“…And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

2 Timothy 2:1-2

A team of ten members from our church family just returned from ten days in Central Europe, where they served as very hard-working and dedicated volunteers for the annual European Leadership Forum in Wisła, Poland. I accompanied the team, not as a volunteer, but as a teacher and mentor. I can say without hesitation that the other nine worked harder than I did during the conference.



The European Leadership Forum (ELF) gathers over 800 pastors from Western and Central Europe for an annual conference committed to teaching, mentoring, encouraging, and equipping them for the often very difficult and lonely work of ministry in these countries that are either physically or culturally opposed to the gospel message, or both. Our team of volunteers this year consisted of Randy and Becky Gluff, Jim and Kristin Morris, Liz Smilie, Becca Christopher, Kent and Diane Clark, and Tamara Schulze. The team served exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that when I sat down for breakfast with the leader of the Forum (Dr. Greg Pritchard), he specifically praised our team’s work (both this year’s team and last year’s team) and asked if he could raise the cap on volunteers from one church from ten to fifteen so that LifePoint could send more volunteers next year. These were hard-working men and women, and they represented LifePoint well as they served the pastors at the conference with humility and dedication. Their workdays ranged from eight to twelve hours, and I never heard a single complaint. They did this with less than average sleep and working off a six-hour time change and the jet lag that accompanied it. They were a joy to travel, work, and minister with!

My task was to teach/disciple and meet daily with pastors one-on-one for mentoring and encouragement. I served in Madrid, Spain, many years ago as a missionary, and meeting with these men and women reminded me once again of the difficult task of sharing the gospel and engaging in ministry in post-Christian and Communist countries. It also reminded me to be thankful continually to God for the privilege of living in a society where government restraints have been virtually non-existent for over 200 years. Things are certainly changing in this great nation, but the lives of Christ followers are, almost without exception, quite kosher here compared with their lives, economically, spiritually, and culturally.

Without exception, the men I met with who serve as pastors in countries like Slovakia, Macedonia, Romania, Great Britain, Hungary, and Ukraine were men of great faith and courage, but were also worn down with the constant struggles that go together with serving in these cultures under the difficulties that accompany them. Nevertheless, they were insistent that God had called them to the task, and they were ready to continue their ministries. The Forum is a great encouragement to them. There, they are trained by some of the very best pastors/scholars in the world (this is no exaggeration; the list of teachers is a virtual “Who’s Who” among both American and European scholars). They develop networks and contacts with others from their own countries and those that surround them, and they prepare for year-round mentoring and instructional courses that will take place via Zoom until the next Forum in May of 2027. This is a year-round ministry to these front-line servants that is capped off annually with an in-person conference. It has been taking place for almost forty years under the direction of four godly and well-equipped men (Dr. Greg Pritchard, Dr. John Lennox, Dr. Stefan Gustafson, and Dr. Leonardo De Chirico). These men, from four different nations, along with a Steering Team made up of men and women from five other nations, provide the Forum with leadership and teaching that has impacted Europe in a positive way for decades.

We are all thankful for the support from the Missions Team that allowed a team of this size to travel and engage in this ministry. I can say from first-hand experience that it is needed and effective. Europe is no longer the bright light that it once was five hundred years ago in gospel ministry and missions. It is a spiritually dark continent that needs the gospel of Christ as desperately as any other continent on this planet. But God has not left himself without a witness there. Our team has seen that and experienced it, and we are all better off for the time away from family and life here in the States.

Thank you, LifePoint family, for your love for Christ and his gospel, and your willingness to share your resources with the world!

Grace and peace,

Pastor Jym

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