Participants:
Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY230051A
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00:04 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪
00:15 ♪ I want to spend my life removing pain ♪ 00:26 ♪ Lord let my words heal a heart that hurts ♪ 00:36 ♪ I want to spend my life mending broken people ♪ 00:57 ♪ ♪ 01:07 Hello and welcome to 3ABN Today. I'm Jason Bradley and I'm so 01:10 glad that you've decided to join us once again as you do each and 01:14 every day. Thank you for your prayers and your financial 01:17 support that makes programs like this possible. Today we're going 01:21 be talking about some amazing things that are taking place in 01:25 Europe. And here with me, I have Joakim Hjortland. 01:30 Did I say that right? 01:32 You did well. Thank you. 01:34 That was a nice way of saying no but you made it. Thank you. It's 01:41 great to have you here. You're the director of AFCOE in Europe. 01:44 And I want to like get into your testimony, find out a little bit 01:49 about your background and your journey and how you got involved 01:53 but we're going to be blessed in song first and we're going to be 01:56 blessed in song by Hope Vasquez and she will be singing 02:00 In Christ Alone. 02:02 ♪ ♪ 02:13 ♪ In Christ alone my hope is found ♪ 02:18 ♪ He is my rock, my strength, my song ♪ 02:23 ♪ This cornerstone, this solid ground ♪ 02:30 ♪ Firm through the fiercest drought and storm ♪ 02:35 ♪ What heights of love, what depths of peace ♪ 02:41 ♪ When fears are stilled, when strivings cease ♪ 02:47 ♪ My comforter, my all in all ♪ 02:53 ♪ Here in the power of Christ, I stand ♪ 03:02 ♪ ♪ 03:08 ♪ In Christ alone who took on flesh ♪ 03:13 ♪ Fullness of God in helpless babe ♪ 03:19 ♪ This gift of love and righteousness ♪ 03:25 ♪ Scorned by the ones He came to save ♪ 03:31 ♪ Till on that cross as Jesus died ♪ 03:37 ♪ The wrath of God was satisfied ♪ 03:42 ♪ For every sin on Him was laid ♪ 03:48 ♪ Here in the death of Christ, I live ♪ 03:58 ♪ ♪ 04:04 ♪ There in the ground, His body lay ♪ 04:08 ♪ Light of the world, by darkness slain ♪ 04:14 ♪ Then bursting forth in glorious day ♪ 04:20 ♪ Up from the grave, He rose again ♪ 04:26 ♪ And as He stands in victory ♪ 04:31 ♪ Sin's curse has lost its grip on me ♪ 04:39 ♪ For I am His and He is mine ♪ 04:43 ♪ Bought with the precious blood of Christ ♪ 04:52 ♪ No guilt in life, no fear in death ♪ 05:00 ♪ This is the power of Christ in me ♪ 05:06 ♪ From life's first cry to final breath ♪ 05:12 ♪ Jesus commands my destiny ♪ 05:18 ♪ No power of hell, no scheme of man ♪ 05:24 ♪ Can ever pluck me from His hand ♪ 05:30 ♪ Till He returns and calls me home ♪ 05:35 ♪ Here in the love of Christ, I'll stand ♪ 05:50 Wow, that is such a beautiful song with a powerful message. 05:55 It's almost like the gospel contained within a song. Joakim 05:59 I want to find out a little bit about your background. Were you 06:04 always a Christian. What was your upbringing like? 06:06 Grew up in an Adventist Christian family but I like to say that 06:10 God has no grandchildren, He only has children. 06:13 To me, I would say when I was 17 years old 06:16 God drastically changed the direction of my life. 06:18 My big passion was to win soccer games, 06:22 score soccer goals and pursue my dream to become a professional 06:25 soccer player. But God changed my passion towards winning souls 06:29 for Him and when you think about it to be ambassadors for Christ 06:34 there's no greater privilege, no greater joy, nothing more 06:37 exciting nothing more meaningful to be involved with and since 06:41 then I like the acronym FAITH stands for Fantastic Adventures 06:44 In Trusting Him. Since then basically, God has led me through 06:49 so many faith adventures in His service. 06:53 Yes, yes, absolutely. So how did he grab hold of your life 06:56 because you wanted to be this famous you know super successful 06:58 soccer player. How did God grab ahold of your life? 07:01 Good question. It was a process. It took some years but I started 07:06 to read the Bible every day. I read through the Bible in a year 07:09 I joined a Bible study group in Bible prophecy. I attended a 07:14 camp meeting, some inspiration week of prayer, some powerful 07:17 preaching, like appealing to you to commit your life to serve 07:22 God and I'm like whoa God is the same today. He wants to use 07:25 us. The Book of Acts. We can continue writing that book you 07:29 know. Things like that. 07:31 Did some of the lessons that you learned as a child, did those 07:34 come into play later on in life? You know, did you fall back on 07:38 the teachings of your parents? 07:40 I'm very thankful for everything I learned. It's definitely a 07:45 solid foundation and many principles. It helped me in so 07:48 many ways for sure. 07:49 Okay, now Europe. Let's talk about Europe a little bit. 07:53 Europe used to be a Christian stronghold didn't it? 07:57 Yeah. Europe and Scandinavia used to start strong, it used to 08:01 be a Christian stronghold and during the protestant 08:04 reformation of course God worked powerfully in Europe, also in 08:07 Scandinavia specifically. There's an interesting statement 08:11 in the book The Great Controversy that talks about 08:14 the role of Sweden. It was the armies of Sweden that enabled 08:18 Germany to turn the tide of popish success, to win 08:21 toleration for the Protestants... and to restore the liberty of 08:24 conscience to those countries that had accepted the 08:27 Reformation. So the armies of Sweden had an important victory 08:30 there but also during the Advent movement. You have read probably 08:34 about Advent the child criers in Sweden and we had 100s of them 08:39 that were miraculously used by God to preach the Advent message 08:44 right and some of them are quite close to where I grew up. 08:46 A fascinating story is how God used those children to proclaim 08:49 the message but also later on in the Advent movement as it 08:53 started to develop and spread the first official missionary 08:56 sent from the Adventist church was sent to Europe and the first 09:00 actually publishing house started outside of the U.S. 09:03 outside of East Scandinavia. Not only that the first publishing 09:08 house, the first publication periodical that was not in 09:10 English was in the Scandinavian language, the first Adventist 09:12 school, the first Adventist Sanitarium outside of America 09:16 all of this was in Scandinavia. So Europe and Scandinavia 09:20 started strong but unfortunately that's not where we are today. 