Jeff & Linda Brown - Germany

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December 2007

Dear Praying Friends,

The world's most famous Christmas Market, the Nuremberg "Christkindelmarkt" (if that isn't a mouthfull for English speakers!) opened last weekend. This market has been imitated all over Germany and, in fact, in many countries around the world. Small wooden booths, packed row-on-row, filled with toys, candles, ornaments, clothing, food and much more for sale draw a huge number of visitors to Nuremberg every year at Christmas time. Brass bands and Choirs play and sing Christmas music each evening. We made it a family Christmas tradition to go, once we moved to the area in 1990. This year, our youngest, Jason, will be on college break from the US to join us again for the visit.

We also have been drawn to Nuremberg but not for the sake of the Christkindelmarkt. We are persuaded that this is the place where the Lord wants us to do our next church planting work. As we wound up our ministry in Erlangen, we told people that this is the one place we would not plan to do our next ministry: first, because it is too close to the first church we planted and second, because it is not a univeristy town (the sort of town in which we have been most effective). After seriously considering several cities, after actually beginning prayer meetings in one city and after offers to do other ministry, we settled on Nuremberg. A serious factor in our decision, was that the leaders of the Erlangen church wanted us to take this step and told us that if we begin something closer to them, the church could help us in the work significantly.

So let us tell you a little bit about the city: Nuremberg is just shy of 1000 years old. The massive, medieval walls around the old city still stand. It has a population of 500,000. The greater Nuremberg region boasts a population of 2.5 million and is the 10th largest economic center of Germany. There is one university and four colleges with a total student population of 16,000. Once primarily protestant, the church make-up of Nuremberg is 35% Lutheran, 30% Catholic, 5% Muslim. Free Churches (Methodist, Adventist, Baptist, Charismatic, etc.) reach about 1% of the population. 10% of the Lutheran and Catholic Church adherents attend church regularly and their memberships are steadily shrinking. The Muslim population, in contrast is growing. As with most large German cities, teen-age alcoholism in Nuremberg is a major social problem. Nuremberg needs more of the Gospel and more Gospel-preaching churches.

At this point, we have been building and training a team for the project. It is pretty small at present, with five members (including the two of us). During the past four weeks we have been steadily praying for a much larger contingent . Some people have already inquired about requirements for joining the team. Besides praying, we have all five been reading the Gospel of Matthew, looking for lessons from Jesus as the Master personal evangelist. While reading, I was struck by the sending out of the twelve in chapter 10. First, Jesus promises his power and authority. Later in his instruction he tells them to go out essentially with the clothes on their backs: no money, no extra food, not even shoes. As we discussed this passage, we thought of how various groups (even Christian ones) begin projects with enormous funding. The disciples went out penniless and wound up healing multitudes, casting out demons and convincing large numbers to follow Jesus as Messiah. We do not have large sums of money as we begin our church-planting project and are virtually unknown in Nuremberg. What we desire is Jesus' power in our lives and we hope you will pray for us in just this way.

Here are some further prayer requests: 1) wisdom for each step we make in the project, 2) more to join our church-planting team, 3) a place to rent in Nuremberg, 4) chairs, song books, piano and other equipment. We thank you for your prayers and wish you God's blessing in living and speaking for Christ during this season.

In Him,
Jeff and Linda Brown

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