Five Years serving our congregation

This coming sunday the 1st of April 2012, my wife Mirjam and I have had the priviledge of serving our local church Fristaden for 5 years. Time flies by so fast and we are extremely glad and thankful to both God and to all that have come alongside us and encouraged us these five years. It was on 1st April 2007 that we stepped in as pastors to serve our local congregation.It has so far been an interesting, educating and wonderful journey. God has been gracious and we are able to look back and see the goodness and the faithfulness of the Almighty God.During these years both my wife and I have learnt some valuable lessons in serving, tending, feeding,stewarding and protecting that which has been entrusted to us by the Lord himself. We stepped in with clear instructions from God to build God's family.It has been our goal ever since and will always be. The church is not a platform for fame and glamour. But it is a family growing together in love towards God and towards one another. It is to seek the best for its surroundings. To be a colony of Heaven on earth, reflecting and expressing the Kingdom and the Lordship of Jesus here on earth. It has also been our goal and our heart that people that God sends would find a home in our local church. A place of safety, a place where growth is natural, a place where healing and restoration is natural (though supernatural).A place where they are transformed so that they in turn would be agents of transformation. We have seen a steady and stable growth in all our church work. We are specially thankful to all those who have believed in us and the call of God on our lives.We would want thank our local church, our family, our friends and well wishers for continuing to pray for us all through these five years. We are eagerly waiting and seeking God for the next five years!

Fristads Kalas this Summer

For the very first time, Fristaden Church, will be hosting a Fristads kalas this summer. For our english readers, it is a family festival with rides, trampolines, BBQ, Live music etc, where people could come and have a good time together with their families. However, we would also want to reach out to the city, where we could do something to help intergrate those that have moved to sweden from other countries along with the swedes. It is my understanding and conviction that the body of christ is the perfect place for this intergration. It is Christ that has cut assunder the viel that separates people and as his body here on earth , it is our priviledge to provide that for the people in our cities. So please do mark Saturday the 7th of July in your calenders and come over with your family to have a great fun-filled day. I will keep you all posted and updated as to the various developments that take place concerning Fristads Kalas. Do keep checking this blog space regularly as more information will be added

Lighthouse conference: a write up and note of thanks

Last weekend about a total of 130 teenagers visited and took part at the Lighthouse Conference hosted by our church together with Citykyrkan västerås and Centrumkyrkan Sala. It was such a joy for me to see the overwhelming response the two nights and to also see the power of God move in and among these teenagers. The Friday evening was highlighted with a powerful service together with some great after- service activities such as the talk- show and things that got the teens to really enjoy and relax with newly made friends from all over the place in Sweden and Germany. The worship was passionate. The sermon I spoke the first night had the teens open up for the Holy Spirit to an active part of their lives. This saw about half the audience run to the alters to allow the holy spirit to be an active part of their lives. This was later followed up by words of knowledge allowing God to touch and heal people with various infirmities. The Saturday marked the launch of " Mission Falun" where about 60 teenagers filled the city centre in Falun by serving the city with good deeds and thereby allowing the residents to sense who God is by their good deeds. The teens were all excited after this mission as many got,opportunity to sit and talk to people about Jesus and also to appreciate the various authorities for all that they do for the city of Falun. They even gathered and exalted the name of God and towards the end of the 2 hours and when the final song " How great is our God" was sung, there was such a presence of God that filled the whole busy street. People just stopping all of a sudden to hear the song and to experience the calm tender and peaceful nature of God the father. It was such a powerful moment, a moment where we experienced heaven kiss earth. The afternoon we had workshops for those interested in developing their skills in Media, painting, baking, worship and evangelism. Each workshop was packed to the full and we did experience a sense of purpose amongst the young people. The Saturday evening service being the last and final meeting for the conference, one could sense the expectation and the hunger to receive from God. My good friend and Pastor at the Citykyrkan Västerås, and I tag teamed that service by me preaching on the baptism of the holy spirit and Mats teaching on the baptism, which culminated in such a powerful breakthrough in the lives of the young people. Many were baptized that night in the holy spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues and many more in their reception of the spiritual gifts. A girl was healed of her cracked forearm right in the midst of all this. Joy and excitement broke out and people started to praise and worship and dance before the throne of God. Wow what a weekend it has been. I still do believe for greater to things to happen right here in Falun. I do want to extend a special thank you to " Elsborgskyrkan" and their youth for helping us in different areas of the conference. A big thank you guys, we feel your love and friendship. Thank you! This is just a short write up about the youth conference that we co-hosted with Citykyrkan in Västerås and centrumkyrkan in sala.

Lighthouse conference

Iam so exicited to extend this invitation you all. 23-24th march we will be hosting our first youth conference together with Centrumkyrkan Sala and Heby, and Citykyrkan Västerås. We are truly excited about this. I belieive that it is time that young men and women know the power and potential that is within them, given to them by the Holy Ghost. I will keep you all updated in this blog. There is also a facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lighthouse-Conference/341963722492827 where you can log into and get the information that is continuously being updated.

Lighthouse @Fristadenfalun

Its been for quite sometime now that the youth event at our church "lighthouse" been taking place. This event is an evening where hungry young people on fire for Jesus gather to celebrate the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It does thrill my heart to see teenagers gather together just to lift the name of Jesus. Tonight is going to be no different. I turly am looking forward to tonight's "lighthouse". As I write this from my office I can hear a whole bunch of teenagers practising, making arrangements. In just a few minutes this place will be filled by teens from all over the city, both church goers and non-church goers. If you read this and are a teenager, and have nothing to do tonight, you are welcome to join in the party, where the name of Jesus is celebrated!!

Looking ahead

Looking ahead and predicting what would eventually happen is not an easy task. In fact more often than not we tend to not always get it right. However, there is something behind the "attitude" of "looking ahead" that keeps us going. In the business realm they call this looking ahead as vision, or goal. In the church realm the same thing-vision or goal. In the personal realm (once again ) the same thing-vision or goal. As created, intelligent human beings, we are endowed with this ability of looking ahead. In fact we can either be very bad stewards of this ability or very good stewards. The point Iam trying to make is that we can all LOOK AHEAD from where we are today to where we could be tomorrow, a month from now, a year from now etc. In other words, we can "plan" our looking ahead. The grand vision or the goal that we set, needs to be broken down into small action steps that will enable us to reach that goal. Here is where we need to acquire information, knowledge etc in how we can make, take small action steps. A majority of us tend to have great visons and goals but lack in the small action steps towards that vision and goal to make it reality. Let me put it this way, it is the small steps that we intentionally and consciously make and take everyday towards that which we perceive to be our future that will make our visions and goals a reality. So two months into this extra-ordinary year of 2012 (yes I truly believe this year to be an extra-ordinary)what is it that you are looking ahead to?. What are you and I doing today to make that which we are looking ahead to , a reality. You've got it in you, a God-given ability to steward the God-given gift which you werre created with. Put it to use. A valuable source that is of immense informational wealth through lives curvy, tricky and sometimes unexpected paths is the Bible. Make it a point to read it, try putting some small feet to that which read and you will see how the bible will strengthen you, sustain you, nourish you and help you make the right decisions on your journey towards realising your visions and goals.

A quick word

It has taken me some time to filter away a whole lot of possible content material in this blog in order to give my readers a clear cut picture of what my blog is all about. Of course I could write and comment on various things and also share a whole lot of personal material with you all, but I am directed to keep this blog, a place, where you the reader can follow my thoughts on church, religion, current affairs, politics and theology.So I do hope that you would drop by every once in a while and would also leave a comment.