Back

September 18, 2024

Word Formed

Have you ever felt frustrated in your growth as a Christian? Have you ever had the feeling that “I am not satisfied with who I am and should be further in my journey as a Christian growing in my faith?” I definitely have had and sometimes still have those thoughts and feelings. I think they could come from a perfectionist mindset. We could do well by relaxing and understanding that it is okay to be where we are at in our journey, and, instead of comparing ourselves to others or to who we could become, we could compare ourselves to who we were in the past and praise God for how far we have come! Thoughts of dissatisfaction could also come from a heart that is eager to grow and know God more. This is a good desire. In John 14:26, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit an “advocate” and a “teacher”—he wants us to grow and be formed back into his image. The thing is, we are all being formed by something, but, we have the free will to decide what we allow to form us.

Growing up in a Christian family and at summer camps, I always heard of how important it is to read the Bible. Honestly, I found it pretty hard to enjoy my quiet time. I felt a lot of pressure reading the Bible and praying. I thought I would not be a good disciple if I had missed one day in my reading plan. At other times, I did not read my Bible at all, and I felt helpless and stuck in my emotions. It changed over time when I started studying with ForMission College. We talked a lot about God’s omnipresence and how he, too, is on mission in this world. That means God is everywhere—even if I do not feel him—and that it is God’s desire to have a relationship with people. This took a lot of the burden off of my shoulders. It also helped me to remind myself when opening the Bible: this is not the time to improve myself but to spend time with my Lord who is forming me.

This year at Josiah Venture’s Fall Conference, our annual equipping conference for youth leaders across Europe, we will talk about what it looks like to be Word Formed. Attendees will be invited on a journey on the pathway of formation, with the Word as our North Star. We will hear how God forms his people in the Bible and through the Bible, and the impact this has for our daily lives and our ministries. We will also hear about formation from the perspective of social science, learning some practical tools to participate with God in our own growth.

I recently got married, and I was reminded very quickly that knowing someone is nearly not enough to have a relationship with that person. Depth of relationship also requires time for listening to each other, hearing their words, and trying to understand that person. Similarly, knowing that God is there can give us a sense of security and hope, but only by engaging with his Word and trying to understand him will we be led into a deeper relationship with Him. This is a process that will take longer than the 10 seconds of attention span I have from watching reels on Instagram.

In Isiah 55:10-11 we read: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” This passage encourages me that the Word of the Lord will fulfill its purpose in me, has transformed me, and will continue to form me in his ways—not only for me to barely survive, but for me to flourish and to live life in abundance. It also speaks directly into the needs and wants of Gen Z. The American psychologist Jean Twenge says that Gen Z is more pessimistic than the Millennial Generation, so they need to hear this as encouragement. But, at the same time they are “waiting to be inspired” to then go on and be a force of change. Imagine a young generation, inspired and formed by the Word of God, ready and active to reach their communities with the gospel of hope. What a great future they are heading into!

Fall Conference is a great opportunity for youth leaders and leaders of youth leaders to be inspired and equipped to face the challenges of ministry in a fresh way. But, my prayer is that we don’t only approach this as a time to learn, rather as an opportunity to go deeper into our relationship with God through spending time in his Word and being formed by him.

How have you been formed by the Word and what is your hope for the next generation of leaders in Europe?

