What are you actually doing?
I was very happy with the feed back we received from our last update. Many people wrote e-mails of support and encouragement to continue to press on in the Lord even though we were facing so many hardships in the form of spiritual, financial and physical trials.
One of the e-mails we received was from a friend of mine who pastors a church in Oregon. He is one of the pastors in my life that I have the utmost respect for. He wrote, “I wonder if giving us a clear picture of your goals and what it is you actually do might not help raise your level of support.” He said, ” I probably should know this, so forgive me, but I am not exactly sure what it is you do. Are you pastoring? Teaching at a bible school? Assisting other ministries?”
I must confess that I have a serious fault. I think that everyone knows what I know. Because of this, I probably fail to communicate well and I may not have ever explained what it is that we are doing here in Germany. I was reminded of this picture:
By way of clarification, I know that I’m not a Moses and that I am not parting the Red Sea. However, God has opened the door for us to serve Him here in the rocky ground of Germany.
After a year at the Bible College in Hungary, the Lord moved us to Esztergom to help with a church there. The pastor told me that he was tired and overwhelmed, and needed help. From there the Lord opened many doors for us to help other pastors and churches, being part of a few church plants, and teaching English is schools in Slovakia and Hungary. The Lord also opened doors for us to share Christ in Bible/English camps across the UK for many fruitful years.
About two years before we left Hungary, it became clear that what the Lord had brought us there to accomplish was coming to an end. We began to seek the Lord for our next step. We were very open to the Lord leading us back to the states, but didn’t feel like that was what He had for us. So we continued to pray.
The Lord gave us a vision of an American soldier in Germany, 20 years old, Christian, first time away from home and his church, in need of solid Bible teaching and fellowship. We shared this vision with the Calvary Chapel leadership in Hungary and Germany and they gave us their overwhelming support. They encouraged us to go forward. They were confident that the Lord was in it. We didn’t know what we were to do specifically, so we stepped out in faith knowing we were to reach out to a war weary military with the love of Christ and the word of God.
Shortly after we moved, literally days after moving in, we met a German girl who said she just became a Christian and had lots of questions. I felt it was the Lord telling me that even though He used the image of a soldier to get us to Germany, we were not to neglect the German people. Just over six years ago we began our first Bible study with her.
From those early days, I felt that the Lord would have us plant a Calvary Chapel here, reaching out to the American military and their families along with the German people. So Calvary Chapel Ansbach was started.
In short, our goal and purpose in being here is to bring glory to our Savior, Jesus Christ, to share the gospel with the lost, to point people to Jesus, to win souls, to stir believers for a closer walk with Jesus and to wet their appetites for a greater hunger for Him, to help believers develop and discover the joys of a devotional and prayer life, to encourage them to become men and women of the Word, to equip them for the work of the ministry, to raise them up and send them out into their communities to share their faith with others, and to step out in faith in service to Him.
We do this through friendship evangelism, opening our home to everyone we meet, inviting them to share meals with us; through working a high profile job on the army post, looking, waiting and praying for opportunites to share Christ with those I meet and those I work with; through mid week and Sunday morning Bible studies; through one on one personal discipleship; through meeting people for coffee and through visiting others in their home, praying with them and standing with them in the trials and tribulations that they are encountering; through counseling and encouragement; through example and through transparency in the difficulties we face while clinging to Jesus. All this and more in the hopes to win others to Christ and strengthen the body of believers the Lord brings our way.
Our heart felt desire and great need is the support of the church and individual believers back home. We need your prayers. I believe the Lord moves when His people pray. We need your prayers. I can’t tell you how important it is to us, to our family, our health and our personal walks with the Lord. We need the strength and wisdom, the vision and direction, the boldness and anointing of the Lord that comes through the prayers of His saints.
Years ago our pastor shared a vision he had. It was of a battleship lobbing shells from a distance onto the shore, softening up the defenses of the enemy prior to and in support of the ground attack. He shared with me that the prayers of the saints were like the battleship, shelling the enemy shores from a distance.
We are in need of that offensive support. We need people who share our vision for winning others to Christ, bringing glory to the Lord, who’s hearts resonate with what we are doing; those who would like to go but can not. We need them to come alongside us, to be in the trenches with us, to partner with us through prayer and support. We need you to have our backs.
As always, we are so thankful for those that are currently teamed with us. We thank you for your prayers, your encouragement, your love and friendship. We continue to pray for you. For those who recently have decided to come on board and be part of planting a church here, we thank you for your support. Please pray that the Lord would stir others to support the work here. May God raise up a healthy, thriving body of believers here, bringing glory to His name and fruit to your account.
God bless,
Gary and Tina
Posted in Update by Mike Thiemann with comments disabled.