PEF Conference Amsterdam

In March 2015, I attended a leadership gathering in Amsterdam. It is called i15 Leadership Summit and was the first time ever event organized in this format by the Pentecostal European Fellowship (PEF) representing the 6 million europeans christians in that movement. Before this event called i15 Leadership Summit, I’ve sensed the Spirit telling me : There you’ll learn how to make a net. I was wondering what is actually the net; and it came straight : The net is about relationships and cooperations. The aim is to build strong connections with evangelistic ministries accross the continent.

During the 3 days conference, I was led to connect with numerous ministries. Many sessions gave me a lot of insights from Networking, to Fostering cooperation, not ignoring Reaching immigrants and refugees. These are the sessions I attended :

Networking in Europe so that all may hear : The Pentecostal European Mission (PEM) has a network of 35 organisations lead by Arto Hämäläinen. Over 1000 ethnic groups are living in Europe with 6% of its population Muslim. PEM is a cross cultural evangelism network; providing help in development and humanitarian expertise for mission organisations. It is also a hub for organizing Impact evangelistic events across Europe.

Reaching Immigrants and Refugees in Europe : Ministries like Oasis Center Madrid are reaching muslims in Europe by dedicating themselves for example 3 hours in prayer every friday during mosquees time. Terry Hoggard from the Mahabba ministry told that there are challenges of reaching todays’s Europe by discerning generational realities. Inclusion of internationals bring life to churches who take that risk. Islam radicalism is a reaction after being in an unloving environments.

How to develop and transform an effective world mission : This was the i15 conference leader Mr Hämäläinen special point session. There are aspects like recruiting, training, sending and partnering that need a strong structure. Theological basis, cultural context, Church leadership’s vision and support are needed to develop a structure avoiding to becoming a revolutionarist in the bad way. Balance is needed between structure and the leadership of the Spirit. Its important to start with a team to develop a culture of Interdependance! The vision must be guided by this : All good places are already taken. Paul Hockley from Jesus Revolution share about their 3 stage rockets strategy and Stefan Ross from Kairos Courses shared about the need of the whole Church to be mobilized to cross cultural missions.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit : Peter Sleebos, the General Superintendant of assemblies of God churches of the Netherlands share strong points about the needs of the baptism of the Holy Spirit today.

Fostering cooperation across Europe : Using a parallel about the Berlin wall, two National Heads of Churches from Ukraine (Mykhailo Panochko) and Poland (Marek Kaminski) shared about the division that stop flows of informations, relationships and influence from West to East Europe. Talking about their difficulties with Russians, these two pilllars countries christian communities of the bridge between East and West experienced infiltrations of Police and persecutions. The division is physical and mental and the wall of partition is still strong at the point that even at the conference they noticed it. The question is how can the east go over the lack of interest and curiosity to share its experiences with the west? There are phenomenal growth in churches in the east comparing to shrinking west churches. Nobody looks at east but unity is a decisive factor for revival in Europe! The West can not be totally free without the East.

I also had the opportunity to be ministered by men of God in plenary sessions like Dr Bill Wilson (Impact Europe, Impact the World / E21 Global Co-Chair, ORU President), Prince Guneratnam (The Anointing / Calvary Church Kuala Lumpur, Pentecostal World Fellowship), Daniel Kolenda (Re-ignite Evangelism by the Baptism of Love / CFAN) Peter Wenz (The top Subject of Heaven / Gospel Forum), Mika Yrjola (Heart for Mission / Saalem Church), Siegfried Tomaszewski (Longing to See Europe Changed / Calling Ministry), Juan Carlos Escobar (The Hope of the promise / Celebracion Cristiana), Samuel Peterschmitt (Maintaining Dynamic and Good Health in the Church / Porte Ouverte) and some more.

And have made connections with the leaders of these ministries, so to begin :

+ Jesus Revolution by organizing outreaches with one of this ministry’s team

+ Summer2go with possibilities for this movement to go to Strasbourg.

+ PEM with a preparation meeting for the 2016 Impact event in Skopje : A really good picture shared during this meeting was the sight of small fishing boats coming together to bring many people to Jesus. That was a good reminder of the Word I received from the Lord encouraging me for cooperation.

There were so good times of impartations between participants that the venue was Holy Spirit pervasive.