Pastor Joakim Lundquist joins us to recount his remarkable journey in ministry. His narrative is a testament to personal change and the influence one can wield when leading with conviction and purpose.
Pastor Joakim's church, Word of Life, has left a global footprint with over 900 churches, and at the epicenter is their Bible school, molding future leaders and expanding the gospel's reach. This episode peels back the curtain on the strategic approach that's been pivotal in their growth, from embedding their church's ethos into their young congregants to adapting their outreach to various cultural landscapes.
We hope this episode sheds light on the enduring legacy of a movement that's as much about community as it is about faith. Join us for an enlightening look at the intersection of faith, leadership, and innovation.
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00:06 Swedish Church and Pastor's Journey
07:32 Global Church Planting and Missionary Strategy
18:30 Impact of Secularism on Christianity
23:53 Love Overcomes Fear in Sweden
35:36 Global Church Tech Advancements and Challenges
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For more information on Pastor Joakim Lundqvist, visit PastorJoakim.com
For more information on Word of Life Church, visit Livetsord.se
For more information on Tithely, visit Tithely.com
--
LIKE and SHARE for more resources on how to grow your church with Modern Church LEADER.
FOLLOW and SUBSCRIBE to stay up to day with our lasted episodes from Modern Church Leader.
Pastor Joakim Lundquist joins us to recount his remarkable journey in ministry. His narrative is a testament to personal change and the influence one can wield when leading with conviction and purpose.
Pastor Joakim's church, Word of Life, has left a global footprint with over 900 churches, and at the epicenter is their Bible school, molding future leaders and expanding the gospel's reach. This episode peels back the curtain on the strategic approach that's been pivotal in their growth, from embedding their church's ethos into their young congregants to adapting their outreach to various cultural landscapes.
We hope this episode sheds light on the enduring legacy of a movement that's as much about community as it is about faith. Join us for an enlightening look at the intersection of faith, leadership, and innovation.
--
00:06 Swedish Church and Pastor's Journey
07:32 Global Church Planting and Missionary Strategy
18:30 Impact of Secularism on Christianity
23:53 Love Overcomes Fear in Sweden
35:36 Global Church Tech Advancements and Challenges
--
For more information on Pastor Joakim Lundqvist, visit PastorJoakim.com
For more information on Word of Life Church, visit Livetsord.se
For more information on Tithely, visit Tithely.com
--
LIKE and SHARE for more resources on how to grow your church with Modern Church LEADER.
FOLLOW and SUBSCRIBE to stay up to day with our lasted episodes from Modern Church Leader.
All right, hey guys. Frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader. I am with my new good friend from Sweden. I thought you were going to be in America, but you're actually in Sweden.
Speaker 1:I'm actually in Sweden, correct? Yes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, pastor Joakim, I'm not going to say your last name because I'll probably butcher it, but say it for us so that we get it right.
Speaker 1:Oh well, first of all, you did really well with the first name.
Speaker 2:I got the first one down.
Speaker 1:A lot of people can't even handle that. So I always tell people, if you want to have that kind of original pronunciation, imagine a rapper greeting the North Korean dictator like yo Kim Yo Kim. That's it pretty. Or you can just say you're welcome, I'll. I'll accept that.
Speaker 2:No you're very gracious, yes, on all of us like americans that are like blowing it completely no, no, you're doing good.
Speaker 1:Complicated first and last thing, so last thing is lundquist, lundquist okay, very cool, not too bad.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, trying, uh, trying, man, it's been a blast, like we're just getting to know each other. It was fun chatting, kind of before we hit record. But you are the pastor and ambassador over a church that is what, 900 plus in Sweden and all over the place growing, and you're telling me some cool stories. So I would love to hear, maybe you can just give our audience a little bit about you. You know kind of your background and your kind of coming to faith and kind of becoming a pastor in that journey, and then we can get into Word of Life and how everything's going there.
