at 11:30 instead of late afternoon as they have been – and weekly instead of twice a month. These are major changes. Please pray for them. Pray for unity among the founders and growth in their two cell groups. Pray also for increased inroads into the community and good contact with seekers.

SPARK
I have had multiple opportunities to present SPARK in the last couple of months. Being a motivational presentation – it is difficult to measure the impact but it seems that God is using this as a tipping point in some people’s hearts. I am especially thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the national convention of the Evangelical Free Church of Germany – presenting SPARK in two workshops to a total of about 80 people who expressly came because of their interest in church planting. Erhard Michel, the director of the Ev. Free Inland Mission, saw SPARK for the first time there and has requested that I make some technical changes so that it can be put in the hands of workers around the country. I also recently showed SPARK to the German Baptist board for Inland Mission in Berlin. These men greeted SPARK wholeheartedly and have challenged me to consider working on a version geared more toward youth. Please pray that the seeds sown through SPARK would flourish and bear fruit. Pray that Germans would begin catching the vision for reaching their country through the planting of many more witnessing, reproducing churches.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer.

Your servants in Germany,
Jason (and Sue)

Special prayermail

2006-05-14T12:00:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

Thanks so much for your prayers for me this past week. The surgery took a little longer than planned but went well and I have made a steady recovery every day. I was released from the hospital on Friday – a day or two sooner than we at first thought possible. So now I can finally get some sleep. It was impossible in the hospital! Both the doctors and lab reports indicated the urgency of the surgery. Jason and I have been saying over and over again what a blessing it was that the surgery was able to take place in spite of the doctor’s strike. Not only that, the change of doctors and hospital seem to have been a gift from God. The hospital was much smaller than the huge university hospital in Cologne making it more personal and I felt like I got top quality medical care. Pray that I will be patient in this recovery period and not do too much too quickly.

Roy called me early on Monday morning before the surgery and the first of his huge AP Biology and Chemistry exams (4 hours long!). It was a precious time of sharing our burdens and praying together on the phone. He called again after the last Chemistry exam on Wednesday and the relief and lightness in his voice were almost tangible. Thanks for supporting him with your prayers. Continue to pray that he would finish well. He has three weeks of classes left and a week of tests before graduation on June 9.

Please continue to pray for the church-planting project in Hennef, which is now temporarily on hold. The tension was too intense for the last remaining participants and they have now all left the group. Wolfgang and Petra stand alone with us and the vision of a new church in Hennef. They refuse to let go of their calling to do this and remain confident and full of faith that God is working. Please pray for them. In spite of their positive attitude, this has been very hard for them and they are trying to learn from the experience. Jason is also prayerfully trying to understand what mistakes he may have made as their coach. Pray for wisdom and God’s leading as to what the next steps should be.

Yesterday Jason presented SPARK at a regional meeting of the Baptists in Kaiserslautern. About 100 people were in attendance. Please pray that God would SPARK the vision of church planting into a flame in many of their hearts and churches. Pray for these upcoming SPARK dates: 28 May – Ev. Free Church in Oldenburg, 30 May – National Baptist Committee for Missions in Berlin, 4 June – 2 Workshops at the national Ev. Free Convention in Bochum, 6 June – several of the National Ev. Free leaders and staff in Witten. Also pray for him as he preaches in our former church plants in Bergisch Gladbach (today) and in Porz (next week). We want to continue to be an encouragement to both of these churches.

Thank you for standing with us. We depend so much on your prayer and support as we face illness and hardship but also exciting ministry opportunities in Germany.

Sue (for Jason)

special prayermail

2006-05-06T16:32:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends and Family,
Please pray for Sue as she has surgery on Monday (May 8) to remove her uterus and the fibroid tumor. Pray for the doctor, Detlev Katzwinkel, who is a friend of ours. Pray that all will go well and for a speedy recovery.

