Bjørn Nilsen (81) and Gunnar Gangsø (77) are on stage. Bjørn has traveled from Grenland, and Gunnar from Finland. Since their retirement, they have traveled all over Europe to give Bible lessons to young people who are A-team participants.
They have been doing this for 15 years.
Gathered from all over Norway and from Copenhagen
The hall is filled with young people from many countries. Young people from the local church in Oslo and Follo are invited, along with this year’s A-team who are located in a local church in Norway or Denmark. This weekend they have traveled to Moss to participate in a live Bible study. Across Europe and North America, another 100 young people are following the lessons via streaming.
The theme of the evening is “Conversion, baptism, born again – disciple”.
For Bjørn it’s important that the audience gets something out of the teaching.
“Do you understand this?” Bjørn asks rhetorically along the way. He explains what a great start it is for a disciple to repent and receive forgiveness of sins:
“We want to make it great for you all: All my sins are forgiven! God himself – Jesus – has brought me out of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son!”
Christ lives in me
“Paul says in the famous word from the letter to the Galatians: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who …?’ Who?”
Bjørn leans forward to listen for a response from the audience.
“Who? … ‘LOVED me and gave Himself for me.'”
It is imperative for him that every young person can feel this love personally. Because being grateful for what Jesus has done for us means that what the world has to offer is erased and a new life in fellowship with Christ can begin.
From disciples to disciples
The educators keep the participants engaged with gestures, PowerPoint presentations, Bible tverses, and personal stories.
“You don’t get converted to the church,” Gunnar explains, “you get converted to God.”
There is a lively dynamic between the two: “Why don’t you tell us what this was like for you,” Bjørn encourages Gunnar, who’s sitting next to him.
It’s completely quiet in the hall.
“I was thoroughly fed up and disappointed in myself. I had tried in many ways to get myself out of my sin, but nothing worked. I didn’t think there was any point in living if it wasn’t possible.”
Gunnar is moved when he talks about how God worked with him at the age of 18:
“I thought: ‘It can’t get any worse than it is now.’ That’s when I decided to go for it, and THEN it happened. A couple of hours later, I stood up and testified at a meeting and said: ‘The veil has been taken away!’ It was something completely new, God had opened my eyes.”
“It was complete surrender,” Bjørn sums up.
Before you know it, the lesson has lasted two hours, interrupted only by a short break in the middle.
Will follow suit
The thankfulness amongst the young people is palpable.
“It wakes you up,” says Mebari, 26, from India.
“At the same time, I feel the hardness in me melting at the grace I experience during an evening like this. I won’t let anything distract me from my calling as a disciple.”
Jakob, 19 years old from Denmark, finds the teaching exciting:
“It’s easy to see that this is their life, not just something they’ve learned,” he says.
“I am left with an indescribable amount of gratitude for the Bible instruction – it gives me more understanding and desire to follow Jesus for the rest of my life.”
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