BBC Sweden Project: Lindesberg and Lund

Today (Sunday) was a day for worship at church, meeting with church leaders, and a long road trip. We began our day with a worship service at Kristina Kyrkan (The Kristina Church) in the town of Lindesberg. This church is also experiencing a growth in attendance and membership, primarily due to recent immigrants to Sweden. There are members and attenders from: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma (there is a large community of Karen people from Burma living in Lindesberg), and Ghana, among other countries. Our service included the baptism of two young men who were previously Muslims. One was from Afghanistan and one was from Pakistan. The sermon focus was the difference between the secular world and the Christian world: in the secular world, you do something good, and then you receive your prize (medal, award, recognition, raise, etc…); in the Christian life, you get your prize (salvation from Jesus’ work), then you are able to do something good. There was a wonderful spirit and joy in the congregation during the service, with a variety of praise and worship songs. It was also Mother’s Day here in Sweden, so one of the immigrants sang a song to the mothers in the congregation.

After the service, we enjoyed Fika with the congregation, giving us the opportunity to meet many native Swedes as well as a number of the immigrants. Following the time of fellowship, we met with the leadership of this particular church to listen to their needs and concerns and to have some focused prayer time with them. As a special treat, we also had some time to meet with and pray with Markus Sand, who is the pastor of the Rinkeby International Church back in Stockholm. Our prayer team has met with Markus the previous two years we have been in Sweden, so he has become an “old friend” now. His church is located in a neighborhood in Stockholm that is very similar to the neighborhood around Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Rinkeby is primarily home to Muslim immigrants, and most of them are from Somalia. We shared a meal with Markus after the meeting time at a local restaurant. We then began our journey to Lund, which is in the south of Sweden near Malmö (in Sweden) and Copenhagen, Denmark. We arrived at about 10:00 PM after about six hours on the road. Tomorrow we plan to meet with the leadership of Agape Sverige (Cru in Sweden) at Lund University.