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
