Kingdom Impact in the Nordic Region

Globally Mobile in the Nordic Region

Migration is reshaping communities across the Nordic region.¹ A 2024 report found that more than 3.7% of the world’s population (around 304 million people) live outside the country where they were born. If they formed a country, it would be the world’s fourth most populous, after India, China, and the United States.² 

In the Nordic region, foreign-born people and their descendants were the main drivers of population growth between 2017 and 2022.³ For the church, these changes raise practical questions: how do we welcome people across cultures, grow together as the body of Christ, and equip believers to share the gospel wherever they live?

David Fresch and Lemma Desta approach these questions through their work in Norway. Their testimonies, shared at the Fourth Lausanne Congress alongside those of Gjermund Øystese and Eero Peuraniemi, offer glimpses of faith shaping life in Norway and Finland – from relationships across cultures to personal struggles and public witness.

Gathering the Scattered, Sending Disciples

David Fresch | Norway

David Fresch serves as the Global Executive Director of the Missional International Church Network in Norway. The realities of global migration have created a unique tension for churches in this region, as congregants can be transient, often moving between different communities and, at times, even countries.

While a transient congregation can be challenging, the Missional International Church Network sees it as a powerful opportunity. In fact, it’s ‘one of the best ways that we can reach unreached and least reached people groups…because they are able to take the gospel back into their home countries.’ 

Gather the scattered and make them the sent.

For that very reason, David desires to speak to identity, purpose, and unity among this population of globally mobile believers, and he longs to ‘gather the scattered and make them the sent.’ He also seeks to inspire them to see themselves as disciple-makers – engaging and discipling others wherever they are.

David reminds us that the call to live like Christ isn’t just for the missionaries or the super spiritual – it’s for all of us ‘ordinary people who are living for Christ and his mission, so that more might come to know him and so the whole church can take the whole gospel to the whole world.’ 

Building Unity Across Cultures

Lemma Desta | Norway

As churches gather people from different countries, they also face the task of building a shared life across cultures. For Lemma Desta, an Ethiopian leader living in Norway, unity in Christ is essential to Christian witness.

As a believer living between cultures and an advisor on global migration, Lemma’s testimony is full of hopeful conviction about what can happen when the body of Christ lives in unity and collaboration across cultures. He believes that diverse churches – in Norway and all around the world – can collaborate for a more effective witness, because ‘we do it better when we do it together. We have one Lord, one faith, one hope, one Father.’

We do it better when we do it together.

Cultural differences can create divisions within the church, but Lemma invites us to remember what unites us all: the gospel.

Lemma closes with this: ‘It’s my prayer that God blesses every one of us in our endeavor for this one and same gospel, no matter which color of skin we have, no matter which country we come from…[that] God brings us together as testimony of unity in the body of Christ.’ 

Finding Freedom from Addiction Through Honest Fellowship

Gjermund Øystese | Norway

Christian community takes shape through more than relationships across cultures. It also grows through the trust that allows people to speak honestly about struggles they have kept hidden. For Norwegian leader Gjermund Øystese, hearing another man’s testimony became a turning point in his own search for freedom.

Gjermund currently works as a political advisor and helps believers around him find freedom from addictions. But decades ago, his life looked very different. He was introduced to pornography at a young age and spent years of his life hiding in sin and shame. 

But one evening Gjermund heard someone else’s story, and he realized he wasn’t alone. He learned that God is Lord of all aspects of our life, and he began to find freedom from his own addiction to pornography. Eventually he found complete healing, and since then, he’s watched many others find freedom from their own addictions, too. 

The roles of accountability, prayer, and fellowship in finding freedom from addiction.

Gjermund now talks passionately about the roles of accountability, prayer, and fellowship with other believers, because he didn’t find freedom alone – it was through the testimony of others and the power of Christ that he was freed from his addiction. 

Though shame often causes us to retreat from relationships with others, Gjermund knows the power of community. He shares that ‘through fellowship, we could each keep each other accountable, we could pray for each other, and stand side by side. And that brought me true freedom.’

Equipping Young People to Share Their Faith

Eero Peuraniemi | Finland

Courage takes another form in Eero Peuraniemi’s ministry in Finland: helping young people speak openly about their faith in Jesus.

Eero shared that he never saw himself as a courageous leader. But he’s passionate about teaching and training others to share the gospel, answer faith questions, and talk about apologetics.

Young people already have the passion – they just need a small push forward.

Eero was involved in starting an organization called Go Out, and his team began training young people in Tampere, Finland, to be bold evangelists and share the gospel effectively. Their movement quickly spread beyond Tampere, and now groups are springing up across Finland, with young people gathering to learn evangelism strategies and go out to share their faith courageously. 

As Eero reflects on his work with Go Out, he shares that they realized that young people already have the passion – they just need a small push forward.

In Summary

Together, these testimonies give practical expression to living all of life under Christ’s lordship. David and Lemma invite churches to equip believers across borders and build unity across cultures. Gjermund shows the importance of honest fellowship in the struggles people often conceal. Eero encourages believers to act on their convictions and help others share Jesus. 

So much is possible when the church lives with unity and collaboration, focused on the one gospel we believe in, together.

As the fourth aspect of Lausanne’s fourfold vision champions, ‘Our mission, therefore, is inherently holistic. The gospel we share, the churches we plant, and the leaders we form must reflect this — living all of life under the lordship of Christ.’⁴ As these stories show, so much is possible when the church lives with unity and collaboration, focused on the one gospel we believe in, together.

Pray for these leaders and consider how you can labor with hope, seeing God’s Kingdom come in every nation, every sphere, and every generation.

Endnotes

1. The Nordic region consists of the 5 sovereign states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and 3 autonomous territories (Greenland, Faroe Islands, Åland Islands) in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic.
2. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/journal/feature/top-statistics-global-migration-and-migrants
3. https://www.nordicstatistics.org/news/new-statistics-on-integration-and-migration-in-the-nordics/
4. https://lausanne.org/fourfoldvision