Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Franz Lippi

Franz and Gerlinde Lippi

Franz Lippi was part of the original plant of Exousia Christengemeinde (Exousia Christian Fellowship) in Graz, Austria. In 1990 the church began to minister into Slovenia serving to plant and establish churches. This expanded later into other Balkan nations as well and a ministry team began to form, which operates now under the name B.L.A.S.T. which means Balkan Loving Apostolic Serving Team, where Franz serves as the team leader. Franz has started to see true city transformation in Europe so Jonathan Bellamy spent some time with him to find out more.

Jonathan: Franz I wonder if we could start with a little bit of background about yourself? You describe in your bio that you had a radical conversion. What does that mean; what happened?

Franz: Yes it was - it happened in 1978 at the age of twenty-one; before that you know I always knew there was a God but not which one. I was definitely sure it wasn't the Roman Catholic one. I was looking you know into friends sources of wisdom book. At one point I was talking with someone I knew from my home town, whom I knew he was a Christian, but I definitely didn't want to go that way, especially you know in those days there were people who wore crosses around their neck and stuff like that; but we talked and he begin to talk about Jesus to me and I listened for a while and said honestly we can't really talk, because I don't know what's in your book that's called the Bible and you don't know what's in my book. At this point I was studying taldiki. So I said in all innocence and fairness let's swap books and then we talk again. You read a piece of my book, I read a piece of your book and that's it. I'm going to read just a section of your book. So he said start with gospel of John. Even though I didn't have much of a - you know great Christian background or whatever, or religious background, whatever you may call that; in my home it was always you give a word you keep your word. So I begin to read this. So when I begin to read the first chapter of John it was like a bullet was hitting me. In about half an hour I knew two things; this is not a God this is the God. This is not a word this is the word. So I begin to study on March 1st and on March 13th I gave - I understood as an engineer that I had to hand over the controls of my life to the Lord. That happened basically without any help without any outside influence or whatever; but it was a big thing for me. As I did this there was a real peace and joy and I don't know I mean the Lord really came into my heart. That was the first step you know. As an engineer I always wanted to know what I am talking about - so I begin to study the New Testament and the Psalms back and forth, back and forth, again without any outside help. There was no living church in the town that I was living in, there was nothing there. The Lord gave revelation and shook up my life and later on brought me in contact with a real apostolic father and then on things begin to kick off.

Jonathan: Now in terms of where you're at now, the name of your ministry is BLAST. What does BLAST stand for?

Franz: BLAST is an acronym that the Lord gave me and it stands for Balkan Loving Apostolic Serving Theme.

Jonathan: Obviously the focus is the Balkans. I understand that the vision for this is something that's developed over many years but your part of the vision you've had in Graz where you're based. Can you describe what that vision was?

Franz: The church that I helped to plant was just a house church in 1978; but even in the early days of our church we got a prophetic word that this church will be the mother of many churches in the south and in the east. It was just an indicator and in 1990/1991 when the Serbian army was retreating out of Slovenia and we said now is the time to really go in and start planting churches and that's what we did. Then we begin to minister in the Balkans in areas in the nation. In March 1999 I had a direct encounter with the Lord and this happened at a time when I sometimes take a few days for going to the mountains and pray and fast and try to go into the secret place with the Lord and just feed from him and just to spend quality time with the Father. On this particularly March 1999 I was praying and I heard myself pray, heavenly Father I come to you for your faith. In Mark 11.22, the Lord says, have God's faith. I just prayed; I really need an impartation and imputation of your faith in a deeper way. Then as I prayed this I was suddenly almost like in an elevator going up a few hundred metres, that's what it felt like. I was shown that faith and the mouth of heavenly Father for the Balkan. You know the Balkans have been a powder keg for hundreds of years in terms of violence and cultural clashes, religious clashes and racial clashes, whatever you name, it was there. I saw those nations with the faith and the love of the Father. As I saw these maps I saw brilliant little spots of light emerging and there were hundreds, thousands, ten thousand of them and they were made out of a very special bright light. I would say no light on this side of heaven is like this; I would call bright holy white lights. It is hard to describe and I understood in this, it was more than a vision. I wasn't even sure if I was still in the body or not, just out basically, just fully absorbed into this conversation. So this whole picture was this brilliant spot of light. I immediately understood that it was so precious for the heart of the Father. I ask, Lord, what do I see? Then the voice of the Lord said a house of peace in every village. When the Lord speaks to you in that way it is like a whole intense transfer of revelation. I begin to understand what he wants with the house of peace. Also that it will be very important for a launch of any community at a certain day if the house of peace is there or not. Then I saw a whole sequence of things.

