Europe

"I grew up in a religious Islamic family in Iran," writes Operation Mobilisation's Dr. Manssor Amerioun. "At the age of 17, I decided to not believe in any God. I became a psychiatrist, and was an advisor at many Iranian clinics. Following my refusal to publicly declare that I follow Islam, I lost my job and was imprisoned for six months. During that time, my wife died of a brain tumour, and I became depressive. In 1989, I emigrated to Sweden, bought a small shop, married again and had a daughter. My wife visited a Christian church and became a believer. Peter Magnusson, the leader of OM Sweden, regularly came into my shop, and we spoke about God. One day, I watched the Jesus Film in the back room of my shop. Something happened to me; I was both happy and sad, and I felt as though God answered all my questions of the past 60 years - he spoke directly to my heart. That evening, my wife was worried, because she thought I was ill. I said 'You'll think I'm crazy, and wouldn't believe what happened!' 'If it's about Jesus, I'll believe anything you tell me,' she said, so I told her how God met me."
Dr. Amerioun has now been working with OM since 2003, doing everything he can to help Iranian immigrants.

Source: OM News July/August 2006

That is the name of the new newsletter published by Dawn Ministries, a global church planting strategy group. "DAWN around the world" replaces the DAWN Report, which they published for many years. Some highlights from the current issue:

Openness in Africa

"Africa is more open for the gospel than it has ever been," reports DAWN Africa Coordinator Danie Vermeulen. "Thousands of Muslims are finding Christ, and some of the most exciting church planting movements are among Muslims. Civil wars, AIDS and political repression are other factors leading growing numbers to open for the gospel..."

Interest in God is growing in Europe

"Secular ideology has failed in Europe, and there is a new interest in religion and spirituality," says Dawn European Network Coordinator Reinhold Scharnowski. "This is starting to affect European culture; writers, artists and talk show guests are speaking increasingly about spirituality. Until recently, people thought that religion is what people believe before they discover science. That has been revealed as myth. The secular faith in progress itself, which was supposed to replace religion, has failed, as clearly shown by the growing church attendance in London. The Hillsong Fellowship, for example, started with an attendance of only 70, but the numbers double every year; the attendance has now reached 5,500, with 1,500 new believers in 2004 alone..."

Uruguay: church numbers doubled

"Recent research shows that the number of Christian churches and the number of new believers in Uruguay has doubled since 1998," reports Amaury Braga, Prayer Coordinator for DAWN in Latin America. "There were around 1,000 churches in 1998, after 150 years of evangelism. This realisation gave birth to a new phase; the churches began a dedicated campaign to mobilise prayer for effective church planting. Now, in 2005, the figures show that in a period of only seven years, not only has the number of churches doubled to over 2,000, but the number of Christians has doubled with it."

Source, and to order the free newsletter "DAWN around the world": Dawn Ministries, PO Box 690787, Orlando, FL 32869-0787, USA, tel. +1 (407) 370-9312, fax +1 (407) 226-8713, e-mail tedmolsen (at) aol.com

In a letter published in "Verfolgte Christen" ('Persecuted Christians'), pastor Vesselin Lazarov from Shumen, Bulgaria, thanks the missions agency AVC for their practical assistance. He reports "God has performed many miracles in our midst. We recently witnessed a man raised from the dead. While some Gypsy musicians from our church were playing at a Turkish wedding, a young man fell to the ground, dead. People tried to resuscitate him, but without success. Then a member of our church prayed, commanding the spirit of death to leave the man, and called him back to life. The man stood up! The over 100 astonished eyewitnesses shouted 'A miracle! A miracle!'"

