Dear friends,
After writing a little update recently to Andy Lambkin, we realized that the core of what we wrote him might serve to help update the rest of you as leaders of churches and missions teams that are interested in and/or supporting what we are up to. I will put it in three categories (which I still remember from Dr. Cramer back in the 70´s at CBC): People, Ideas, Things.
PEOPLE
+ We were so glad to have Jonathan Watland's fiancé visiting with us for several weeks here in Heidelberg. Jonathan is with us on the Alliance's 2 year apprenticeship program. Michelle is a teacher from Alberta and will be joining us here next summer after their wedding. It was awesome to see how she embraced the vision and values of what we are up to, entered into ministry with us, and joined into our prayer times as a team. We bless them in this unusual journey.
+ Bill and Jeanoula Tatum, from Pacific Community Church, ended a Europe tour by spending several days with us, and also joined in with us at our team prayer times. In many great conversations it was obvious that they have captured much of what we are up to. We are grateful for their encouraging visit - it sparked anew the idea of prayer teams coming here.
+ Dr. Hans-Georg Ulrichs - a Lutheran pastor from the University Church of Heidelberg (Peterskirche), preached one Sunday at a sister church in HD that Ruth and I attended. If you closed your eyes, switched him from speaking in German to English, you might have thought it was a message from an Alliance pastor in Canada. A powerful message on the cross..."keep looking to the cross, there is salvation there, there is healing there!" Subsequently, I, Ralph, got an appointment to see him and encourage and thank him for his message. I had originally also intended to ask him for his help in finding a church building we could rent for the outreach services we have envisioned (more below under "Ideas"), but the Lord spoke to me and said, don't try and "use" him, just honor me and him. That is what I did. And believe it or not, towards the end of our conversation (I did tell him about our journey - church plant in Mannheim, 2 years in Canada because of Leukemia, etc. but nothing about an English service) he blurted out, I think somewhat prophetically: "Do you know what, I think you should start evangelistic, English worship services in HD. And if you need a place to meet, let me know, I will help you open doors!" Jonathan has since then met with him as well as Ruth and I. He is a key person in the city for revival. Please pray for him as he feels quite alone.
+ Another time we will tell you about other encounters with pastors and students that have been so encouraging...
IDEAS
We began an english speaking house group in May, have taken a couple of weeks off recently with so many away, and begin again tomorrow evening. We have been praying, dreaming, strategizing as a team and are moving in the following directions as a house group and ministry team...
+ 30 minute "minigroups" (groups of 2 or three, same-sex) at the beginning of our housegroup evenings for encouraging the reading of the scriptures, listening, obeying, applying truth in our lives as well as praying for unbelieving friends - this we might call discipleship level one (we need to check with you, Andale and Jessie in Mannheim about how this is going for you)
+ The housegroup evening then carries on with the telling of God stories, a time of worship, working through eg John's gospel together (not teaching but someone facilitating with good questions), a ministry time (prayer, prophetic) in response to the word and then concluding with what we call "window". Here we literally look out the window, prophesy over and pray for Heidelberg, consider ways we can touch the city (eg We are thinking of holding one housegroup evening per month in a cafe)
+ Once a month on a Saturday evening we will hold an evangelistic worship night (in English) which we will call "New Song HD" (HD = Heidelberg) - goal is to have the first one on October 25th. Pray for Ruth and me as we have an appointment on Friday with the pastor of the church, which we would like to rent.
+ On the other weekends we hope to (beginning in October) meet Sunday evenings for an "Equipping Night"...a combination of worship, teaching - which is more intentionally interactive (seminar style) - and breakout groups. We have been working on the gathering of materials, themes, etc. This will be done in combination with mentoring relationships but can also serve as a stand alone form of what we might call discipleship level two. This will be a gathering event for what we hope will become a network of housegroups. We presently have just one housegroup (presently 7 attending) but we have several who want to join us in September (5) and one of our young students is quite desirous of starting a new group this fall or early next year. So you could say, this will become a way of going public and launching "the church", which we most likely will call "New Song Christian Community" or something like that.
+ One of our team members, mosty adjunct, is Eric Supen with his wife Jana (who had been in Haus des Herrn in Mannheim). He leads the DTS mnistry of YWAM in Germany. He is helping us shape our Equipping Night content, with a special emphasis on the Kingdom.
+ I would say 3DM (Mike Breen) has also influenced us, isn't the sole track we are running on, but is shaping the direction and has confirmed some of the values, and helped us fine-tune what we have done in Mannheim but also helped us keep on track in what we already have on our hearts.
+ Please pray that the Lord will help our little flock embrace and champion these values and steps of faith. Some are totally on board, new ones planning on coming don't yet know what is going to "hit" them!
THINGS
+ With your contributions to our Work Funds, we have been able to pay for the following:
• help cover rental costs for our ministry center, our and Jonathan's home (which GAF doesn't cover)
• help with some setup costs - guest room and office
• attend a healing seminar
• hospitality costs and a few meals out with guests
• help cover costs for a Turkish pastor's conference (more about this later)
• an honorarium for a guest who served our team (Juan Carlos Alzamora - a strong apostolic/prophetic US-Venezuelan, who comes to Europe twice a year) in consulting, coaching and the prophetic
• help cover costs for a short summer Bibleschool here in HD that Ruth and I taught at
• purchase a laptop for Ruth (her's was coughing and sputtering), a PC for Ralph (his crashed 6 times in two days) and a new printer to replace the one that died with no warning! All these items replaced were about 6 years old.
Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity in making our being here possible and especially in these specific items mentioned (there are many more, but smaller stuff like magazine subscription, planning calendar, etc).
Bless you for partnering with us, believing with us for the raising up of leaders, new house groups, beginning an English service, and leaning into deeper discipleship relationships.
in Him,
Ralph and Ruth (with Jonathan)