I won't go into it for the sake of time, but at the end of the series of things that the Lord showed me, he showed me a very tall bright light towers made out of this very same light. It was incredible power coming out from those towers of light. Later on I understood that those were representing tents of David; places with extravagant worship and extravagant intercession and kings and being in the presence of the Lord like what David set up. Then I saw that those towers of light are living towers of light in the houses of peace. They are symbiotic to each other. They are inter-dependent with those towers of light. Then I understood that the Lord wanted us to raise up, to teach initially round the clock worship and things like this. As I saw this, the Lord begin to say you're going to be instrumental to bring this about. This is something that I don't like. I'm a nobody. I don't have the right connections, I don't have the finances, I don't have this and I don't have that. The lord rebuked me very sternly actually. I thought I was going to die this moment. He said, don't think like that. I don't want you to think like that. You are thinking like the flesh. Think as a son who - and I repeated immediately something could change through me. As I came out of this I spoke to my prophetic friend; my friend I have had an encounter with the Lord and he has shown me some things. Tell me what I saw without telling him. So he went before the Lord. A few days later he saw and confirmed some things that I had seen. Then in the areas of parts of some prophets into my life and confirmed parts of what I have seen. From that day onward there was a real change in the ministry and this impact so to speak.

A year later I was allowed by my senior apostolic father to found an apostolic team and that was then called love; a Balkan loving apostolic serving team. About 4 years ago several apostles and prophets came to speak; you need to open your hearts to all of Europe. So the Lord opened some doors in Belgium and into the British Isles and Graz and those lovely people here in Serbia. It's not Balkan love but British apostolic loving serving team. The Belgium's said that's great; the Lord has opened doors. I'm a servant. I just go where he sends me. I'm just active now in some nations in Europe

Jonathan: Can you describe something of the work that's been taking place in the Balkan countries. How many countries are you operating in, and what sorts of things are taking place?

Franz: Well actually I'm operating in every nation in the Balkans and that's more than ten nations. What we do there is help planting churches and helping churches or helping church planters to succeed. We go with special teams there called prayer strike teams. Those are you know, kind of, intense prayer warrior teams that will take on specific demonic stronghold. Sometimes we need to do this so that the church in one of those cities or villages can begin to grow. There is always a kind of a connection between strong demonic presences and how the church grows, or doesn't grow. Then we do a lot of personal coaching with pastors there and train them; and in several places we have ministry schools that I put together that are kingdom orientated. Very hands on - stripped of any academic content so to speak. So we have trained now - right now we are training about three hundred something leaders altogether for the schools. We have already a number of leaders have graduated from the schools. They have been empowered and equipped and there are a lot of things happening in the Balkans.

We still have a situation where there is a lot of work but there is something new now springing up that is very encouraging. I am not saying you know that I'm the main source of this but I am just one of the catalysts that bring about some things that help to bring forth a transforming power in some of those churches.

Jonathan: It is amazing to hear what's happening in the churches in the Balkans. How is that affecting, in your view, the wider society outside the church? Are you seeing any examples of effect in the cities?

Franz: Yes, well I would say we are so far we are able to impact some governments on the city level. We have some influence on the national but it's more right now we are at the stage where we can interact with city governments and the way that it is done usually is that in some places we have a twenty four hour prayer of groups of churches for a city. That is just going for a city, praying round the clock for the city. They work in one-hour shifts, so in the city we have a few hundred intercessors, each one of them would take one specific hour. They pray for - they're watchman for one hour per week in the city. This is a guided and directed prayer; it's really practically going after the specific targets for the city; for months if necessary.