evangelical 360°

Ep. 51 / World Evangelical Alliance Past, Present and Future with Frank Hinkelmann

• Host Brian Stiller • Season 1 • Episode 51

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Headlines often reduce “evangelical” to a U.S. political label, but there is so much more beyond the frame. In this conversation with historian and global church leader Rev. Dr. Frank Hinkelmann, we trace how a revival-born, interdenominational movement became a 140‑country network, why its center now rests in the Global South, and what that means for mission, ethics, and public life. 

Dr. Hinkelmann unpacks the roots of the term "evangelical" for us, the Bebbington markers that still orient identity, and the surprising ways migration and youth engagement are reshaping Europe’s religious map. We dig into the nineteenth‑century birth of the World Evangelical Alliance and its early campaigns for religious freedom, including advocacy before emperors and sultans. 

That history sets the stage for today’s challenges: resisting the temptation to fuse faith with political power, broadening moral vision beyond a narrow set of issues, and keeping conscience, persuasion, and service at the center. Frank offers a European lens on U.S. politicization, urging a clear line between church and state while calling believers to engage the public square with conviction and humility.

For younger listeners wondering how to step in, Frank’s roadmap is simple and actionable: start local, volunteer, cross borders when possible, and build friendships that widen your view of God’s work in the world. 

You can learn more from Rev. Dr. Frank Hinkelmann through his published works, and the World Evangelical Alliance through their website and Facebook.

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Brian Stiller:

Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. All my life I've been a part of the Christian church known as Evangelicals, a community of church denominations and ministries, which historically is part of the world Protestant Church. In the past few years, this community of evangelicals has grown faster than any religious community in their history of the world, a comment I make with care. In the past few decades, this church community has grown from under 100 million just decades ago to over 600 million today. However, in recent years, especially in the United States, for historical and cultural reasons, the Native Evangelical has been linked to a particular political party, its policies and values, and by so doing has reconfigured its essence by this political alignment. This is not true globally. And with that in mind, today I want you to meet Frank Hinkelmann, a scholar and historian who will help us see who this community has been historically and how worldwide it seeks to bring cohesion and unity to this wide-ranging community which makes up a quarter of the world's Christians. And thanks for joining me. And I know your time with Frank today will be of value to your understanding of the world and to this major community of faith. But as you listen, would you consider sharing this episode with a friend? And if you haven't, just hit the subscribe button and join the conversation on YouTube. Now to my guest, Frank Hinkelmann. Frank Hinkelmann, thank you for joining us on Evangelical 360.

Frank Hinkelmann:

Thank you very much for the invitation to be part of this.

Brian Stiller:

Frank, there's a lot of things I want to talk with you about as historian and as uh senior leader in the world evangelical community over these years and especially out of Europe. But let me jump in right in and ask you this question as we look at the politicization of evangelicals in the U.S. In the 180 years that this organization, the World Evangelical Alliance, has been around, or maybe even the history of Protestantism, have we ever had a particular time or place where the evangelical community has been politicized as we see it going on in the U.S. today?

Frank Hinkelmann:

Well, from a church historical perspective, I would say no, we haven't. Especially if we look at the last 200 years of evangelical history, I think we need to say this is quite a unique situation where we are in. If we go a bit further back, I mean what we have seen in during the Reformation period is that there that the alliance between a state and the church remained, which was there since Constantine at the beginning of the fourth century, where this alliance was originally formed. And I think it was then Protestantism in the 18th and 19th century, which was fighting for religious freedom, for the many new Protestant denominations, and for separation of state and church. What I see in the US right now, I was watching some days ago the memorial service for Charlie Kirk. What we see there right again is again an alliance, in this case, with evangelicalism, with the government or with the state. And I'm wondering whether that is really the calling of the church as such, of evangelicalism as such. You know, if you look at the first and second century, Christians were a minority, Christians were persecuted, evangelicals or Christians were countercultural. And I think what I observe, at least from an outside perspective, I think what we see in the US right now is that they form an alliance to push through their agenda. And I'm just wondering whether that really is the calling of the church. But again, I'm speaking from a European perspective.

Brian Stiller:

Well, that's what I really matters to me that we get into another perspective. I want to come back into this, Frank, but let's let's cycle back to the beginning and lay the groundwork here. Give us a definition. Who are evangelicals? This body of that make up a quarter of the church in the world, about 650 million. Who are evangelicals? Where did they come from?