09:25 When you look at Europe today you see that it's not what it 09:30 used to be. For instance Ellen White says that...she wrote 09:33 actually in her time already she said 20 could be more easily 09:36 reached in America than one here she said of Europe. It's exactly 09:42 the same today but probably about some parts of the world 09:44 for sure and when you look at it actually, in Europe, there are 742 09:48 million people today and only 309,000 Adventists so that is 09:55 0.04 percent of the population in Europe are Adventists and it's 09:58 similar in Scandinavia and in three countries. In Denmark 10:02 there are about 10,000 Adventists in all of those 10:05 countries. And so among 10:09 the Adventists in Europe the Adventist identity is quite weak 10:12 and also the continent is very secular. Actually when you look 10:17 at secularism the two most secular continents in the world 10:19 is Europe and Australia. And I did a little bit of research. 10:22 I've had my statistics like this before but I found out according 10:26 to the worldpopulationreview. com Sweden is the second-most 10:29 most secular countries all over the world and according to a 10:33 2023 Gallup International Survey Sweden was the country with the 10:38 highest percentage of sickness and stated that they do not 10:41 believe in God. So the situation today is quite difficult in 10:47 Europe. It's quite tough. It's not what it used to be. We 10:49 started very strong but we are not there today. I think I should 10:54 probably not say this but I think it's time to make Europe 10:56 and Scandinavia a great success. Not really. But to make 11:01 Christianity (multiple voices) To make Jesus and His end time 11:05 message (indistinct) 11:07 Amen, amen. So what do you think happened. Where did the fall or 11:12 or the disconnect take place. 11:14 That's a good question. Actually recently I read about this book 11:18 The Nation That Forgot God. About Sweden. I'm sure it's a 11:21 long process and I think he talks about he wrote that 11:24 PhD about this. I think he talks about 11:26 the influence of the government and socialism. 11:28 I think that's is at least part of it. 11:30 But we are one of the few countries with crosses in the 11:34 flag today but um yeah. Something I like to say also 11:40 today. I don't know if you know how to make the devil mad. 11:42 How do you make the devil mad, tell us. 11:44 There are several things but one thing... 11:46 Well let me start by saying this Do you know what Jesus, 11:50 Luther, Hitler, Ellen White and the Jesuits have in common? 11:55 I have no idea. 11:56 They all viewed education as vitally important. They all 12:02 really valued that education played a key role in what they 12:06 accomplished for good or for bad You know look at Jesus' education 12:10 was specifically a mission training but a crucial role in 12:13 Jesus' ministry and the founding of the church. It's estimated 12:16 that he spent 70 to 90 percent of his time with the 12. His 12:20 priority was not so much reaching the masses as it was 12:25 training the few and working on instead of addition, he focused 12:28 on multiplication. Paul's Ministry in the early church the 12:33 taking of the gospel to the world in one generation. Maybe 12:36 recently I started with the book of Ephesians, I noticed very 12:40 interesting in Acts 19 it talks about how Paul is teaching 12:44 at the school of Tyrannus. He's teaching there for two years and 12:47 the result says that all of Asia was reached with the 12:51 gospel, Asia Minor today. But as a result of his training in 12:54 that school whatever he taught that mission training basically 13:00 reached...led to reaching a large area with the gospel. And 13:03 then of course when we look at the reformation, education 13:05 played an important role. 13:06 Also in the counterreformation actually when the Jesuits from 13:09 the Catholic church tried to destroy what had been 13:12 accomplished through the reformation, they focused 13:15 a lot on education. Also in the beginning of the Advent movement 13:18 we are told very interesting, that when it comes to the 13:22 finishing of the work education will play a clear role. 13:25 Ellen White says that with such an army of workers as our 13:28 youth how soon the message will reach the world long-distance 13:32 will return. 13:34 She said things like in Evangelism p. 109 she says 13:35 things like one 13:37 worker that is trained can accomplish more than 10 workers 13:40 without training. And there's one statement in the Ministry of 13:43 Healing that is very interesting She says many would be willing 13:47 to work if they were taught how to begin. They need to be 13:52 instructed and encouraged. I think that's true. Sometimes we 13:54 go to maybe somebody watching the experience, you go somewhere 13:57 you hear an inspiring message like man I want to work with 14:00 God. I want to win souls. And you want to do something but the 14:02 problem many times is we are willing but we don't know how 14:07 to do it, you know. 14:09 You know what else too? I think that sometimes we end up in the 14:13 situation where we become overwhelmed and we start...we 14:16 get into this place of analysis paralysis. And so we're starting 14:22 to look at all these things like should I do this or should I go 14:25 in this direction so we don't move. 14:28 We have to do it perfectly, right. Yeah. So I like to tell people 14:32 hey if you want to make Satan mad you know one of the best 14:36 things you can do is to go to our mission school. It's played 14:41 an essential role up through history and it will do in the 14:43 closing work on this earth. If you want to make a difference 14:47 in this world, if you want to serve God, if you want to live 14:48 for what really matters, go to a mission school. On the other 14:52 hand if you want to live a boring life, a normal 14:55 ordinary life, without purpose, 14:57 without meaning, I have a health tip for you, don't go 15:00 to a mission school, don't learn how to work for God, 15:02 don't learn how to win souls. 15:04 Yes, yes, yes, no we want that exciting lead people to 15:09 Christ life. 15:10 That's what it's all about I love that, I love that. So 15:13 let's talk about AFCOE. What is AFCOE about? 