Welcome to Speak the Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church and

counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. I am back home in Texas.

Been on the road for a little while. However, our guests with us are, I don't know, maybe 9,000 miles away from us. I don't know, very far distance. But today I'm excited for this podcast. I know I say that on every podcast, but legitimately I'm excited about this podcast because we get to speak with a cohort for ABC who is working towards certification training.

I've got Ursula and Joe from Stockholm, Sweden. And I also have Emily Dempster. And so Emily, do you wanna steal Shauna's saying?

Yeah. Yo, yo, yo.

Yo, yo, yo. There it is. There it is. Guys, we're really excited. And basically, this episode is really to capture as we continue on in our missions mini series here as we wanna just focus on a lot of times biblical counseling is focused on more as a ministry alongside the church or a parachurch ministry that churches will refer people to.

However, biblical counseling is very missional. And so today is gonna highlight that particular piece as well as just what's happening in Joe and Ursula's context over there in Stockholm. And so with that, Ursula and Joe, how are doing?

We're doing Yeah.

Good to be here.

Good. Glad to have you guys here. Praise the Lord for technology that allows us to talk to, I don't know, I said 8,000 miles, so I'm committed to it. So 8,000 miles away. I don't know.

A long way.

Yes. Yes. The other side of the world as it were. So yes, we're excited about this. So Joe and Ursula, how did you guys even learn about ABC?

And maybe even before that, what's been your pathway as believers and then maybe your education, your context for ministry? So let's start there first, and then we'll jump into how you found ABC.

If I start out just by saying we're very much newcomers to ABC. And there's been a long path towards us, just even in biblical counseling. It goes back well over twenty years when we went course correction of life back to Bible school. I was in a missions program and one of my lecturers was biblical counseling. This is back in 1998.

Wow.

It was the one class that I said, if anything would I would want to continue schooling. It was biblical counseling. It was very, very much fastened. It was very impactful, but that was it. We didn't really have anything going on in our local church.

A couple years later, we had the opportunity to go into we had a week training in Lafayette, Indiana. That was 2003 before we went to Sweden. And that was very impacting again, where we, because we thought, wow, this is, we would love to see this happen. And, but what was also, we were also very convinced that this needed to be a part of a local church. And when we moved to Sweden in 2005, afterwards we were without a local church.

We were church planters and we would be without a church for the next twelve years. And so our biblical counseling basically was dormant in our lives because we really wanted to see biblical counseling come out of the local church. But without a local church, it was just a neutral. And in 2016, on a furlough, we we were in Indianapolis where ACBC had a an annual conference. We were really encouraged and met Anne Dreiberg there.

And that put it gave us a biblical counseling connection in Europe. And it was steps from that brought us into that. Maybe we could begin training as by that time, God also opened the door for us to be working in a local church. Or so what other steps led to this after that?

Yeah, that's a good summary. I think for us personally, the growth towards being more involved in biblical counseling personal for me. I went to Sweden as a missionary with my husband and we're here for church planting. In my personal life, I started just really struggling with some different things. Just things I didn't know what to do with.

Discouragement and things I think are pretty common to missionaries on the field and even some personal issues with other coworkers. And it was really through that that God started opening my eyes to biblical counseling is first for me as a missionary that I need to know how to counsel myself. And so this is a little bit about how we get on this path. Just because I think for the first time,

I think it

was around 2014, I had a little taste of biblical counseling and what it is and like a basic intro and thought if I know a little bit, I know everything there is to know about it. Obviously that's not true because I didn't really understand how it applied to me personally. And so it was really through speaking with another missionary who was a biblical counselor who was in Norway at the time and just really started changing my perspective of how to deal with my problems and how to really get to my heart in my problems. It just started opening that door a little bit. It can be a Christian can be even in serving the Lord and not really know how to counsel myself.

That just opened up the door to reading some of the books in the biblical counseling movement, so to say that were super helpful when people are big and God is small, how people change instruments in their redeemer's hands. And so this started opening up at the time. We're also like very, I was very busy with my children being a mom of four kids. So I was just reading some books. So it really wasn't until 2020 when Joe took over a church revitalization in Stockholm and it was an international English speaking church.

It was different than the ministry we've been doing before with Swedish people. And with that, it was just a lot easier to use resources that are already in English. So we found that that was an avenue. When COVID came and we went online, Joe decided to do the Peacemakers teaching, which was in English. He could do it easily with his group.

