Langham Preaching’s ministry in places like Austria and other countries in Europe can be discouraging as event attendance tends to be very low.
But Mark Meynell, Langham Preaching Director (Europe and Caribbean), has pointed out that “depth in ministry is more important than size”.
He added: “Far better to have biblical convictions and faithful practices deeply ingrained in someone’s life than huge crowds showing initial enthusiasm and then falling away. This is something the Lord Jesus insisted on in his Parable of the Sower and the Soils. Despite only a few seeds actually becoming fully grown plants, the harvest was still huge.”
The Western Europe coordinator, Austrian Ewald Ring, was recently interviewed about his life and work for a ‘Preaching Postcard’:
How did Jesus find you?
I was born into a believing family which I consider now as a huge blessing. I recall being at an evangelistic event when I was about five years old and God really touched my heart. With my mother’s help, I responded with childlike faith and asked Jesus into my heart.
However, the early death of my father, when I was three years old, had cast a dark shadow over my life which needed healing. It was at a camp organised by the Austrian IFES movement during my undergraduate studies that my whole life was shaken by, until then, an unknown realisation of the grace of God given to me in Jesus – I was “surprised by joy“.
What does serving Jesus look like for you this week?
As I work in a local church as a pastor, serving Jesus is very diverse. There is a set amount of time that goes to sermon preparation and planning. Then there are meetings with different teams in the church.
Often it means merely sitting with people in their joy or pain, listening to their questions and coming together to Jesus in prayer. My involvement with Langham in Austria also involves preaching at churches on invitation, teaching seminars and coaching younger preachers. The work I find the hardest, but also the most important, is to make time simply to sit with the LORD and to listen to him.
What do you enjoy about working with Langham Preaching?
What I enjoy most is when I experience how people are gripped by an excitement because the living God speaks through his revealed word. I love to learn to understand and to apply God‘s word together with brothers and sisters from different backgrounds, both in terms of their ethnicity and culture, as well as their church background.
I am excited to see how our church and other churches in Austria and Europe are changing and are becoming places where the Spirit of God, by the Word of God, shapes and builds up the people of God. I am thrilled, when men and women open up the Bible, have a firm confidence that God will speak into their lives through what he has revealed.
Please join us in praying for Ewald’s efforts with Langham Preaching in Austria. Pray that many church leaders will be gripped by God speaking in His word, and that more churches across Western Europe will be shaped by God’s word and His spirit.