15:16 Maybe we can start with...I have a short promo over there video 15:19 that we could roll. 15:20 Absolutely. Let's take a look at that video now. 15:22 ♪ ♪ 15:32 The early church consisted of thousands of active lay people. 15:35 that was personally sharing the good news 15:36 about God. What if the same can happen today? 15:44 At AFCOE we have great classes ranging on topics from Spirit of 15:48 Prophecy to personal evangelism. Another big blessing is to be 15:54 around people that are mission minded people that are willing 15:57 to do the mission work and put in practice everything that they 16:00 learned in classes. 16:01 Before coming to AFCOE I didn't know how to do mission work. 16:05 And I was afraid to do it. But now I know. I'm no longer afraid 16:12 Have you ever asked yourself how could I be able to do that, to 16:16 be able to share God's love for others. 16:19 I have never grown so much in my life for fear can possess me, 16:23 from discouragement, perseverance and from insecurity 16:28 to leadership skills. 16:30 It's been such an incredible blessing so see how when we ask 16:34 God to send us people, He'll be faithful and true and He will 16:39 send us people at the right time in the right place. 16:42 Leading a person to find what you've found in Jesus, there's 16:47 nothing better than that. 16:49 If there's one thing I've learned about AFCO is that the 16:52 harvest is great, 16:53 it's truly plentiful and empowered by the Spirit 16:56 harvesting doesn't have to be difficult. 17:00 By taking part in God's work and seeing all the wonderful 17:03 and powerful 17:05 things are that He has done my faith has grown 17:07 like never before. 17:09 Inspiration tells us that when the members of the Church of God 17:13 do their part the whole world would soon be reached and the 17:18 Lord will return to this earth in power and great glory. Now 17:23 it's exciting to see how God is working across Europe and around 17:26 the world today to raise up such an army of workers. Now my 17:33 question to you is this: Do you want to be a part of this? 17:42 ♪ ♪ 17:47 Wow, I love that. What would you add to that? What is the vision 17:50 motto, what is the program at AFCOE all about? 17:53 Yeah, good question. So it's a four-month missionary training 17:57 program based in South Sweden you can see the map up here, 18:02 very close to Denmark. It's like Scandinavia in modern 18:05 Europe and in one sentence well our slogan is basically 18:10 Training Tomorrow's Soul Winners Today. Training Tomorrow's Soul 18:13 Winners Today. That's very much the focus. It's a very practical 18:17 program. It blends classes and lots of practical outreach by 18:20 going out where we're reaching people. And there's been 18:23 exciting classes on an interesting topics we are 18:26 covering in the course and here are some of them: Personal 18:30 and Public Evangelism, Bible Boot Camp, Gaining Decisions, 18:33 Spirit of Prophecy, Daniel and Revelation. Exciting biblical 18:36 topics that are important for our time. 18:37 But I can very much focus on the Practical. 18:41 And it's all in English. Both the program the 18:44 classes the outreach works well. It's a university town. Most 18:49 Swedes understand English pretty well so English works really 18:50 well. I have a few pictures also just to give you a glimpse of how 18:55 it looks like. 18:57 So yeah here are some pictures from the previous courses and 19:03 the last course, some of that and some of the activities 19:05 and some snapshots basically 19:10 and two of the students last year also got baptized. 19:15 I have a picture of that as well. So lots of nature, lots of 19:17 outreach (indistinct). Yeah 19:20 Here's two of the students who got baptized. Daniel and Lucas. 19:23 Actually, Lucas has no Christian background at all. Swedish 19:26 family. He through YouTube basically got converted. 19:29 Then he heard about through Amazing Facts 19:32 he heard about AFCOE Europe in Sweden, actually 19:34 three hours away from where he lived. So he came to us and got 19:38 baptized. Now he's a powerful preacher, he's a Bible worker 19:40 Yeah, it's fun to see. It's a great time, great fellowship and 19:46 like one of the former students put it, he said: Are you bored? 19:55 Go to AFCOE, he said. That was his brief testimony. 19:58 Other testimonies someone said, 20:01 this was the most powerful experience of my life. 20:04 I have tears in my eyes when I think about how good God is to 20:07 me for sending me here. The training course was excellent 20:11 and I'm beginning to gain confidence which is something 20:13 big for me. This experience inspired me to decide to share 20:17 the gospel with all of my friends that show interest in it 20:18 and commit my life fully to God and his work. I absolutely 20:21 recommend this program. So we praise God for what he has done 20:24 so far and we have a great team Obviously, it takes a team to do 20:31 all of these things. Here is the Board from the beginning of this 20:36 year. Some of the faces here. Shawn Ostrum Amazing Facts. He's 20:39 on our board. Also Bobby Schlund 20:41 is the Union President in Sweden We're happy for the 20:43 cooperation with the church and 20:46 then there is a general (indistinct) which is a kind of 20:50 an ex-convict courtroom which I wish they wouldn't 20:52 be here but great soul-winners experience in God's work. 20:56 Yes absolutely. You know one of the things that I love is that 20:59 not only are you teaching in the classroom and all of that but 21:03 you guys are also bonding outside of the classroom and 21:05 forging those long-lasting relationships and making a 21:08 difference for Christ. Tell us how it started. 21:12 Yeah, it's a long story. I will give you the short version of 21:15 it. Basically Don and Jonathan for 10 years they have wanted 21:19 to start a 21:21 mission school. They've been involved in Bible work and soul 21:23 winning and mentoring people and shared resources. But 21:28 basically, in 2021, we teamed up. I came back from America, I had 21:31 been studying there and we decided to team up to work 21:34 together to start a mission school. As many times it's good 21:39 to do we started small, simple and soon after we decided to 21:43 do this. Actually, here you see one of the first buildings we 21:47 had, it is very humble place. Very nice place out in the 21:51 Sweden. It's like two summer cabins so It's a bit cold in the 21:55 winter. They are simple conditions, we had the living room and 21:59 eating room in the same room with the same tables for 22:02 classes and eating. But it worked out. 22:04 We had the first class. We had seven students. We did not have 22:09 much time to prepare. Seven students from six countries. 