Frank Hinkelmann:

Well, the term evangelical was originally coming from the German term evangelism in the Reformation period. It was a term to describe Protestants. And then from the 17th century onwards, it became a term a term to define a group within Protestantism, which was emphasizing the authority of the Bible, which was emphasizing conversionism, which emphasized the centrality of the cross, etc. David Bebbington, a British historian, he more or less uh did a groundbreaking study on the history of evangelicalism in in the UK. And uh more or less everyone has followed up that definition, which at that time was a description of what he noticed in the UK setting. But what we also need to acknowledge and be aware of, what we see is that evangelicalism has always been transnational and transconfessional. Transnational, it means it was yet similar movements in the UK, in the new colonies in North America, on the European continent. Uh and transconfessional means that you had believers within different church traditions. Within the Anglican church in the United Kingdom, then Methodism, which came up, then you had the pietistic movements within the Lutheran Church in Scandinavia and the German-speaking countries, you had pietistic groups within the Reformed camp. And then in the 19th century, you had all these new denominations coming up, like the early already, the Baptists, the Methodists, I mentioned already, Salvation Army, Evangelical Free Brethren Movement. And they were all during the revivals of the 19th century strongly connected. And therefore, I think evangelicalism, especially since the 19th century, has been an interconfessional and interdenominational um uh movement, which then also led to the founding of the World Evangelical Alliance in 1846. Christians had come to know each other, they were working in together in mission agencies and in tract societies, Bible societies, et cetera, et cetera. And they noticed that despite coming from different denominational backgrounds, hey, we have one common interest, which is to honor the Lord Jesus. We hold to the authority of Scripture, we want to encourage people to convert and commit their life to the Lord, and we want to see mission being advanced. These have been very much also the core issues for WA to come into being.

Brian Stiller:

Frank, I know that a major study in religion here in Canada showed that I think it was about 15 or 16 percent of Roman Catholics would self-identify as evangelical as per the definition. So you're saying that the that evangelicalism, more than a tradition or a denomination, is an idea?

Frank Hinkelmann:

Well, I I would, I mean, it it always depends how you go about definitions. You know, what you you see in the 19th century or till the 19th century is also with the World Evangelical Alliance and its founding that it was a Protestant, inner Protestant movement with different denominations. However, you also had pietistic movements within the Roman Catholic Church on the European continent during the 18th, 19th century. The first large revival in Germany, actually in Bavaria, took place in the Catholic Church and influenced all other revival movements in the 19th century, early 19th century in Germany. But the question is, how do you go about it? Do you take a theological definition? Then I think some in some countries, some Catholics, Roman Catholics would identify themselves as evangelicals. Uh if you go by traditional historical definitions, that it is an inner Protestant movement, like for example, many evangelicals in Italy, Poland, Spain would do, then you will certainly say no, it is only inter- or transconfessional within Protestantism. It depends on your definition.

Brian Stiller:

Yeah, it is. Todd Johnson, who will have as a guest in one of our upcoming podcasts, who is from the Global Center of Research at Gordon Conwell, in a recent study showing that there tends to be not six hundred and fifty million evangelicals, but almost a billion evangelicals as defined by those who believe in the essentials of what David Bebbington has called the quadrilateral, those four uh key elements to Christian faith. So it is by way of the numbers are are confined by way of the framing, isn't it? But let me let me go to this.

Frank Hinkelmann:

We recently had uh from a WA perspective, we had uh a podcast with uh Gina Surlor from the World Christian Database and uh Jason Mandrick, who is part of the the leader of the Operation World Project, looking at numbers. And again, you know, do you take a very narrow approach? Then you probably speak of 450 million. If you take a very wide uh uh broad uh uh approach, then you're probably close to the 1 billion. We with NWA usually use the 650 million, but I think there are good grounds also to move towards the higher number.

Brian Stiller:

Okay, in the world today, globally, there are there are three identifiable groups that make up the 2.4, 2.5 billion Christians. One is the Roman Catholics, which makes so which is the Vatican is is their center. So there's all about 1.2 billion, about half Christians would identify as being Vatican-centered Roman Catholic. The World Council of Churches, which includes the Orthodox, Orthodox have 300 million. Within the World Council, there tends to be about 400 to 500 million. And then the World Evangelical Alliance, of which you and I are part, are considered about 650 million. So, what I'd like to do, Frank, I'd like to move towards that third group, the World Evangelical Alliance. And you wrote, you just uh recently published a history of the World Evangelical Alliance. Let's let's go into that category and give us a give us a thumbnail sketch, an historical outline of how that happened, why it happened, and where it happened.

