(photo above: TBN team in front of statue of Polish composer Chopin at famed Łazienki Park in Warsaw.)
by Matthew Crouch
In a land once ruled by the iron fist of communist oppression, the light of God’s love is breaking through. We are excited to announce that TBN Polska is on the air in the nation of Poland. It is happening through TBN’s solid partnership with a group of Polish pastors, business and professional people, and television producers — all men and women of God who share a deep burden to take the good news of Jesus to their cities and their people.
While the Catholic Church has played a major role in Poland’s national identity for hundreds of years, a half-century of efforts by a communist-ruled government to destroy the Christian faith left Poland a spiritually broken nation. And even though many Polish people are religious, few of them know Jesus personally. “They are still looking for a real God,” Zbyszek Maziarz, a Polish Christian cinematographer, told me.
In fact, in a land of over 38 million people, there are only around 40,000 born-again, evangelical Christians — about .1 percent of Poland’s population. Mr. Maziarz said that for the most part, the nearly 95 percent of Poles who consider themselves Catholic think of the Bible as “a kind of false story.”
But he and the other evangelical pastors and professionals TBN is partnering with are determined to show their countrymen that God loves them and has a plan for their lives. Furthermore, they believe Christian television is one of the most powerful tools to reach the people of Poland.
Polish Pastor Krzysztof Rompa, one of the Christian leaders we met during our recent stop in Prague, told us that the idea for Christian television in Poland actually began over twenty years ago as evangelical Christians prayed for a move of God in the nation. “Some people began to produce Christian programming for the state channel,” he recalled to us. “And then in the mid-1990s we heard about a Christian network called TBN. Christians in Poland began to watch the channel as they were able, and out of that experience was born the vision for TBN Polska.”
Laurie and I, along with our TBN team, first met this small group of committed Polish Christians in April 2014 to see how TBN might partner with them in their desire to reach Poland for Jesus. It didn’t take long for us to realize that these folks had the vision, dedication, and commitment to successfully use television to effectively cover Poland with the Gospel. A few months later we were back to sign the necessary government papers, and in August 2015 TBN Polska officially launched with a daily block of Polish-language programming on TBN Europe — with plans to eventually make TBN Polska a 24-hour network broadcasting throughout Poland and the surrounding region.
The program block, which has grown to three hours a day on TBN Europe, includes television ministries like Joyce Meyer, who is very popular among Polish viewers, along with Christian music from Polish singers and musicians. Pastor Rompa told us that viewers in Poland and from across Europe are responding to the message of hope and grace from TBN Polska. “People are tuning in, and they are saying they want this same faith in Jesus that they are seeing on TV.” He also said that Polish Christians and congregations are anticipating the growth and expansion of TBN Polska, with plans for new programming, mentoring those who come to faith in Christ, and for more outreach throughout the country.
One of the hopes of our TBN Polska team is to connect in a positive way with the Catholic Church in Poland. And through a series of events and encounters that can only be described as miracles, it appears that some important relationships have been forged with key Catholic leadership, and the Catholic Church’s attitude toward TBN Polska is changing from distrust and separation to one of support. In a country where 94 percent of the population — over 35 million people — profess to be Catholic, having the approval of Catholic leadership is huge, to say the least.
One thing is clear. Right from the beginning we recognized the enormous harvest field that exists in a nation with only .1 percent of evangelicals, but with an incredible hunger by people to know God. And we’re committed to partnering with this group of passionate, caring men and women of God to make TBN Polska a success, and to witness a mighty harvest of souls across the nation of Poland.