Ordination of a New Pastor, Salvation and Baptism!

We had such a great service at SOS Church Stockholm yesterday! We welcomed the Zuniga family home again after five years of pioneer work in Bulgaria and ordained Walter and Linda as Senior Associate Pastors in SOS Church... Two people gave their life to Jesus and we baptized two... We are so happy to start 2010 with batism and are hoping that it will continue in the same way!

The Leadership team prays over Walter and Linda...

Our faith goals as a church this year is:

- To baptize 50 people.

- To have 200 disciples in the small groups.
- To have 300 people at the Sunday Celebrations.

I leave early tomorrow morning for Oslo, Norway and then later this week all the way up north to Hammerfest!

See ya!

New Years Resolutions

Yeah, of course I made a trivial new years resolution for this year as well - no candy or eating cookies during 2010! (very unique and different - I know...) But more important than everything else is that we continue with the right focus and lifestyle during 2010, don't you agree?! For Maria and I this means that we will begin the new year with fasting and prayer and then we will continue the year with:

- A strong inner life! (Prayer, Bible reading, fasting and listening, obeying and following...)

- A winning lifestyle! (Fishing men and discipleship training every week...)

- A sound life! (Exercise, dates at restuarants just the two of us and fun and play with the kids...)

The same vision, the same style, and the same wife ;)

Then I am planning unreached peoples festivals, take the whole family on several exciting mission trips, give more aggresively to the Kingdom of God than any previous year and continue to preach the gospel with joy and passion. In June I will have preached for 19 years and the fire on the altar of my heart burns stronger than ever before! Visions are lining up! Joy of life and faith for the future form both my thoughts and words at the moment! Thank you God for your faithfulness!

What promises are you making to God, your self, and people around you for 2010?!

See ya!

2009

- On January 20th Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States of America and the first African-American president. Regardless of what you may think of his politics, it is historical that the only remaining Super Power is led by an African-American!

- In February our Swedish Crown Princess Victoria Bernadotte was engaged to Daniel Westling and the wedding is set for 2010! Her younger sister Madeleine will also step up to the altar together with her Jonas Bergström during 2010 after their engagement during the summer of 2009… The tabloids will have a golden year during 2010, with record sales…

Princess Madeleine and her Jonas...

- On June 25th both loved and hated Michael Jackson, aka the King of Pop, dies unexpectedly just before the kick off for his comeback tour – a tour with 750,000 tickets sold. The world mourns a musical genius and once again the tragic and typical behavior of commending and loving the deceased is proven right. It is better with a few roses and eulogy during life than to be declared a hero after burial you can think unless you have an eternity perspective. I believe in Heaven, but that my dear blog reader, you most likely already knew…

- In September the Swedish American Anna Anka (married to Paul Anka) becomes blonde of the year after the first episode of Swedish Hollywood Wives airs. Anna stabs the Swedish I-am-not-good-enough mentality by giving air to totally forbidden opinions on roles of the different sexes, all in a rough southern Swedish accent… Entertaining because Sweden makes such a big deal of it, but at the same time embarrassing because of the filthy amount of money that the rich (we probably already knew this) and the Swedish media spend on nonsense, all while the world starves and the refugee camps are over full…

- Jimmie Åkesson, leader for The Swedish Democratic Party (SD), in October writes one of the most remarkable debate articles in Aftonbladet (a Swedish Tabloid). The message in brief is that Åkesson personally sees Muslims as the greatest foreign threat to Sweden. According to current poles the SD will make snatch a place in the Parliament…

- Twitter emerges. The micro blog with max 140 characters is the greatest weapon for democracy used during the street protests this summer in Iran.
- Art student Anna Odell probably stood for the art debate of the year when she reconstructed and simulated a psychosis on a bridge in Stockholm and was arrested. Yes it did cost us tax payers a lot of money, but it also commenced the debate concerning art and also psychic health care – her voice was heard and cut right through the media…

- The Swine flu hits Sweden with a contamination phobia that can only be compared to the HIV scare of the 80’s. Very few died due to the flu and the bubble burst when the norovirus hit…

- A fatal year for both SAAB and the Swedish car industry. Only in Trollhättan 4,000 people will most likely lose their jobs.

- Tiger Woods, the golfer, and his so tragic sex and infidelity scandal etc etc...

Have you forgotten that SOS Church Stockholm was launched on August 29th with 53 members! At the end of the year we have a steady weekend attendance of around 150, with 110 in house churches and we have baptized about 20! During 2010 we are expecting explosive growth according to fresh forecasts and very trustworthy investigations…

See ya!

St. Clara Church in Stockholm

Sunday morning I visited a totally wonderful worship mass at St Clara Church in Stockholm, where Carl-Erik Sahlberg is dad to a great bunch of Jesus disciples. Situated between the central train station and Sergels square, it is an oasis for homeless people and others with very shifting and at times tragic life destinies... A Lutheran church (former State Church) or what we today simply call the Swedish Church, since the day a few years back when State and church were separated... St Clara Church is a landmark in Stockholm, a light house in the darkness and a city on the hill that cannot be hidden, just like Jesus once said... I so admire Carl-Erik's team with Nils, Inga, Viveka, and so on – heroes, spiritual vikings that all so boldly preach Jesus! The church is multi ethnical and home to both refugees, outcasts, and academics. Everyone fits in; janitors, politicians, white and blue collar and is all the same whether one is noble or peasant... Before Jesus we are all alike and the Holy Spirit really fills the ship!