Speaker 1:Sure. Thanks so much, frank, for having me. I'm really honored to be here with you. Yeah, many people don't know Sweden a lot, but Sweden is in the northern part of Europe and it's actually the second most secularized nation in the world. So only Japan has drifted further away from the faith and the values that it was built upon once in a while. Now, if you guys come to Sweden and you're invited, just don't come in the winter because you would die. But if you come any other time of year, you might well see or take a look at Sweden like the exterior of my nation and think this is the most Christian nation I've ever seen, because there are churches everywhere. Literally everywhere, like right outside my window now, there's a church from the 12th century. However, all these churches are 12th century, 13th century, 14th century, 15th century. But what's happened in the past few decades is that Sweden has completely gone astray spiritually and has left Christianity behind. It's an extremely secularized and socialistic nation as of now.
Speaker 2:But you know, I know what Paul is like. What do you think is in that?
Speaker 1:Because, yeah, sure, even like from the 1915, 1917, there's been a strong socialistic mindset and the Socialistic Party has been ruling Sweden for most of the time in the past 100 years. And you know, socialism has got some good elements in it, otherwise people obviously would not be voting for it. But there's so much negativity regarding faith and God so there's been an agenda going on for decades to simply deleting God from society and sadly, as of now, we're reaping the consequences of that. So I was raised in the Lutheran Church, which is the state church of Sweden. It's a very liturgical church, very, you know, church organ, hymnals and so on. And sadly it's not much of a church, since many priests nowadays in the Lutheran church are not Christians. They don't believe in God. It's more like an institution, like a cultural institution.
Speaker 1:Right, and, needless to say, growing up in that, I didn't find anything that attracted me. And, needless to say, growing up in that I didn't find anything that attracted me. So I rebelled against the God that I thought I knew or I had gotten an impression of. And I ran the opposite way, started to depart, started to partying, doing drugs, drinking. But then, just a few years into my teenage ones, a friend brought me to a youth revival.
Speaker 1:He actually lied to me and told me we were going to a party the party yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, define party, but I'll never forget that night, frank, I came into this room and there was worship and I've never seen that, I've never experienced that. There was like a hundred kids, which to me was a crowd, and a guy came up and started speaking like preaching. It made sense to me for the first time in my life, but, more than anything, there was a presence of God and I've never felt that before in that way. So here I am, 17 years old, crying my heart out, getting conviction, knowing that I need Jesus. And there was an altar call that night and I ran to the front and I accepted Jesus.
Speaker 1:And you know, for some it's like a process that you grow into, but for me it was a one-night revolution. I went back home, I led like 35 of my friends to Christ in the first year and then I just realized that, since I'm the old and mature one here, because I was the first to accept Christ, I better start to take responsibility, start reading the Bible like crazy, so I had anything to tell them and teach them, right, right when Friday night came, and so on. And that was really my first baby steps and, by the grace of God, that was about 40 years ago now no way, 40 years ago, come on.
Speaker 1:You're not that old, no way. Yes, man, I'm super old.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so good. So from there, okay, you know, 40 years ago, 17, did you become a pastor? Did you kind of like, now I want to go into full-time ministry and that's what it is for me? Or did you have like a journey you know, started working and one day, you know, god calls you into being a pastor later on?
Speaker 1:Well, frank, when people ask me when did I receive my calling, I normally say never, because I've never had a moment where I felt God say to me, you're supposed to be a pastor and you know here in Sweden that mindset was not really available, since all the churches here was the Lutheran churches and you were a priest, that we had nothing back then. No church is like like America, has tens of thousands of. I didn't have that. I didn't understand what it was to be a pastor. I just realized I have this crowd of young people and I better take some kind of responsibility. So initially I just called myself a leader and then I found out this is called to be a pastor. So I started a church I was 18. Okay, a pastor. So I started a church I was 18. Not recommended, but by the grace of God it worked out.
Speaker 2:It worked out. So I mean, yeah, maybe you didn't have this thinking around like I want to go into full-time ministry or become a pastor or whatever, but you kind of from 17 to 18, just kept going. It snowballed into. You know you're leading a bunch of your friends and young folks and all of a sudden there's a church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I always think to myself that we always want to see the guidance of God, the leading of God, through the windscreen, like we want to see it forward, but we always tend to see it in the rearview mirror, don't we? We kind of look back at what has happened and we understand, ah, that's why and this is why and and kind of the pieces come together, but but not like five years from now, in the future, but rather kind of as we move ahead step by step with the lord. That's my experience, I, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I, a hundred percent. I mean looking back for me personally, right, you know, you see, like, okay, I, I can see maybe not perfect, you know, I probably don't see everything, but like you can kind of see the the path and go like, okay, I can see how God worked through the last 20 years and and kind of watch it, you know, but, knowing what the future holds, you know who knows we're, we're doing our best to follow his leading along the way. What's your so okay, so that's 18. Now fast forward. You know, talk to us about word of life church. I mean, it's pretty amazing, like 900 churches or more. You know 900 plus, and you know how? Yeah, I don't know. Tell us about Word of Life and how do you lead 900 churches? That's crazy.
