European Director Inauguration Address by Pastor Walter Nett

by WMD   01-07-2012   0 reads

In 2009, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of UBF ministry in Europe. That is more than one generation. You may say, it’s about time to establish native leadership. That is not my sentiment. To me, it is all important to follow God’s timing.

When I review these 42 years, my first thought of thanksgiving is for our nurse missionaries who came to Germany and served all kinds of sick people, especially sin-sick people. Sometimes they served an unchanging person for more than 10 years. They never calculated.

In 1978, prayerful P. Abraham Lee took over the leadership, followed by deep thinking M. Kaleb Hong and charismatic Dr. Peter Chang. Now, God has put me in their succession.

When I prayed about how to be a successor to these great women and men of faith, one word came to my heart, John 12:24. It says,

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

(This is my personal key verse for 2012. In addition, Dr. John Jun gave me Joshua 1:7-8 for my leadership.) In John 12:24, Jesus tells us about giving life. In order to give life, you must have a life-giving attitude. In his message yesterday, P. Abraham Kim expressed it saying, “It is to live a life to the full.” “To the full” is a truly catching expression. A life-giving life is a fulfilled life, a truly meaningful life, a life that will bear much fruit.

I am very grateful for Jesus who lived his short life to the full in order to save me from all my sin and from God’s wrath and to make me a child of God feebly walking in his footsteps. I am unworthy of the blessing and responsibility that have been bestowed on me.

I need your prayer support that God may fill me with the Holy Spirit day by day. I pray to co-work well with P. Abraham Kim, with my predecessors and with all of you so that our lives will be given to produce many seeds in all European nations. Let us work together in one heart and mind so that each nation and Europe UBF as a whole will be a source of blessing for all the world.

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