22:13 We actually got the key 22:15 to the last house the day the students arrived and we 22:20 really had to...we got the bank account when it was one month 22:21 left on the course. And we had two volunteers. It was an 22:25 interesting beginning. But pioneer, it has the charm 22:28 and God blessed 22:30 and we considered him in everything throughout the 22:32 process. You know one thing we have a prayer meeting 22:36 with the extended team. 22:37 One thing we prayed for was a van. Two days later a van I've 22:41 never seen was parked outside the AFCOE place and was donated 22:44 to us. We're very thankful for to God for getting us that van. 22:49 And since we started, we started small but it has been 22:53 growing ever since. And one of the students from the first year 22:56 Nadja is her name, she has an exciting testimony. She was a 22:59 18 when she came. It was a miracle how she ended up there 23:02 but that's another story. Anyway she was 18. After the course she 23:06 went back to Austria where she is from and she was on fire. She 23:09 started preaching in the church you know and she revived the 23:12 Church and engaged them in evangelism. She preached like 23:15 a couple of times every month for the next half a year like in 23:19 different churches when she came back and people made decisions 23:22 through her preaching. She was giving Bible studies to lots of 23:25 people. And less than a year after she came to AFCOE they had 23:31 11 baptisms, one of them is the next one on the picture that you 23:34 saw there a girl with a Catholic background. Four of those 11 23:40 people she started with in this camp were baptized with a local 23:44 church and one of them was a Catholic background, young lady, 23:48 and yeah it's an interesting story. So they studied for many 23:50 months so they prayed for her and she actually got a dream 23:53 in the end that helped her 23:55 like God spoke to her through a dream as well and convinced 24:00 her this is the place I want you to go. I want you to join this 24:01 church and it was exciting to see. 24:04 So God's hand has been all in this, I mean, from the van being 24:08 parked outside that's incredible You just prayed for a van and 24:12 then the van is parked outside. Yes, that is absolutely amazing. 24:16 Tell us about the church plant because you're working with a 24:19 new church plant, correct? 24:20 Yes we are working with the Lund church and South Sweden. 24:25 It's actually a newly planted church. It's two years old 24:32 actually and it's actually the first planted church in Sweden 24:36 in like 10-plus years. It's not very common to 24:37 plant new churches. 24:39 It's a small church with like 26 members, very young, only two 24:42 people above 50 average maybe a bit less if you count the kids 24:46 But probably the most evangelistically active church 24:51 in the Nordic countries, I would say. It's a great church to work 24:55 a very good synergy with the school. And it's interesting. 25:00 According to statistics from the Swedish Union 2021, 20 percent 25:05 of all Bible studies conducted by laypeople in this Swedish 25:08 Union of the Adventist Church, 20 percent of Bible Studies are 25:12 conducted by this small church. So there's something about how 25:16 active this church is something about how you could do much 25:18 more in Sweden if 25:19 you learned how to do it. You know one of our inspirations for 25:25 our school is you know Ellen White talks about the best way 25:27 to conduct a school is to 25:30 have it combined with this work in the city where you have this 25:34 outreach going on and you combine a school with... 25:37 That works really well in this church 25:39 following this evangelism cycle all the time 25:42 and Christ's method. We were joining hands and reaching the 25:47 the city there. 25:49 Yes. So how did the church plant come about? Like what did that 25:53 look like? Give us a glimpse into that. 25:56 Yeah. One thing that's interesting about that it was it 26:01 actually started by a student you know it's a university town 26:03 a student from 26:05 Africa. You know before Europe used to send all these 26:09 missionaries around the world but here we actually had an 26:12 African student that started a little Bible study group that 26:16 eventually turned off into a church plant from the neighbor 26:20 church. They were praying for the city and like we should do 26:22 something and eventually some of the families decided to move to 26:27 this church to start the plant something new there. 26:31 Now at AFCOE, you believe that you need a discipleship 26:36 revolution. Tell us a little bit about that. What is that? What 26:39 does that look like? 26:41 Yes. You know Revelation 22 verse 17 we read about... 26:47 The Spirit and the Bride say come and let him who hears 26:51 say, come. And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires 26:56 let him take the water of life freely. So in other words God's 27:00 plan is when we hear the gospel invitation, he who hears let him 27:03 say, come. He wants us to pass that invitation on to others 27:06 that they can pass it on to others. So that's kind of God's 27:10 plan and I think in the early church they followed that plan. 27:12 And that was one of the keys to their success. You know, I 27:15 mentioned in the video Acts Chapter 8 in the beginning there 27:18 you see how all of the members of the church are scattered 27:21 abroad and all of them are preaching the gospel. The word 27:24 is evangelist, it's 27:25 sharing the gospel with their mouths. The leaders are 27:27 stuck in Jerusalem but the members they are spreading out 27:30 sharing the gospel. You know I like this illustration. 27:34 Imagine you have one super Evangelist, 27:35 says super Mark Finley or something 27:37 over here and he's reaching a thousand people every day. In 27:41 year he's like baptizing 365,000 people. Imagine if you have one 27:47 guy that can do that every day. But on the other side here you 27:51 have one active lay person but that person reaches one soul 27:56 each year. But not only that he doesn't stop there. He teaches 28:00 that person to do the same. So after one year you have two 28:03 people, after two years you have four people, after three years 28:06 you have eight people. Now when you look at this model 28:11 illustration after 10 years of work Super Mark Finley the total 28:16 amount of converts will be 3.65 million people after 10 years. 