Knut and Elizabet are a couple involved in a ministry called Family on Mission. They started their first church in the north of Norway in 1982, then moved to the south-west where they joined a new community of 70 people. This church grew to over 900 and planted out 20 churches throughout Norway.
“But in 2006 we sensed there was a shift coming and God was using circumstances to get our attention and bring change,” the couple share. “We realized we had more fruit outside of church meetings than inside. So we began to pray that God would give us spiritual sons and daughters whom we could train in the context of real life, not taking them out of life into a church.”
It took time in the beginning to raise up first and second generation disciples. But in the last 3.5 years they saw a catalysation of the work. They baptized almost 70 people between 2010-2013. At least 50 are brand new believers. This has led to the planting of spiritual communities across five cities in Norway.
"Right now in Europe, 10-20% of the population is ready to harvest."
“We began with our natural social circles, using the principle in Matthew 10 and Luke 10 of the ‘person of peace’. Recently we emphasised preaching the gospel to new people. When we reach new people we’re more bold because we’re not afraid of losing or offending people in the same way we might be concerned with offending long term friends or family members if they disagree with us. Right now in Europe, we believe the harvest is ripe and between 10-20% of the population are ready, if disciples present Jesus to others in a way they can understand. We believe we can go to any city in Europe, spend the week there and communicate to enough people, resulting in a simple church birthed within 10 days.”
“In Oslo right now, our network of simple churches can share our faith with 100 new people every week. We have heard stories from our friends in India. They ask every Christian to share with two new people every week and have observed that 1 out of 10 people become a believer and 1 out of 20 committed disciples. If people we meet are really engaging in conversation, we ask ‘Would you be willing to spend one more hour talking about this?’ On one of these occasions, we already found five people who wanted to do this and one said, ‘I have two more friends I want to bring’. One man who has been baptized through connection with our network of house churches, went on to baptize eight other people.”
The house church network intentionally trains people to:
- tell their story in 10 sentences, and practice that;
- share the gospel of Jesus Christ in a simple way;
- teach new believers Christian foundations (ABC’s of faith).
Source: Knut and Elizabet, interviewed by Peter Farmer
Copyright © 2013 Stichting Joel Ministries
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