TRANSCRIPT

NATHAN JONES

This month, we head to Germany to meet with Felix Wiegner. Felix works on the fundraising team at Alliance Mission and is involved in the ministry of inspiring stewardship among both giving partners and the Alliance missionaries in their effort to raise resources for Kingdom work. 

I'm your host, Nathan Jones, and I want to thank you once again for joining me on this episode of the Inspiring Stewards podcast.

Well, Felix, it's wonderful to be with you today. Thanks again for taking the time to join me. It's good. Let's jump in. Tell me about your life, where are you from, where were you born. You've spent a little time around different parts of the world. It's been good getting to know you a bit even already this morning.

FELIX WIEGNER

I'm from Germany. And since my father is a pastor, we moved quite often through different cities in Germany. So, I was raised in the middle part of Germany, lived like 10 years in the northern part of Germany. And now, I'm back here after a few stations in different countries and live with my family, with my beautiful wife, and three children in a really, really small village in the middle part of Germany.

NATHAN

Oh wow, I bet it's beautiful.

FELIX

Yeah, it's in the middle and fields and lots of nature.

NATHAN

Well, tell me about how you came to a personal relationship with Jesus and the impact that had on your life.

FELIX

So, since I was raised in a Christian family, of course, I grew up Christian and going to church. But still, I had like, you know, no personal relationship with Jesus on a certain level, like a commitment. The church of my father or where he pastored and ministered, there was no youth active.

Then, I was invited by a group of friends in my school to their Baptist church and it's not my original denomination. So, my father is Free Evangelical and I went to an evangelical free church. But they invited me and I got there and we discussed a lot of stuff.

And to be honest, I only went there to like get in arguments and to prove that they are dumb and they didn't know much about Old Testament stuff and like chronological orders. And still, they invited me to come back. And I found out they have something I don't have.

And then, during one conference, I said, “OK, Jesus, I know you mean to get fully involved with you or to just let it go, but not like lukewarm, doing whatever.” And so when I was 15, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and everything changed for me.

NATHAN

So, that kind of put your heart on a trajectory in life with a focus on missions. Can you unpack that a little bit for us, that journey?

FELIX

When I was 6 years old, I remember, being around 6 years old, I got a love for Japanese culture and people. And I don’t know why. I felt – A missionary came to our church and showed pictures and brought some sweets. And I immediately felt in love with this culture. And when then I became a Christian, I was sure like I’m going to be a missionary there.

And after my school in Germany, I applied for a one year short term mission in Japan with my organization, the Alliance Mission, where I work right now. And when I was 18, I moved to Japan for one year. And I was so grateful for your episode with Sato-san in December last year.

Because there’s so much need for Japan for revival. And I pray so much that this people group will get another chance and they will come to Christ. So, I would have been there for a year and already planned to study theology there and become a missionary.

But in my prayers and everything, it doesn’t felt right. So, I changed my plans and come back to Germany and study theology here. And during this time, I found out that I have suffered from depression for already a long time but didn’t know it was an illness.

And because of this, I knew it was impossible for me to be a missionary in Japan. Because the culture and like, you don’t have so much chance to have friends. You have a lot of like 60, 70 work hours and especially the spiritual realm of being a Christian in such a country.

And I was really hardening and arguing with God and questioning Him and fighting because I said, “You give me so much love for these people. Why don’t you give me the opportunity to work there?” And it takes really a long time for me to find out what mission really is. That it’s not about me as a missionary.

Because God is a missionary in Japan right now. And He puts us – you, Nathan, and me here in Germany – in our different spots to work in His Kingdom for His great mission. And I can pray and I can serve our missionaries from the Alliance Mission in Japan. And I’m grateful for that. But it took me a long time to learn that.

NATHAN

Well, praise God that He works in ways that we don’t understand. So, give us an overview of what you’re involved in today.

FELIX 

Yeah, right now, since 12 years ago, I work at the Alliance Mission in the fundraising department. And I help in organizational institutional fundraising, major donors, and everything.

But most of the time, I work with our missionaries and helping them to grow their support circle and their partnerships in churches and with their personal fundraising appeals. So, this is what I do most of my time.

But I really love to network and to connect with other fundraisers and the international networks.

NATHAN

That's wonderful. Are the missionaries of the Alliance, German? Or are they nationals of the country that they're in? Or they’re combination of both?

