Andreas is a pioneer and pastor and has been involved in church planting in Sweden and Russia for almost 30 years. Andreas is also a consultant, connector, and coach for business leaders as well as Church leaders all over the world. Tune is as Luke interviews and learns from Andreas' experience.
On Point begins with a simple question: Where have you been?
For Andreas, his answer has many chapters. He grew up in a pastor’s family in Sweden and moved around a lot growing up.
As a teen Andreas had a “faith crisis” where he had an increased hunger to see and experience God. That passion manifested in a yearning for mission’s work beyond Sweden.
Right as Andreas was graduating the Iron Wall fell and Russia was open to missionary work.
At 19 moved to Russia and lived there for 6 years. It was supposed to be a year, but after one year the leader he served under passed away so Andreas took on an expanded role, leading a network of churches and leaders.
Luke asks: Why Russia?
Andreas’s answer was simple: To see revival. It was an interesting cultural moment where it had gone from a nation of atheists under communist regime to Andreas seeing thousands of people giving their life to God.
After 6 years was called back to Sweden with his wife to help plant churches. At the time there was not a lot of support for that work but they felt called. They felt called to plant churches for people who didn’t already have a church home. A place he could feel comfortable inviting people who were not embedded in church.
After 12 years he and his wife moved back to Russia, with a lot of lessons learned. Carrying out that same mission back in Russia. And after a decade, they didn’t want to leave but Andreas lost his residency status so had to come back to Sweden. He is now focused on coaching missionaries, church planters, church leaders through an online format.
Luke asks Andreas if he has some lessons for church planters.
Andreas summarized the following:
Andreas also talks about the biggest challenge being the time between service. We often focus on the individual journey and the church experience, but miss the third pillar of community.
He also talks about the importance of following a calling. Church planting is a calling and a privilege. If you don’t have the calling then you should not do it. But if you have that call you have no other choice.
Andreas talks about how Europe is in a post-Christian era and we need to see a revival, and for that revival, church leaders need to be focused on equipping people, not just delivering an experience. Andreas closes by talking about how encouraged he is about what ECGI is doing to equip European church leaders.