That was really received such a positive feedback on biblical counseling, how to work through conflict. In 2021, when we started up again, the church was just starting to grow again. And it was, I think, Joe, this was really in your heart, was that to start a church from the ground up with a biblical counseling emphasis, this idea of one to one member care. If we could begin right from the beginning with this view of what is a church, how do we care for one another? And I think that was a lot on your mind, Joe, at the beginning.

Yeah, I think this was it was on our mind, but that's about all it was because the church is very small. There's nothing going on in Scandinavia with biblical counseling and we our experience is very limited. We'd never really been a part of a church that I would say a biblical counseling ministry at all. Our churches that we've been a part of and that are sending churches for us as missionaries are relatively small churches. And we'd tasted enough of this to know that, wow, this is something that we'd this is a critical part of the one another, and we want a body life where the church is ministering to itself.

But, yeah, we didn't know exactly what that looked like.

Wow. That's amazing. One of my questions has to do with really you guys being missionaries for, what, close to two decades at this point? Yeah. Okay.

And one of the things that I've had some conversations with as it relates to the missionary task for missionaries when they come into an area, and if they've come and the gospel has been somewhat established, and it's really about leadership development and taking over an existing church and revitalizing it, trying to recreate a culture, a biblical culture with some, obviously, some convictions. To to come into that context that you guys are like, really, Ursula, what you said is that first it was working on your own heart, and then you came into that context and realized like, this is for me. But man, this really needs to be a part of our DNA as a church. And one of the things that I've recognized, just having some conversations, especially being at Southern Seminary and just again with that missionary task, is that a lot of missionaries will go out and they'll get spent, spiritually speaking, and give everything that they have, and then they're so depleted and they come back for some respite. But then there's a lot of times they don't go back because they're just they're used up in a sense.

And somebody I was talking with likened it to like how our nation uses our military. It trains them up. It sends them off. They go through so much. It's it takes such a toll on the soul that when they come back, it's hard for them to recover.

And so they're quote unquote honorably discharged. And then so they're trying to figure out where do I fit in and how do I assimilate back into society? What do I do? And so there was a lot of correlations to that and the missionary task and missionaries coming back in to whatever context that they are. And so in those conversations, the context that we were trying to drive towards was really preventative care.

How do we, like missionaries will get all this theological training, but they're not getting the personal ministry of the word. They're not getting the practical theology that they need, A) to apply to their own hearts first and foremost, but how do they raise up brothers and sisters around them to that one another care to the point where they're also edifying you when you're in a weak season and you're struggling and things are difficult, right? Where you're holding each other up and you're bearing each other's burdens versus the missionary just taking on literally everything, right? And the load is just so one-sided and it just expends them. So I just, as you guys were sharing that, it immediately brought back that conversation that I was having around missions in the last couple of years and this missionary task.

How do we build biblical counseling into that DNA as part of the theological training when we send I missionaries appreciate you guys sharing that and really affirming in some sense the reality of that.

And Mike, I love what you're saying. I think some often in missions we're thinking about, oh, we need the support. So there's the monetary side and then we need the strategy. How is this gonna be happening? We want to be effective.

But I really love what you're saying and I think you're addressing a really a deeply felt need, probably more felt than what most people have any idea that missionaries really do take a beating. But yeah, those people in our lives that are speaking truth that know how we're doing, think is a huge miss almost universally in missions. And it's just a deep need. So I appreciate you saying that.

I just I think that there's so many things that a missionary experiences for the first time on the mission field that that maybe they just I think we live in a little bit of a comfortable place in our church and with the support structure around us and we think we've got everything covered in our lives in a lot of ways. Then you go to the mission field and suddenly there's new temptations. There's new areas of your heart that maybe I was able to satisfy with an acceptable sin or whatever. Remember thinking, I miss Christian radio so much. Know nowadays you can listen to Christian radio, but I didn't realize how much listening to Christian radio made me happy.

Suddenly there's no Christian radio. Suddenly there's no And if I say I'm a Christian going to church on Sunday, they think I'm a crazy person. There's no I don't feel good about who I am anymore. And so suddenly you're just like transported into these new areas where temptation, I'm tempted to respond in a poor way. And I don't think the practical, how to practically apply who God is and lean in hard to him at those moments.

