Paul Clark
As a church planter in German speaking Europe, I remember two ladies making this statement separately in the past few years
The first time was in the Summer of 2016 when I stood together with our core group from the church we had just launched several weeks earlier in Bregenz, Austria. We were praying that God would give direction as we stood in front of a storefront that we were considering to rent for our new church home, which eventually became our church home.
After we had finished praying, Inge, in her late 70s blurted out: “I almost gave up praying that someone would ever plant a Pentecostal church in my city of Bregenz.” And since 2016, many lives have been touched by the Bregenz church.
The second time was in March 2022, just before we launched the only Pentecostal Church in the country of Liechtenstein. Riding in the church van from a neighboring church across the border in Austria we were going to our first pray meeting in Liechtenstein just before the church launch. All of the sudden the pastor’s wife Annette said: “I have been praying for over 30 years that someone would plant a church in Liechtenstein. I almost gave up praying, since It seemed there were no results.”
As a church planter these two testimonies are an encouragement. Everywhere my wife Mechthild and I have planted churches there have always been people years before praying that a church planter would be raised up for their city.
In Luke 11:9 Jesus encourages us to ask, seek, and knock. In the original Greek it means to continually ask, continually seek, and continually know on the door.
Let us never give up praying even when the answer is not yet there!