berlin summit support letter
As Paul wrote his fellow believers in Thessalonica, he urged them to join him in the spreading of the gospel message. He wrote, “Finally, brothers pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored…” 2 Thess. 3:1.
In that same way I am joining a small team to investigate the future possibilities of widening our partnership in the former East Germany. As you probably know First Free has been active in a partnership in Dresden, Germany for some years. We will be taking a day to visit our partnering church in Dresden to discuss summer plans. As that effort in Dresden is beginning to wind down there is a new possibility opening up in the same region with some of our German contacts in Berlin. It appears that the gospel is taking root in this major metropolitan city and is beginning to grow! Twelve years ago Berlin was one of the darkest cities in Europe as to church life and the gospel. The German Free Church estimated that only .001% of Berliners in 1997 attended a church of any kind on a Sunday morning. Today that has changed to about 1% born again Christian population. There is a fresh wind of the Holy Spirit blowing in this city in recent years. At the same time, Berlin has become one of the dominant cities in Europe as the Germans have moved their political center back to Berlin and they have rebuilt this city. It is quickly becoming one of the most influential cities in the world as to culture, art, music as well as economics! There is also an emerging movement of young German church planters coming to Berlin. Check out a short video clip on-line that one of our team members created and posted recently: http://takebackberlin.wordpress.com
Our missionaries in Berlin, Mike and Debbie Edwards, are asking that First Free and Free Churches in the St. Louis metro area consider “partnering” with these young church planters and churching planting efforts in a metro Berlin to metro St. Louis partnership for the sake of the gospel and growth of the church. They are asking us to send a small team to a “Berlin Summit” April 13-16 in Berlin, Germany. The goal of this time will be to personally meet many of these young church planters/pastors and to examine how we might encourage the growth of the gospel in Berlin. As our small Berlin team goes, we are confident that by your prayers, the Lord will give us clarity as to how First Free should invest ourselves for a more “rapid spread” of good news and enable us to might partner in the future. By prayer, you can lay hold of God’s willingness to accomplish great things in Berlin. By the power of your prayers, the Lord will do immeasurably more that all we ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20)!
Each of us on the team is praying, working hard to prepare and giving of our own funds to cover our team costs. We are asking God to raise up prayer supporters and generous donors to meet the needs of this team. I will be contributing from my personal funds toward the cost of this trip. The total cost per person of $1990 per person or $7960 for all four of us to attend. We need to raise all the funds before the team departs on April 11. Would you join the team through prayer or a financial contribution? Please use the enclosed response card as the Lord leads you–so your help will be made available to our team! You can also give on Sunday (if you are at First Free) in the normal offering but mark your check, “Berlin Summit” in the memo section. Or if you would prefer to send a check, send it directly to me and make your check payable to First EFC, St. Louis. I will deposit this into our Berlin Summit fund and make sure you receive a receipt. Of course, you can give on-line as well by going to http://www.efree.org then in the upper right corner of the page click on “on-line giving”.
I greatly appreciate your consideration and prayer in behalf of this effort of church growth and gospel proclamation in a dark area of the world! If God gives you a burden to pray for me/our team, give financially and possibly in the future considering joining a team to Berlin, I will appreciate it deeply!
Gratefully yours in Christ,
Rick Burke
Jeremiah Foertsch
Jim Barnard
Kevin Hughes
