I never expected to
visit the country of Finland, but this year I had an opportunity to do so for the first time. On invitation by the North American Covenant Churches, I visited Finland from April 2 to 8.
A seminary of the Finnish Evangelical Free Church had invited representatives from the American Covenant Churches to speak on the subjects of church revitalization and pioneer evangelism. Local pastors and seminary students attended the lecture. Representatives from the Japan Covenant Churches were invited too, and we sent 3 Japanese pastors to discover if we could apply lessons from the lecture in the Japanese church context.
In a period of “stability,” churches lose their vision for evangelism and, as a result, becoming aging churches and risk closing down from lack of new, younger members. We could truly relate to the situation presented in the lecture.
May we share a vision to revitalize our churches and makes inroads for evangelism.