Frank Hinkelmann:

Well, the World Evangelical Alliance was founded actually in London in in 1846 on the initiative of key evangelical leaders, predominantly from Great Britain, but also from the European continent and some North American Christians were present. And one of the, as mentioned before, one of the driving desires of those initiating the evangelical alliance to come into being was the um growth of liberalism, where evangelicals strongly uh wanted to hold to the authority of scripture, which is actually true to this day. So fighting some of the liberal liberalism.

Brian Stiller:

And just give us a thumbnail sketch of what what liberalism, what do you mean by liberalism?

Frank Hinkelmann:

By liberalism, I mean do I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God? Do I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do I believe in the atoning death of Jesus Christ? Those were a number of subjects and issues which were questioned by the majority of the traditional Protestant denominations, especially on the European continent and from Europe that went on to the US as well. And that was where uh evangelicals in the 19th century said, no, we want to hold to these traditional Christian convictions and theological uh convictions. And then as we look to the further development of the World Evangelical Alliance, it was originally not a denominational grouping. It was individuals who more or less had leadership responsibilities within their agencies and denominations, but it was intentionally not a group of churches or denominations joining, but individuals. And for the first, let's say, uh hundred years, it was the British Evangelical Alliance who also had uh uh some top national leaders, also from political, from governmental side, uh in their ranks that were influential in running and leading the evangelical alliance, and especially till 1918 in a number of European continental countries, Baptists, Methodists, Brethren, Salvation Army, believers who are not even allowed to meet, not even in private homes, to worship. And the Evangelical Alliance was a great defender of religious liberty and freedom of speech during the 19th century. They sent delegations to the emperor in Vienna to for because uh American Presbyterians, churches, founded churches founded by American Presbyterians were uh closed down in the Czech Republic. They sent, and and they were not only speaking up for the religious freedom for evangelicals, but they went to the Sultan of Constantinople, today's Istanbul, and spoke up on behalf of the Armenian believers. And for us it's unthinkable, but in the 1980s we had a situation in Sweden where five ladies, uh I think there were five of them, wanted to convert from Lutheran faith to Roman Catholicism. And the government, because in Sweden Lutheranism was still state religion, were threatening to take the citizenship, the Swedish citizenship away. And the evangelical lines in the UK then called for religious liberty on behalf of these Swedish ladies who actually wanted to convert to Roman Catholicism.

Brian Stiller:

My grandfather and grandmother came from Sweden, and I can't imagine that happening there, but if you say so, we believe it. Frank, the the development of evangelicals then, you brought us up into the 20th century, but the numbers show that from 1960, which identified about 90 million evangelicals, it grew from there to the 650 in these ensuing years. What in the world happened to trigger such a growth in this community?

Frank Hinkelmann:

I think uh it is the sovereign grace of God. You know, he moved, especially in what we call either majority world or global south. Till the 1960s, 1970s, the West was always the driving force of evangelicalism, Europe and and North America. And what we have seen in the last couple of decades is a total shift. You know, the majority, vast majority of evangelicals today live in the global south or majority world. I think currently we speak of over 60% of evangelicalism, that is predominantly in Africa, Latin America, and also in in some countries in Asia. And research assumes, expects that number to grow to 75% by 2050. You know, if you look at the Edinburgh Mission, World Mission Conference in 1910, I think there were five, three or five participants only from the global south. Today, that would never ever happen again, you know. So that is the major shift we have seen. And evangelicalism, interestingly enough, is the only religious group which doesn't just grow because of birth rates. Evangelicals generally have a higher birth rate than the average population in most countries, but it uh growth also, especially because of conversionism. So people decide to turn to the evangelical expression of the Christian faith. Islam also grows, but due to birth rates.

Brian Stiller:

Isn't it remarkable, Frank, that during my lifetime, I'm a little older than you, but during my lifetime, secularity seemed to be the dominant theme in my country and certainly throughout Europe. And so when you have when you tell people that the church is exploding around the world, they look at you in disbelief.