Kilian Spieß International Team

Related Posts

Read Story

Evangelism, Events, Help Ukraine

Dare

Who holds the future? As Josiah Venture works with local churches to help them reach the next generation, one very effective tool we offer is a program called Fusion. Teenagers love music and the arts, yet schools in our region don’t generally offer choir, drama, band, or other programs you may have participated in when you were young. This creates an opportunity for the church to gather unbelieving young people together into a Fusion community, which is a contemporary rock/gospel choir. In the context of weekly meetings, teens are shepherded toward faith in God, but we also found that large gatherings can strengthen the local outreach. So last month, 20 Fusion choirs from 10 countries joined for a unique festival called Fusiondary, where the choirs perform for each other, grow in their skills, and are challenged with the gospel. Out of the 500 participants, at least half were unbelievers. Several months before the festival, students filled out a survey about their needs and interests. Normally, classic teen issues like relationships and identity come to the top, but this time, the number one concern was the future. Surrounded by uncertainty, this “anxious generation” is fearful as they look ahead. In response to this, our team chose the theme— “Dare.” “Dare to take a step of faith and trust in Jesus.” “Dare to believe there is a God who holds the future.” One of our newest Fusions is in the city of Lviv, Ukraine, a country still in the grip of relentless war with neighboring Russia. For many of the students, traveling to the Czech Republic for Fusiondary was their first time out of the war-torn country. Yura, a 16-year-old, joined Fusion because of his love for music, and became their key drummer. Although he had heard the gospel many times, he was hesitant to give his life to Christ. On Saturday evening, Jenny used an unusual passage for her talk—the story of the nation of Israel dying from poison and needing to look to a snake on a stick to be healed. “Jesus was lifted up in the same way,” Jenny shared, “and we need to ‘dare’ to look to him in faith for healing that we can find nowhere else.” After the message, Timothy, one of the Ukrainian leaders, found Yuri and asked if he wanted to talk. “Why don’t we come to Jesus right now?” he said. “You know he is real, and then you can have a life with God.” Yuri shared that he wanted to wait, but then said, “What if I don’t live until the next camp? Life is not forever. You don’t know what life brings, and you don’t know when your life ends.” That night, Yuri “dared” to put his trust in Jesus. The next Sunday, he was giving testimony to his faith at his local church in Lviv. Many others made the same step of faith and discovered that, “Even if everyone leaves me, God loves me like I am and will never leave.” Thank you for “daring” with us to give this next generation hope for the future. Dave Patty President, Josiah Venture
Read Story

Evangelism, Events

Fusiondary: Beyond the Stage

Imagine—you’re fifteen years old, clutching a sweat-drenched guitar pick. You’re about to play on a big stage in front of around 500 people. As you stand with your band and choir mates in the darkened stage wing, you feel both dreadfully nervous and excited. You know your performance won’t be perfect—you’ve only been playing guitar for a year—but you’re not alone. As you walk out onto the stage, the lights blind you, and the crowd erupts in cheers. The drummer shakily counts off the first song, and although it takes a second for the band to find its bearing, the whole audience loudly claps and sings along. A rush of adrenaline courses through you, and you allow yourself to rock out, losing yourself in the moment, the music, the energy. Welcome to FUSIONDARY, a music-packed international festival for Fusion choirs and bands from 9 countries across Europe. For many teenagers, the key experience will be when they get to perform with their Fusion group on a large stage in front of hundreds of people, and they are not just any people. They are the world’s most encouraging audience, because they know what it’s like to be nervous—to be performing as an amateur. And they know all the songs. But Fusiondary is much more than concerts. It’s a chance for teenagers to meet new people, get inspired, and learn new things. For some of them, for example our dear group of Ukrainians, it’s a chance to get away from painful circumstances and take a breath of fresh (albeit sometimes rank?) air, to lift their eyes and see the bigger picture of what they get to be a part of through Fusion. For many, it’s an opportunity to hear the Gospel in a new and powerful way, through talks given by speakers who have poured their hearts into preparation and who love these teenagers deeply. We’re praying that many teenagers will have a personal encounter with Jesus through the talks, seminars, labyrinth, worship, meeting with the Support Team, and talking with their local leaders. Somehow music provides a base (bass?) through which God works. Music can seep through those cracks and crannies of our hearts in a profound and mysterious way. Would you take a moment and read these lyrics from one of our Fusiondary songs? And would you pray for deep and beautiful encounters with God’s love for each teenager, as well as each leader that is standing faithfully behind them? If you could only let your guard down If you could learn to trust me somehow I swear that I won’t let you go (Fusiondary will take place in Vsetin, Czech Republic, from April 24th-26th, 2026)
Read Story

Discipleship, Events, Help Ukraine

Dawn Is Coming. All Is Well; I Will Rejoice.