I learned that the, I think I'm learning that the hard way.

I learned it the hard way.

Yeah. And just through sin and just like suddenly it's, my goodness, I cannot believe I'm behaving the way I am or I'm responding the way I am to this. And really biblical counseling was huge in helping me see myself in my heart and my responses. It's not the situation. It's not Sweden.

God's called us to go to every nation. He's told us that he's building his church out of every tribe, tongue. God's building his church in Sweden. Can a Christian live in Sweden and be Christian? And it's of course, yes.

Our answer is of course. And yet we find ourselves struggling with new things that we've never faced before. Yeah, definitely feel practical theology so important for the missionary to not become bitter and to not be like, Oh, the problem is Sweden or the problem is government or the problem is my coworker or the problem is this situation. No, it's actually God is near. I have a God who has come near to me and he knows.

And so just, yeah, it's been life transforming. Just even the idea that we could start a church here or be part of revitalization where this is the DNA from the beginning that we're sharing our weaknesses and struggles as servants, leaders in the church, and making it a place where everyone can share. And that this is normal part of church life, that we pray for one another, we share our cares, and we carry each other's burdens.

Now, that's really good. There's so much of what you were saying that I love to hear the the rawness of missions and the fact that just because missionaries are doing what they're doing, they're not like super spiritual people, Right? They have temptations and weaknesses just like all of us. And so to build that in to the support structure is huge. And I also appreciate as you were sharing about just even the simplicity of Christian radio.

Right? Like that it's presence by proximity. If the station's always in the background, it's like a semblance of his presence because you're hearing his word, you're hearing his name being praised and all of these things. But then you go into a context where that's not happening, it gets bleak very quickly, Right? And then you're left to your own thoughts.

And then depending on what type of day you're having or where you are, like, so I appreciate you sharing that. And I'm sure that'll resonate with some people across the world to our listeners. Thank you for sharing that. And thank you for just being honest about the missionary task that you guys have personally experienced. And then also too, just in transitioning, you had mentioned, you know, coming into Indiana and early on, Joe, I forgot exactly what year you said that was, but basically that was your connection into biblical counseling.

Then you all began to engage and connect on various levels. But what was the connection to, oh, ABC, and oh, there's a pathway. They have a certification pathway. They have a model for doing ministry and biblical counseling. What was it that sort of drew you to that concept?

We'd taken two years, some some great people with a organization, OIC, they've changed their name now. They're no longer overseas instruction and counseling. That's what they are now. But they had actually sent people to Sweden for two years. This is three years back now and did a great job of kind of it was a module training process, and we were excited and God had used this to break the ice and to give us instruction.

And at the same time, when that was over, as we were especially comparing notes with nationals, there were some gaps that we just thought, boy, if we're going to try to reproduce this, and that was one of the key things. It's not just getting the instruction, but What is reproducible? We thought maybe there's some more, maybe there's some things that we would try to tweak or try to twist and that left us in a difficult place because we weren't sure what that was. And so we had a year in neutral where we're trying to think, we know we wanna continue training, but we know we are not able to do that. And that was when our national partner made connection with ABC.

Nice. So Emily, where was the connection point with our beautiful sweet Swedes, where they contacted you next thing, here we are on this podcast.

This is a kind of a funny story, but I have a dear friend in Denmark. And so I was in Denmark last summer and I was, we actually went into Sweden for a day. She's a designer and she had, was designing a big home there and also liked to get groceries there because it, they're a little more affordable in Sweden. And so I got to go to Sweden for the day and we went to a beautiful farm and had lunch and I had my email off and was actually taking a two week break. And when I came back home, I got an email from Daniel and in Sweden, wanting to reach out to talk about doing training there.

And interestingly, when he sent the email, I was just an hour away from him. And so it would have been so fun to get to just say, yes, let's just meet for lunch. But really fun because God just gave me a real heart for the culture. This friend had been my friend for a really long time, and I know how much Scandinavia is so far from God. There's a lot of churches and a lot of churches that don't really have anything going on inside the doors how unchurched they are.

But then getting to talk to Daniel about just even the young people in Sweden that are more curious about the church and coming in the doors, wanting help and wanting an answer that's different than what they've been hearing or what they've been told. And so just that connection, just have been there and then getting the email and then meeting with Daniel. And he's a pastor on the other side of Sweden and had looked through the book and just said, Hey, we have a group of people across this nation who just wanna do some training together and what could that look like? And so then helping them over the summer, get that launched and thinking about that. And then even the opportunity this fall to hop on to one of their online Zoom meetings as they're all across the country and the world.

