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It was
my privilege to visit the Czech Republic from January 27 to
February 1, 1999, on behalf of the GBGM, and to meet the faithful
leaders and members of the United Methodist Church there. I
visited eight of the UMC sites while there. My visits
included the site of the Pilzen-Lochotin UMC as requested by the
Millenium Fund Committee, where the hope is to start construction
soon, for a new church facility.
NOTE: as
of 6/26/99 the church walls are up and rafters are in place.
During my visit, it was evident to me that God is present and
actively working there in the lives of many people in the UMC.
I met many wonderful people, heard their stories of faith, despite
great difficulties, listened to their visions and prayers,
witnessed existing ministries and experienced kind
hospitality. In the Czech Republic of 10.3 million persons,
the religions are Roman Catholic (39%), Protestant, Jewish and
others (21%) and non-believers (40%).
In 1920
the Methodist Episcopal Church, |
South,
sent a missionary from Texas to Prague where he established a tent
ministry similar to his work among Czech farm workers in
Texas. His first sermon was "Czech nation, return to
Christ". The ministry traveled to other cities and
congregations began in several locations and grew rapidly.
One of the first buildings purchased was the current facility at
Jecna 19 in Prague. Soon more Pastors were sent and
congregations formed in other cities. Fifty churches had
been planted by 1927. Unfortunately, there were a series of
crises; the great depression, WWII and German occupation and the
beginning of forty years of oppression under communism, which
reversed the positive trend. Only after the fall of
Communism in 1989 did this trend begin to reverse. The
government has returned some of the buildings taken after 1949 but
not all. For this they give them an annual lump sum of
money, $130,000, not nearly enough to make up for what was taken.
There
are 17 churches, 3 mission site
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congregations
and nine emerging congregations. (Rev. Josef Cervenak, who also
serves as Pastor for the Praha 2 - Nove Mesta church.) Pastor's
salaries are only about 60 of worker's pay. The workload is
very heavy for the Superintendent, Pastors and leaders in the
church.
There
are currently only three student in Theological Seminary.
Thus, there is a program to educate and train lay persons
on-the-job to become pastors, in a "correspondence"
seminary type program. Superintendent Cervenak's goals are
evangelization, education and social outreach.
60% of
the 1930 members are new people with no Christian roots in their
families. Thirteen churches have or are starting Disciple
Bible Study, Wesley home meetings are very important.
Courses both in Seminary and correspondence courses for Lay
minister prospects are very important as some of the pastors are
soon to retire. Their Hymnals were printed in 1956.
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