Speaker 1:It is crazy. It is crazy. And again, you know, where sin abounded, grace would abound. Who would have thought that from this secular, socialistic nation in the north of Europe, this movement would just start and to to uh, kind of be birthed by the lord and and we have to pinch ourselves constantly because this is organic growth, right, uh, we've hardly start one single church like strategically and with purpose to, hey, now let's plant this church in that region or in that country. We, we've just seen it take place.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not against strategy or anything like that, it's just been another route for us. Whenever we had an opening, we saw an opportunity, primarily in nations that were struggling a whole lot, and we just thought, okay, we want to help and the best thing we could do is share the gospel. Okay, we want to help and the best thing we could do is share the gospel, and then, of course, also help with food and healthcare and social structures in nations such as Afghanistan, iraq, syria, north Korea, uzbekistan, tajikistan, india, china. Whenever there's a complex nation around, there's got to be a Word of Life church in it. That's our ambition. But it's been a rollercoaster ride of just God working really and us being lucky enough to watching him work from the balcony and cheering on whatever he's doing, but it's been amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our churches are all east of you. We have no churches in North or South America, so they're all in Europe, southeast Asia, Central Asia, russia, ukraine, india, china, vietnam, kind of yeah, that block, 13 times always. Yeah, yeah, I mean that block 13 time zones?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean that's incredible. Is it all like local leadership and people raise up in that particular area and you guys are somehow connected to it? Are you sending people out different ways? I know you said it wasn't totally like planned out, but how is it? How is it like happening? You know what I mean. Like in a new country or a new place. Like how does a word of life church show up?
Speaker 1:Well, one of the first things we did as a church was we started a Bible school. It's a one year concept of giving young people a firm foundation in the word of God and an experience of the presence of God, the Holy spirit. So what we do is that we encourage young people to, straight after high school, take a gap year before uni and take that full year Bible school. And this is not ministry related. This is not just for the ones who feel a calling to go into full-time ministry. Our approach is whatever you're going to do in life, whatever your dreams and ambitions are, take this first initial year for God, get a good foundation and then go on to be a teacher or a writer or a journalist or a politician or whatever. By the grace of God, we have now graduated about 12,000 teenagers and young people in.
Speaker 1:Sweden and we have 14 other Bible schools in other geographical areas. Now, all in all, we've graduated about 55,000 young people from this one year.
Speaker 1:Bible school concept and I tell you, everything about the growth of the Word of Life has come out of that Bible school. You would have Bible schools in India, in Moscow, in Russia, and we have had it in Syria, in Iraq, in all these different countries. And there's some that will just kind of go through the Bible school and then move on to do whatever God has called them to do. But in every group, in every graduating class, there will be young people with a stirred heart for missions, for ministry, for church, and all of our churches have been started through them. So basically, throughout that year of teaching but also fellowship and encountering the presence of God, there's been so many callings that are stirred in young hearts and, as of now, I would never put a leader in charge of anything in word of life that has not been through that Bible school. Right, right, because that Bible school reflects our DNA, uh, and reflects everything we feel that God has spoken to us about.
Speaker 2:When did you start the Bible school, like, how long has it been running?
Speaker 1:Oh, it was back in 1984.
Speaker 2:Okay, was back in 1984, okay, so it's been going and going and going and building and building and you said you have like uh, 14, 15 of those, yeah, 15 all in all this year. Yes, that you've done, yeah, that is incredible. Um, and does that feed in to the kind of missions? Like it sounds like kind of missions. Planting is a is a big deal. Do you send out kind of missionaries into different areas that are operating in like the missionary sense? Or is it like planting churches when they go out from the Bible school? Like what's the loosely planned model of how you guys are doing?