There's a few there's a few across the world and we can tell that story in a minute, but getting to hop on there with my pastor, Pete Potloff, and even teach one of their classes for them, model how we do it and join their really sweet group, very diverse group of people that do the class in English, because there is so many internationals on that class. What an encouragement to see what God is doing all across the country. I think there's 15 or so getting certified in that class. They're all doing it through our online program, meeting together. And that's what we define as an ABC cohort, which is a precursor to just offering more of a training center model.

We're hopeful that they'll have more to go through in the future and that we can maintain the partnership.

That's great. That's great. So I want to jump back to that here in just a moment. But Joe and Ursula, I just I'm curious, you had mentioned several things, obviously, in the things that you were sharing, but back to your local church context. So what are you guys currently doing?

I think Joe, you said you guys are less than 50 people or something in the congregation. And are you pastoring currently?

Yeah. So our church, it was a church actually closing in 2017. And God was at work to allow the church not it didn't close. And I think, yeah, our church is approaching a 100 members now and maybe double that on a Sunday. But it's a very international group.

Maybe one of the most exciting things with our group is that it's a very surprisingly young group. One of the things that God has added very recently to the church is just a very young and dynamic Swedish group. So everybody's a minority at the church, but it's for us to see these young Swedish people, many of them new believers, but just a real deep desire to want to follow God. It's a real enthusiasm for his word and want to grow. It's been an extraordinary journey for us.

That was awesome. So because that was going to be one of my questions demographically speaking, was just like how young is some of your population. So for you to say that the majority, when you say young, 40, 30, you got like 20 families that are in their 30s or like demographically, where would you put that?

Yeah, everybody's young compared to me. So I think we have a, I would say probably a very young professional would be the median. A lot of people really, and international, many of these people are finishing studies, they're here to study, or this is their first job internationally. And I think the majority of the people in the church are probably maxing at their 30s. We've got a couple people above that.

But then, yeah, I think there's a lot of people that are still in school or even younger than that. And it's an amazing group of people just that it's fun because, like I said, there's a corner of every part of the world there.

There is we do have a pretty significant older group of people as well. I would say that a lot of retired or near retirement women who are married to unbelievers. So that's also or divorced. So there's that demographic as well. So that's also we're also very careful too.

It's actually quite diverse. We have a lot of young families. I would say in their 30s having children, kids under the age of seven. But then most are professionals. They would either be in the tech field or engineering.

A lot of this, a lot of our tech people from Asia are the result of what we have in Europe called GDPR, which is a data protection. When that came into place, a lot of Swedish companies brought their workforce from Asia over to Sweden, back to Sweden. So there's a lot of people here with that. And what's wonderful is to have these Christians from Indonesia and China and Malaysia and India. Yeah, India, over Philippines.

They're all here because of the tech industry and they're sharing the gospel at their workplaces. It's really an exciting place. We have a number of professors in the universities as well. So it's very exciting to see what God is doing. God's using the nations in Stockholm.

Wow, that is. Thank you for sharing. It's always exciting to hear what's happening outside our little bubble. Just is sometimes it seems so small. So thank you for sharing.

So with those demographics and just what the Lord's doing and how he's moving in that context, how are you guys building to go back to a section of our conversation earlier? How are you guys building the sort of DNA for biblical counseling and mutual care? There's like small group ministry. How are you applying the personal ministry of the word? Trying to anyway.

Yeah. I think we see that small groups are a huge opportunity and I think a real desire. So many people that will come to the church new, especially if they've been a part of a church before. I would say that's a high premium. And the opportunity that we have right now to be, I think there's six people in our congregation that are part of the full care training right now.

And it's something that the training we actually offered and encouraged all of our deacons and our elders that we would we would make do whatever we can to see them trained because we see that this is a deep need and we would like this to permeate our church. And so I think trying to really undergird this church and this is a very practical essence of Christianity, lives overlapping that one another aspect of living out the gospel is so critical. And this is where the rubber meets the road.

