Christ is at work in Germany even now. We see God’s Spirit working, especially among the younger generation. In 2009, John Piper returned to Munich for the first time since his PhD studies in the early 1970s. He met with a group of roughly fifteen German pastors and theologians, most of whom had served in ministry for only a few years. Pastor John encouraged us to preach the word and to form partnerships in order to encourage other like-minded men. In 2011, this group gathered under the name “Evangelium21” for a conference in Hamburg. Ever since, the Evangelium21 national conference has been an annual event.

Many tourists to Germany love to visit the stunning old churches and cathedrals that can be found in every city, town, and even village. The oldest church in Germany is the cathedral in Trier. Its construction began in AD 340. More impressive are the cathedrals in Cologne, Ulm, Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, Munich, and Berlin, to name just a few.

Then there are the Reformation sites — the Wartburg, where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German, thus making the holy Scriptures more available to the German people. Or Wittenberg, where Luther lived and worked for most of his life and where he posted the 95 theses to the door of the castle church. But while all these sites are wonderful to visit, they are but artifacts of times long gone when Christianity was still vibrant in Germany.

Germany’s Lost Heritage

By most accounts, Germany became a predominantly Christian nation when Charles the Great defeated Widukind, the Duke of Saxony, in AD 785. From then on, the majority of Germans belonged to a Christian church. But the last half century has seen an unprecedented decline in formal religion such that those who are still members of a Christian church are becoming a minority — for the first time since Charles the Great ruled in the eighth century. Apart from revival, this trend will continue, and even accelerate, as the average age of those who are still church members is significantly above the national average.

But then, formal church membership is not a good measure for the spiritual state of a nation, especially given the fact that Germany has so-called “state” churches. I myself was born and baptized into the Lutheran state church, but I never attended except for an annual visit on Christmas Eve. When the time came for my Lutheran “confirmation,” I dutifully attended the required class and occasionally joined a few seniors for a Sunday service in the otherwise empty church. I can’t remember ever hearing the gospel preached. The standard message was a mix of half-hearted morality and some political statements, often along the lines of social and environmental concerns.

Once “confirmed” at age fourteen, I went back to my once-a-year Christmas Eve tradition. This pattern is typical for pretty much all younger Lutherans to this day.

Encountering the Gospel

Growing up, I never really knew anything about other churches. It wasn’t until my early twenties that I met Christians who attended a so called “free” church, meaning a church outside of the Protestant and Roman Catholic state-church system. Initially, I thought they were part of a sect. This remains the general perception of most Germans when they hear about free churches, whether they be Baptist, Evangelical Free, Brethren, Pentecostal, or something else.

God, in his great mercy, used a faithful Christian family from a free church to save me when I was 26. The same year, my work brought me to Washington, DC, where I joined Capitol Hill Baptist Church and met my wife. When we moved back to Germany in 2002, I realized how spiritually dead my home country truly is. Despite our connections with several American missionaries, we had a very hard time finding a solid gospel-preaching church in Berlin.

During this season, God put a burden on my heart to see Christianity revived in the country where the Protestant Reformation had begun.

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