Please continue to pray for the church plant in Hennef. As of last week, the entire team has quit, leaving Wolfgang and Petra alone with their vision. Please pray that God will encourage them and work in their hearts and that they would discover what he wants to teach them through this difficult time. Pray that we would have wisdom as we look to the future. Hennef, with a population of over 40,000 desperately needs that church as there is no other gospel witness in that city.

Please pray for Roy who is in the final stretch of his senior year. With two AP science classes he has had a heavy load. He will be writing his AP Biology exam on Monday (May 8) and his Chemistry exam on Wednesday (May 9). It is an emotional time for all the kids at BFA as they prepare to say goodbye to their friends and classmates. Most of them are MK’s and know that they will probably never see each other again. Yesterday Roy was suffering from major back and neck pain and fainted at school.

Thank you so much for standing with us.

Jason (and Sue)

Follow-up prayermail

2006-04-08T16:33:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
The meeting in Hennef was intense but also illuminating. We were hoping that all the members would attend but it ended up being just a handful including the couple that had quit. They were very open and shared their hearts. Angelika, the wife, told me that she thought the SPARK presentation was very good but on the way home that night she told Hans-Theo, her husband that it showed her very clearly that church planting was not for her. Her passion is youth work and she wants to continue doing that in their present church. Hans-Theo admitted that he was simply overwhelmed with the work and stress that planting a church brings with it. With a demanding job and a large family, he just can’t see how he could do it.

Wolfgang and Petra are not disheartened. They accept this as from the Lord and are just as committed to the vision if not more so. Please continue to pray for them as well as for Angelika and Hans-Theo and for the other two couples who are taking a time-out to evaluate their involvement. Sue and I are having Wolfgang and Petra for supper on Monday, so we will be able to encourage them and talk about where to go from here.

Please pray for the SPARK presentations I will be doing tomorrow in Leverkusen and later this month in Solingen. Pray that God will work. Also praise the Lord with us for an exciting opportunity that has opened up: On May 30th I will be presenting SPARK at the national board meetings of the German Baptists in Berlin. They have given me an entire hour! Pray that SPARK would capture their imaginations and ignite their hearts. Pray that this will lead to open doors in the local churches.

Some people have asked when Sue will be having surgery. It is planned for May 8th. The doctor said she should plan on staying in the hospital an additional 3 days and then another 10 days recovering at home.

Blessings,

Jason (and Sue)

2006-04-03T16:35:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
Please pray for the church planting team in Hennef. I shared the SPARK presentation with them a few weeks ago and it raised some disconcerting questions among some of the participants. One couple has come to the conclusion that their hearts are not really in the right place to be planting a church. They abruptly decided to quit the group. Two other couples were so distraught by this that they decided that they needed to take a time-out to pray and see if God really wants them involved as well.

Please pray for the meeting tonight. Pray that God would encourage Wolfgang (leader) and his wife, Petra. Pray for wisdom for me as I seek to help them through this crisis. Pray that God would help us to work through this so that the church plant can move forward.

Please also pray for Sue. She will be having surgery the beginning of May to remove her uterus due to the growth of a 6cm Polyp. Pray for wisdom for the doctors and for a speedy recovery.

Thank you for standing with us.

God bless,
Jason (and Sue)

March Prayer Letter

2006-03-15T10:41:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,
What kind of person does it take to plant a church? Is it the visionary who has a mental picture of a thriving church where none exists today? Is it the tactician who carefully and prayerfully plans a strategy and then follows it step by step? Is it the team-builder – somebody who pulls other gifted people together to start a new fellowship? Maybe it’s the pioneer – someone who just loves the challenge of starting a church from scratch. As we coach and consult with Germans involved in starting churches, we see all of these types of people represented. But ultimately, the type of person that God is looking for is one whose heart is breaking for the lost; a person whose heart beats for their neighbors and friends who are so far away from the Lord. It is the person who longs to see them reconnect with their Creator and will therefore do everything in their power to see that they are within reach of a witnessing fellowship.

