Krakow Day 1

After a 9 hour flight from Atlanta to Prague, Czech Republic and another hour from there, we arrived in Krakow, Poland at 12:30 p.m. local time. It’s 7 hours ahead of CST in the States. We’ve been orientated tonight, and it’s amazing to see the network of sharp folks that God has led to Poland to minister.

Poland is 90% Catholic, but conservative estimates say that less than 5% of the population are devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Of the SBC leader-visionaries here, there is a strategy leader of Central and Eastern Europe, a Regional Leader that travels between Prague and Krakow, a journeyman (recent college graduate who is on a two-year mission here) and several families who are either career missionaires or ISC (International Service Corps). 

They are actively engaged in several ministries seeking to impact the local culture and minister to Poles. Those ministries include childrens ministry, coffee houses, work with orphanages (the interim regional leader has adopted two Polish children), sports ministry (the IRL also helps coach the professional football team – the Krakow Tigers), and church planting.

There are two members of an International Mission Board media team here with our team this week to film, interview and follow us around to hopefully produce a resource that is going to help connect other church planters and innovative churches to the ongoing work here. That is also our team’s mission – to find ways to connect our churches and our people to the work that Christ is doing in Poland.

One stunning fact I learned in researching the country: Poland lost 6 million of its citizens – the most of any country – during World War II. It also had the fourth largest fighting force against Nazi Germany – behind Russia, the U.S., and Britain.

Poland bound

I fly out tomorrow for an 8-day Discovery Trip with other church planters from around the U.S. to Krakow, Poland. I really deliberated on this trip because our church has been supporting and encouraging a pastor in India, and I would like to make a trip there as soon as funds are available. When the Arkansas Baptist State Convention offered to scholarship this trip through their missions team, I realized that it was a unique and special opportunity. So off I go – giddy and grateful for the joy of being part of an expansive vision for missions.

I’m excited that the trip has been coordinated by Ed Stetzer, and I’m looking forward to getting to know him and hearing his thoughts on global/glocal church planting. That’s the purpose of this trip, really – to connect church planters in the U.S. with missionaries and church planters in Eastern Europe. We hope that these connections will produce some longterm partnerships and opportunities to continue sending folks from our area to Poland to minister, assist and help the work going on there.

I’ll be blogging daily from Poland, so stay tuned!