28:22 While in this group, the active members, well they are starting 28:26 to get something going but they will only have reached 1024 28:30 people only. it's also in 10 years. 28:33 How long time do you think it would take before this group 28:38 with active laypeople will be bigger than this group? Guess. 28:42 No idea. How long? 28:44 It would be basically 24 years 24 years it would actually have 28:50 doubled, it's 23.something and then it's doubling. For this 28:54 group to reach the entire world it would take more than 19,000 28:58 years to reach the total world population. For this group in 29:03 33. something years the whole world would have been reached. 29:06 So this illustrates the power of active members, multiplication. 29:12 So how are you figuring it out. So with that group are you saying 29:16 because they're not trained properly. They were just reached 29:20 baptized and that's it. And then this group was trained, and you 29:24 know they're becoming disciples and going out and multiplying. 29:28 Basically having, of course, hopefully for these people 29:31 instead of adding. Sometimes that happens. We add people to 29:34 the church but they don't bring in new people. 29:36 We have to nurture them. 29:38 We should nurture them, to train them to become disciple-making 29:41 disciples. There are some actually, a few statements that I 29:46 think are really inspiring, well actually, I guess I mentioned it. 29:52 Acts of the Apostles, 111: When the members of the church of God 29:55 do their appointed work the whole world will soon be warned. 29:59 And then it says, it is a fatal mistake, this is page 110. It is 30:03 a fatal mistake to suppose that the work of soul-saving depends 30:06 alone upon the ministry. Sometimes we think ah that's 30:11 only for the pastor, it's only for the Bible workers. But we 30:16 are told, actually one more statement from Ellen White. She 30:17 Ministry 97 she says, How can the great work of the third angel's 30:23 message be accomplished? It must be largely accomplished by 30:27 persevering individual effort by visiting the people in their 30:33 homes. In other words, a big part in the finishing of the 30:35 work would be personal ministry personal evangelism. Yet this 30:40 great super evangelist you know we had Paul and Peter, and they did 30:43 great work at that time but a key 30:49 secret, a key...essential component to the finishing of 30:51 the work is a personal effort. It's multiplication, it's 30:55 discipleship revolution that we need to see and that's the key 30:59 thing that we want to contribute to. 31:01 Absolutely. In addition to that, I want to add this right here, 31:03 this Matthew 28 verses 18-20: And it says: And Jesus came and 31:07 spoke to them saying All authority has been given to me 31:09 in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of 31:13 all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of 31:15 the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all 31:19 things that I have commanded you and Lo I am with you always even 31:22 to the end of the age. Amen. It doesn't say go pastors. You know 31:28 We're all given that responsibility. It's The Great 31:31 Commission and we need to be out there spreading the gospel. So I 31:34 love, I love that discipleship revolution. I think that is 31:38 absolutely incredible. What are the students doing today? 31:41 Yeah, I'll share some more testimonies. Some of them are 31:46 Bible workers. Some are... actually one is serving with 31:49 AFM. Another one is going next year many are involved with 31:53 Impact. Actually a week ago they had the Impact in Sweden. It was 31:58 started by one of our alumni's half of their team is AFCOE 32:03 alumni's. And they're actually some are involved with Impact 32:08 Denmark Impact which is basically mission trips across Europe 32:10 inspiring people to serve God. Then you have there are some 32:16 other quite 32:18 recent testimonies. One is a story of Emma and Jonas. It's 32:22 quite nice testimony. So both of them were students. And then 32:28 also, they were Bible workers with AFCOE living to this spring 32:31 And one thing well Emma prays also so she used to think that 32:35 she's from Spain, She used to think that you know winning 32:40 souls, you know leading someone to make the decision is for the 32:42 pastor, that's the Bible worker. But now she has learned, no it's 32:46 not only them. It's a privilege we can also take part in. And 32:50 God has blessed her Bible studies, she was a student 32:52 last year and several of the people, one person she studied 32:56 with is Marcus from Argentina and God really 32:59 transformed his life. 33:00 His mom was a mess. She had been praying for him for years, now 33:03 his life is transformed. 33:04 He wants to get baptized. He is actually coming 33:06 as a student this fall and he's really keen on coming. He really 33:10 he wants to learn how he can do the same, as how he can spread it 33:13 to others. Another person she studied with and again 33:15 it's a team effort through students 33:17 that were involved there but he has worked as a 33:21 businessman close to AFCOE house, Daniel is his name, 33:24 He also has said he wants to get baptized. And you can imagine 33:27 if she would have this thought I mean that's what a pastor 33:29 needs for a Bible worker, she would have missed that 33:31 that wouldn't happen Jonas too. 33:33 Actually, he's from Finland. He's a young man. 33:35 And he was not an Adventist at all. And he actually came to 33:39 this Adventist restaurant in Finland and he started Bible 33:42 studies with my colleague Jonathan Carlson and he became 33:45 an Adventist. And he came as a student, then he stayed around 33:49 as an outreach coordinator the next year and he had some great 33:53 Bible studies when he was here. He started really with 10-15 33:58 people. One of the interesting one's was he used to go to 34:01 Hillsong for a while so during AFCOE he visited the Hillsong 34:06 Church in the area and he started to connect with some of 34:07 of the people there. So he started a Bible study group with 34:09 like 10 young adults from Hillsong and they were hungry 34:12 for the word. You know they get the music, they get other things 34:15 but they were really hungry for the word of God and as he was 34:19 studying with them then you know they get him on the floor. 