The Baptist Union of Latvia developed an effective model for church planting which makes their mission work more dynamic than it was before.
Latvia is populated by about 2,3 million people and is a part of the European Union. The confessional structure of this Baltic nation is mainly composed of Lutherans, Catholics, Orthodox and Baptists.
The Latvian Baptists trace their inception to the second half of the 19th century when a spiritual revival happened which was related to the missionary activities of Johann Gerhard Oncken (1800-84). The date of September 9, 1860, is viewed as the first beginning of the contemporary Latvian Baptist movement.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Latvian Baptists regained a long-desired freedom and reclaimed several historic buildings. One of them is in Riga where the Union Offices and the Baltic Pastoral Institute are located. There are 92 local Baptist churches in Latvia with a total membership of 6500.
Vision of Church Planting
The Baptist bishop Kaspars Sterns leads the Latvian Union and oversees the church planting in this Baltic country. He explains that the union’s strategy is to build a network of missional communities. The Baltic Pastoral Institute trains candidates for church planting through the popular “M4” scheme. The program consists of 4 teaching modules and the acronym stands for Master – Mission – Multiplication – Movement. It is based on personal mentoring and regular conferences for church planting teams. This initiative draws many talented people who discover their calling and get involved in ministry, which eventually results in building a spiritual movement.
Church planting in Ikskile
One of the church plants is located in Ikskile, a town which is inhabited by about 8 thousand people. The church planter Elmars leads this ministry and wrote in his report in 2022:
“We started to organize open-air services in the summer of 2021 at a garden of one Christian family. These services gathered around 30-40 participants. After some time we felt encouraged to start in-door services and managed to rent the culture house that is located in the town center.
We started with two services per month. The average attendance was 20-35 persons including some newcomers. In May we organized a festival, using inflatable attractions and bicycle cards. Around 100 people came and about 50 children, also many parents heard the gospel. We also established a Facebook page and printed out leaflets with the vision, core values and information about activities.”
Elmars wrote an update in 2023:
“The Ikskile core team participated in the M4 church planting conference where the participants learned together. An important conclusion was that church planting teams need to grow and support each member to develop God’s caring family. The core team regularly comes together to learn from the M4 material and discuss how to do missions effectively. The Mother church in Ogre supports our work in Ikskile with their personnel, prayers and finances. This summer the Ikskile team plans for 2 open-air evangelistic services and 2 other events for families. We have discovered that there are some lonely people in our town whom we invite and during our services we see new faces.”
lmars wrote again in 2024:
“Together with the mother church from Ogre, we organized an Alpha course. The Alpha Course gave us a stronger sense of unity as a team. Following that the graduates continue in the discipleship course “Life with God”.We meet as a core team once a month to study the Bible, pray together and plan our activities. We find Mike Breen’s book ‘Building a Discipleship Culture’ helpful as it elaborates on church planting principles. Usually, we gather at the pastor’s Elmars’ home whose whole family is involved in ministry.Pastor Elmars goes on mission trips to Ukraine and we collect finances and humanitarian aid to support people during war. We do it in cooperation with the mission organization ‘Global Baltic Initiative’ and our mother church in Ogre.”
It is a joy to witness and be a part of such a dynamic activity! The EBF has facilitated several church plants in Latvia, including the one being described.
Prayer requests
Pray for the newly planted congregation in Ikskile may continue growing and expanding;
Pray for the church planting vision in Latvia to be implemented successfully and positively influence the union;
Pray for more leaders who will be able to mentor church planters and build new church planting teams.
In Christ,
Daniel Trusiewicz
EBF Mission Coordinator
Planting new churches together! For the glory of God!
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