Frank Hinkelmann:

Yes, that's true. And I think part of the problem is that actually our worldview is usually limited to the sphere where we live. We don't know what happens beyond our own, let's say, national, European, continental, or whatever world. But I think we in a globalized world, we need to take that into consideration. And in that podcast I was referring to earlier with Gina Solo and Jason Mandrak, they said actually it shouldn't be us in the Western world, in the global north, defining what evangelicalism is as we move into the future, but it should be the global south, the majority world leaders who are evangelicals to define what evangelicalism is all about. And the interesting thing is, you know, what we see in the West is that through secularism and liberalism within the Christian churches and the Protestant churches predominantly, we see a decrease of Christianity. People are leaving the church frustrated. Whereas in other parts, we are seeing major growth. The largest, to give you one example, from the country I live in, Austria, the largest evangelical denomination is the Romanian Pentecostal Church, Church of God Cleveland in Austria with 18,000. All the other, the the Austrian Pentecostal movement, which also has a lot of African churches in there, the Evangelical Free, the Baptists, the Mennonites, and another charismatic denomination, don't reach in total the number the Church of God Cleveland has in total. And that is one of the some of the realities. If you I can only speak of Europe, if you look at uh Ireland, if you look at many of our countries, we see that through the inflow also of migrants from Africa, from other parts of Europe, from Asia, we see a huge church growth. Langham Partners just published a book on evangelicalism in Europe, which I was co-editor with. And there is an article from a gentleman in Ireland who says, you know, because of the Romanian Pentecostal church in Dublin, um building church building for over a thousand people, I think. The governor of the country for the first time went to an evangelical church. You know, till then they were always seen as cults, as sects or whatever, evangelicals in a predominantly Roman Catholic country. Now, even with the help of these migrant churches, they catch even the attention of politicians and the and the people as such, and the way they are perceived seems to change as well. To give one more example, that is not just due to migration. The Bible Society in the United Kingdom did a research in England, and we see that church attendance in the H rank between 14 and 24 has increased between 2013 and 2024 from 13 to 24 percent, more or less doubled. And church attendance is actually measured if you go to church, if you attend church at least twice a month. Young people of all kinds of backgrounds, and we see we see similar things happening right now in France and maybe also in other countries. So it's quite an interesting experience and observation.

Brian Stiller:

Uh, I just did a a uh a message to a church in Kiev, Ukraine, uh, the Salvation Church, which I I preach in often. And they have just completed a new church to house their growing community in Kiev in the middle of war. So it's it's interesting to see this development, this growth globally, and even in Europe. And of course, a spiritual tide raises all boats. And I noticed that the Catholics have baptized more young men in France and the U.S. than they have in years. Frank, let's come back to a topic that we talked about at the top of the show. And that's the the movement within the U.S. built out of a historical notion that America was chosen of God to be a special place of his manifestation, and a belief that the leadership of the church should be such that the country lives policy-wise and law-wise by Christian principles. Now, you're in Europe, and Europe and the US has a ocean between you. I live in Canada, and we just have a very small 49th parallel that divides us. So we are very much aware daily of what's going on in the U.S. But I'm interested in helping us understand that, first of all, the U.S. is not the world. But over the last hundred years, the evangelical community in the U.S. has been very influential globally in missions, in communication, in publishing, in education, and so forth. So while she may have maybe 10% of evangelicals worldwide, or whatever that number might be, she has enormous influence. And so what goes on in the U.S. influences the rest of the world. I'm reminded though, Tim Keller, who was former pastor in New York, he passed away some time ago, was asked as to whether he wanted to find another name than evangelical to describe who he was. And his line was classically Keller. He said, Why should the rest of the world be beholden to 10% of the world for self-definition? I thought that pretty good. But Frank, Frank, you're a you're a historian, you're an academic, you're a you're a you're a church leader in Europe. What do you see going on and what sense do you make? And we'll we'll follow that up with some other questions, but let's start there.

Frank Hinkelmann:

From a European perspective, I think we look at some of the most recent developments from a far more critical perspective than many evangelicals in the US would do. Um I think many of us would strongly urge for clear separation between the church and also evangelicalism as such, then, and a government. You have Christians in different parties, traditionally in most of the uh European countries. You can probably say that evangelicals have a tendency to vote more towards the or lean more towards the uh conservative side, but you have them even in the Green Party, you will find evangelicals or social democrats uh or socialist parties. So it is not as black-white as things seem to be or come across in in the US. And I think what is important to many Europeans is also, yes, issues like abortion, like LGBTQ, and all these kinds of issues are important, but biblical ethics are more touching and covering more issues, economic ethics, political ethics, et cetera, et cetera. And I think uh we struggle with the idea that we just reduce it to a limited number of issues. And sure, a governor, a ruler, president, whatever, needs to work for the best of the country. But whether, as an evangelical, I can say this is good if it is harming other countries, I'm not so sure. So I'm even struggling with a very strong American first perspective.

