Here is an update letter from the Athens church with anecdotes recounting their 14 year history. Our prayers will encourage their perseverance. Every church of Christ is precious to the Lord. Here is your sister church in Athens story.
Dear sister churches: Greetings. This is the Athenian-Greek family speaking! We find it extremely useful to write a portait for all those who so generously support the European fellowships, but also for those who have the Paul-like heart of building stronger bonds by sharing victories, struggles and prayers with fellow workers around the globe. The Athens church was founded in 1995 by a mixture of American and German saints who either had some Greek blood, or just the desire to see the Truth of the gospel preached back to the Greek blood, like the good old times!
Leaders & mission teams kept changing, people kept fighting for God, all with their different motives, personalities or skills, but with the sole purpose to help this movement grow in this city. 
Other team members had to return to their homelands to survive, and many saw their dear friends leaving or fallen completely away from God’s grace.
Athens holds a vast history, something which in the years we found hard to penetrate, a task that many found hard. The simplicity of The Word can be a stumbling block to people who grow up in a country of deep wisdom, science and philosophy.
Life is relatively comfortable, with coffee shops, restaurants, resorts & islands packed of life, especially during summer. This is something that, however grateful we are to our Father about, can many a times add up to the fights we as disciples have to face.
In more recent history, Greece,during wars and their occupation , in their distress and need for divine intervention,bonded strongly with the Orthodox Christian religion, making it nowadays the only accepted dogma to the Greek mentality, but also to the laws of state (Ortho=right, doxa=worship).
We strive towards deeper relationships with one another, as a small family that we have our Christ as our only Shepherd (no officially assigned leader) for more than five years, hoping that the love between us will be the cornerstone and a ray of hope for those who seek to find the ideal lifestyle, in the midst of all the distracting influences around them.
Our kind prayer requests are:
· for the eyes of the Greek population to open,
· for the hearts of the few(7) disciples here to grow in zeal and love for this perishing population.
· For God to grant us healing in our spiritual & physical health problems so we can serve him with more joy and focus.
Athens holds a vast history, which is great for history students and for tourism! But as faith is concerned, many found traditions something too hard to penetrate and pure living an impossible task to bear.
We realized that in a country with deep roots in philosophy and science ,the simplicity of the word is a stumbling block to the locals b
ut also to disciples who came so unprepared for this.
We are now 7 disciples, with no staff members, no consistent discipling or direction from mature leadership, some are weaker than others, some more focused than others, but all fighting our struggles. Many a times personal and church issues can seem too heavy of a Cross to carry. But even though we know we lack in so many ways, what i believe has sustained us so far has been the grace of God.
James2 :12-13: Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Being taught the London ways of discipling others, was a hard thing to apply to the Athens church. I felt stuck, frustrated and desperate. Many times I messed up with how I treated my co-fighter brothers or sisters.
I spoke with “zeal without knowledge”, or to put it differently “with zeal without Grace”.
Titus 2 :11-13 For the Grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope..”.
No Law or Commandment (or even a large church fellowship) could achieve what Grace have done to our hearts.
No better teaching is found out there that can sustain us (and prayerfully help us grow and mature) than the power of God’s Mercy & Grace; in other words, the Power of the message of The Cross.
Many other motives came to pass as proven wanting, like The Fear of God, The Fear of Judgment, the Faith of others, and even Guilt , one which seems to be the main motive we all learned “well” how to use while discipling and disciplining each other (to the destruction of our relationships and to the fatal weakening of many fallen aways).
John 8:11 “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
The order Jesus spoke these words could be the greatest teaching and this can become the greatest motive for perseverance.
We don’ t know where will we be in the near future. All we know is that the more we grasp his graceful sacrifice (Romans5:6,8) the easier it will get to say “No” to the world, and “Yes” to Perseverance.
In Him,
Theophanis Roropoulos, Athens, Greece
posted by Jerry Maday