34:21 They're so excited. They were like hey give us another Bible 34:23 study, give us another one. They wouldn't let him go and so they 34:26 started studying several Bible studies every week. They were 34:29 like hungry and hungry and one of them next course, which is 34:34 the last one we had we came as a student to AFCOE actually and 34:38 then he started giving Bible studies to others and has helped 34:41 leading several people to decisions for Jesus. And it's 34:45 just fun to see these several generations. As someone is 34:50 reached then they lead someone else and they start to pass on 34:52 to others. And that's very much in our DNA, that's what we 34:56 need as a church 34:57 that's what being a Christian really is. I don't know if you 35:00 heard about the difference between a member and a 35:03 missionary. (Break that down). It's quite interesting. It goes 35:07 like this. Members soak, missionaries seek. Members seek 35:13 missionaries serve. Of course sometimes missionaries sit also 35:18 right. Members give offerings Missionaries are offerings. 35:24 Members read mission stories. Members are living missionary 35:29 stories. God wants us all to experience the blessing, the joy 35:34 the privilege of seeing God at work. It's when you go out, it's 35:38 when you work for God, that's when you see answered prayers, 35:40 that's when you will see miracles, that's when you will 35:42 see the Holy Spirit at work as never before. 35:45 Absolutely. What are some other testimonies that you can share 35:47 with us. 35:49 Yes so one that is very new is Safari, Elliot Safari, one of our 35:55 students in the first course. During the course, he started 35:57 to study with this young man in the middle and they actually met 36:01 on a bus. In America, they don't travel by bus so much, 36:03 but in Europe we do. They met on a bus 36:06 and they started Bible studies and they came to some of our 36:10 events and a few weeks ago, actually right before I left for 36:13 the U.S. he decided to join the Seventh-day Adventist Church and 36:18 he shared his testimony with the church and he wants to become, 36:21 they have studied ever since. We are praying now that those... 36:24 his decision to keep the Sabbath and that will impact his family 36:27 and friends. Another one, Jonathan Michael, he's shared 36:32 stuff on YouTube, or TicTok rather, YouTube as well. 36:37 But it's quite interesting. So he makes this short apologetics 36:42 so the message is short and it's actually a big in Swedish, but it's 36:46 a big following 10s of thousands of views for many views and he 36:50 has some really on the YouTube and the TicTok he's has gotten 36:54 some very good Bible study contacts. One of them is a group 36:58 Catholics Orthodox people. Their brother died and they wanted to 37:03 talk to a pastor so they reached out to Jonathan because they had 37:07 watched him online. And so he met them and led them to the Bible 37:11 studies. They started studying first, there were like five 37:15 people and eventually it grew to 10 people. And after the study 37:19 about the Antichrist they decided to leave Babylon, they 37:23 were like I don't, we don't want to be part of Babylon anymore. 37:26 By the way the three angels' messages are so relevant today. 37:28 It's coming up in Europe and Scandinavia. Some people think aw 37:31 It's so relevant people with all kinds of 37:35 backgrounds when they understand it if it's presented in a good 37:38 way, in a Christ-centered way. Anyway so they decided they 37:41 wanted to leave Babylon...This is the group. They were studying 37:44 for like half a year or so. They started to pay tithe through the 37:48 Seventh-day Adventist Church. They started to keep the Sabbath 37:50 One of them is actually donating to our ministry like $200 each 37:53 month. And several of them have said they want to become 37:57 Adventist. At least three of them have said they want to get 37:58 baptized. And one of them is actually a famous serial 38:03 musician. He actually competed in the biggest Swedish musical 38:07 competition that is televised where if you win then you get to 38:11 vision sound contest as you may have heard of. 38:14 Is it like Syria's Got Talent or something or what...what do 38:19 you call it. 38:20 It's a bit different. There's mainly quite professional 38:22 musicians but it's quite...So then there's one testimony from 38:26 yesterday actually from the same TicTok channel and so 38:29 this young man, 18-year-old agnostic young Swedish guy, 38:37 Yohanes is his name. And he had basically decided to have 38:41 nothing to do with religion, organized religion One important 38:44 reason is all the bad things the Catholic Church had done out 38:47 through history. Of course there are great Catholics and you know 38:50 they do good things also but anyway he said he didn't 38:53 want to have anything to do with organized religion. But then God 38:57 started to work in his life. You know his grandmother died and 39:00 he had some experiences like maybe there is a God after all 39:04 And he started to watch Jonathan's TicTok videos. He's 39:08 like man this is logical. This is very different than...makes 39:10 much more sense... and when he said something about 39:18 the antichrist and the Catholic Church, how the Bible prophesied 39:19 how they would do many of these bad things, he's like maybe it's 39:23 not Christianity I'm against, maybe it's a false version of 39:26 Christianity. So one day he reached out to Jonathan. He said 39:31 please can we have that conversation about the Bible. 39:33 So yesterday they talked for the first time and Jonathan was able 39:37 to share the Bible study on Daniel 2 with him and he was so 39:42 amazed. He was so touched at the end of the study and by the 39:45 end he said to Jonathan he's like please Jonathan can you do 39:48 me a service. Can you please... it would mean a lot to me if you 39:51 could study the Bible with me. And this is an 18-year-old 39:55 like agnostic Swedish guy, he's like begging, like please can 39:58 you study the Bible with me. Hungry. Of course. We got to 40:02 pray for him. Anyway God is working you know. Oh yeah this 40:08 one story. I need to share this one. There are so many stories. 