Speaker 1:No, that's spot on, frank. Missions is such a great part of this Bible school, so it's not just the theory and Bible teaching. Throughout that year the students are going out on mission trips several times, and they're going out in our mission field, so to speak. So they will visit Word of Life in other nations. So, even if they don't know the people they're going to visit, it's the same heart, the same spirit, the same basic layout Now for us.
Speaker 1:I understand fully and I respect that some church planting organizations or churches will kind of try to replicate themselves so that the campuses all look pretty much the same. Right, and I fully understand that. We could never do that, though, because if we were, were trying to plant a Swedish-style church in India, that would just be weird. We're covering so many cultures and so many different nations and heritages, so instead we have a core set of values, a core set of visions, vision statements, faith statements and culture statements, and then it's all relational. So the worship in a World of Life Church in India and China would be completely different from the one in Sweden, for example, but still you feel the family vibe.
Speaker 2:So it's a great thing to see DNA. There's kind of a cultural similarity amongst all of you, I would assume, even though you might be in China or in Russia or wherever. So it's different. Is it local? Do you find that it ends up being like local leaders planting in those places?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We send out missionaries from Sweden, we send out missionaries from other nations where the World of Black Movement is strong and we send them out to new nations to help. However, we never allow missionaries to stay beyond five years. That's the maximum. So when you go, you're aware that I got five years now to raise up a local leadership, because we want the indian world of life churches to be run by indian pastors yeah, chinese churches to be run by chinese pastors yeah, we will use missionaries to go in for like five years and then come out again.
Speaker 1:Got it, and the great benefit has been also with that is that, you know, let's say that we send a young couple as missionaries to Afghanistan. They're going to be in there, they're going to learn everything there is to know about pioneer missions in rough circumstances, right. Then they're going to come back after five years and all of a sudden, maybe we need someone in Iraq or in North Korea. You know, we have the perfect couple here. They can go and they can use their expertise elsewhere, rather than going and staying in the country for like 10, 15, 20 years, right, right.
Speaker 2:So again I understand and respect that there's different ways of doing this, but yeah, this has been a great model for us, for sure how is it, um, you talked about sweden specifically and just kind of like secularization and all of that, yet word of life sounds like it's. You know god is doing something great. You guys are growing, you're, you've got the bible schools and you're planting churches and, um, I would assume there's a good hub in in sweden that you know is flourishing. So, yeah, talk to me a little bit about just like swedish culture and how, um, you're seeing the church thrive.
Speaker 1:Uh, in in that like it just seems like it's it's going against kind of gravity yeah, I've had a lot of interesting conversations with with us colleagues about this, yeah, and I hope this could be kind of inspiring because I I hear obviously many voices being raised concerned by the state of the us and the direction, spiritually, of what's going on in the States, and I would say maybe, probably, sweden is like 10 years ahead of that development and I understand the concern. I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm about to say now, because I do believe that we should pray for godly leadership, we should pray for godly laws, we should be concerned about a growing secularism. However, having said that, secularism also opens up a few new doors of opportunity, conceived ideas about Christianity, because people don't have an idea about Christianity. We don't have a problem with people with negative experiences of Christianity because people don't have an experience of Christianity.
Speaker 2:Really Like it went that far, it went from back.
Speaker 1:you know the old churches that you said People have no idea about who Jesus is Wow. The average Swede has not rejected the gospel. That is not the problem. The average Swede has never heard the gospel, right, especially when we speak about young people. Right, they have absolutely no idea. And again, I'm not saying that's ideal, I can't even imagine that.
Speaker 2:Like, that's such an interesting thing, like, yeah, I know America has changed over time, but even you know I'm 45. So, like, growing up it's like you don't not hear the gospel like you do. You know what I'm saying. Even if it's maybe not like front and center, you're going to know about church, you're going gonna know. Somewhere along the lines that's gonna hit you. Yeah, but out there I mean like you would gone.
Speaker 1:It doesn't even and you say america's changed a lot, and I believe that, but still, when I go to shop groceries, they still play worship music in my grocery store and every time I come in there in the us, I I like what is happening, what's going on right now, because it's so far away, I guess that whoever would run for president or governor or senator in the US, he would be likely to claim that he has a faith in God and Jesus in order for him to get elected. Here it's the other way around. If you claim to be a Christian, you're not going to be promoted, you're going to be bullied, you're going to pay a price for it, and all that is negative in itself. However, it also adds strength to the conviction Right To your decision.