Brian Stiller:

You're an American Christian, and you say, I want my country to be more Christian. Is that is that somehow in violation of the gospel to have that wish?

Frank Hinkelmann:

Uh no, I mean we live in a democracy where we can elect people, but I think where it gets critical is what I observed, but again, I'm I'm speaking from a far distance uh right now, is when we start with the council culture the other way around. We we have rightly criticized that uh a kind of left-wing council culture has emerged, which corners us or uh even starts to move against the freedom of religion and freedom of speech. You know, the former Minister of the Interior in Finland, a lady, she was writing an email to no on on social media to her bishops. She was a member of the Lutheran Church or is a member, I don't know, saying that the Bible says that practiced homosexuality is sin. She was taken to court for hate speech, and the court case is now before the High Court of Finland. The case has been going on for many years. So we have rightly criticized this, but I think we need to watch that we don't enforce our convictions and beliefs for which we should stand, but we shouldn't enforce them on other others either. What we see in church history is, you know, if you look to the whole medieval time, if you look even at the Reformation period and how Anabaptist movements were were treated, you know, if I enforce my personal convictions, I think we are on dangerous grounds, and we see that throughout history.

Brian Stiller:

Okay, Frank, you have uh over the last number of years, you've you've been chair of the European Evangelical Alliance, but you've also served on the the global body called the International Council of the World Evangelical Alliance, which is a which is the governing body that that that that oversees the nine regions that are in the the body and over 140 countries that are a part of it. So we have this complex world. We have the politicization issue that uh we've just talked about in the U.S. And you you see this developing in other places on both the left and the right, be it in Brazil, you see the kind of surveillance that is intimidating in China. Then we see wars at all kinds of levels, be it Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, those are Activities and yet we have the church growing globally. So, as a global body of evangelicals, and you've established the kind of the theological base of who we are, what we believe, what do you see as being current and dynamic in the rise of Christian faith globally? We see it through the eyes of the community that we're a part of, and that you've been serving as a as a global vice chair. See it through those eyes. What do you see going on today that gives you hope and gives you concern?

Frank Hinkelmann:

I think when it comes to hope, what is what is unique about the World Evangelical Alliance is that we are a grassroots movement. So it's not this big body telling everyone else what we do, what they need to do. We are not top-down. What we have national evangelical lines in many countries there are regional, local evangelical lines. We have a number of very strong regional evangelical allies. And we can come alongside one another and help one another, encourage one another and learn from one another. I see huge potential also in the global perspective. Today we have members, national, National Evangelic Alliance, or members of WA in over 140, probably 145 countries. So we're quite a global movement. Again, what where I see hope is that if we come together and see how we can support each other, how we can uh strengthen one another, how we can speak up for our brothers and sisters who might be persecuted in a number of countries. I think there is huge potential there. Of concern to me is if I look at the history since World War II, the World Evangelical Fellowship was founded in 1951, strongly influenced by uh on the initiative of the National Association of Evangelicals in the US at that time. What we have seen, we have always struggled both financially and also structurally. We have not been good in uh creating a structure which really serves our purpose. And if you look at recent years, things haven't turned to the better. And I think with the with the new general secretary taking on uh leadership in WA, I think the the huge challenge will be: will we be able to create a structure, a healthy leadership group as well, to help both the regions and the National Evangelical Alliance to be relevant in their local, region, and regional context? And can we, as a global body, speak on behalf of evangelicals?

Brian Stiller:

So that begs the question, though, Frank, why has it been difficult for this global body with this global infrastructure to finance itself or to create this structure that reflects its grassroots nature and yet regional and global leadership?

Frank Hinkelmann:

I think what we see on a WEA level, on a world level, we also see on a regional and sometimes even on a national evangelical alliance level. Many of our national evangelical alliances have churches, have denominations, have agencies as members, and their first priority is to support their denomination, the agency, et cetera. So many of our evangelical alliances even struggle to finance the local and national ministry. We see the same on a regional level, and surely also on a global level. And I think the reality is many donors also struggle to support what they see as structures, especially global structures. You know, they prefer to be involved in a hands-on project in a country where you see results as such. But you see, you don't always see uh results, uh clear results as you work on these structural international global networks.

Brian Stiller:

There's one characteristic of evangelicals that comes to mind is that we're very entrepreneurial. Someone has there's a need. And as there was at the end of the Second World War in Korea, and Bob Pierce came up with an idea today called world vision. Somebody wants to meet around faith in their home, and within months you have a church built. So you have denominations, you have parachurch agencies, you have NGOs, you have congregations, and so our organization, we're very flat. We don't have a Vatican, we're very flat. So given that history and that nature, and give and given that, as I understand the development of WEA back in 1846 was the desire for people from various groups to have unity in Christ as as Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17. How well are we doing? And what do you see the future as it relates to global unity?