40:10 Time is running There's time for this. I'm reminded of one really 40:15 cool story. So this is...his name is Robin. He's one of the 40:17 members of our church plant. So basically, Robin lived in one 40:24 of the more dangerous areas in Sweden. Sweden is usually a 40:25 quite safe country. He used to be a gangster. He used to be 40:30 into alcohol, into drugs, women into anything he could like to 40:34 like to do you know as a teenager, young man in Sweden 40:37 And with that also attending all the parties...but also crazy 40:44 experience. He was into drug trafficking, he was into...he 40:48 had been to prison. His dad died of an overdose and a friend of 40:55 Robin died of an overdose in his apartment, in Robin's apartment. 40:58 And it's a miracle that Robin is alive today. Actually one time 41:02 some other people had placed this bomb outside of his 41:06 apartment literally. 41:08 A bomb outside of his apartment! 41:10 But thankfully the police got there in time. They were able to 41:11 remove it. It's a miracle he's alive. He's been to prison, all 41:15 of these things. And he told me a couple years ago he lives 41:19 quite far 41:20 away now but the last time I met him he told me all about 41:23 40 good friends he had in that time, 27 of them are dead today. 41:28 All of them below 30 years old, 27 of 40 friends, all of them 41:34 are dead. It's a miracle that Robin is alive. It's actually 41:38 interesting. So he started Bible studies with Jonathan when he 41:39 was like 14 years old and he was amazed by all the prophecies but 41:43 then he stopped. But then like seven years later or so finally 41:48 Robin got baptized and he said when he joined our church and he 41:52 said after he got baptized, he said in God he found something 41:57 better than he found in all those other things, in the 41:59 alcohol and the drugs and the parties. He said in God he found 42:03 something that gave him more peace you know, more meaning, 42:07 more joy, more happiness than any of those other things can 42:09 give him and he said that he used to feel this emptiness in 42:12 his heart that nothing could fill, that nothing could fill, 42:17 but he realized that God is the only one that can fill it and he 42:21 likes to say that God is better than the greatest high. You know 42:24 the Bible says he's the Most High God. And last time I saw 42:28 him he stood up. He shared his testimony with power encouraging 42:32 others to use Jesus you know. If God can change someone like 42:35 that in secular Sweden, if God can reach these kind of people, 42:39 he can reach anyone. He can work wherever you are in the world 42:42 whatever people, whoever you are praying for. You might think 42:45 this is a hopeless case but God is the God of the impossible. 42:51 He can reach anyone. 42:54 Amen. You didn't tell me we were going to have church today. 42:55 This is great. I'm loving it. I love it. Look Robin was a very 43:02 influential person and God grabbed ahold of his life and 43:06 now he can use his influence for good and for God. This is 43:12 absolutely incredible. I've been enjoying this so much I can't 43:15 believe our time is dwindling. How has being a part of AFCOE 43:20 how has that strengthened your faith? 43:23 It's a good question. It's really a nice place to be. I 43:31 used to...I'm an electrician and tent maker. I wanted to have 43:34 something practical. Actually I worked one year at the mission 43:37 school before I got into that. If you know anything about 43:41 construction sites, the atmosphere there compared to a 43:44 mission school is kind of like night and day. So being at a 43:49 mission school, the environment is like the closest to the early 43:52 church. You pray together, you worship together, you go out 43:56 together. It's like you eat together. It's like really like 43:59 what church was meant to be. It's so inspiring and you 44:04 encourage each other. If you have a bad day going outside to 44:05 reach someone, someone else had a great divine appointment and 44:09 it's like keeping the fire going. It's really a blessing. 44:12 Hmm. And so you're faith is growing. You've been seeing all 44:15 of these different conversion stories taking place. You've 44:19 seen people like Robin and all of that, how God's grabbed ahold 44:23 of his life. I mean it has to it has to strengthen your walk 44:27 with the Lord. (Yeah) And really solidify that. What's next for 44:33 AFCOE Europe? 44:35 Yeah, a good question. So when I think for the future one thing 44:39 is we want to continue to run a strong AFCOE course every year 44:42 and that's been the main thing so far that we're in the mission 44:45 training program. And actually our goal is to be the 44:50 best soul-winning training in Europe. And it seems like it 44:52 sounds like a competition but we want to provide the best we 44:56 can give. And people the last few months from six countries 44:59 have asked can you do a course in our country sometime? So 45:02 people already see like well this makes a difference. Like 45:06 how do you get so many Bible studies? Another mission school 45:08 director asked me actually hearing what is happening there. 45:11 We also want to continue with the AFCOE living program which 45:14 is a Bible worker experience in a team. That way they get 45:18 mentored after the course. And then finally one key thing is 45:23 well Amazing Facts they want us to be like AFCOE Europe like 45:25 Amazing Facts Europe. In addition to the school they want 45:29 to try to start to translate, provide, produce evangelistic 45:33 resources and tools in media. I think there's a great 45:37 potential. I think many more people could be reached. We do 45:41 a little bit of that today. I think we could do much more. So 45:45 by God's grace, what has happened so far has been a big blessing 45:47 but by God's grace, we want that to be only the beginning. We 45:50 want to push forward to develop the ministry more and more. 45:54 Amen. And so with all of those things being the case what are 45:59 some of your organization's needs? 46:02 Good question. I think right now two things come to mind. One is 46:05 We need some more monthly donors. We are looking for 24 AFCOE 46:10 elders as I call it. We have 17 today that are contributing 46:14 $100 per month. And then the main prayer right now is we are 46:18 praying for our own facility our own house. So far we only rent 46:22 it so we have to move out from all these houses each year. In 46:25 order to provide resources and basic tools if you have to move 46:28 out all the time it would constantly go to the next step 46:31 in our ministry before we get our own facilities. So that's 46:34 something we are starting to look out there, we are searching 46:36 we are praying for everything we need, we wanted to make up the staff. 