From 23–25 September, people from 21 different countries met in Vienna at the inaugural Evangelising Europe Conference to sit together under biblical ministry, pray with one another and enjoy each other’s company over food.
One man was so eager to attend the conference that he exhausted his funds on fuel during the journey from his home in Moldova to Vienna and was sleeping in his car, until conference organisers found out and secured more adequate accommodation for him.
How it came about
Two years ago, Ryan King – pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Wood Green, North London – began an exhaustive research project into the spiritual condition and state of the churches in 250 European cities. The project continued to evolve and expand as new people and needy places were incorporated into the research.
Relative isolation
While his findings were often discouraging, King found several pockets of encouragement: faithful men seeking to preach Christ in their message and pursuing Christlikeness in their methodology. Unfortunately, most of these men were doing their work in relative isolation, unaware of like-minded people in similar cultural contexts facing almost identical challenges. Addressing this involuntary isolation with the ultimate aim of fostering effective evangelistic partnerships across the continent led to the birth of the Evangelising Europe Conference.
Expositional and practical ministry was brought to the conference by men who, in different ways, are reaching their corners of Europe with the gospel: Barry King (general secretary of Grace Baptist Partnership in the UK); Peter Schild (Reformed Baptist church planter in Frankfurt, Germany); Andrew Swanson (missionary pastor in Northern Cyprus since 1985); Kees van Kralingen (Netherlands-based editor of Reformation Today); Brother Hicham (pastor of an evangelical church in France); and Dinu Moga (founder and general manager of Faclia Publishing House in Romania). Session topics included: partnership in the gospel; evangelism in the local church; practical lessons from the life of German Baptist pastor Johann Gerhard Oncken; reaching Muslims with the gospel; perseverance; and Bible literacy.
The closing address of the conference was given by Ryan King. In a stirring message entitled ‘I will not say the day is done’, King combined his research with Scriptural passages and biblical principles, urging those present to look beyond Europe’s plight and problems to the power of God. The message can be viewed on Euro Evangelism’s YouTube page and a pdf is available from www.euroevangelism.org.