Speaker 1:If somebody steps out and say I am a Christian, I believe in Jesus, I believe in the conviction, right To your decision. If somebody steps out and says I am a Christian, I believe in Jesus, I believe in the Bible, that's a statement that will cause them some pain, right.
Speaker 1:But that's not necessarily negative, because a lot of Christians seem to lack the fire of God, and maybe that's why there's no sacrifice on the altar Right the fire of God, and maybe that's why there's no sacrifice on the altar. I'm not saying that sacrifice or pressure, or atheism or secularism are good things in itself, but I do say that the church of God has got in itself the capacity to flourish in any circumstance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and there's always a cost to count. We know that right. Like it just might be a little harder to spot in some places and in other places it's very obvious, like what the what the cost is, cause it's kind of in your face. Yeah, yeah, very cool. So tell me about. We were talking before the show about just the refugee situation that is more recent and just you know what God's doing through that. You know borders and refugees and there's a lot of stuff that you know even over here. But I'd love to hear you know your recent experience around. You know what God's done in that circumstance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, speaking of problems that can turn into possibilities. About five, six years ago, europe, my continent, was faced with a huge humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of refugees came out of the Middle East. These were the days of the ISIS and a horrible situation in the Middle East. So that led families to get in inflatable boats out in the Mediterranean Sea that is what separates Europe from Africa and just head out into nowhere, you know, just in an inflatable boat. And again, what level of panic would make a man bring his wife and six kids into an inflatable boat and go out into the ocean? And they were heading for Athens, greece, which is like a southern tip of Europe, and Europe was taken off guard by this. All of a sudden it was all over the news and in Sweden we immediately realized what would happen. A sudden it was all over the news and in sweden we immediately realized what would happen. If these refugees came to athens, greece, they would start to walk from the south of europe up to sweden, which at the time had very liberal immigration laws. So sweden was their best shot to kind of get into sweden and hopefully get to stay right now to to put this in a US perspective, walking that amount of miles would be equal to walking from Dallas, texas to Miami, florida by foot, carrying your babies, bringing your small children, yeah, and we realized within weeks they would be here. Tens of thousands would flood into our nation.
Speaker 1:Sweden is a small place, only 10 million, and Sweden panicked. Everybody freaked out and even Christian leaders spoke out saying, oh, the Muslims are going to come and take us. And there was such a level of panic rising going to come and take us. And there was such a level of panic rising. And at that point I remember I took my pastors aside and we just spent one day in prayer together asking God, how do we position ourselves? What was interesting was that we had had a word from the Lord, like a prophetic word, three months earlier saying there will be a new wave of missions. And we have spoken that word to the church, yeah, and every one of us thought we're going into a new nation somewhere. You know we are the wave right, that's going to go into a new nation.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden we realize this wave is coming our way, this is a way of coming our direction, and I remember god spoke to us at that day of prayer and asking I? I remember he asked me in my heart. He said, joachim, because he couldn't pronounce my name Well, do you want to build a church of faith or a church of fear? And I said, lord, I want to build a church of faith. And then he said well, faith sees the possibility inside the problem and faith sees the opportunity inside the obstacle.
Speaker 1:So we realized okay, even though we're not, we don't appreciate the liberal immigration laws, we don't think it's good for our nation, these are our laws, these people are coming regardless, which basically leaves us with two options Either we could distance ourselves from the situation and complain about it on Facebook, or we could choose to believe that somewhere inside this humanitarian crisis there might be a seed of revival. Yeah, so we set up a Welcome to Europe station down in Athens, greece, and for months and months, we just went for it, you just went for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're just like. We got the welcome committee coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, welcome committee.
Speaker 2:at church we're doing the welcome committee to our country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're stepping straight into the situation. We flew down for months and months every single week a new team of young people that would man or word of life welcome to Europe station down in Athens in Greece and receive the refugees that came in. And then we had churches on the route from Greece and the South to Sweden and North. So we kind of coordinated them so that the refugees could walk from the South to the North and then finally, when they arrived in Sweden, we put a big, huge banner on our church saying Refugees Welcome. And we started providing health care and food and, more than anything, we told them that God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And I remember the first time we threw a Welcome to Sweden party in our church and we prayed for 100 Muslims to come. That was like our faith goal and we didn't get that. We got 571.