Here is an update on our current church planting projects:

COLOGNE
Recently I had a lunchtime meeting with Pastor Michael Hoering and two of his elders who have committed to helping with the daughter church plant. One of them is named Dirk. As we met, he informed us that he had just learned that his employing company would most likely be severely downsized due to the buy out of the parent company. It might even be shut down. He had been on the phone all morning trying to see if there was a way he could possibly buy his employing company and save not only his job but also those of the people who work for him. I was not surprised by these events. The enemy will try to do everything he can to thwart this church plant. I was moved by Dirk’s ability to focus on the business of the church plant in the face of such immense personal pressure. Please pray for Dirk and please continue to pray for the actual launch of this church plant.

COLOGNE-IN-MOTION
We are amazed at the number of good contacts that the Gaschos and their team have made in Cologne since arriving last summer. They had over 50 people come to a Christmas party and are now working on the preparations for ministry during the Soccer World Cup which is coming up this summer in Germany. In addition, they are planning an evangelistic English camp for teenagers. Please pray that God would continue to lead and guide them and that people would begin coming to faith who would in turn, as new believers, help them start the church. Please also pray that their team members, Jared and Lori Bridges, would soon receive their visas so that they can stay and focus on the ministry at hand.

HENNEF
The group in Hennef is beginning to experience some of their first birth pains. As they get closer to adopting a paper that lays down their core values, some in the group are balking. One couple in particular is beginning to question Wolfgang’s leadership. It is so important that they go through this process. If this or that person cannot agree with the others on the core values, it would be better if they left the group now rather than stay and be divisive. Pray for true unity or a positive parting of the way. Please continue to pray for Wolfgang and Petra. Pray for steadfast hearts and long-windedness!

MONHEIM
Not long ago, I did a workshop with the group in Monheim on planning worship services. It was interesting to see a few lights go on as they considered their services to date. I especially wanted to challenge them in the area of scripture reading. All too often scripture reading is reduced to a dry and boring part of the service. In the past we have often taken a scripture reading, recorded it and added pictures and music to enhance the emotion and feel of the passage. So I showed them a few examples. This seemed to speak to several of them and we are hoping it will lead to the scripture reading in their services speaking to even more people’s hearts in the future.

SPARK
All of the funding for the multi-media equipment has come in. Thanks again to those who participated. To date, I have done the presentation 4 times to various groups of Christian leaders. I received some helpful constructive criticism but the response has been good. Please pray that God would open doors to be able to present SPARK in churches.

Gratefully,

Jason (and Sue)

December Prayer Letter 2005

2005-12-01T15:33:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,
We are very thankful this Christmas season for God’s provision and faithfulness in our lives and for how he has been working in and through us. After many months of struggling financially with reduced salary and ministry expenses that have not been reimbursed, God has provided through special gifts and a slightly stronger dollar so that we can live somewhat normally again (if there is such a thing for missionaries!) On January 9th we will be celebrating 14 years in Germany! Thank you to those who have been supporting us faithfully over the years and to those who have recently sent in special gifts.

Another huge item of praise for us is the decision by the German Tax authorities that we do not have to pay income tax in Germany. (We file our income taxes in the USA.) We have been fighting this with the help of a German tax consultant for 2 years, living with the possibility of having to pay back taxes from 1996 on. It would have meant financial disaster for us. We simply had no other choice but to trust God regardless of which way the decision went. Please thank the Lord with us for His gracious intervention.

December 20 will mark another cause for rejoicing. On that date we will not only be celebrating Sue’s 47th birthday – but also our 25th wedding anniversary. We don’t feel that old and don’t think we look that old either! We are so thankful to have each other and for the wonderful years we have had together – over half of them in Germany.

