The aims of the webinar are:
1) To provide an informed and accurate picture of the current spiritual situation in France.
2) To help churches and individual Christians pray for France with more understanding of both the challenges and the encouragements.
3) To encourage a renewed commitment on the part of Christians in the U. K. to supporting faithful gospel work in one of our nearest neighbouring countries.
Andy Johnson has been lead elder at ÇankayaBaptist Church, Ankara, Turkey since 2021, after serving for more than 20 years as an Associate Pastor and elder at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C.
Çankaya Baptist Church is an English language speaking church plant in the capital of Turkey, which is a 99.9% Muslim nation.
He is married with two teenage and one nearly teenage children.
He’s the author of Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global.
J. Mack Stiles:
Mack is the director of Messenger Ministries Inc., a think tank working to develop healthy missions. He and his wife, Leeann, have traveled and lived in many places before landing in Erbil, Iraq, in July 2017, including 15 years in Dubai, UAE. Up until recently, he was the pastor of Erbil Baptist Church. Mack has written books on missions and evangelism including Evangelism: How The Whole Church Speaks of Jesus. Mack resides in Louisville and is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church
Albania, under the tyrannical dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, was considered to be one of the three most closed countries in the world to the gospel, along with North Korea and Mongolia. Hoxha had declared Albania the world’s first atheist state in 1967, and his enforcers murdered, tortured and imprisoned any who would not renounce their faith. Hoxha controlled the media, and ensured that anti-religious propaganda was all that could be heard. Spies were everywhere. Foreign missionaries wouldn’t be allowed back for another 50 years.
In 1991, when the communist government began to crumble, it was though that there were around 16 evangelical Christians in the country, and most of them didn't know of each other's presence.
But as the country opened up to missionaries, there was a great hunger for the gospel, amidst a wave of interest in religion more generally. Now, only a small percentage of the population consider themselves to be atheists, and the dominant religion is Sunni Islam (around 60%), and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians numbering each around 10%.
But the number of evangelical Christians is now estimated to be around 17,000 believers. Even though this is a small percentage of the population, there is a real hunger for spiritual and theological growth among the thousands of first-generation Albanian Christians, and a passion to share the gospel of Christ to their neighbours.
Andi Dina came to Christ while studying at college in Tirana in 2002. He completed his graduate studies in Business Administration at the University of Tirana. Andi has been serving in the local church for two decades now. He has passionately served as coordinator at Prison Fellowship Albania and at The Evangelical Alliance of Albania. Andi has been involved in the field of child and youth service where he continues to contribute. From 2016 to 2018 he carried out intensive church training by the Acts29 organization.
Andi is currently the Church-planting Pastor at Light Church in Tirana, he also leads IGNIS Mission at Ignis Ministries and is a Council member of TGC Albania
He's married to Vilma and they have four sons.
The aims of the webinar are:
1) To highlight the great spiritual need in the Nordic countries;
2) To tell people about some of the things that God is doing in those countries;
3) To encourage Christians and churches to think more about the Nordic countries, to pray more for them, and to do more to support gospel work in that part of Europe.
