The following is an overview of Grunewald Ministries 2022 Missions activities and a brief look forward:
Summary of our current ministry activities:
How we divide our Time
We divide our time with Bible Schools, Church Planting Training, Book Translation and Leadership and Team Development.
Guesstimates on % each:
- Bible Schools 60%
- Leadership and Team Development (Mostly for Bible Schools in Europe, Africa and Middle East) 25%
- Church Planting Training 10%
- Book Translation 5%
This means approximately 85% of our time is directly involved in Bible School with students or leadership. Members of our teams will spend much more time in specific areas than we personally do now. For instance, there are a few team members that spend most of their time in Book Translation or Church Planting Training.
Our pastoring is to our leaders and pastors now.
Living on the Field
What percentage of the time are we living on the field or actually spend time in a particular nation?
During 2022 we could have reapplied for a Visa back into England. We weighed this with some things we believe God had impressed upon our heart back to February of 2020 and came to the conclusion that at this time we were more effective making trips from US than going through the process and finances of living there. This seemed strange to us not to be moving back and a decision we haven’t taken lightly. During the lockdowns in Europe, which extended way past the US, we decided not to even think about the Visa thing and just wait until it was an option again and then look at everything. We are not sure what each year will hold in this but we are open for whatever God wants.
We may have said this before but during the almost 5 years in England the most days I ever spent in England was 109. The rest was travel. I have to keep track of every day where I am for the IRS. I didn’t miss filling out that form for the IRS during COVID. This is only necessary when we had an overseas Resident Visa.
What’s Ahead?
What are the directions and plans for our ministry in 2023, to the best of our knowledge?
2023 will include a lot more travel to Europe, Africa and The Middle East. Probably about 10 trips. It seemed right to spend a little more time in Germany this year so mid January is the first trip to Germany and Netherlands.
The Post COVID landscape is a little different than Pre Covid. People are hungry but more unsure about taking some steps. COVID was so fear driven that it rubbed off on a lot of people. What this means is once a person is in Bible School they are so happy and love it. It is getting them to be a part that is the bigger challenge. Having said this, we grew by 10% during COVID in our region. 2022 was significantly higher. (below)
Here is a repeat from last year. Before COVID we had some discussions on how to fill our chairs in the future. Or, how could we delegate some of our current responsibilities in order to adjust our focus to reach more people, more effectively than we have to this point? It seems the answer is spending the right amount of time with the right people in the right places. I think we have always done our best to do this but now God is making that path more focused and even more on growing leaders. This won’t look much different to anyone on the outside. But there may be some shift in HOW we reach more people especially with travel restrictions.
Over the past almost 30 years it became more and more clear to us that the biggest hindrance to moving forward into new nations, more church plants and growth in general was the lack of leaders. Leaders that were trained spiritually and with the appropriate leadership skills. The skills to build and grow teams, run effective meetings, solve conflicts and in general being better at building people into who God wants and needs to build the church.
During the summer of 2022 I (John) felt God challenging me some. I am 66 and thoughts came about this season of life. Did I/we want to slow down, coast or what? None of that sounded good or felt right on the inside. Sometimes we feel like we are just getting started. It seems God challenged us to look at the Next 20 Years and plan accordingly. We have been doing that and the Next 20 includes all we are doing and some extra. At this point some of the extra is just a dream with no strategy or faith applied as we sift to make sure it is all God. I would be happy to talk in person about this if you are interested but I am not ready to write it all out just yet.
New Bible School Campuses
Europe – We were finally able to launch Poland and Latvia in the fall of 2022. Both were slowed down legally by COVID and office closures. We were in both Nations during November and we aren’t sure we have ever experienced the hunger of students and grace to minister like we did while there. It was amazing and everyone loved the time.
There are a few nations we have next in the pipeline for launching new Campuses in Europe and this hasn’t changed from 2021. Latvia, Slovakia & Czech Republic, Armenia, Hungary, Spain and Greenland. In Hungary we have all the books translated or in the process we need for school. We worked more on Armenia and Greenland than the others this year. Both will require some special permissions to do what we want.
Africa – Currently there are campuses in 6 nations and the goal is to have at least one campus in each nation. We will meet in Abuja, Nigeria in April with all the Africa Directors and Core Teams.
Middle East – We do not put much in writing about this area of the world for security reasons. There is a plan however that can be discussed. The team is growing and strong with clear vision. It will be exciting watching this unfold even over the next few years.
In each of these regions all of this is possible because of exceptional leaders and teams that we do have.
In connection with growing teams and leaders David Scholing from The Netherlands and I have been slowly developing what we call The Church Building System. We are integrating this into some of the other things we do so it may change our percentage of time spent in areas going forward. You can visit www.thechurchbuildingsystem.com to see what we have done so far.
What about Salvations? Graduates? Orphans? Church Plants? Book Translation and Outreaches?
Salvations – Since we do not pastor a church any longer some of these kinds of stats are difficult to tally. In our network, it is hundreds every week. During 2022 as churches were able to meet more often there have been a lot of salvations. A hindrance as far as church is that some building owners will still only allow X number of people in a building at a time. So some churches have an online registration to be able to come to church. Good reasons for everyone to have their own facilities.
Graduates – I am not sure yet on the number of graduates in our region in 2022 but thankfully there were a lot of graduations in the Europe, Africa and Middle East Region in 2022.
Current Students/Campuses – There are 7682 regular students during 2022. This is up over 2000 students from 2021. This is in 65 Campuses which about 50 are in session at any one time.
Orphans – Normally we not do anything directly or regularly with Orphanages besides some support. We leave this to the discretion of the churches and schools and many of them run orphanages or greatly help with them.
Churches – Currently there are 507 churches in the region pastored by graduates. This is a correction from 2021. I didn’t read close enough last year and had 100 churches to many. We had an increase of 14 in 2022. The good news is none of our churches closed the past few years that we know of. Some still have a combination of meeting in person but also some online.
Book Translation – The Greater Europe Book Project is moving along. We added books in Hungarian, Polish, French, German, Armenian and Latvian. The The Greater Europe Book Project is 25 Faith Library books in 34 languages. More info on this project is at www.rhema.eu. This is a big and important project that will touch lives for a very long time.
Outreaches – We do not sponsor outreaches directly. This is also left to the direction of the local churches or Bible School Campuses which hold multiple outreaches each year.
Additionally I am including the November 2022 International Rhema Bible Training Center Report. December 2022 is not quite completed yet so this is the latest report.
How can you pray for us more specifically in 2022?
Family wise we are all doing very well. Michelle and I have been married just over 42 years now and are happy with our path in life and the season we are in. Our children are all well and we have 2 granddaughters with a grandson on the way in March of 2023.
I would say overall just wisdom on how to handle all the going forward in parts of the world. We want to expand more and there are all sorts of areas we need more leaders which we are training, more connections, favor and money to do it all.
Remember, “Every heart with Christ is a missionary, every heart without Christ is a mission field”. We encourage you to reach out to your local community this next year and see the change you can bring to your own city!
Questions? – If you have specific questions please feel free to call or write.
Photo’s for your Missions Wall or Dartboard 🙂 – Please visit https://grunewald.org/about/publications-bio/
Contact Information
Our contact information to ensure that you have the most current and correct address, phone, and E-mail for you and your ministry.
John and Michelle Grunewald
Grunewald Ministries
10026A South Mingo Road, #332
Tulsa, OK 74133
John’s Cell +1.918.808.4545
Michelle’s Cell +1.918.740.6511
GM +1.918.760.9100
John – Grunewald5@gmail.com
Michelle – jmgbug61@gmail.com