Source: Nehemia Info/AvC

"On Sunday, 24^th April 2005, we sent out a small army of "Mystery Worshippers" into London's churches. These holy spies reconnoitred 70 services in the English capital, checking how hard the pews are, the length and quality of the sermon, strength of the coffee and warmth of the greeting. Many of our readers are dedicated pew warmers, and were excited to accept the challenge," says Simon Jenkins, editor of shipoffools.com, the Christian internet news site behind the project. Each of the mysterious spies left a card depicting a lone masked rider – the only sign for the churches that they had been examined by the service testers. The results were published on 10^th May. Here's a selection of what London's churches have to offer, compiled by Assist News Service's Michael Ireland:

• rhythmic snoring during the (silent?) prayer time;
• four old women on the back pew, criticising the pastor;
• an immediate invitation to join the choir;
• passionate singing of the Vatican national hymn;
• "We'll be back in a moment" – a service with a commercial break;
• a barking dog, accompanying the sermon for a full 52 minutes;
• a 2½-hour service, with a sermon by a (female) preacher who spoke for a long time, said nothing and finally collapsed of excitement (or exhaustion?);
• being discovered in a Puritan church and escorted out;
• no coffee – but Champagne!
• fleeing made impossible by pews which close automatically once you're seated;
• in one church, visitors were greeted by attractive young women;
• a Catholic church which didn't even mention the new Pope;
• a church which welcomed the 'spy' so intensely and successfully that he was the last one to leave…

Do you want to know more? www.shipoffools.com has the full reports.

Source: Simon Jenkins, Steve Goddard, publisher of www.shipoffools.com

A conference about global mission and evangelisation is being held in Athens from 10^th-15^th May 2005, organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC). (This report was written before the conference; we have not yet received a report from the conference itself.) The title is "Come, Holy Spirit, Heal and Reconcile" with the subtitle "Called in Christ to be reconciling and Healing Communities." The WCC's Juan Michel sees the conference as a fantastic opportunity for Christians of all continents to unite in the direction of mission and discuss the future of the Christian witness. The conference will be moderated by UK Baptist pastor Ruth Bottoms. The ecumenical conference is more open than ever before; almost a quarter of the attendees will be Christians with an Evangelical, Pentecostal or Roman Catholic background, complementing the mainly liberal WCC member churches. One of the participants is German evangelical missions expert Dr. Andreas Franz.

Source: Juan Michel, WCC

A "Strategic Leadership Consultation" was held in London from 5^th-7^th May 2005, at which leaders of church networks and parachurch organisations from 10 European nations met to discuss ways churches can involve themselves more in government processes. The central questions posed by the consultation were how the church can be involved in the political process without becoming party political? And how can the voice of Christian faith be heard on the social and political issues which shape people’s lives? Reverend Steve Chalke, the founder of Faithworks who has earned the respect of all of Britain's major political parties for his social projects, says "access and influence are based on whether we can help community leaders to get results. Real trust begins in small places and is built on trustworthiness." Mal Fletcher, Director of Next Wave International and host to the Consultation, added "The church is often better known for what it opposes than what it proposes! That needs to change. As churches, we need to learn to produce better societies by producing social reformers and activists. What sort of city, and what sort of nation do we want to live in in ten years, and what are we prepared to do to create that future?" Pastor McCauley, leader of South Africa's Rhema Church with 32,000 members, joined the Consultation by telephone. He asks the question "If our church was not there, would our community miss it?" The result of the Consultation were 14 statements of principle which the attendees agreed to apply to their work in local communities, and is available on the Next Wave International website

Source: www.nextwaveonline.com

Berlin was infamous for the violent demonstrations on 30^th April and 1^st May, International Workers' Day. "That's going to change," reports Kerstin Hack. The 'spiral of violence' was broken last year, with only 'minor incidents' in places known for major violence, and only one single street battle. 2005 was "The most peaceful 1^st May since 20 years!", according to the press. Kerstin Hack: "There were no real street battles, only a few thrown stones and bottles, and one upturned car which lost petrol but did not burn. That's certainly partly due to the many people who celebrated a peaceful May Day and the Police's wisdom, but also to the Christians on the streets praying, both in 2004 and 2005. There was an open-air service, and cleaning teams and prayer teams were on the streets. In 2004, it was relatively peaceful wherever the intercessors were; violence only escalated in places which we had too few people to cover. This year, with only one exception, the violence stopped almost before it began."

Source: Kerstin Hack, e-mail info/at/down-to-earth.de, tel. (+49) 30 822 7962