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LET MY PEOPLE GO! (Exodus 10:3)

German Strategic Leaders Conference 2011 was held from October 20-22 with the title “Let my people go!” (Exodus 10:3). It took place in the midst of the beautiful and sunny autumn scenery at the Christian Retreat Centre in Rehe in the Westerwald Region of Germany.

This time, Msn. Mr. Moses Lee and Msn. Joshua Kim’s house churches ofDarmstadt UBF I and II hosted the conference. These two house churches co-worked to provide a suitable environment for the conference. A total of 45 leaders from 14 chapters attended.

The title of the Strategic Conference 2011 was “Let my people go!” from Exodus 10:3which God gave us as German UBF strategic direction for the winter semester ministry in Germany (October 2011 to March 2012). We studied Exodus chapters 1-13to learn Moses’ challenging faith and uncompromising attitude. The messages challenged each of us to go out to the campus and stand before the Pharaoh of our postmodern generation. It renewed our hearts and vision to serve the 1:1 Bible study and disciple-making ministry with an uncompromising attitude.

As the title says, it was a conference full of challenging spirit. The opening message by Msn. Dr. Moses Lee on Isaiah 6 taught us that Godfulfils his salvation work through the remnants. He encouraged the chapter leaders to go out to the campus to find the remnants and to sow the holy seeds. As Isaiah 6:13 says, the holy seed will be the stump in this land and God will awaken Germany and Europe through such people like holy stumps. Throughout the conference, we prayed for for Darmstadt UBF ministry and Msn. Dr. Moses Lee and Msn. Joshua Kim’s house churches to be used as a holy seed for German Campus pioneering Ministry.

Shepherd Volker Keller (Cologne I UBF) delivered the first lecture of Exodus (ch. 1-4) titled “God heard their groaning.” We learned that God hears the groaning of young people in Germany and in whole Europe. As an answer to their cry for help, he called and trained young leaders like Moses during the 40 years in Germany. All of us were encouraged to challenge to raise one spiritual leaderin each chapter in Germany who may be used as a Moses for the spiritual exodus of this generation. We celebrated UBF 50^th commemoration at the first night watching Dr. John Jun’s message from the UBF’s 50^th anniversary World Mission Report and Darren Hildrow’s life testimony. Dr. John Jun’s message reminded us that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Darren Hildrow’s life testimony testified to God of Hope in Europe and renewed our hearts and vision for German and Europe mission.

Shepherd Jochen Schweitzer (Bonn UBF) delivered the main message titled “Let my people go!” All chapter directors were encouraged and decided to learn Moses’ faith of challenging Pharaoh without compromising. Young campus students in Germany are prisoners to sin and deceived by the lies of humanism, hedonism, and relativism. This Pharaoh would not let campus students go. Yet, if we fight without compromising or drawing us back, God’s mighty hand will be revealed in a spiritual exodus. We learned to hold on to God’s word and to obey to the end trusting in the almighty God who will give us a victory and rescue young students out of slavery to the their sins.

On Friday evening, Man. Peter Oh from Hamburg UBF delivered the message on Acts 2:17 about God’s vision “Your young men will see visions.” As Peter and the disciples spoke in different tongues, the crowd thought they were drunk. Indeed, they were “drunk” by the Holy Spirit. Msn. Peter encouraged us to be drunk by the Holy Spirit and to see visions and to dream dreams.

After the message we held a seminar on discipleship based on the book “Called to Awaken the Laity” by Pastor John H. Oak. Shepherd Stefan Elsholz introduced ecclesiology (church philosophy) and Shepherd Samuel Ryu, discipleship as strategy and practical methods. The German edition of the book “Called to Awaken the Laity” was published about two months ago through UBF co-workers and this book is an effective resource for pastors to mobilize the laity in Europe through discipleship training. Dr. Samuel Lee’s clear church philosophy has driven the UBF world campus ministry in the past 50 years and left us with the beautiful spiritual legacy of valuing one soulmore than the whole universe. Shep. Samuel Ryu emphasized the essentiality of training in awakening the laity and raising spiritual leaders. We prayed that Germany UBF may be a source of blessing in awakening and raising laity bible teachers as spiritual leaders through campus mission.

On Saturday morning, we had a chapter directors’ prayer meeting in which everyone shared God’s work in their ministry and their prayer topics as well. Dr. Peter Chang encouraged all the chapter directors to hold on to Exodus 10:3 and to serve the one-to-one ministry and disciple-making ministry with Moses’ challenging faith and to raise one Abraham of faith and 12 disciples in each chapter.

On Saturday Shepherd Rainer Schauwienold from Heidelberg UBF gave the third lecture from Exodus 11-13. His message taught us that Jesus is the true Passover lamb and that his blood is our only way to earn salvation. Dr. Titus Keller (Düsseldorf II UBF) delivered a to-the-point closing message based on Ezra 7:10 titled “Back to the Bible.” Dr. Titus encouraged us and gave us a clear prayer topic to be Bible teachers that lead this postmodern generation back to the Bible.

At the end of each lecture, we heard wonderful announcements and prayer topics from the national leaders Sh. Peter Schweitzer, Sh. Stefan Elsholz, Sh. Markus Abel, and Sh. Joachim Dietzel. We are thankful that God has raised them to be spiritual leaders for German and European campus mission.

We thank God for the German Strategic Leaders’ Conference 2011andfor the word of Exodus as well as the beautiful fellowship in Christ. All leaders returned to their mission fields with a vision and by the challenging faith as that of Moses to serve 1:1 Bible study and discipleship ministry in the winter semester. Germany UBF prays with the following prayer topics:

1) to raise one Abraham and to raise 12 disciples in each chapter; 2) to raise 10,000 bible teachers and 7,000 house churches and send one self-supporting house churchto each of the 360 universities in Germany; 3) for Europe to be a missionary-sending continentand for the preparation of the European National Directors’ Conference 2012 in Beograd, Serbia; 4) PR ministry and partnership with other student mission organisations at Mission-Net Congress; 5) to send out 10,000 missionaries in the whole world including China, north Korea and Muslim countries until 2041.

At the conference place, Bibellesebund Germany (Bible reading ministries) was also holding their meetings. Bibellesebund is a faithful-to-the-scripture, evangelical, and mission-centered ministry. We shared a time of fellowship with the leader Dr. Schwarz who is a system theology professor at the Giessen University. He will be a good partner for the CME cooperation mission.

After we came back from the conference, we had a chance to share fellowship with Operation Mobilisation (OM) Germany’s Director Tobias Schultz and his wife Heike Schultz in Bonn. Tobias introduced the OM ministry and their work through ship mission. OM ministry focuses on discipleship training program. Tobias and his wife lived as missionaries in Egypt for 17 years and their children grew up there as second generation missionaries. His sacrificial life of mission in an Arabic land moved us very much and our second generation missionaries were able to relate to their children’s struggles of faith. We thank God for the partnership and the fruitful fellowship with OM Germany.

I have attached a video clip “Korea, a kingdom of priests,” which we watched at the conference before M. Peter Oh’s message on Acts 2:17:

Link zum Videoclip: http://vimeo.com/31031781

In Christ,
Dr. Peter Chang