Germany's United Center Celebrates First Year of Ministry

For a ministry team in Germany, it seemed God put a line through many of the plans for 2021.

Questions like, “Which part of town are we going to? What should the premises look like? What offers should there be?” kept staff busy. They researched, tried things out, set goals, discussed ideas and accompanied the whole process in prayer. But no matter they put out feelers, it seemed the doors were closed.

At the same time EFG Darmstadt started a new youth work called “UNITED” for which they rented and renovated an old hall. This led to cooperation with the municipality and the use of the premises.

At the end of October 2021 the time had finally come – the hall was inaugurated with a festive service. Over 200 people attended the opening . Finally they could start!

The team planned quite a bit of program for the first few weeks, but soon realized that it wasn’t working as planned. There were also days when nobody was there. Staff member Joel writes, “This was a difficult time for me personally. I questioned many things – including myself . But I knew that God put me in this place!”

Nevertheless, the team kept going and believing in the concept. “We faithfully did our service, even if we didn’t see any fruit (yet).”

In the early days, it was mainly about making the youth center known to young people in the area. They designed posters, went to schools and advertised on Instagram. However, all of this did not have the desired effect. There were still very few visitors.

Then Joel had an encounter that was to change everything. He writes, “I was once again at a nearby soccer field to meet youngsters. That day I was able to connect with two guys and told them about our youth center. To be honest, I didn’t think they were coming – I’ve had many such conversations before. But I was wrong. In the same week one of the guys came to the center. The following week both came. They liked this place so much that they invited their closest friends, who in turn brought more friends with them. That’s how it came about that we’ve had a really great group regularly at the center since the summer of 2022.”

God’s ways are often different than we imagine. How He closes and opens doors. How He uses supposedly small things to work through us. And how important it is to seek Him in prayer every day and lay everything before Him.