July 2008

Uncharted waters and new horizons

You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing . . . . make it a habit to say, “If the Master  wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.” 
James 4:14-15 (MSG)

Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ!

We have good news! God is calling us to a new ministry of education and evangelism with the Evangelical-Reformed Church in Poland (ERCP). We ask you, our senders, to rejoice with us, to discern with us where God is leading, and to support us with prayers for a fruitful harvest.

Believers in ten ERCP churches and four meeting points have struggled to recover, renew, and grow—spiritually and in numbers—in the post-Communist era. Fewer than 1 percent of Poles are Protestant. The Evangelical Reformed Church desires “to be trained for mission,” in the words of its leadership: “If we can’t be trained for mission, then the church will disappear.”

Seeking “a fresh way of thinking,” the church leadership has asked for a partnership with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Global Ministries (the combined witness of the United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ). Our new call, a joint appointment, is to walk with leadership and laity as they discover new ways to share the good news, and meet their neighbors’ deep needs. Together, we will journey towards new horizons, and cast our nets in uncharted waters.
 
Our home base will be in Lodz (pronounced “Woodtch”), the “second city” of Poland. To begin, we’ll train trainers to work with small group development, church music, and ESL teachers. In the years to come, we hope many of you will visit our brothers and sisters in Poland, learn from the challenges of their journey, and share gifts, abilities, and expertise. As we walk with the church, listen, and learn, we hope opportunities will develop to connect the senders (you) with the sent (us) and all of us with the served (in Poland), completing a circle of hope that has God, and the needs of God’s world, at its center. To make that circle a reality, we need to throw wide our arms and open our hands and hearts to the renewing Evangelical Reformed Church in Poland.

The Reverend Marek Izdebski put it well: “As we look at other former communist countries, we see many examples of how the life of long repressed churches has been renewed through partnerships. With these partnerships we know we are not alone, and they give hope for our future.”

Thank God that—with your help—this is so!

Doug and Liz Searles, en route to Lodz, Poland