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It was a relatively small group of leaders but the vision in the room was more than enough to reach the 38 million people of Poland. The setting was the second ALTC conference held in Swidnica Poland and one by one the speakers and delegates prophetically spoke of the future, the dawning of a new day with unlimited possibilities.

Next Level International has been involved in Poland for more than ten years. Four church planting projects have been completed, hundreds of leaders have been trained and yet it’s still just the beginning. The future is wide open.

A foundational dynamic of NLI’s ministry in Poland has been the continuing development of long-term relationships. According to Marius Muszczynski, church planting coordinator for the Pentecostal Church, “What really made the difference for the church in Poland is that NLI just kept coming, you started in the north, did a project in the south, then the west and all through that time you kept coming with teaching, with impartation, with vision. We would never be doing what we are doing now if not for the 10 years of sowing into us that NLI has done.”

In the last few years, Marius and his team have begun four new projects and their passion is to spread this church planting movement across Poland. The leader of the Pentecostal Church, Bishop Czajko, recently wrote to all the local church pastors, “Church planting is the source of our growth.”

Along with Marius, Zibi and Magda Marzec have long been associated with NLI. For a number of years Magda served administratively in the church planting projects and Zibi coordinated teams coming to assist the new churches. Still working to coordinate teams for new projects, Zibi is also part-time as a youth pastor at the church in Wodzislaw. Out of the 200+ registered churches of the Pentecostal Church, Zibi is the o­nly paid youth pastor (approximately 100 have youth leaders, there are no other recognized youth “pastors”).

His position, though part-time is a perfect fit for the work he and Magda are doing, including hosting a conference for Polish youth called Radical. Out of this conference they hope to mobilize youth mission teams to go out from Poland to Mexico, Lithuania and Estonia. In addition, Magda is helping establish youth ministry in all the new church plants as well as working to train youth workers in the established churches in their district.

A great team of young leaders give great promise for Poland’s future and NLI is blessed for having been part of the foundational work in this great nation.

This year Ian Green and Steve Melnichuk (NLI) were in Spain together with Pastor Ian Watson and Dave Harvey from the Bridge Church in Bolton, UK. This was for the first module of the Advanced Leadership Training for this small but growing network of Churches called Salem.

NLI has been building a relationship with them for over 3 years and this was an incredibly exciting opportunity to see the primary senior leadership of their churches come together just outside of Madrid. It was to begin to bring impartation of vision and alignment of resources to the direction that they sensed they were going. The intensive 3.5 days was very well received. One component part was how to bring vision and values to the local church. This had such a remarkable impact upon those present. During their General Conference a few days later, they changed the whole agenda of the week, so that they could brainstorm clearly on what they felt the vision and future was for the network of churches in Spain.

Leadership Development is currently training their emerging leaders. There will also be a large iTeam outreach across Spain in the summer of 2008 together with innovative discussions on planting post modern 21st century churches in the land of the bull.

NLI has partnered with Stanislav & Eva Bubik for the last 5 years to plant a city centre church in the great city of Prague, Czech Republic. This is one of the most atheist countries in the whole of Eastern Europe. It is quite different from many of the other countries we have worked in. There is a great distaste towards the church, Christianity and religion. Although the city is filled with spires, the actual church attendance is miniscule.

In the heart of this hostile environment Stanislav and Eva have planted a church. They are consistently seeing new people come to church and currently over 100 people attend their corporate worship service on a Sunday morning. The Bubiks are being incredibly innovative by opening a coffee bar which is a part of the theatre complex they are renting on Sundays. It gives them the opportunity to have a commercial concern in the heart of the city and also to be connecting with people on a daily basis. In addition to this, when the theatre runs they open the coffee shop and make new contacts as they begin to serve the clientele. Brochures and leaflets are available for people to take concerning the church’s activities.

Over the past 12 months they have had a huge opportunity into high schools in the city of Prague. Two full time workers have spoken to in excess of 8000 students concerning the dangers of drugs and pre-marital sex. Through this these workers are creating other opportunities to share the good news of Jesus on a personal level. All the signs look very encouraging and in the next year the Prague church will be planting another church in the city of Kladno. (report from Next Level International)