Speaker 1:That first night, 571 Muslims came to our church and we shared Jesus with them, not only the words of Jesus, but the love of Jesus. And they couldn't believe it. They said how can you do this? How can you love us? If it was you coming to us, we would not receive you like this Right, and time and time again, we told them that the symbol of our faith, the symbol of Christianity, is not this, but it's two arms stretched out to embrace whoever wants to come. And then, as we did, these Muslims started having visions and dreams about Jesus, and Jesus would just step into their flats, their apartments, their houses and introduce himself, and it was just the most incredible outpouring of the supernatural that I've ever seen in my life. And long story short, frank, in just like I think it was three years' time, we got to lead 900 Muslims to faith in Jesus Christ in our church alone.
Speaker 1:So I've got so many church members called Muhammad. Now I don't know what to do with them. It's just amazing. I got to know the last name.
Speaker 2:I got to know the to do with them. It's just amazing. I got to know the last name. I got to know the last name.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and inside this you know, we had to start a new Bible school, an ex-Muslim Bible school. We now graduated almost 500 students and we're now sending ex-Muslim Arabs back to the Middle East as missionaries to their own people. And to me it's just fascinating the way God can turn the situation around if we choose to focus on the possibility and not necessarily only the negative aspects and not necessarily only the negative aspects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it just shows you, man, when you show God's love to people in a situation where they don't expect it, it's such a stark contrast to what you guys did versus what they like, expected, and they're scared and they're I don't even. I don't even know what they're feeling. I just assume, right, you're just doing something crazy, um, but you feel like you've got to do it for your family and you're going somewhere else and it's new, and you've got nothing. You know, like I can't even imagine going through it. But then they feel welcomed and loved, and all because of what Jesus has done for you guys. Right, and you're extending that to them.
Speaker 1:And that whole perspective, actually, of family and love and what they've been through. I remember one story, one individual story from all these thousands of people. There were a family from Afghanistan father, mother and six children. They were living outside of Kabul, the capital of people. There were a family from Afghanistan father, mother and six children. They were living outside of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. One day there was a knock on their door and as the father opened, there was a Taliban warrior there and he demanded the father's 12-year-old daughter to become his wife. And the father tried to talk him out of it, saying she's just a child. You know, she's my only daughter, please don't do this. And the Taliban warrior said I'll be back tomorrow with my army and either I get your daughter as my wife or I'm going to kill we're going to kill your entire family and you.
Speaker 1:And that night, when the family went to bed, the father went into his office and he rolled out his prayer mat and he faced Mecca and he started to desperately call upon Allah for help. But while praying panicked prayer, he realized that he's been praying to Allah all his life but he's never had a reply. But then, in the back of his mind. He remembered that somebody once told him that there is a Christian God and that that Christian God is love. So all there, in the darkness of his room, in the middle of the night, he starts to call out oh Christian God, oh Christian God, if you can hear me, help me and save my daughter, please, please, please. And as he prayed that, all of a sudden the whole room started to light up with a bright light and there was a man standing right in front of him shining a bright, beautiful, warm light. And obviously we know who that man was. But Jesus did not introduce himself by name. He said this when you're hungry, I will give you food. But Jesus did not introduce himself by name. He said this when you're hungry, I will give you food. When you're naked, I will give you clothes. When you're hopeless, I will give you hope, and when you're in the darkness, I will give you light. Those four things. And then he told the man to wake up his family and flee to the south and that he would watch over this family. Long story short, they end up on one of the inflatable boats in the Mediterranean Sea and as they approach Athens, greece, the first thing they see on the shore of Athens is our Welcome to Europe team.
Speaker 1:Young people from World of Life, sweden, holding up four signs. And these signs said Sweden holding up four signs. And these signs said if you're hungry, we have food. If you're naked, we have clothes. If you're hopeless, we have hope. And if you're in the darkness, we have life.
