Christel & James Ros - ostdeutschlandglaubt

Our Story

I was looking for a challenge that was mission-oriented in Germany. For that, we had to start from scratch again!

It all started when I was a pastor in a small town in southern Germany for more than two decades. In 2012, I felt it was time for a new challenge. During a „silent week“ I noted down what kind of challenge I was looking for:

„I’m looking for a challenge that is mission-oriented in Germany, challenges my strategic nature and is for a whole region, not just one town.“

I knew nothing about such a position – until 12 May 2012! That day I was on my way to Leipzig for a church planting meeting. On the way there, a colleague told me that Pastor Manfred Obst was looking for a church planter and leader for Thuringia for our church association. Although I was certainly not the one he was looking for, when I heard about this task, I felt a tingling inside me.

Actually, Pastor Obst was not supposed to be at the meeting in Leipzig. But when I entered the room, who was there? Manfred Obst! I said to him, „I hear you are looking for people for Thuringia.“ He replied, „We can always use good people.“ I asked him if he would be happy with me. That was a divine moment for me. Since that day, my life has been focused on starting a movement of new churches in a milieu that the Erfurt theology professor Eberhard Tiefensee describes as „highly resistant to missionary movements of all kinds“.

Now it was a question of winning my wife for this adventure. She was born and raised in the place where I was pastor for twenty-three and a half years. She spent forty-six years here. This is where our two children were born, attended kindergarten and primary school. My wife worked here. Here she had her friends and her community. She was happy in this place. Then I came. I invited her out for lunch. There I told her that my time as a pastor in her hometown was coming to an end and would probably continue in Thuringia. Tears ran down her cheeks and without a millisecond’s hesitation she said, „I’m in.“

Immediately she was ready to sell our house, give up our secure jobs and step into a completely uncertain future. She is the heroine of my story. She is the reason why we have started our fifth church plant after almost ten years. Why, in addition, we have been able to support several partner start-ups during this time and are currently assisting another seven start-up teams through a team process.

Our longing remains. To start churches in Eastern Germany that communicate the good news where it is not yet or no longer known, so that Eastern Germany will believe more tomorrow than it does today.

James and Christel Ros

#EasternGermanybelieves