It’s 2:51 am on March 7th when I wake to the sound of an air-raid siren via the “Air Alert!” app on my phone. For these last four-plus years serving in Ukraine, this is far from unusual, except that this time, it’s during the final night of our Josiah Venture Ukraine team’s 3-day Springfest event. The 530 participants—most of them teenagers—are under our watch and care. Since rebooting this annual fest in 2023, a year after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, there hadn’t been a single siren during the event itself. This year was different. When a siren sounds in Ukraine, it does not necessarily mean that danger is imminent. With modern technology, we can check our phones to understand the threat to which the siren warns. As I begin to scan my screen, I remind myself that our team had picked a facility for Springfest deep in the Carpathian mountains, so surely there is no reason for concern. I read that cruise missiles and attack drones are heading southwest towards a city with a name I don’t recognize. I copy it into Google Maps and quickly realize that this city is in the same region, or county, in which our event is being held. I hold my breath as I tap the “directions” button and feel a tinge of relief in my gut when I realize the city is over 200km (±125 miles) to the east. But what if the missiles aren’t targeting that city? What if they and the drones keep heading west? This is but a small taste of the thoughts and emotions that flooded my heart and head during the 1 hour and 21 minutes of tracking this particular attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the middle of the night. Russia attacks Ukraine every single day without exception. Of course, the scale varies. But not a night goes by without a siren sounding somewhere in the country. By the grace of God, there were no casualties from this specific attack in the region we were in, and the threat did not escalate to the point of needing to wake Springfest attendees to seek shelter. Our team was sleep-deprived, but as darkness turned to dawn, we could turn our attention back to the heart of our event. Our JV Ukraine team started Springfest in 2011 (back then, it was Winterfest!) to provide a touch point for churches between summer camps. The event has grown from a few dozen attendees to 530 this year, in partnership with 32 Ukrainian churches from all across the country. The current mission of Springfest is to provide a platform for Ukrainian youth leaders to build deeper relationships with their young people, both believers and non-believers. Amidst all the fun of meeting new people, playing sports or board games, creating through crafts, learning in master classes, having a blast at a themed night-party, or just hanging out with friends, we work to provide a safe environment for non-Christians to hear the gospel from the stage and have open discussion with their peers and leaders during small groups. We pray that Springfest is a spark for non-believers to have gospel conversations with their leaders that lead to repentance and belief in Jesus, while also providing a space for believers to grow in their relationship with Christ. One of the best parts of Springfest is getting messages from leaders in the days following the event and hearing stories of how God moved in the hearts of young people. For example, a leader named Anton, who, along with 3 other leaders, brought 16 non-believing teenagers with him to the event, said that Springfest was “the last hammer hit” for one of his guys to repent and follow Jesus. Another leader, Yevhen, said he was up till 3 am one night with his small group of guys, having deep conversations about questions they had about Christianity. “All such meetings gradually bring a young person closer to God,” Yevhen told us. “This festival, in my opinion, raised everyone to a new level of relationship with God.” Pray with us that these types of gospel conversations and professions of faith continue in the coming weeks! Stories of God moving in the hearts of youth and using faithful leaders to embody his Kingdom on earth always encourage us and provide endurance amidst the challenges that the war brings to daily life and ministry. I wouldn’t wish on anyone the task of creating contingency plans for cruise missiles while organizing an event where young people can simply be. It’s a place where they can step away from the terrible normal numbness of getting used to living in war and receive the love of God through his loving church. As we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus remains our morning star in the darkest nights. We will continue to look to him in all things, as we, with grateful hearts, have the privilege of partnering with him and his movement in Ukraine. To him be the glory forever! Amen.