Good early morning from Krakow, Poland.

Today's post is about God's mission in Europe AND YOU NEED TO READ IT AND WATCH THE VIDEOS. I just wanted to get out of the way-- God wants you to pay close attention to the blog this week. He told me so.

But seriously, we shot some video on our trip. I hope you will take a moment to read the posts, watch the video, and learn about engaging Central and Eastern Europe with the gospel.

Right now, I am sitting with a group of Strategy Coordinators in the fancy room I twittered yesterday. A Strategy Coordinator is "is a missionary sent to a country or people group to get to know the people, culture, and language and develop a plan to initiate and nurture CPM's among the people."

According to the regional web site, they are in need of more strategy coordinators and part of my hope is that some of you who read the blog might come and help and some of you might come and stay as a Strategy Coordinator.

Here are some updates on what we heard today:

Trey Shaw in Budapest, Hungary. He is the Strategy Coordinator for Budapast and you can see their site here: budapestteam.blogspot.com. They are planting churches in Budapest, particularly in North Budapest and doing works of service to show and share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Hungarians are incredibly intellectual and often consider Christianity to be for those who are not uneducated. What Hungary needs most is new team members, particularly:

1. In the arts. Someone who can speak the arts language and engage that culture.
2. In the business world. Someone with and MBA and business sense to create a business consulting firm.
3. In the university. The university is the magnet for the country-- the ground is ready to be tilled and worked in student ministry.

Trey is working through the church in North Budapest as the starting point. They are using Christianity Explored as an outreach resource.

Ron Brown is a Cluster Strategist for Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. A cluster strategist supervisors Strategy Coordinators.

He explained that the countries they serve feel like stepchildren in Europe. They were really Western European cultures but were taken over and brought into communism. They are very suspicious of evangelical groups-- wondering what they "really want."

In this area, some common evangelism methods just don't work. To them:

Man + microphone + podium = propaganda.

People don't want short term visits, they want relationship. They need to be connected with incarnational Christians in a place where less than 1% are followers of Christ. Although 60% would say they are Christian (Catholic, Reformed, or Lutheran), but few are genuine believers and followers of Christ. Nominal belief (so often found in the United States) just did not last during communism. People see themselves as "Christian" when defined as a cultural value, but are not Christ followers.

More on these interviews later-- including videos.

Yesterday, I talked with some of the pastors I brought with me. Here is an interview with Rick White, pastor of City View Church talking about how the arts can be used to reach postmodern Krakow. Rick's church has a strong arts ministry and that comes through in the interview.

And, I shot a little piece about urban church planting. The video crew is actually putting together something more professional for their region. However, I have asked them to let me hack some of the video and the result is here:

You can find out more at the CEE site here.

CEE [central and eastern Europe] is ripe with challenges and opportunities. This region is defined by the lingering shadow of communism -- the oppression of spirit and repression of freedoms that robbed people of their identity and dignity. The residual effect of this passing regime now permeates society as a sense of hopelessness. A cavernous void exists in the very soul of the people that longs to be filled -- a void left by an atheistic system that imprisoned its inhabitants in demeaning commonality.

...We, the missionaries of CEE, are working throughout this vast land -- from Greece to Finland, Poland to Siberia -- with one goal only -- hope for every heart, a church-planting movement for every people.

There are some pictures from while most of you were sleeping last night. Click the Twitter feed to learn more.

And, lest you think we did not have any fun, we helped some missionaries have a little reminder of home, Wayne's World style. Mark Edworthy (on the left) is the Interim Regional Leader of Central and Eastern Europe:

Please feel free to drop any questions or suggestions below.