David’s journey with the Lord Jesus started in 1990. A Christian classmate in High School stirred up a longing in David’s heart to share his friend’s experience. It was a simple prayer that started this journey – “if you are real, show yourself to me somehow”. A few weeks later while at home on the living room sofa, David felt God’s presence and an instant surge of energy and joy flowing through his body. This changed his whole perspective on life.
After leaving school David studied a variety of university courses. He considered a career as a biologist and then changed his mind and trained as a science teacher. But neither left him fully satisfied. Once again it was a friend who inspired David to apply to a Bible College in Jönköping to train as a pastor. David spent the next four years studying and it was during his final year that he realised his calling was not to become a traditional pastor, but to something different. David attended a conference and found out about Communitas and decided to join the organisation. David met Christina shortly afterwards. They married in 2016, and moved together to Österängen, a residential area just fifteen minutes from central Jönköping.
Jönköping is Sweden’s 10th largest city and situated on the southern shore of Lake Vättern. Both David and Christina are involved in bi-voccational ministry. David works as a carer looking after a functionally disabled person and Christina works with international students teaching English at Jönköping University. They have together completed the Forge training Course in Stockholm.
Together David and Christina have started a house church where a small group believers meet weekly for Christian fellowship. Their aim is to reach out to people in the community around them, locally, and in the rest of the city. They are passionate about making disciples, and David connects with people in the city offering prayer for healing which often opens up for good gospel sharing opportunities. Several contacts have led to baptisms, discipleship training and active involvement in the house church. David also works with individuals living outside Jönköping who actively want to become disciples of Jesus. This is made possible through Zoom calls. David’s vision is to see a movement of disciples that make disciples (2 Tim 2:2), in at least four generations, and hopefully even beyond that, which can only be done by “multiplication” rather than “addition” of disciples. In the long term, God willing, he would like to see a network of house churches, not only a single Church.
Christina has taught English as a second language since 2003. She has a heart of internationals and integration. She has worked as a teacher both in the UK and Sweden. Before moving to Sweden in 2011, she taught English in London and worked with large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. She set up and ran an international group at her church for a number of years. Nowadays she prepares international students for higher education in Sweden. She invests time in building relationships with students, both past and present. As well as teaching, she has pastoral care responsibilities and outside of the job spends time with students who show an interest in the Christian faith. She has recently started a small English Bible study group.
