Dear Friends,

What releases God’s movement?

King Josiah began seeking the God of his father David when he was just 16 years old. Noticing the temple in disarray, he started to clean and rebuild it, finding the long-discarded Word of God hidden in the ruins. As he read the prophets, he realized that the land was full of idols and gathered the entire nation to hear his stirring challenge: “Remove your idols and return to true worship of the one true God.”

Inspired by King Josiah, our team in Slovakia recently gathered over 700 youth leaders for three days of training on idol removal. Today, many people consider idolatry a problem of the past, not realizing that, as Calvin said, “the human heart is a veritable factory of idols.” Our natural tendency is to enthrone someone or something in a place that belongs to God and turn to our idol for help rather than to Yahweh.

The speakers unpacked seven main types of idols found in 2 Kings 23, when Josiah cleansed the land. These are ancient gods like Baal, the storm god, who we turn to in order to bring things under control, or Molech, the god of destruction, who controls us through fear. But Josiah also confronted very attractive goddesses like Ashtoreth, who offers comfort with sexuality and pleasure and Asherah, who cares for us like a mother.

With vulnerability and personal illustrations, the speakers shared how these false gods express themselves today and then challenged the leaders to remove and replace their own idols through repentance and faith.

God’s Spirit moved in an unusual way, and the youth leaders responded with an outpouring of courageous steps of obedience. Identifying specific areas of idolatry, they wrote them on slips of paper, prayed prayers of repentance, and then destroyed the papers in a shredder as a physical sign of idol removal. The counseling rooms were full of young leaders looking for help on specific issues, and the final evening erupted in spontaneous worship and praise as the barriers to true worship were removed.

Now these leaders are returning to hundreds of churches across Slovakia. They have just been equipped with the passion of King Josiah to return their nation to true worship. Will you pray with us that the fires of revival will continue to burn in their hearts and spread to their youth groups, communities, and churches?

Thank you for being part of releasing God’s movement in Central and Eastern Europe through your gifts and prayers.