The 4 church plants we are coaching are progressing. Here is a brief update:

COLOGNE
About 40 people attended the informational meeting at which Pastor Michael Hoering presented the vision and concept for a daughter church plant. If 20 people actually commit to the project that would be a great start. At the congregational meeting a few weeks later, there were many questions and outright opposition to the idea. I assured Michael that this was normal. He was encouraged about being able to answer many of the questions and reassure those who oppose the idea so that they will not be able to dissuade the leadership from this much needed church plant. For the time being my role in this project is in the background as I meet with Michael periodically to discuss the progress. Please continue to pray for the actual launch of this church plant.

COLOGNE-IN-MOTION
The three days of strategic planning in late October ended with a very aggressive list of prayer-goals for this pioneer effort. I am energized by the faith of this team and their desire to plant a very contemporary church in the heart of Cologne. Please pray for Adam Gascho and his team. Pray especially that God will give them good contacts with unbelievers and also with Christians who have a heart for reaching them. Pray for two families who are still raising support in the US.

HENNEF
The core group is growing. Since we started meeting in August, 3 new people have joined. We are planning a retreat in January with the goal of really getting to know one another on a deeper level. This is so important as we seek to build strong spiritual unity before “going public”. I shared with them our plans to be away for 6 months on our next furlough starting July 2006. They had been thinking about starting services around that time and there were some in the group who expressed anxiety about our absence. I was reminded again of how church planting is not for the faint-hearted but rather for men and women of faith who are willing to take risks for the Lord. Please pray that God would really work in this group and mold them into the church that He wants in Hennef.

MONHEIM
My role has evolved in Monheim. With the exception of a workshop in January on planning worship services, I will only be meeting with the two main leaders of the church plant. They continue to hold services twice a month on Sunday afternoons and are slowly seeing a measure of consistency in attendance. Please pray about the conflict they are having with the principle of the elementary school where they meet. For some reason she has decided that she does not want them to advertise that they are meeting in her school. She has even forbidden them to put up a sign in the parking lot to help their visitors find their way. Pray for Micha and Detlev as they seek to diffuse this strange situation. It may be that the Lord is trying to move them along to a better location. Pray for sensitivity to his leading.

The church planting motivational seminar, entitled SPARK!, is almost finished. I will be traveling to southern Germany this month to put the finishing touches on it along with GEM colleague Durand Robinson. Please continue to pray about funding for the equipment I will need to take it into German churches: portable sound system, screen and projector (total needed is $8000). We have received a matching grant of $4000 and the first $3000 has come in. Praise the Lord! We already have two bookings for this winter – even before we have done any promotion. Perhaps you would like to help us with a special year-end gift of $1000 to complete the funding. Please let us know.

Gratefully, Jason (and Sue)

fall pictures 2005

2005-12-01T14:58:00.000+01:00

Adam and Jason at a recent evangelism conference

Lunch at a Turkish bazaar during strategic planning sessions

Preaching in the Porz Church

October prayer letter

2005-10-06T10:57:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
Fall is beautiful in the Rhein valley. The trees are changing and the days are much shorter and we are as busy as ever. God has given us some unique ministry opportunities lately. Let me tell you about them:

ALLEGRO
Allegro, the hand bell quartet from Calvary Church in Longmont, Colorado, where I served as Minister of Music in the 80’s was here from September 2-11. We are so thankful they came. God opened many doors greatly exceeding our expectations. They performed and gave their testimonies at various venues: an elementary school around the corner from us (see picture), the kindergarten next door, the hospital down the street and at our two previous church plants (Porz and Bergisch Gladbach) - on Saturday in the market square and on Sunday in the worship service. They also performed at two house concerts of members of those churches with about 50 neighbors attending both concerts. It was awesome! We were very thankful for a spirit of unity and faith in the group as we did some very “front-line” stuff. We made many new contacts for the kingdom and have already had a chance to visit on the street with some of the people we have gotten to know through this.

