Daily Devotional By Desiringgod Ministry – John Piper Ministry  17 November 2024 | Topic: Reviving Germany  

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Reviving Germany

Signs of Life in the Land of Luther

Many tourists to Germany love to visit the stunning old churches and cathedrals that can be found in every city, town, and even village. The oldest church in Germany is the cathedral in Trier. Its construction began in AD 340. More impressive are the cathedrals in Cologne, Ulm, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, Munich, and Berlin, to name just a few.

Then there are the Reformation sites — the Wartburg, where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, thus making the holy Scriptures more available to the German people. Or Wittenberg, where Luther lived and worked for most of his life and where he posted the 95 theses to the door of the castle church. But while all these sites are wonderful to visit, they are but artifacts of times long gone when Christianity was still vibrant in Germany.

Germany’s Lost Heritage

By most accounts, Germany became a predominantly Christian nation when Charles the Great defeated Widukind, the Duke of Saxony, in AD 785. From then on, the majority of Germans belonged to a Christian church. But the last half century has seen an unprecedented decline in formal religion such that those who are still members of a Christian church are becoming a minority — for the first time since Charles the Great ruled in the eighth century. Apart from revival, this trend will continue, and even accelerate, as the average age of those who are still church members is significantly above the national average.

But then, formal church membership is not a good measure for the spiritual state of a nation, especially given the fact that Germany has so-called “state” churches. I myself was born and baptized into the Lutheran state church, but I never attended except for an annual visit on Christmas Eve. When the time came for my Lutheran “confirmation,” I dutifully attended the required class and occasionally joined a few seniors for a Sunday service in the otherwise empty church. I can’t remember ever hearing the gospel preached. The standard message was a mix of half-hearted morality and some political statements, often along the lines of social and environmental concerns.

Once “confirmed” at age fourteen, I went back to my once-a-year Christmas Eve tradition. This pattern is typical for pretty much all younger Lutherans to this day.

Encountering the Gospel

Growing up, I never really knew anything about other churches. It wasn’t until my early twenties that I met Christians who attended a so called “free” church, meaning a church outside of the Protestant and Roman Catholic state-church system. Initially, I thought they were part of a sect. This remains the general perception of most Germans when they hear about free churches, whether they be Baptist, Evangelical Free, Brethren, Pentecostal, or something else.

God, in his great mercy, used a faithful Christian family from a free church to save me when I was 26. The same year, my work brought me to Washington, DC, where I joined Capitol Hill Baptist Church and met my wife. When we moved back to Germany in 2002, I realized how spiritually dead my home country truly is. Despite our connections with several American missionaries, we had a very hard time finding a solid gospel-preaching church in Berlin.

During this season, God put a burden on my heart to see Christianity revived in the country where the Protestant Reformation had begun. So in 2005, we moved back to the DC area, where I was trained both at my local church and through seminary studies at Reformed Theological Seminary. In October 2008, we returned to Germany, where I now pastor the Free Evangelical Church in downtown Munich (FEG Muenchen-Mitte).

Bleak Trends, Bright Hope

In the last sixteen years, I have seen the general trend of secularization continue. Ever more churches are closing their doors. Interest in pastoral ministry is at an all-time low. In the fall of 2023, the total number of new enrollments at accredited seminaries and state universities was just two hundred in all of Germany. It all looks very bleak.

“The clear ring of the gospel is provoking a fresh stirring for true Christianity in post-Christian Germany.”

Yet I am hopeful for the church in Germany. This hope is based both on my knowledge of God and on what I see happening in our own church and in other places around the country. Clearly, Christians can always be hopeful. We stand on the side of the one who has conquered the grave and defeated death, sin, and Satan. Since Jesus Christ died and rose again, victory is certain for all who trust and follow him. One day, he will return and gather his elect from every tribe and language and people and nation. Praise be to our victorious King!

And Christ is at work in Germany even now. We see God’s Spirit working, especially among the younger generation. In 2009, John Piper returned to Munich for the first time since his PhD studies in the early 1970s. He met with a group of roughly fifteen German pastors and theologians, most of whom had served in ministry for only a few years. Pastor John encouraged us to preach the word and to form partnerships in order to encourage other like-minded men. In 2011, this group gathered under the name “Evangelium21” for a conference in Hamburg. Ever since, the Evangelium21 national conference has been an annual event. Since 2011, the conference has grown to well over one thousand attendees, most of whom are under the age of thirty.

While the number of those entering seminaries or state universities to be trained for pastoral ministry has dramatically decreased, we are seeing a growing number of young men aspiring to serve the Lord Jesus in full-time ministry.

This trend has led our church in Munich to start a three-year pastoral trainee program for young men. Typically, we bring in graduates from Bible schools and seminaries who have received a BA in theology, and we train them in the context of a church while they receive further seminary training at the local Martin Bucer Seminary campus (which we established a few years ago). Against the national trend, our program is growing. Since we started the pastoral trainee program, we have seen twenty young men enter it. Most of the graduates from our program have moved into pastoral positions, often with the aim to revitalize struggling churches or to plant new ones.

Church planting remains vital to this work. Our own church has planted four churches in the last few years. Other churches from within the Evangelium21 network are also catching on to the vision of training a new generation of faithful pastors who can help to plant and revitalize churches across the country. While the movement remains small, a growing number of young men are eager to be trained and to invest their lives so that more people in Germany and beyond will hear the gospel clearly proclaimed.

Let the Gospel Ring

Today, we see solid and growing churches proclaiming the gospel in more German cities than just a few years ago. While the numbers are still unimpressive, the clear ring of the gospel is provoking a fresh stirring for true Christianity in post-Christian Germany.

Christians in the United States have played a great part in the most recent developments. Many of the pastors in the Evangelium21 network have been trained in the US. Many still receive prayer and financial support through American churches. Indeed, adopting a German seminary student, church planter, or church revitalizer is often a much more strategic and efficient missions investment than sending an American missionary to Germany, who first needs to acquire the language and get adjusted to the culture. I’m so grateful that a growing number of US churches have started to support the recovery of the gospel in Germany through such partnerships.

While financial partnership is a great blessing, what Germany needs even more is prayer. After all, it is the Lord Jesus who has promised to build his church (Matthew 16:18), and unless he builds the house, those who build it labor in vain (Psalm 127:1). Please join us in prayer for the church in Germany, that the Lord will have mercy and will grant a new revival. And praise him for what he is already doing. While the old and impressive cathedrals have no spiritual life, smaller and less impressive churches are springing up with a new vibrancy and joy in Jesus.

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