Meetings in Prague

I’ve had the incredible privilege of spending the last several days in Prague, Czech Republic encouraging and being encouraged by the network of pastors, elders, church planters, and missionaries from across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East whose churches make up the International Presbyterian Church (IPC). Founded by Francis Schaeffer in 1969 as an evangelical denomination in the reformed tradition, the church that we serve with in London, IPC-Ealing, was the very first church planted. It’s an honour to serve with these Godly men and pray with and for them as they have shared about the amazing things King Jesus is doing in their churches and communities as they press into God’s Kingdom work through church planting, evangelism, and discipleship. What an incredible blessing.

The IPC is not a large denomination, and IPC-Ealing is no mega-church. Not by a long shot. But out of IPC-Ealing an entire network of Gospel driven churches has been planted, and we’re amazed by the ways God is at work in and through them. We’re reminded of Jesus’s words in the Parable of the Mustard Seed:

“And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

-Mark 4:31-32

It might be tempting to look at the incredible cathedrals and basilicas of Prague and all over Europe and think that the Kingdom of God is big, flashy, and expensive, but sadly, as beautiful as we may find them, most of post-Christian Europe’s cathedrals are empty of people, and sadly often, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They're beautiful, but all too often they are little more than museums that memorialize a time long past when the Gospel saturated this continent. I’m thankful for God’s faithfulness to work in and through tiny Gospel preaching churches dotted around the world like those in the IPC and other denominations and networks who would rather give and work sacrificially to plant the next Gospel centred church in a place where the Gospel isn’t present than build a cathedral.