PROCHRISTMOBIL
The first week of ministry in “The smallest church in the World” is history. The Smart car was like a magnet. I have never experienced anything like it; being able to share my faith over and over again with total strangers. The enemy was not pleased and seemed to be trying to trip us up all week long. Although the response was largely positive, there were those who verbally attacked us. One day, at a very busy crossing, a religious fanatic from some kind of cult decided to preach right next to us, giving people the appearance that he was with us. I politely asked him to move up the street to no avail. It was very uncomfortable for us. Since it was almost lunchtime we decided that the best thing to do would be to simply leave. Another time I locked the key in the car. Oh weh! On another occasion a gust of wind blew the door of one of my teammates into the side of a luxury car parked next to him. One evening a group of protestors against Antisemetism decided to protest right in front of us. Their cause was good, but it totally distracted from what we were doing. All in all it was a great week but utterly exhausting. Please pray for the many people with whom we spoke that they would respond to the gospel seed that has been planted and for me as I am scheduled to drive from Oct. 10-16 in the Freiburg/Basel area.

CHURCH PLANTS
We can now give you the details of our 4th church planting project. I have been meeting with pastor Michael Hoering (see picture) of the evangelical Free Church in Cologne for several months now. He has been at that church for over 10 years and feels that God is leading him to move on. The beautiful thing is that he doesn’t want to just look for another church but rather to plant a daughter church and be it’s first pastor. It took some time to get his elders on board but now he has their full support and 2 of them even want to join him in this venture! The church has been informed and an information evening has been planned for late October. Please pray for Michael. After an initial positive response he has started to hear some of the first rumblings of opposition. But that is normal. Pray for perseverance, faith and lots of grace. Please continue to pray for the German-led church plants in Hennef, Monheim. Pray also for Cologne-in-Motion, the missionary led church plant. I will be meeting with them from 25-27 to do some strategic planning.

SPARK!
The church planting motivational seminar entitled SPARK! is coming along. Please continue to pray about funding for the equipment I will need to be able to take it into German churches: portable sound system, screen and projector (total needed is $8000). We have received a matching grant of $4000 and the first $1500 has come in. Perhaps you would like to help us with the final $2500 needed. Please let us know.

Gratefully,
Jason (and Sue)

pictures from ProChristMobil

2005-10-06T10:10:00.000+02:00

Allegro pictures

2005-10-06T09:46:00.000+02:00

August prayer letter

2005-08-24T16:46:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
September and October will be busy months. Please pray for us as we continue fostering church planting in our region in order to reach even more Germans for Christ.

ALLEGRO
Allegro, a hand bell quartet from Calvary Church in Longmont, Colorado, where I served as Minister of Music many years ago, will be here from September 2-11. God has opened many doors for us. They will be playing and giving their testimonies in various venues: Schools, market squares, churches, in a hospital, etc. It will be a strenuous week. Pray for stamina, joy and many new contacts for the kingdom!

PROCHRISTMOBIL
This is an innovative evangelistic concept in Germany. 100 leased “Smart” cars are traveling throughout the country from May-March. (The “Smart” is a very small 2-seater - a joint venture of DaimlerChrysler and Swatch). On the side of the car it says “The smallest church in the World”. The reports from other cities have been encouraging. People’s curiosity gets the best of them and the drivers are given multiple opportunities to share the gospel simply by parking a group of them on the market square or in a busy pedestrian shopping area. Please pray for me as I am scheduled to drive from Sep. 26-Oct. 2 in Cologne and Oct. 10-16 in the Freiburg/Basel area. Pray for good contacts and open hearts for the Gospel. Please also pray for safety and good weather! I will let you know how it goes.

HENNEF
Monday, August 22 was a historic day for the city of Hennef as the team that Wolfgang and Petra have gathered together for the church plant there had their first meeting. It was so cool to hear how God had been preparing these four couples for this venture. I admire their courage and faith in spite of the uncertainty and apprehension that they are feeling. It is good that I can be there for them. I will be meeting with them on a bi-weekly basis for the next several months as they get started. Pray especially that God would mold them into a loving fellowship that is unified and committed to the Lord, to one another and to the lost people all around them.

