Sebastian’s Story: Catalyst Community in Slovenia
Sebastian and I have been talking about the potential of having a Catalyst Community in Slovenia for a little over two years. We did a Zoom call with several Slovenian pastors two years ago and pitched Catalyst Community and the idea of collaborating toward greater kingdom growth. Since that time, several of those pastors have been meeting regularly as a network to dream together for their country, and this year, they invited us to lead Catalyst Community #1!
Slovenia is 0.1% to 0.2% Evangelical Christian. There are about 40 churches and around 2,000 Christians in this nation of 2 million souls. We worked with 9 churches and several DMM (Disciple Making Movement) groups here. Together, they are planning to double in the next two years!
Matioz’ Story: Catalyzing House Church Movements
Matioz was one of the DMM (Disciple Making Movement) teams we had with us. DMM’s focus on identifying a person of peace and starting a a small group that does some form of Discovery Bible Study. As those groups grow and mature they may become a house church. I was really impressed with Matioz and his team, Klemon and Nate.
I sat with this team late one night while they were working on their two year plan and was amazed at the progress they had been making. As I encouraged them about the future, Nate (presenting below) began to downplay what they had accomplished and referenced the difficult climate for evangelism. I said, “Nate, you became a believer last April and you have started three groups, one of which is about to become a House Church. You accomplished that in this environment! Imagine what you might see take place in the next two years!” Nate got a thoughtful look on his face and the team started talking about specific names of people in their groups and what they might be able to help them accomplish in the years ahead.
Kejdis & Rudina: Encouragement From Albania
I’ve known Kejdis Bakali for about six years now. We’ve worked on projects together in Albania, Macedonia, the Republic of Georgia, and now Slovenia. He is a dear friend and a great partner. Kejdis came to share the story of the Albanian Catalyst Community Movement. They began with two churches and a big dream in Albania, and now they have over 90 churches organized across seven regional networks. Kejdis shared this story in Slovenia to give them an idea of what could happen there. His story brought great encouragement to this group, who initially struggled with having hope that God could move in a mighty way in their country.
Can We Share This Training?
Everywhere we go we work to develop teams that can reproduce our ministry model in their countries. We equip them, sometimes we resource them financially, and we freely give away our content and training resources. The group in Slovenia was so encouraged that they are already making plans to share this training with several other groups and churches in their country.
Here are a couple quotes from those who attended:
“I am grateful to God for the wonderful time we spent together last week. Personally, I was very encouraged and impressed, and as some of you have told me, I am not the only one. Praise the Lord for that. Let the mutual encouragement in the field of mission and expansion of God’s kingdom continue. Once again, thank you very much for your time, to come with your team to the workshop and I look forward to how God will lead us forward in God’s mission. As we said on Saturday morning, in the next few days we will form a team that will jointly and unitedly lead CC in Slovenia forward. We will keep you posted and of course, most importantly stay connected. ~ Sebastian
“I believe that in our generation we will see that the Lord will grant that there will be 100 strong evangelical local churches in Slovenia, which will include converted and born-again people who serve Christ!” ~ Andrej
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