Krems – Austria’s Union of Baptist grew roughly 6% during the past year. It now consists of 1.421 members gathered in 23 congregations. The church’s General-Secretary, Pastor Walter Klimt (Vienna), reported on this at the national convention in Krems. The growth was due primarily to baptisms. In addition, three independent congregations became members of the Union: the Emanuel congregation in Vienna, a Romanian congregation in Linz and another one in Steyr. A congregation in West Vienna has planted a Spanish-speaking daughter congregation: ICLEA. The small Baptist Union is strongly international in nature. Congregations with no more than 50 or 80 members often consist of between 10 and 20 nationalities. Some have larger Farsi-speaking groups, which consist of former Muslims from Afghanistan and Iran. A fourth of Austria’s Baptists are from Romania.

Host for this year’s national conference was for the first time a Romanian-speaking congregation. These Baptists in Krems had recently constructed a new church centre. This congregation recently began to also offer worship services in German.

A major topic during the consultations in Krems was the social work programme of Austrian Baptists. Called the “Austrian Baptist Aid Society”, it has been recognised by the government as a charity, allowing it to accept tax-free donations. Even if the Union has grown significantly during the past year, it has no intention of becoming complacent. One is therefore asking if it would be realistic to grow by 20 more congregations and double the total number of congregations to roughly 40 by 2020. Walter Klimt stated: “We are convinced that God still has big plans for us. Keep praying for the further growth of free-church congregations in a country which has never experienced a spiritual revival.” Otniel Bunaciu (Bucharest), the President of Romania’s Baptist Union, spoke at the conference on the mission situation in Europe. It became clear during the seminars that one can no longer speak of givers and takers in mission work. It was stated at the conference: “All of us are givers and takers. We need each other.”