SPARK
The motivational seminar continues to take shape. The editing work is extremely tedious but I remain excited about this project. Please continue to pray about funding for the equipment I will need to be able to take it into German churches: portable sound system, screen and projector (total needed is $8000). We have received a matching grant of $4000 and the first $1500 has come in. Perhaps you would like to help us with the final $2500 needed. Please let us know.

Thankfully,
Jason (and Sue)

A PS from Roy: Dear Family and Friends, Poland was an immense learning experience. Not only was I able to be a blessing to the children in Tomaszow and Zakosciele, but the children were a blessing to me, too. The first week our team carried out the Imagin'Air (learning English) program in the City Center in Tomaszow for the poor children of the neighborhood, most of whom came from broken families. The second week we were part of a sports camp in Zakosciele. This was a greater challenge, since the kids were a bit too old for the material we had, but with God's grace and help we were still able to reach out to them telling about and showing them the love of God. I want to say thank you to all who prayed and supported me. This trip was a true experience with God and another culture. Without your help it would not have been possible.

Thank you,
Roy

pictures from the week of video shoots

2005-07-11T11:44:00.000+02:00

July Prayer Letter

2005-07-09T08:14:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
The week of interviews has come and gone and it was really amazing – and tiring. Ted and Brandy Cox and Durand Robinson arrived on June 26th and we hit the ground running. Thank you so much for praying. It was intense. On the technical side (cameras, lighting, sound, etc.) - an area where the enemy often attacks – everything came together – but not without Ted and Durand constantly staying on top of things. The schedule of interviews was ambitious but we were able to make every one of them. Conducting the interviews was a joy but also exhausting.

The people we taped who had either come to faith in a church plant or had helped plant a church were the most enjoyable for us. We were honored by the Christian VIP’s who were willing to support us with their statements and they were awesome but also stressful as we were very much aware of how valuable their time is. The interviews on the street made us very much aware of the spiritual battle in which we are engaged. What was intriguing for us was to see how the various things people said began to compliment one another or answer questions that another person had raised. It will be very interesting to see how this all comes together as we begin the editing work. Please pray about the editing. Since neither Ted nor Durand speaks German – it will be a challenge to help them pick the statements we want to use in the final product. We will be working mostly through email and through uploading and downloading video segments for review.

Please continue to pray about funding for the equipment I will need to be able to take this into German churches: portable sound system, screen and projector (total needed is $8000). We have received a matching grant of $4000 and the first $1000 has come in. Perhaps you would like to help us with the final $3000 needed. Please let us know.

The church plant in MONHEIM is moving ahead with 2 services a month. I will be meeting with them one more time before the summer Holidays. The theme for the next session will be unity: What is it? Why is it so important – especially in a church plant? What can we do to foster it?

Praise the Lord - Adam and Bethel Gascho will be arriving in Cologne on July 12. We will help them get settled and find suitable housing. Please pray that God will lead and provide them with a home that will be comfortable and strategic for the emerging ministry they will be having.

God has been leading others to join with Wolfgang and Petra Stolz to plant the church in HENNEF, southeast of Cologne. Pray for them as they continue to talk with potential team members. We are looking for a date in July to have the very first meeting with their team.

Thank you for praying for the recent meeting of the Evangelical Free Church regional committee for Church Planting. Three of the 4 projects we are working with were represented. It was a good meeting and I think that we all left being more or less on the same page. It was encouraging for the various church planters to share with one another and compare notes.

We were grateful for Roy’s eager help during the week of filming – which he was free to give after not being able to find a summer job! Please pray for Roy as he travels to Poland on a mission trip later this month. Thank you to those who have indicated they will be supporting him financially and in prayer.

Thankfully,
Jason and Sue

P.S. We wish we only had good news to share. Because of the continued weak dollar, we have had to accept a significantly reduced salary due to a lack of support funds. This lack could become critical in the continuation of our ministry in Germany. We ask you to consider how God might use you eliminate this “lack” by your giving as our partners to this needy mission field.

