Poland: leaders gather from across Europe

In May, some 900 Christian leaders from across Europe gathered at a hotel in Wisla in Poland for the annual European Leadership Forum (ELF).

The vision of this conference is to renew the biblical church and thereby to re-evangelise Europe. It brings experienced leaders with a proven track record in ministry together with the emerging leaders of the next generation, so as to equip and envision them for their ministries. The conference offers a wide range of networks linking leaders who specialise in different aspects of evangelical leadership, including theology, preaching, counselling, youth ministry and heading up organisations.

Hold on firmly

Given that this is the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation, it was appropriate that the plenary sessions of the conference emphasised the need to hold firmly and joyfully to the key biblical truths that were recovered by the Protestant Reformers. Leonardo De Chirico, pastor of Breccia di Roma, explained that there are still fundamental differences in regard to authority and salvation between Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism, and highlighted the ways in which Catholics mean very different things when they use the language of ‘grace’ or ‘justification’.