In September 2011, a team from Centralkirken, Bergen, started a new fellowship for new families in Sotra, outside of Bergen. Together with his wife, Roar Barmen-Floysand is part of this church-planting team. They also participated in the church-planting track at School of Congregational Development in Gothenburg, September 2011. Roar sees the new work as follows:

- What makes us happy is that the work really seems to meet a need. The first time 75 people came, of which some 25 were from our own church! The second time there were 58, with less people from our own church. And the third time we had as many as 85, Roar says.

The vision is to reach families and children with something that is called “Myldredag”.

- Many people are grateful for the initiative, and we really do believe that this work can be a tool in Gods hand to help young children getting to know Jesus when they are young, Roar shares.

August 3, 2011, a new Finnish methodist-church was established within the episcopal area. This means that the Finnish-speaking methodist parishes in Finland increased with 10% (from 9 to 10). August 1, 2010, pastor Jan-Markus Jeromaa and his church-planting team initiated an opening happening in Pirkkala and now, one year afterwards, the church is formally established.

The annual conference of the methodist church, led by bishop Christian Alsted, gave its' blessing and support to the new initiative in July 2011. According to district superintendent Pasi Runonen who led the first charge conference in Pirkkala August 3, 2011, some 35 adults and 10-20 kids take part in the activities of the new church.

Camilla Klockars

June 8-12.6 2011, one of the current church-plants within the episcopal area arranged the annual conference of the Methodist church (Finland Swedish Provisional Annual Conference). The parish in Kokkola that was restarted in September 2007 hosted the conference with some 140 registered guests. The theme of the conference was "Welcome home! The relationship-based church". Special guests were bishop Christian Alsted (picture), retired bishop Øystein Olsen, guest-speakers Eric Voelz (USA/Sweden) and Sebastian Widjeskog. A children's conference was running parallell with the adults' meetings. The hosting church received good feedback afterwards where people expressed their appreciation of the friendly and welcoming atmosphere, the fresh approach to "church", the hospitality, the Jesus-centeredness and the prayer-meetings. In the picture: Bishop Alsted with some of the church-members and the pastor.

Training for church-planters

February 2011 several teams from the Baltic and Nordic countries attended their first M4-training weekend in Riga, Latvia. The training, including coaching, was provided by a team from DAWN-Norway, led by Öivind Augland. M4 will continue in May, September and November 2011. The Danish two church-planting teams go through the same training in Denmark. The feedback from the weekend in Riga was very positive. This is what some of the people say

Andreas (Finland)

- It was fun to go as a team and very nice to see that so many from the methodist church were present. I think this really is needed in the UMC. I think the teaching was good. Maybe not so many new things, but it is always great with new perspectives. And good to get things you know confirmed again. The coaching was best! Many processes were started in my head.

Vivita B (Latvia):

- M4 was a great experience where I got new ideas for the next steps in team-building. I got new friends from other churches, not just Methodists. For me these two days was a great time and it was wonderful to see that God can unite all confessions like one family. I really liked the prayer and worship time.

Gaida (Latvia):

- I am very thankful for the chance to participate in M4. We from Jelgava are still a small congregation, and we don't think about a new one, but have to improve ours. I was really happy to meet so many young blessed, true and enthusiastic people. The atmosphere was great!

Maire (Estonia):

- I hope to be able to help churches practically –  visiting people, training, prayer-evangelism activities, directing mission-teams more purposefully and so on - strategic thinking about the development of the Estonian Methodist church. I also have on my heart to pray for revival, to worship and to encourage people and include them.

Livia (Estonia):

- The event in Riga was extremely relevant for me, especially because we could, as a team, discuss and identify some problems in our church today. Even though most teams there were planning new churches (which was the main focus), the idea of strategies with realistic goals matches perfectly with our need to "rebuild" our existing churches before planting new ones.

Mika (Finland):

- I had no big expectations before going, I did not know what to expect. The teaching was very intense and dealt with church-growth in a healthy and practical way. The Norwegian team had a wide and practical experience. I think it was very good that the theory (teaching) ran parallell with discussions in small groups (with our team members). I think the feeling that God has done a miracle in our church during the last years was strengthened. The most important thing for us as a church to do is to seek His kingdom first, take small steps forward together - we don't

“Forward by creating new faith communities with new people” - said the central conference in the spring of 2009. And that is exactly what we are going to do.

I consider relearning to create new faith communities key to the growth and the development of the United Methodist Church in the Nordic and Baltic region.  “Faith communities” understood as made up by two interacting components a worship experience and a discipleship system. This may be adding an additional worship service however in particular the focus of the annual conferences will be on planting new churches.

At this point there are 5 church planting projects in the area and in addition a small number of pastors and leaders are considering entering into a church planting project. Most of the annual conferences have either set aside funding or are willing to supply funding for church planting.

We are exploring different new ways to create new faith communities with new people – like:

• Migrant churches – with immigrants, refugees etc.
• Creating “Peace of mind worship” and building community with the “12step” people
• Gospel-music churches
• House churches
• Established churches planting new churches
• Established churches becoming multicultural as they reach out to and/or receive people from others cultures

We are in the process of setting up a network for church planters – which includes

• A support system
• Training for people going into church planting
• Continued training for church planters
• Partnering with experienced church plant coordinators in the Methodist family and in other denominations

Christian Alsted