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!