Speaker 1:The exact four statements that Christ had introduced himself by a few weeks earlier in Afghanistan. And the father realized these young people are somehow connected to that man that appeared and the whole family came to the Lord. And that 12-year-old girl is 18 now and when I think about the life she would have had if Jesus hadn't intervened, but also Frank, I get the fear of God, because Jesus completely counted on us being there and I'm thinking what if we hadn't? What if we would have stayed in Sweden and said, no, this is a negative situation, we don't want to be involved. Jesus trusted us so much that he introduced himself according to the four signs that he hoped that we will hold up Right To reflect his love. That still gives me chills, the way he trusts in us and the way he trusts in us communicating his heart and his love.
Speaker 2:That's incredible and it's like I mean, stories like that make you emotional, right, because you're like, yeah, god saved this family, saved this girl from something like that would have just been terrible, right. And and then it shows you like I think god's still moving in the church and using the church all over the world, you know, to shine his light and love people and give people hope in a future and, you know, change the course of their lives. Like it's incredible.
Speaker 1:And the beautiful thing of being a little part, of that, being connected to him by his grace only, and even though all of our shortcomings, just to know that he counts on us. Yeah, and whatever small things we could do, we can accomplish something, as long as we're connected to him and his love and his and his um and his heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, yeah, that that's that's true encouragement right there, right, when you can see god working. Um, okay, like that's the good stuff. I also want to talk to you just about like we're a tech company. I love talking. You're, you're in, you're not even in the U? S, you're like you're. I mean, I know you're back and forth in the U? S, but you're out in a different part of the world and church. You know it's kind of different depending on where you're at right. It's all the same same message, but how it goes down can be different. So I'd love to just hear, like how you've seen technology kind of grow or like the use of technology. And you know we got post COVID and COVID was this big deal and all that kind of stuff. But you know how is tech being used in the church out there and what are you seeing kind of God do with technology in you know, 2024?
Speaker 1:Well, frank, first of all, I guess I should be the one to listen to you guys, because what you're doing is amazing and we still have so much to learn. We've been historically, even in modern times, we've been struggling quite a lot with the fact that our churches are in nations that that are are so different in regards to their technological advancement, like we have churches in china and, and with them we just can't do what we're doing now, like even doing a Zoom, because it's going to be monitored every single word, so we have to invent a code language so the reports from China will come back to us saying well, we had 85 people being introduced to the boss this week, and the boss obviously means the Lord. All these things in North Korea, india, afghanistan. There is such a diversity when it comes to tech, also even time zones, the World of Life family spread out over 13 time zones, which always can be special. I thank God for all the development that we've had in the past years.
Speaker 1:I remember the first time we went into Russia to preach the gospel, when the wall came down and the Soviet Union dissolved and all of a sudden it became legal to preach the gospel. What we did back then was we bought 1,000 VCR players, video cassette players, and we sent them in all over former Soviet Union and then we started to record teaching on video cassette tapes and we just distributed these video cassette tapes because all of a sudden now we have 1,000 VCR players and it's going to be 50 people watching the same one and 100 people watching the same one. So really our 300 churches in Russia now are very much down to those 1,000 VCR players. That was like our first little tech step.
Speaker 2:That's like simulcast church, before simulcast existed.
Speaker 1:I think we're good. Can I claim that yeah?
Speaker 2:absolutely.
Speaker 1:But then we've seen other nations, obviously Vietnam, for example. Through tech and the whole opportunities that was brought about by Zoom and the opportunity to have Zoom meetings and go online with your services, they actually expanded during COVID. They had a 30% increase of church plans during COVID, wow. So you know, obviously the world and the body of Christ as a whole has taken a big hit through the pandemic, but also it's wonderful to see that there's some areas in the world where it's actually gone the opposite way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, using Zoom. I mean that sounds like a, you know, a no brainer, especially when it comes to like you guys are so distributed and all over and being able to communicate with people on Zoom. I mean, obviously you can use the phone and whatever, but like being able to communicate with people on zoom, I mean obviously you can use the phone and whatever, but like being able to like do leadership, training or fellowship or whatever, when you're talking like the church in sweden to the church in russia or something like that, like um, that's an incredible kind of advancement I mean that that's the, the very basic element that all everybody's using.
Speaker 1:but for us it's been a revolution because our reality used to be that all these pastors throughout the world, in all these weird countries, would come together, like once a year, for our main conference in Sweden in July and you know, our main conference is a full week simply because we need to do so much fellowship and so many meetings, because that's the only time we're going to meet each other face to face.