Julia Willkander...

Julia Willkander, Music and Fine Arts Pastor at SOS Church, led worship and also sang both a great solo and a duet together with Piritta that accompanied her. Beautiful, wonderful but more so anointed! Nils, one of the priests, interviewed me before the service about our church plant downtown as well as my latest book Priest for Those Who Don't Go to Church; he like the title... We were met and taken care of so warmheartedly. After a very Bible centered message on the importance of faith in the Jesus of the Scriptures and a clear confession of Him as Lord an altar call for salvation was made and a few people responded by coming to the front to kneel around the altar rail. I was asked to walk out to the sacristy to dress in a white gown so that I then could help minster the elements during the following communion – we ministered to people together in the power of the Holy Spirit – thank you Jesus!

That we as a new church downtown were able to do something practical for the poor and homeless through our donation to the social work of St Clara Church was and is both a privilege and a blessing to us. This is what the Bible says:

He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

Proverbs 28:27

All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

Galatians 2:10

We as SOS Church Stockholm want to take part in helping the suffering in our city and what better avenue is there than through St Clara Church?!

See Ya!

Time Off at Christmas With La Familia

We soo enjoyed Christmas day! And such a nice Christmas Eve! My Maria is the best! Maria had decorated and made everything so nice for all of us – I love my girl more than ever... We ate too much, the kids are playing all over the house with their new toys and Walter and I have been to Flemingsberg for a workout... We then enjoyed a great Christmas Day evening. My cell phone has been switched off almost the entire time and it continues to be – Hallelujah!

At the kitchen table we, (the Zunigas and Amritzers) read aloud from Living a Life of Fire by Reinhard Bonnke, his new autobiography just recently released. Slowly we read page by page, taking turns wiping tears and snot – no one remains untouched and it is impossible to not be caught by this fascinating life and we are all overtaken by passion for the Great Commission. The calling to the unreached peoples burns like a fire in both heart and bones! We have reached page 53 of the 628 wonderful pages in the book – lets hope that it never ends!

Buy the book – it is a must read for every missionary in the whole world!

We celebrated Christmas with the "Stockholm clan", a part of our now very large family. Just say and feel these wonderful immigrant names that celebrated Christmas together in Tullinge 2009 – Zuniga, Santos, Sedigis, Drevon, and Amritzer – 2 x Latino, Persian, Norwegian and then Austrian. It is not for nothing that we feel that we are to build a church focusing specifically on the first and second generation immigrants! Strangely enough the Swedes love our church as well and a devoted Swedish disciple is like a rock – thank You Jesus for Sweden and the Swedes! Christmas 2009 will be known in history as the perfect white Christmas – the Christmas of our dreams...

Tomorrow I will be at church twice. First at 11 am I will go to St Clara Church, also downtown Stockholm to hand over a check from SOS Church to their so impressive work among all the homeless people in Stockholm. I will then continue on to SOS Church at 4pm.

Please join us for continued Christmas celebrations both at St Clara Church and at Warfvinges väg 26 – Welcome!

See Ya!

Good Tired and Real Happiness

Yes, that is how I feel after a wonderful weekend at SOS Church – Christmas party with the Bible College on Friday night and then two extraordinary Christmas Shows both Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Our sanctuary has been filled with people, candles, and of course beautiful songs, break dance, Bible theater, multimedia and Christmas gifts. A lot of new people but what makes both me and heaven rejoice are all the decisions for salvation together with all the honest prayers that were prayed this weekend... Jesus – Savior and Light of the world has shattered darkness and driven out anxiety from so many Stockholmer's hearts (don't dare to guess any numbers right now...)!!

The Amritzer family invited 12 people this weekend and 10 showed up – one was genuinely saved and several others heard a crystal clear Gospel for the first time in their lives! Today I led one of my newest disciple's mom in a prayer of salvation over my cell phone. His newly saved younger sister was baptized in the Holy Spirit – also over the cell phone :).

Christmas for real – Jesus saves and baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire!

Tomorrow I am getting a new sofa that we have bought – will need it since we will be around 20 people celebrating Christmas at our house here in Tullinge! I also need to get a Christmas tree and some presents – have not had time to think about these things yet...

See ya!

Pastoral Team and Christmas Show!

We had a Christmas party for SOS Mission Bible College last night... Theme was fairy tales, I just want to present SOS Church's pastoral team;

From the left: Andreas and Emma Gustafsson, Maria and Johannes Amritzer, Linda and Walter Zuniga, Samuel and Julia Willkander and Stephanie and Daniel Elvelyck...

Tonight we have the first Christmas Show at 6 pm! Tomorrow the party continues and another Christmas Show at 4 pm! Party for three days! You can buy tickets at the entrance... Welcome!

See ya!