Letter from Roy - Summer missions trip

2005-06-30T08:27:00.000+02:00

June 2005

Dear Family and Friends,
A year ago I said that school and dorm life were good, but also hard and challenging. This year has been even more so. Leading a dorm small group and the student street evangelization team to the city of Basel were rewarding but also afforded some huge learning experiences along with the challenges of studies.

Back in the fall I considered joining the school on one of their many mission trips during spring break, but after prayer and deliberation with my parents, we decided that I needed a rest instead. Now I clearly see it as God’s plan. My Grandfather, Roy (Bud) Holm (yes, I was named after him) died in March and Dad spent the whole break in the U.S. for the funeral and attending to personal matters. God had planned for me to be at home in Cologne with my Mom to work through this loss.

NOW He has provided an opportunity to join a mission trip to Poland, July 23-August 5, which I am really excited about. I will be going with GEM Euroteam to several towns in the vicinity of Warsaw to help them teach grade school children basic English with a program called “Imagin’Air”. Following is a description of the program (check it out at www.gemission.org/imaginair).

“Imagin’Air is a TEFL activity to help children begin their discovery of English in a fun and non-threatening environment using music, video, live puppetry, games and lessons adapted for children 5-10 years old. During the five sessions, the children will be guided by a team comprised of native English speakers we call the Imagin’Air flight crew and of local children’s workers serving as tour guides for the kids as they take a make-believe journey to places where children speak English. European parents see English as an important tool for their children’s future. We believe that their moral and spiritual development is even more important. The curriculum is shaped by a foundation for life and learning found in the Bible. Each day, children will hear related stories and lessons that illustrate the importance of knowing the forgiveness and leadership of God in their lives. Imagin’Air was conceived to sensitively but clearly communicate the truth of the Gospel message. Out of respect for families not familiar with the claims of Christ and the Church, special activities are planned each day to inform and include parents in what is being presented to their children.”

We will run through the one-week program twice. I am very much looking forward to this chance to do what is near and dear to my heart. This trip means more than just an outlet and development of the gift of evangelization that God has given me. I believe that it will be an opportunity to learn more about becoming dependent on God and drawing closer to him.

The big question mark that remains is finances. The expenses for the trip are $900 including transportation. I did not have the chance to start fundraising early, since I was invited to join shortly before the end of school. Yet I believe that this is God’s will and that He will provide. Would you to consider contributing to this project AND praying? Thank you.

In His love,

Roy Holm

If you would like to contribute, please make your check out to Greater Europe Mission and mark it for ROY HOLM – Poland Imagin’Air Project, and send to:

Greater Europe Mission
18950 Base Camp Road
Monument, CO 80132

or

Greater Europe Mission
100 Ontario Street
Oshawa, ON L1G 4Z1

Or - you can donate online by clicking the link at the right!

please pray!

2005-06-23T08:24:00.000+02:00

Dear Friend,
Please take a minute to pray for us today.

This evening I will be attending a meeting of the Evangelical Free Church regional committee for Church Planting. 3 of the 4 projects I am working with with be represented. Please pray for clarity and or a clear definition and mutual understanding of what my role is in each of these projects as well as in the regional committee itself. Pray that people would be encouraged and that God would use this meeting to bring each of these church plants a step further along.

Please also be praying for us this next week as the video team comes to Cologne to begin work on the church planting motivational seminar. Pray for strength and joy in an intense week. Pray that the interviews will go well and that we don’t encounter too many technical problems. Pray for creativity and good ideas as we begin discussing and deciding on some of the creative aspects of video and PowerPoint elements of the seminar.

Please pray for us as we counsel with some close German friends who are going through a marriage crisis. Pray that God would give us wisdom and the right words to say. Pray that He will work in their hearts and that they would turn to Him at this hurtful and difficult time.

Thank you for standing with us in prayer.

