What a special time it was for everyone with Kristi Församling (the church of Christ) in Stockholm, Sweden. With glad hearts, on Saturday, November 18, 2006, the church came together and celebrated the 20th anniversary of the planting of their special congregation in Northern Europe.
In 1986, a small group of faith-filled believers, consisting of 8 Christians from the USA, several Christians from Finland, and few new believers in Sweden, officially started a church of Christ in Stockholm. I was blessed to be there in 1986, and was blessed to be back in 2006! I felt honored. And the Lord was highly honored.
Since that time, there have been hundreds of baptisms all around Scandinavia where there are now 6 churches???
On that festive Saturday night, there was a great feast! We enjoyed not only delicious food, but we also experienced ???the great banquet??? Jesus talked about. On the menu were joyful fellowship, heartfelt sharing by special guests, photo memories, laughter and a lot of music. The music was performed both by locals and 
Scandinavian guests. The Stockholm pre-teens singers, led by David Skynar and Christopher and Lovisa Lindfelt sang beautifully. Anders Holmgren, Pauline Hovenäs and Denmark???s Kresten Wolff performed special songs of gratitude and friendship. Camilla Nilsson and Rita Lavesson em-ceed as ???roliga tantor??? (funny old ladies) and kept us smiling. The whole night was well coordinated by Suzanne Carlsson and was a tremendous success.
Two sisters from Finland, Liisa Kaliokoski and Annikka Sketch shared a lot of detailed anecdotes about the 24 months of waiting they did for the church to be planted in Stockholm. For months, they faithfully held Sunday worship services together and invited visitors. They would gather around a cassette player to listen to services from Boston that often included baptisms afterwards. They took great care to dress up in honor of that special time for communion. They even put out a special table cloth for the cassette player to set on. The cassette player, for them, was the voice of God???s word for them to be taught by.
Chris Reed (Denver Colorado), Tim & Julie Huffman, (Houston, Texas) were honored to share as well. Sören Erkenborn and Erik Steinholz led the group in a song I had written for the planting ???Beröm era av hans Heliga Namn??? (Glory in His Holy Name).
see original It is based on text of I Chronicles 15:16 ??? 16:36, when David first had the ark brought into Jerusalem to be in a tent. I was honored to give a ???skriftlig uppmuntran??? (biblical encouragement) to all with reflections on how God has the Stockholm church to influence all of us and many others whom we have come to know over the years.
On Sunday, Tim Huffman did a moving communion, I led ???Unto Thee O Lord??? in Swedish, and Chris Reed preached an inspiring, but quick exposition of Ephesians. God helped all of us guests to quickly remember our Swedish vocabulary, grammar and colloquialisms so we could share our hearts effectively. Let me just share that I thought our elocution was ???charming!??? : )
All had a terrific, memory building time. We were greatly energized to renew our dedication to God???s will that all of Sweden and all of the world be won to Jesus Christ as long as it depends on us while we live on God???s earth. We are one body; one world-wide church of God; tied together in a global family. Everyone doing God???s will as a daughter or son of God is following the Son of God into eternity. So we shared about the past, talked about today and will always get ???back to the future??? - helping others be in heaven with us and all of God???s saints in Kristi Församling.
Your brother in Christ,
Jerry Maday
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