Day 4 - Church life in Austria

Technically the church service was already on Sunday and today is Tuesday, but since I didn't write about it yet, I think I should fill that gap.
Additional to what I saw on Sunday in church, I also had a talk today with my longterm friend and Mentor, the pastor of another church here in Strasshof and his wife. They are from Germany and their insight of now 10 years pastoring here in Austria was also very interesting.
Okay, first of all I have to state that a usual church experience is quite different over here. The background usually is the Catholic church and back in the day, but still nowadays there is at least one traditional church building per town.
Here you see the church in my hometown Strasshof:

Those Catholic churches are nowadays in a quite bad condition. They don't have enough attendees, not enough priests and many of them have already been closed down. Hardly anybody amongst the youth and young adults regularly goes into such a church. It usually is only the older retirees that go to church and many of them simply out of tradition. It's just the thing to do on Sundays.
This traditional and very formal experience of church is what the people usually have as background if they come into a evangelical church. This now causes a lot of problems. Usually the people have a very hard time at being open in church. They don't have a clue on how to worship, they see it more as something, where you just sit in quiet meditation. If you want you can sing along, but that's it. To raise hands in worship is strange, to clap a bit weird and to jump simply crazy.
Of course they usually have no clue about the Holy Spirit, his presence and gifts. To speak in tongues is rare here in Austria, even among the Pentacostals of the Evangelicals. Prophecy, gifts of healing, words of knowledge, prophecy are all nearly extinct. The evangelical community is very small. The city of Vienna with about 1,7 Million inhabitants has about 20 churches with an average size of about 60. The Pentacostal churches in Vienna are probably around 10 and of those are quite a few international ones (English speaking, African, Rumanian, Russian etc...)
The biggest church in all of Austria is a church of Rumanian immigrants with a size of about 3000 and there is no other church anywhere near. (At least to my knowledge) One of the issues in Austria is also that the regular people are very closed towards foreigners. They might now know how much they actually do it, but for anybody from another country it is quite obvious that foreigners in Austria are not given the same trust and respect as locals. I personally have the advantage that I speak German as they speak it in Austria with hardly any accent. On the streets I am usually thought of as just another Austrian, which is very good for me. Would I have a thick Swiss accent, I would automatically be associated with all the prejudices there are about Swiss. At the very least people would think me incapable of truly understanding their problems and issues.
(I have to remark though that this is of course a generalized description of Austrians. There are some that have lived for a while abroad and that have gained a larger understanding of the world community we are as humans. The same prejudices against foreigners can by the way be found in almost any country. I have experienced it quite similar in the US, although not nearly to the same extent as in Austria)
These issues make it hard, very hard for Missionaries and not without reason Austria is amongst ministers commonly called the Missionary graveyard. It is very easy to become disillusioned, disappointed and simply burned out after years and years of heard labor and toil with little to no fruit.
It is sad to say, but the Austrian church is just very weak. About 80% claim to be Christians, but only 4% go to church regularly and to my estimation only about 2% or less are real Christians that know God. Especially on the countryside of Austria it is still tradition to go to church as a family, but the people never truly give their life to God and they are not even told they need to.
Just as a sidenote: 4,3% of the people are part of the Muslim Religion.

So, this is the state of the nation. So don't complain too much about the situation in your place. It could be worse. At the same time I have to remind myself not to complain too much. Right now we only face public ridicule, rejection and lack of government and legal rights. We are not yet under strong opposition by the government (Probably because we are too small to be recognized)
I could talk much longer about the individual problems in my personal church, but I think this is enough for today. Austria needs Jesus and it needs an awakening in the existing churches, a reformation of the 21st century. I personally want to see the power and might of God present with mighty signs and wonders, so no man can any longer reject the reality of his sovereignty. (See John 20:27)