Blessings,
Jason and Sue

May prayer letter

2005-05-18T12:00:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,
So much has happened since our last letter to you. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their prayers and expressions of sympathy and support at the death of my father on March 16th. I flew to Michigan and spent a week with my siblings and their children. The funeral was a real celebration of dad’s life. We know he is now in heaven singing bass with the heavenly hosts and enjoying the presence of the Lord and being reunited with mom. Thanks to a friend’s gracious offer of air miles, I flew from Michigan to Colorado to reconnect with Sam, from whom we had not heard since Christmas. Through the generosity of friends and supporters, we were provided with ski equipment, lift tickets and a wonderful house up near Winter Park and spent 3 great days skiing and talking about God, life and the future. Please continue to pray for Sam as he looks for work and considers his future.

In an effort to encourage existing churches to plant daughter churches, I have begun putting together a multimedia seminar that I will offer to churches. The purpose of the seminar is to motivate people. I envision a fast paced, creative and modern seminar with video clips, PowerPoint, music and a series of “elevator pitches” on evangelism and church planting. I would like to target 25-45 year old Christians who have a heart for evangelism, are creative and have entrepreneurial gifts like leadership, Apostleship and faith. These people have, for the most part, grown up in a church that has a huddle mentality and has failed miserably in reaching out to its community. They have often been stifled in their faith and expression of their gifts and are longing for a change but have been told for such a long time not to rock the boat that they can’t imagine even standing up in the boat. These are the people whose hearts I want to capture. I want them to stand up and rock the boat and start a movement of planting dynamic, culturally relevant churches that are effective at reaching out to modern Germans. I want them to leave the seminar being convinced logically and moved emotionally to plant a new church. I want them to realize that it is their spiritual responsibility to do it - and that it can be done. I am collaborating on this project with another GEM missionary, Durand Robinson, who is very gifted in multimedia. He has recruited a professional videographer, Ted Cox, to come and help. During the last week of June and we will be doing interviews with Christian leaders and with lay people who have been involved in a church plant or have come to faith in a young church. We also want to do street interviews with non-Christians asking them why they don’t go to church. My experience is that the existing churches have often lost sight of their questions and biases but a new church plant has the wonderful opportunity to focus on the answers they are looking for. Please PRAY that God would help us as we work on this project. I hope to have it done by this fall. Please pray about funding for the equipment I will need to be able to take this into the churches: portable sound system, screen and projector.

The church plant in MONHEIM is moving ahead but not without some difficulty. They have had to work through some conflict in the group causing them to delay their first service once again. This often occurs as a group nears the actual launch of the church. The enemy is going to do everything he can to destroy this work before it even gets started. But now we are happy to report that they got permission to use a school auditorium and had their first service on May 8th with 46 in attendance! Their plan for now is to hold Sunday afternoon services every 2 weeks. There is a lot of excitement in the group but also some underlying tension. Please PRAY for them. They still have some issues to deal with in order to become truly unified.

Please continue to PRAY for Adam and Bethel Gascho and their team as they prepare to come to Cologne this summer. Pray that they would be able to raise all their needed financial support and that the Lord would prepare the way ahead of them. Pray that they would be able to find suitable housing.


Wolfgang and Petra Stolz

We can now share with you the details of a third project. Please PRAY for Wolfgang and Petra Stolz, pictured here. They recently announced to their church that they would be leaving to plant a new church next summer in the city of HENNEF, southeast of Cologne. Wolfgang is a successful financial planner and has been an elder in their present church for several years. They have learned a lot through some very difficult and challenging times in the last few years. They are a very committed and talented couple. I admire their courage, as they currently stand alone with their vision. I will be meeting regularly with them to plan and pray and encourage them. Please PRAY that God will lead them to the right people to join their team. They hope to start team meetings as early as this summer.

Please PRAY for Roy as he hits the final stretch of school at BFA before summer vacation. He has done very well this year but it hasn’t been easy. It is hard to believe that he will be a senior next year and is turning 18 this summer!

Thankfully,
Jason and Sue