Frank Hinkelmann:

I I'm I'm quite positive, you know, because I see God at move, um, I see uh the church growing, especially in the global south and the majority world, as mentioned before. Um and people are coming together for prayer, for evangelism, for mission. And the network of the evangelical lines, be it on a national, on a regional, and sometimes even on a global network, is part of this. Yeah. And to give one example, we're currently supporting expat communities and churches in one of the Middle Eastern countries to establish a legal entity under our name so that they can be recognized by the government. Because they come from so many different countries and are uh evangelical yet but not linked to one traditional recognized denomination. They struggle even to have a legal place in that in that country. And I think that's where we can help, because again, you know, we have national EAs in those different countries where these fellow believers come from. And as you just says, evangelicalism has always been mission-minded, entrepreneurial. What we see is there are new initiatives, like the global day of prayer, like new outreach opportunities. Right now, it's also an emphasis one of our regions in Asia has, especially on discipleship. The Galilean movement is moving towards emphasizing discipleship. We have all these initiatives, and a network like and fellowship like the World Evangelical Fellowship can help to promote this as well.

Brian Stiller:

Frank, you've lived a full life. You've got many years yet ahead. But as you look back over your years of ministry in various agencies as a professor, as a president, principal of a school, involved in leadership in the global body, what's given you the greatest satisfaction in your life in ministry?

Frank Hinkelmann:

I think my greatest satisfaction has been to be part of what God is doing globally. I grew up as a child in Asia. I'm a missionary kid, and I've always loved this international sphere. And to see, to be able to be part of it, uh, to see how God is at work and hopefully also to at least partially contribute to that, I have found very satisfactory and a huge, huge blessing.

Brian Stiller:

Frank, let's let's look at somebody in their mid-20s or their mid-30s, and they're looking at their own life and the world around them, and they have a deep desire to serve the church and to serve the Lord. But they don't know where to begin. They don't know how to start out in lifting themselves beyond their own parochial and narrow national or denominational confines. So you're a missionary cad, you have this world perspective. How does that person start? Where do they begin?

Frank Hinkelmann:

Uh let me first say, at least what I see among uh young evangelicals in Europe is that they are far less interested in denominational issues. They don't really bother, they look for a church where they feel at home and where they like the preaching. It's far less, you know, you come from one denomination, you stay for the rest of life in your denomination. That will certainly also play into a role the evangelical alliance can have as an interdenominational or transdenominational network. The good thing about the evangelical alliance, we are a grassroots movement. So, you know, we can start on a local level and say, hey, let's get engaged. I remember when I uh moved to Austria completing after completing my theological studies in Germany, you know, I reached out to the Evangelical Alliance and said, hey, I would be interested to get involved in youth ministries. Yeah. And then I was asked to head up the youth committee. So I think, and many of us who are now in leadership positions in the Evangelical Alliance will say this is how we started on a local level, growing into leadership on then on a national level and beyond that. And again, you know, I think for me it has been very enriching to be part of I was the youth delegate at the European Evangelical Alliance uh annual assemblies, you know. I know many young people who have been part of global uh events like the General Assemblies of the World Evangelic Alliance. That has been very influential because they first of all, I think it for you for every young Christian, it's good to cross their own national boundaries, to see the world is bigger than I think, Christianity is bigger than I think, to learn, to get to know people from other denominations, from other cultures. And I think as they do this, they get also a broader perspective of what God is doing globally. And I think that is a brilliant starting point. And therefore, I'm I'm quite hopeful for as we look into the future with a young generation growing up and taking our place.

Brian Stiller:

Frank Hinkelmannan, thanks for joining us on Evangelical 360 today. It's been a wonderfully rich and informative time. Thank you.

Frank Hinkelmann:

Thank you very much for having me.

Brian Stiller:

Thanks, Frank, for joining me today. Your expansive and historical view of the world helps us see better not only what is today, but how that which has been formed over the last few centuries. And my thanks to you for being part of the podcast. Be sure to subscribe to Evangelical360 and share this episode wherever you watch or listen to this podcast. And if you'd like to learn more about today's guest, check the show notes for links and info. If you haven't already received my free ebook and newsletter, just go to Brianstiller.com. Thanks again. Until next time.