46:39 How would you recommend it because I know you give Bible studies 46:45 and all of those things, how would you recommend that 46:48 somebody, maybe they've never opened the Bible before. They 46:52 want to study God's word. Where would you tell them to start? 46:55 The gospel is probably a good one, possibly the book of 46:59 Genesis. Actually the book of Proverbs is great too. Some 47:04 people like that, even atheists enjoy that one. And then if 47:10 you are open to it to pray that God will speak to you and he 47:14 will. He wants to do that. Think of it-it's a message from the 47:17 King and Creator of the Universe to speak to through this book. 47:20 Ask him, what do you want to tell me through this story. 47:22 Absolutely. What have you found to be your greatest joy is being 47:27 a Christian? 47:28 One of them is definitely when you see how God uses you 47:33 to transform 47:35 someone's life and touch someone's life. 47:36 It's like I have a friend that is a firefighter, 47:39 imagine you come back home it's an important 47:42 work, it's a great work, come back home. What did you do today. I 47:44 saved someone's life. My brother is a doctor. What did you do? 47:47 I saved someone's life. That's a noble work, 47:49 that's a great work. We need 47:50 that kind of people. But when you think of it we are working 47:53 for God, we're into soul-winning We saved someone's life. We're 47:56 saving their eternal life. We're leading them to eternal bliss. 48:00 The peace that passes understanding, it's nothing 48:06 cooler or more exciting. 48:09 Absolutely, absolutely, super super rewarding. You know as 48:14 you're going out and you're trying to study with people, 48:16 maybe there's somebody out there that's saying you know I really 48:20 want to be able to give more Bible studies or even give a 48:25 first Bible study. How do you go about establishing that rapport 48:31 with someone to be able to study God's word with them. 48:35 I think one thing is we have to be more bold in asking. The 48:40 worst thing that can happen is to say no. Maybe convince them 48:43 sometimes. Sometimes we get surprised we think they'll say 48:45 no, and they say yes. And especially if you pray before 48:48 and would like to give them a shot It's only one time. You don't 48:51 ask them for 28 Bible studies. Can I show you something? Or 48:54 sometimes can I tell you about a prophecy or whatever. Sometimes 48:57 you give them a little teaser. And then you get going. 49:01 Absolutely. What have you encountered...so let's say 49:03 you're giving a Bible study. What are some of the objections 49:05 that you've faced? 49:07 Ah, the common one of course, is the one that people don't 49:13 believe in God so they don't trust in the word of God and God 49:16 in general. The problem of suffering is a big one. And 49:20 sometimes you know you don't need to be so good. It's easy to 49:23 give a Bible study. Just get some good resources. Amazing 49:26 Facts Bible study guides for instance. You can just read it 49:29 together with someone. It's maybe not the best way but it 49:31 works. The first Bible study I gave I would have been 49:35 embarrassed today. Basically we read through the material. I 49:37 didn't know how to do it. But the guy afterward said, Hey 49:41 can we do this every day? I was like what. I was surprised. One 49:44 thing that inspired me to get going is that God can 49:47 bless a bad 49:48 Bible study but he cannot bless a Bible study that doesn't exist 49:52 Another thing is it's not so much about ability but rather 49:55 availability 49:56 but then, of course, Ellen White talks about soul-winning as a 50:00 desire the great desire. We should try to learn the 50:02 principles as much as possible where he will make us more 50:05 efficient but you don't learn to swim by reading a book. It's 50:08 when you get started, that's when you learn, that's when you 50:10 grow. 50:11 I love that. So basically you're saying jump in. (Yeah, yeah) 50:13 Jump in and get going. Get active. 50:16 Find someone who knows something who knows how to do it. Just 50:19 follow along, and see how they do it Learn by watching them is all. 50:21 So who would you say should go to AFCOE? 50:25 I think...in general I think like every Christian, every 50:29 Adventist should go to a mission school sometime. It's such a 50:33 blessing. I did it actually twice myself and I've seen the 50:35 difference it makes in so many people's lives. I think the 50:38 question shouldn't be should I but when, where, and how. 50:41 The best time I would say is after high school but better 50:45 late than never. Last year at AFCOE we had a student who was 50:47 about 90 years old. So even if you're older (chuckles) come and 50:53 be blessed and have a great time of the fellowship. You'll enjoy 50:56 it and you'll be more useful in the Master's service. 50:59 Amen, amen. Now did you get to meet this 90-year-old? 51:02 That one no but I met some 60, 70 plus that had come for some 51:07 other classes, yeah. 51:08 Okay. And how do you go about reaching people with this 51:11 message? 51:12 About the great commission? 51:14 About going to AFCOE, Yeah. 51:15 Yeah, yeah. I do quite some preaching in different countries 51:18 and I also encourage people to go to some mission. Actually I 51:22 did for many years before I started to work on a mission 51:25 school myself because I say, man this really makes a difference. 51:28 So I often made an appeal. I think Ellen White talks about how we 51:32 should take advantage of every opportunity to get a preparation 51:35 for His work. 51:37 Amen, amen. I'm so grateful for what you're doing. You know 51:40 we're about to take a brief break. We're going to show you 51:44 how to get in touch, how to support this wonderful ministry 51:46 and we will be right back. 51:48 If you would like to contact or know more about AFCOE Europe 51:54 You can write them at Tallbacksvagen 14, 24796 51:58 Veberod, Sweden. You can also call them at +46793-064-803 52:14 You can also visit their website at AFCOE-Europe.com 52:21 Or you can email them at Hello@AFCOE-Europe.com |
Revised 2024-06-20