Speaker 1:Going from that reality of actually meeting once a year to see one another to having weekly meetings with all these groups of pastors doing leadership training, doing Bible school, even online, which is our main kind of, has been our main kind of thing from the very beginning, but still we're just kind of finding out as we move ahead and try to develop new tools for providing teaching. I mean the whole AI element of translation. We're looking into that because there are so many language groups, like even in my church in Sweden, frank, on a normal Sunday we will have simultaneous interpretation to eight languages.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, when we do our main conference in the summer, we're going to be up at about 15 to 18 languages In the summer we're going to be up at about 15 to 18 languages, so you'll have translators in the back on the mics and then people with headsets so they can hear it in their language Is that kind of how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, now they just need their smartphone, basically, and their own plugs and they can just tune into an app. But, yes, we do have a whole line of interpreters. We have more interpretation spaces than the main EU offices in Brussels. Wow, that's crazy. So, we have a great capacity for that and, obviously, with AI coming in and enabling us to record a teaching video and then have that person, that pastor, that teacher speak in all these different languages, there's going to be a huge potential.
Speaker 2:Have you started playing around with that? Or do you have people investigating that capability for you to preach a sermon in English or whatever language you preach it in, but then it be translated into 10 different languages and then sent out to the churches? Have you guys done any of that yet?
Speaker 1:No, we're just kind of looking into that opportunity now yeah. But it has got Word of Life written all over it. So you know that element, with all yeah, with all of our language groups and everything, it's going to be right up our alley for sure.
Speaker 2:Oh man, the day you guys do it, you got to email me and send it to me I will.
Speaker 1:I'm waiting for a follow-up podcast.
Speaker 2:I'll be happy to oh, that would be amazing because I I have heard of people exploring it. I've not seen anybody do it yet. It's probably been done, but, um, I haven't quite seen it yet. Uh, but in your guys's context, it it's like such a good fit, like such a perfect, you know, piece of, like a new piece of technology that gives you guys a capability that didn't exist before you know.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's gonna be pretty cool I actually, uh, saw it first time like a year ago. It was this is this organization in in austral. It was all about online evangelism and they invested some serious money into this presentation of the gospel basically a few minutes, and there's a narrator, a young girl, who is telling the story, and they actually showed me her speaking in. I think it was five or six languages parallel and it was not perfect, but it it was really really close to it. Yeah right, it's just going to be a matter of time.
Speaker 1:Until it's, it's absolutely perfect yeah, I can't wait to preach in farsi and arabic and hindi, and incredible yeah and yeah it.
Speaker 2:The matter of time is, like, probably this year, like it's going so fast, it's getting better so fast that like it's probably going to be perfect Like in 2024, when it comes to like you know, so that's pretty cool. Well, pastor, this has been awesome. I don't want to take too much more of your time, but thank you for coming on the show and just, you know, sharing your story, sharing about word of life and what you guys are doing and how God's uh, you know, sharing your story, sharing about Word of Life and what you guys are doing and how God's, you know, working through you guys, where can people go to connect with you and to just kind of see more about Word of Life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, please do. There's a website called Pastor Joakim, so my first name, j-o-a-k-i-mcom. And then for Word of Life, you can either google word of life sweden, because there's only one word of life in sweden, so please add sweden, otherwise I don't know what kind of church you're going to be checking out or you can use the swedish word for word of life, which is leave it sword l-i-v-e-t-s-o-r-d dot s-e. But I would say Google word of life Sweden for all of us and you and you will come to our, our English website, and there's all kinds of resources.
Speaker 1:There's more about our missions projects, more about our Bible school and and also come around whenever you're in Europe, don't forget to come up and visit us way up in the North. Elsa and Anna would love to say hi.
Speaker 2:I'm planning a trip to Sweden. This is going to be amazing. How about you on Instagram, any social media? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So again, my first name J-O-A-K-I-M and then L for Lundqvist, so Joakim. That's me on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Okay, amazing. Well, pastor, this has been great. Thank you for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. We'll get it out to the world and man appreciate everyone listening today. Definitely share this one on the socials, give it a like on YouTube, spread it around. Great episode and we'll catch you guys next week on another episode of Modern Church Leader. See ya.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me, Frank.