Croatia for Christ
“Croatia for Christ” is a Church ministry founded within the Churches of Christ in Croatia.
Our mission is well defined; to promote, direct and aid local Church communities that decide to be a part of our ministry.
As part of our mission, we deeply respect the autonomy of each local Church and we work together through open dialogue and in accordance with the guidelines and interests of each individual Church. If our ministry is not in accordance with all aspects of the wishes, needs, or vision of a local Church, we do not want to impose in any way. On the other hand, if our service can help a local Church and its members accept our ministry as an equal but independent structure, we pledge to act happily in unity with the local Church.
Our goal is that all the potential spiritual, social or material benefits from our end stay within the local Church and remain there. “Croatia for Christ” vows to put the interests of local Churches before our own. We will nurture the common goal of each local Church to grow in a spiritual sense as well as to promote the growth of their members.
The main goal of “Croatia for Christ” ministry is evangelization, spreading The Good News, as well as raising the visibility of The Churches of Christ in The Republic of Croatia and surrounding countries of southeastern Europe.
Activities
The Bible SHP application contains the Bible in the modern Croatian language. In addition to numerous possibilities for practical reading, it also contains an audio Bible. We are constantly working on improving it and adding new features in order to make the word of God as accessible as possible in Croatia.
Learn more
We publish our own magazine “The Family Magazine” a few times a year. We cover quality theological articles, information about the activities of local Churches that have joined us in this project, as well as other news connected to the Churches of the reformation heritage in the Republic of Croatia.
Learn more
In partnership with the East European Mission (EEM), which donates Bibles and Bible materials free of charge, we have successfully cooperated in the distribution of Bibles for many years. God has opened the door for the distribution of children's Bibles in religious education in public schools, and the number of Bibles distributed is continuously growing.
Learn more
For a long period of time we were producing Christian programs for many Croatian radio stations, and from the year 2018 we started to produce our TV program. Every week we are broadcasting Christian TV programs up to 15 minutes long. We believe that our TV broadcast is raising the quality of television programs on local TV stations.
Learn more
With donations, we were able to respond to several crisis situations by providing humanitarian aid for people in need. We provided houses for several families affected by the earthquake in Croatia in 2020, and we are also taking care of several families in exile in Croatia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Through humanitarian work, we want to show God's love to all people.
Learn more
We believe that the Christian community is of great use and importance. Apart from our regular weekly Church study gatherings and Sunday service, we believe in a higher form of union. Twice a year – once in the spring and once in the summer – our service organizes what we call “Church Camps”.
Learn more
The Bible is also called the Holy Scripture or God’s Word. Some call the Bible “The book of all books” and some go so far as to name it “The love letter of God to Men”. For us, the believers of the Church of Reformation heritage, the Bible is extremely important not only because we believe that it was inspired by the God’s spirit, but because of the belief that the Bible is the only source of Christian teachings and authority.
The Bible was written by some 40 different authors over the course of 1,500 years. Just that fact alone proves that the Bible is fascinating and has coexisted inexplicably among different writers, which would be impossible without the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit that motivated all of its authors throughout its creation.
We believe it contains everything that a human needs to know in order to meet God, his Nature and Righteousness as well as His plan to save each and every individual. The Bible is the only source of authority, final and absolute, for humans to discover. This belief can be clearly found in the verses of its origin (2 Tim 3:16,17 – Rev 22:18,19).
“Croatia for Christ” finds the publishing and distribution of The Bible as the foundation of our Christian service. As the members of Churches which, in a way, inherited the ideas of the 16th century Reformation movement, we find inspiration in our Croatian history as well.
The Croatian and Slovenian reformers translated to the Croatian language the complete opus of The New Testament in 1562. The people of Croatia were one of the first nations to have the translation of The Word of God to their native language, which was published in print in Latin, Glagolitic and Cyrillic script (also known as “Bosancica”) – all three scripts used in our region at the time.
Today, 450 years later, we continue along the same path, with the same Spirit and we want each and every individual to own a copy of The Bible.
Download application for “smartphones” that contains the most current, contemporary translation of the Bible. The application is entirely free of charge.
One significant place in the worship auditorium of the Churches of Christ in Zagreb and Varaždin is the replica of “Viseslav’s baptistry”, one of the most significant archeological finds in Croatia.
This baptistry is named after duke Viseslav who was the duke of Croats in the 9th century. His name is engraved on the original. The original baptistry (made from hexagonal-shaped stone) which we believe was constructed in early 9th century is in the Museum of Archeological Monuments in Split.
Besides being of important historical and spiritual significance, “Viseslav’s baptistry” is of great importance to New Testament Christians as a proof of biblical teaching that immersion of adults was practiced at least until the 10th century in the region of modern day Croatia. The dimensions of the replicas were kept the same as the original (height 90 cm, width 120 cm).
Latest
In August, a seven-day family camp was held on the island of Ugljan, the 55th Bible Camp of the Churches of Christ.
A new issue of the Family Magazine has been published, the 30th in a row. The topic of the new issue is Create a pure heart for me, God! You can scroll through it, and find previous numbers in the archive.
In June we organized a summer camp for children in Varaždin, partnering with the Varaždin Church of Christ and the Next Generation for Christ ministry.