FELIX

Oh like, I think in most of the organization it's the same: it changes. So 20 years ago, it was mainly German. And nowadays, mission in return is a big topic. We need more missionaries coming from the Global South to the Global North to serve here, to re-evangelize Europe.

We are in desperate need of pastors and officials working full-time in our churches. Here in Germany, we are short staffed. There are many churches who are not ministered right now because we don't have enough people working full-time.

So as an organization, we try to encourage people to work in Germany. And we try to help them with the difficult culture here, you know, the cold hearted Germans and criticizing a lot, and so on. 

And especially for funding. Like it's difficult for an African missionary to work here and to get funded originally only from his home country. So, these are the questions we are working around right now.

And like the whole polycentric mission movement where we can take part of. Which is our role? What can we bring to the table of global mission today as a German and very old organization?

We are like 134 years old, so we have quite a history. What experience can we share with others so they can learn and don't make the mistakes we made? 

NATHAN

Well, this being the Inspiring Stewards podcast, Felix, what role does the principle of stewardship play in your life and how do you see that playing out?

FELIX

Yeah, the biblical principle of stewardship. This wasn't a topic when I studied theology, which is quite a problem. So, this is, in my opinion, something that moves me right now. Because in Germany, we need, in my opinion, a more focus on stewardship.

In the past, people were just giving out of obedience and trust. And it was not teached or something like that in church. And this changes now because the oldest generation dies and the younger generations, or like 16 and below, were never teached to give.

And I think it only works both ways because you can't right now just teach "you have to give more." You have a generous God and you have to be generous too without being good stewards. But many organizations didn't have to be transparent and didn't have to be showing what stewardship means.

And now when we have to teach about generosity of God and we want to invite people to invest in the Kingdom of God, we have to be a good role model of stewardship: what it means to be transparent and to work with good controlling and everything.

NATHAN

You've got a unique perspective of the missions agency. I would love to hear you respond to this question of how you're seeing God at work, whether it's locally or regionally or even other parts of the globe this time in history.

FELIX

Wow, that's a big question, because God's working in so many mysterious ways. For me, it's a privilege to work at a mission agency because I hear so many wonderful stories, what He does right now. And one thing is really right now important for me because it changes a lot of my view of church.

We have a big history of church history in Germany, like reformation and everything. And now, we see movements across the globe where people gather and share in not church-like environments or gatherings, the journey and the discipleship. And we can learn so much from them. 

They are more agile and flexible. And in my tradition, you're only a church if you have a house, a big temple or something like that. And it's refreshing for me and it's interesting to see how we can adjust as an organization because we understand our work as we want to help the local church worldwide. 

And how can we help a church that is not defined by like a pastor or is not defined by a group of meetings because they meet differently and they meet in different spaces? And this is great to see how the Spirit moves in different regions of the world and challenges us how we can react and help them.

And another thing for me, it's interesting because when I meet partners from the Global South and they challenge me that they're respectful and thankful for what like the church in the Global North did for them. But they challenge us and say, “OK, what will you give us in the next 30 years?” 

Because everyone knows Europe can't afford to give much more money in the future. And the church is declining. The only congregations that are really rising here in Germany are migrant churches from the diaspora. So, they don't have a lot of income most of the time. 

So, we will have a funding problem for our mission organization in the future. And what can we bring to our partners in the future, maybe in 20 or 30 years? And to be able to discuss with them in partnership to not create more dependencies, but to be open like, "We can give you that and we need that from you." That is wonderful. And it's for me great to see that this is happening right now and possible right now. 

NATHAN

That's tremendous. Well, Felix, this has been good. Any final thoughts you have for those listening today that you'd like to share and leave us with?

FELIX

I think many, many organizations in the West are struggling with their ideas and concept of fundraising right now. Because the traditional concept of funding their missionaries about going to a personal support team or mission partners is not sustainable anymore.

And I'm really looking forward to good best practices, what's going on. The recent literature published in the last years were not able to give a clear answer. And I want to learn from the Global South and from the majority world how we can bring money to the mission in the future.

Above all, it's great to see that God provides all the time through all history. He's a generous God. And I'm so grateful to be able to speak to people and tell them that we have a wonderful loving God who will care for us.

NATHAN 

Great word. Felix, thank you for your time today.

FELIX 

Thank you, Nathan.