Yeah, definitely small group ministry is a big part of the church. We also have ladies ministry. It's a Bible study that meets once a month and there's about 50 women that come to that. And it's divided up in we have 10 leaders now 10 women that have stepped up and we meet once a month just for discipleship and to help just in how to care for a small group and care for the women in their group. So 50 women that come to the Bible study are most of them are from our church but then there's also some that that come from other churches as well.

So that's another area and then there's some special small group ministries for divorced women mothers raising their children in Sweden and for some singles, some singles too.

Wow, nice. That is very awesome. Thank you guys for sharing that and thank you for just letting us know your context. It's exciting to hear. And now jumping back, Emily, to just for those people who are listening or like, okay, that's my context.

And I would really like more information. What would be the best way for them to follow-up with you and get those conversations going much like Joe and Ursula did?

Yeah, I think wherever you are in the world, if you've got a group of people in your church or like in this context across the country that want to learn how to care better for the individual in the church to to be equipped. I think reaching out and starting a cohort, they started a cohort because I don't think you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anybody actually was certified yet. And so one person has to be certified to become an actual training leader training center. But there's other ways to start. It's so much better to gather around the material like these guys are doing to be able to really unpack it together in a conversation each week, to watch our observation videos, to do all of those things.

And that's what they're doing as everybody's getting certified online. As some get certified, they may wanna, a maybe next year, even a few years, change their context to be more a little more hands on with their students and grade for them and do all of those kinds of things. But what a great way to start. Their class is super diverse and I just, I really appreciate what they're doing and it can be replicated both here in The States and in other countries. And what I love about John's Equip to Counsel material that he wrote is it really is the word of God.

It transcends cultural barriers and all of those things. It's not bringing in a lot of other context. It's really looking at what God's view is for care. So it does work well in other contexts.

No, that's good. And so for those of you who are listening like, I definitely want to know more. That sounds great. I'll put that stuff in the show notes as far as next steps for you and go into our website and looking at the certification pathway, up with our staff and talking with Emily and starting that process if that's you. And so we'll put that stuff in the show notes.

Jo and Ursula, as you guys are going through this cohort, what's the next step and what's your hope and heart for the next year or two, to Emily's point?

Yeah, I think that's a great question to end with. What we really want to see in our churches is really the the deep professionalization of counsel care for one another. And so our heart really is for more people to jump on board, to see the ones that are in the class to be certified and to be a support structure for whatever, however God leads them to encourage the one another care and the local church. I know that one of our hopes is, and the reason I went back to seminary was that to eventually get like an certification with ABC on the master's level and then be able to see this expand in Sweden and even in Scandinavia just more and more churches getting on board.

Yeah. So what I'm hearing Ursula is you guys want to be Salem Heights in Stockholm. You wanna be an equipping center for that area and that region in Scandinavia to help equip other churches to go and do likewise. And I think, Joe, just in closing, something you said, going back to some of the missionary piece, was something that's reproducible. And to Emily's point, this process and because of how John wrote ETC, the equipped council curriculum, and the model and process, it's very reproducible.

So I do believe that can definitely be a reality for y'all. And that's certainly gonna be my prayer. That's gonna be my prayer.

That's great.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Would just add on that on the horizon, we would love to see this material translated Swedish, that eventually that the training is gonna be replicated in Swedish. And we're excited that on the horizon we see there's the formation and the opportunity of new church plants and we would love to see that this being injected into the DNA of these new church plants that as more churches are forming, which is an extraordinary to think about in Sweden, that this could be a part of what they're doing. And so, yes, in our local church context, but as we work with other churches and see opportunities for the gospel, we wanna see this to be a part of that as well.

That is awesome. Joe and Ursula, thank you guys for joining us on Speak the Truth. Thank you for your continued efforts and thankful that we get to partner with you guys and that this partnership will be something that we continue to grow in. And any anything just for our listeners as they now have gotten to know you a little bit, anything you would like to share prayerfully that people can be praying for you?

Yeah. We are always grateful for prayer. Scandinavia, although we see a lot going on, so much transformation, so much good, it is just the beginning of a fall. Scandinavia has been a very difficult place in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland. Just a very difficult place for the gospel inroads, and so just praying that believers that are here would just be faithful, that we would grow, that God would continue to be at work, and that there would be a harvest here.

We appreciate prayers for that.

Okay. Definitely. Definitely. Thank you guys for sharing. Thank you guys for listening, and we'll see you next

time. Thanks so much.