Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden
Map of the Nordic Countries showing Lampstands
(click on or hover over the map to view map labels)
Through Martin Luther, the Reformation spread throughout northern Europe in the sixteenth century. However, the Nordic countries (formally defined as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland) followed the pattern of Germany to adopt Lutheranism as the state religion. Recently, in the 2000s each country, except Denmark, has decided to separate the Lutheran church from the state. Today the Nordic region is known for its declining number of believers and widespread secularism.
However, the Lord has moved and is continuing to move with the ministry of the age in the region. The first contact the Lord’s recovery had with Scandinavia was in 1938-1939 when Brother Watchman Nee was invited to Europe to visit T. Austin-Sparks’s group in England and also to visit believers in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Some of the messages spoken during this time in Europe were compiled to be the book The Normal Christian Life. The saints in the Lord’s recovery also knew and contacted Swedish and Norwegian brothers and sisters who had labored in China as missionaries in those early years. Brother Lee would sometimes speak about a Norwegian missionary in China who preached the reality of regeneration to an unsaved Lutheran pastor. He also recounted that “in 1943 we had a migration of seventy saints with their families from Chefoo to Inner Mongolia. Not one had even finished high school. Some of them were shoemakers. Eventually, within one winter, they turned more than forty Swedish China Inland Mission churches to the recovery. This is the operation of life” (Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans, p. 120).
Later, in 1958 Brother Lee made a trip to England and Scandinavia. Regarding his time in Scandinavia, Brother Lee reported to the saints:
We stayed in Denmark for about ten days and saw that there is much work to do there. Their situation exceeded our expectation. This proves that the Holy Spirit began His work long before we arrived. This does not apply only to Denmark. The Lord’s work can be seen in all of Scandinavia, including Norway and Sweden. We met many promising brothers who requested that we send them The Ministry of the Word so that they can translate it into their language. If time permits, we will visit them again, because there is much work to do there.
Two brothers from Norway came to meet us, and we had good fellowship with them. The impression I have from the trip to Denmark is that all the places in Scandinavia need to be led to know Christ as life so that God’s house can be built up in every locality. The Scandinavian countries have state churches that are formal and dead. Hence, many people become “homeless” once they believe into Christ. There is a need for them to know life so that God’s house can be established in every locality. (The Perfecting of the Saints and the Building Up of the House of God, pp. 109-110)
Eventually, in the 1970s the Lord’s recovery reached Scandinavia again when some saints in Sweden came into contact with Brother Lee’s ministry, and around 1975 a group of brothers from Germany and the US visited them. A small group saw the vision of the church and began to meet in homes in southern Sweden. They had fellowship with believers in Denmark and also went to a conference in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1980 a Swedish family moved to Stockholm for the establishment of the church life, but they were eventually isolated because of the turmoil in the churches in Europe in the late 1980s. However, they were encouraged and strengthened by the visitations of brothers travelling from the US to Russia in the early 1990s.
A young man from Korea was gained in Denmark in the late 1970s and, after moving to Sweden, he joined the church life in Stockholm and eventually decided to serve full-time in 1996 after fellowship with Brother Lee. In the same year Brother Lee donated a considerable number of books so that the saints could open a bookstore in Stockholm.
Visitations from Sweden also helped to raise up the church life in Norway in the 2000s, although a foundation had been laid earlier. A brother from Southern California made frequent job-related visits to Norway from 1987 to 1996 and was faithful to spread the ministry through distributing tracts and visiting believers. One sister was gained from this period, and she began opening her home near Oslo for meetings. In 2003 a Norwegian couple touched the ministry in Asia and upon returning, they began to meet in their home and present the ministry to believers. A third group in west and south Norway discovered the ministry on the Internet and began to listen to the Life-study radio programs in 2004. These three groups realized one another’s existence in 2004, and in 2008 the first Lord’s table meeting in Norway was held in Grimstad after the migration of a few saints to that city. In 2011 the first Lord’s table meeting was held in Oslo.
After the turmoil in the late 1980s, fellowship between Denmark and Sweden stopped, but in the 2000s saints who had been in the church life in Asia, the US, Africa, and other parts of Europe began to move to or have short-term stays in Denmark. One Danish sister was connected with the saints through listening to online broadcasts from Living Stream Ministry in Anaheim. Since 2010 a group of saints have been meeting regularly in Copenhagen, enjoying the ministry and participating in conferences and trainings. They have been strengthened by regular visits from saints in Norway and Sweden since 2014. The first Lord’s table meeting in Copenhagen will be held in October 2017.
One family of three in Iceland has been in contact with the ministry and has attended several of the Nordic conferences.
Some saints in Finland came into contact with the ministry in late 1970s and early 1980s. They had contact with the churches in Sweden, California, and Germany and began to meet as the church in Helsinki. The church was very much affected by the turmoil among the European churches in the late 1980s. Nevertheless, a small number stood firm with the ministry and were much supplied through the visits of saints from the US who used Helsinki as a transit point to bring Bibles and Christian literature into Russia. Today the church in Helsinki has a clear sky and follows the Lord’s move in the Body.
In recent years there has been regular fellowship and blending among the Nordic churches with the twice-yearly regional conferences and joint brothers’ meetings, as well as frequent visits among the saints. There is also much blending with European churches through the European-wide conferences in London and the Netherlands, as well as through semi-annual trainings and ITERO. The Nordic churches are going on with the Lord for the accomplishment of His eternal purpose and heart’s desire by honoring the Head, following the churches, and participating in the Lord’s move in the Body.