Building new

I just returned from the annual conference of the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden, held in Gothenburg. It was together with the Baptist Union and the Methodist Church. A statement was adopted, saying that we altogether want to go on in the process of building something new: a new church, in stead of the three present churches.
Much has to be done still, and no formal decisions were made. But we want to move on. It is exciting: we may have a possibility to establish a new church, having room for all of us. Our three youth organisations established at the same conference a federation, named equmenia. As many times, the young are challenging us all to take steps.
Christ prayed for unity among his followers. This has come a bit more within reach at the Gothenburg Meeting this year!

Christ is risen

We had a good Easter service in Kiruna, where I preached. Some friends and members of the church, now living in other places, where there, which was a highlight. We spent a long time drinking coffee and talking about various things. The theme of the service was of course the risen Christ and the hope that gives us in any kind of circumstances. In the end, to be a Christian is not an intellectual decision, based on arguments (even if it is good to go through all the arguments) but it is based on meeting the Risen one, the living Christ, and accepting Him. Without that, there can not be any meaningful theology at all. As Paul has written, if Christ has not risen your faith is meaningless. But He has, Paul adds.
I hope your Easter has been good, and I hope meeting the Risen has put its mark on your life.

Blessed Easter

It was too long ago I did write here. Now I just want to wish you all a blessed Easter time.
Christos anesti - Christ has risen, that is the greeting with which people meet at Easter morning in Greece. He is truly risen, is the reaction then. A great way of greeting one another, says more than just "hej" as we use in Sweden!

I did spend a few days in Stockholm, where we were gathered who in some way do pioneering church work like church planting in the Mission Covenant Church. It became interesting days and things are happening in this country, which basically must be regarded a mission field. New churches start to emerge, which is a great blessing. Not an easy task however.

After Easter we will be in Spain on the European Christian Mission conference. I will have a series of two seminars on Science and Theology there, focussing on evolution and creation. Many interesting things can be said on that topic.

In the Netherlands

Last week we spent in the Netherlands. Apart from meeting our families we spent time with people in several churches, supporting missionary work in Sweden through ECM (http://www.ecmnl.nl/), in order to show something of the work of the churches in the north of Sweden. We lived in Zeist during the week, with friends who opened their home for our family.

Autumn was beautiful in the Netherlands. Leaves are gone from the trees by long in Kiruna, where winter reigns by now, but not so down there!

We had severeal meetings at the Free Evangelical Church of Huizen. We have had contacts with this church since many years and it was good to meet them again, as well as people from some other churches.

Hemavan 50 years

Not only did I reach 50 years of age in July, so did the church guesthouse in Hemavan, our own "Mission Post" in the area. Saturday and Sunday I will be there for the official celebration of 50 years in Hemavan. Started in 1957 as a simple small house, we now have a beatiful guesthouse with many different activities going on. The Mission Covenant Church president Göran Zettergren will come. You are welcome as well on Sunday 11.00 for the Celebration Service. But of course you can come any time and spend some days there. Walking in the mountains in summer or skieing in the winter.
www.smufjallgard.nu

Mission Covenant Church Conference

Fro0m 13-17 june, I was at the annual conference of our church. Together with over 500 representants of our local churches as well as a lot of other people we looked back and made decisions for the year to come. Apart from formal gatherings there were lots of seminars and meetings. Guests from all overthe world were also with us.
One of the good things was to look back on the agreemant with the Church of Sweden, which is now in place, to decide on steps towards more close relationships with the Baptists and the Methodists, as well as to learn about the new agreement with the Catholic Church on recognizing each others baptism.

Important for me was the fact that the Meeting declared support for the Sámi people in their demand to get back skeletal remains that Swedish institutions are storing and many of which were actually stolen from e.g. graves during the 19th century, and to have them reburied. We urge the Government and the institutions to cooperate with the Sámi parliament in this, as well as our local churches to cooperate in this reburial whenever this is asked.

A number of new pastors and deacons were ordained and people were sent out to the mission field. More on the conference can be read (in swedish) at www.missionskyrkan.se, there are also pictures to see.