HOPE GERMANY CHURCHES NEWS
HOPE BERLIN, GERMANY 
Hello brothers and sisters. My name is Stefanie Rose. I am from Hope Berlin in Germany.
We are very excited because this year in May 21-25,we are going to see in the festival held in Stuttgart, Germany. We hope to see 500 people in our festival. Wow! I am so excited; will it really happen? I really think our God is big. If you want to come, join us and see for yourself.
Stefanie Rose Video Interview
Stefanie Rose
Hope Berlin, Germany
HOPE STUTTGART, GERMANY
Wir sind Steffen und Ulrike aus Stuttgart! (We are Steffen and Ulrike from Stuttgart)! We have just been married for six months now and you can still see it. My name is Ulrike, I am from Germany, originally from Berlin and I served at Hope Church in Germany. I am Steffen. I have been in Stuttgart for ten years now. We will now share a bit about our backgrounds.
Steffen & Ulrike Video Interview
I come from an East German family; the eight of us. I grew up 26 years and eight days ago. As I started to wonder about life, the meaning in life and what is after death; I started to search different philosophies, different words and religions to really find out what is the real meaning of life. However, I could not find it and even my so-called Christian friends at the time could not explain to me. So from that time, I still thought that Christianity and God was something for weak people who could not handle life on their own. However, I was still looking for the answer for life and questioning the meaning of life.
When I studied near Stuttgart, I got to know a Malaysian Christian. It was quite unusual for me because Malaysia is a Muslim country. My friend used the chance to immediately evangelise to me and share about his experience with God. I decided at that time to ask all my questions: all the difficult ones about life and meaning, and life and death. He answered with an offer; he said “hey, it is a difficult question to answer, but let us read the Bible together. Maybe you can find some answers.” Up until that time, I had not read the Bible yet, even though I was 26 years old already and living in a so-called Christian country.
So we started to read the Bible. I figured out how the Bible describes God and describes the way God relates with people. I learnt that not only did it really make sense, but to live a life with God and Jesus is to live a really meaningful life.
So after six months of reading the Bible, I was quite desperate about my current life situation and I decided that I needed Jesus in my life. So I repented of all my sins and asked Him to come into my life and to be my Lord and Saviour.
Sharing from Ulrike...
I come from and grew up in East Germany. I went to study in 2000 in a city quite close to Berlin. Actually, it was there that I heard about the Christian faith for the first time. At the time, I was studying with someone who was a Christian, who just got to know Jesus nine months before at Hope Berlin. She shared to me about what she believes in, about her ideas of who God is and what she wants to see in her life.
For me, it was very surprising because I had a big, big prejudice against God and against the church. I did not see the difference between the institution of church and God. I did not know at that point of time that I could have a relationship with God; that God was a personal God. So it took me some time to overcome my prejudices – my friend was very perseverant with me. Between studying and preparing for exams, we had enough of chances to talk about the question of life and about other things: how to have a satisfying life, how to build relationships that are successful, and what to do with our lives.
Slowly, I could see that she had something in her life that I did not have. She was not only preaching something, but she was living it out. I started to read the Bible and then I went to a care group in Frankfurt. It was very hard for me. I did not understand much. Slowly, my perspective changed from “there cannot be a God; if God is there, I should see Him”, to the perspective of “okay, I cannot deny that there might be a God; the fact that I cannot see him is not conclusive proof that he is not there”. It was really a big, big change in my thinking, especially since Germans are known to think a lot and to be very analytical. This was an important change in my concept of the world. I think at that point of time God really stirred in my heart.
I became very honest with myself, honest with my friend as well. It came to the point where I needed God in my life, and not only God, but I started to understand that Jesus is His son and that he was crucified for me and for my sins and for my not perfect situation. After a year, I decided to try it out. I wanted to take the chance for a new life; that was Jesus. This happened in Frankfurt, around the same time that Stefan got to know Jesus as well. For me, as I became a Christian, I got to know Jesus at Hope church and it became very clear that this is my family; this is a place where I want to learn more about God, where I want to get discipled, where I have my friends and where I have my spiritual family.
Now eight years later, I have been serving in Hope Frankfurt; Hope Berlin, leading a house church, and moved a year ago to Stuttgart. Steffen and I are leading Hope Stuttgart.
Building Hope Stuttgart
We have been leading Hope Stuttgart now together for the past year. It is difficult to share the gospel to Germans because they think they know a lot about God. The problem is that they do not know God personally. They reason a lot so it takes a lot of time to make them think again, rethink again. So we spend a lot of time talking to people, reasoning with them together, try to read the Bible together and challenging them to make their own decision, because usually they just copy the decisions made by their parents or society; that God is not something that they need in their life. I used to think that way as well.
A Multicultural Church
So we are currently leading Hope Stuttgart and our church today has an international look to it. We have 50% German and the other 50% are students from Malaysia, Thailand, South America, China and even Africa.
We are working not only in Stuttgart, but also in the cities around Stuttgart. We try to support the people there and try to start some house churches, meaning small groups where members can personally grow, reach out to their friends, students, colleagues and families. What we are emphasising a lot right now is to talk to people about the gospel and try to evangelise in different ways: on the street, in student dormitories, to colleagues during lunch breaks and so on. It is really hard work but it is an exciting work to do because as we have experienced something that only Jesus coming into your life can give you.
Hope Stuttgart future vision
It is our mission and focus in the region to just use every contact that we have. We want to see that at the end of 2010, wherever you are in Germany, you can reach a care group or a house church in 90 minutes. This is what we want to see happen in 2010. It means we have to go into those towns and cities, meet the one or two contacts we have, meet their friends, and go evangelising on the streets there with questionnaires. We are really putting a lot of effort and finding new ideas on how to do mission; this is where we involve everyone and the different teams in our house churches.
So if you are interested in, and want to learn more about what mission in Germany looks like, a country which 100 years ago sent out many missionaries, but ironically, nowadays needs missionaries, please come and visit us as well. You are very welcome.
See you in Germany. See you!
Steffen and Ulrike
Hope Stuttgart, Germany
Hope Germany Website
