lenten journey, day 37 — a prayer for europe

During the five weeks that I have been writing these lenten journey prayers, my son has repeatedly asked me to pray for Europe, especially the future of the church there. I’ve put it off, mostly because it seemed such a huge topic to tackle.

But the more I read, the more I came to share my son’s view that we need to be in prayer for the church in Western Europe.

I remember quite a few years back, I heard about a group going to France to do mission work. At the time, I scoffed at the need for missions in a country with so many grand cathedrals and a church tradition dating back to the fourth century A.D. But if I’d done my homework back then, I’d have learned that France is, indeed, a country that needs to hear the beautiful news of Jesus. A staggering 53% of 18-to-29-year-olds in France are atheists, and 60% of the overall population never attends a church service.

European society has been so successfully secularized that churches all over the continent are being boarded up and turned into shops, grocery stores, or lofts. In the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation of Ireland, church attendance dropped from 85% in 1975 to 60% in 2004. That’s still the highest rate in Europe, though not a single priest was ordained in Dublin in 2005. One graduate student in Dublin was quoted in a USA Today article, saying, “I don’t go to church, and I don’t know one person who does. Fifteen years ago, I didn’t know one person who didn’t.”

In Sweden, where the protestant Swedish Lutheran Church is the dominant denomination, 85% of Swedes are church members, but only 11% of women and 7% of men attend services. The marriage rate in Scandinavia as a whole has plummeted, too, and more than half of the children born in Sweden are to unwed parents.

Why does all this matter? It matters because the church is God’s plan for believers. And when I say “church,” I don’t mean denominational hierarchy, religion, or dogma. I mean the people of God, meeting in the presence of God, worshipping God together. The church is the Bride of Christ, and that is an identity to be cherished and nurtured. The Groom longs to meet with us collectively as well as individually. And that makes the worshipping church a true home for all who love Jesus and seek to be conformed to his image.

The good news is that the youngest residents of Western Europe seem to be experiencing great revival. Evangelical churches are also growing all over Western Europe, with immigrants from Asia and Africa making up the majority of their membership. God is moving, as he always does. Let us remember to pray for these churches, that they would begin to shine the light of the gospel into the darkest corners of European secular culture.

Jesus, may the churches of Western Europe once again see themselves as you do—as a beautiful bride preparing herself for her Groom. Lord, when churches become focused on empty ceremony and man-ordained ritual, people flee. But when churches focus on you and your word, people are drawn in like sheep longing for the tender guidance of the shepherd. Lord, would you rise up a holy and shining church in Western Europe? Would you work in the hearts of the European people, so that they would see fellowship and worship as far more desirable than a secular life centered on themselves? May the cathedrals of Europe once again resound with the praises of the Groom! Yes, and amen.

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. — Acts 20:28

And God placed all things under (Christ’s) feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. — Ephesians 1:22-23