The Most Godless Place on Earth

by Hannah Packard

In a 2008 study done by the International Social Survey Programme on religion, researchers found that over half of the population of eastern Germany, 52 percent, identified as atheist. By contrast, western Germany was just over 10 percent. Of the 30 countries and regions surveyed, eastern Germany was by far the most irreligious, leading to it being called “the most godless place on Earth.”

This is the environment that Alliance workers Ben and Sarah Carey arrived in when they moved to Berlin, Germany, in 2007. The long-term vision of the team already there was to send workers further into northeastern Germany because of the lack of gospel access there.

It might seem strange to talk about Germany—the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation—as a place that lacks gospel access. But even once-fertile fields can become fallow over time. “There might be these beautiful historical church buildings, but there’s no pastor in that pulpit,” Sarah says. “You’re lucky in some of the surrounding villages if a pastor comes through once every three to four weeks. When we meet a 35-year-old woman who says, ‘I have never had a Bible in my hand before,’ that is a reminder to us—there is no access.”

The history of eastern Germany has had a significant role to play in this cultural reality. For 40 years, from 1949 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Germany was split into East and West. The German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, was controlled by a Soviet government, and while their constitution technically allowed for religious freedom, the government held to state-sponsored atheism. Over the decades, the church there was in a number of different positions—sometimes harassed and a haven for revolutionaries, sometimes compliant and collaborative with the government’s secret police. The result? A suppressed church and a region’s slowly suffocated spirituality. “There was such a negative view of the church through the decades,” Ben says. “The church is weak, the church is cold, the church is pointless. The church doesn’t do anything in our society, and the church supports a God who doesn’t even exist. And so why do Germans want to be a part of that?”

Fruit Along the Way

In 2012 after their first home assignment, the Careys did move further into northeast Germany to the town of Waren. But in places like that, results don’t come overnight. “Germans desire relationship, but you have to be in their circle, or in their life, before they will allow you to talk to them about spiritual matters because spiritual matters are very personal,” Sarah says. In combination with the overall apathy and irreligious culture, this meant that the Careys had a lot of work to do. They began with prayer walking and working in what they call “bridge-building ministry,” which was teaching English at their local community center.

Years later, these bridges have been built, as the Waren team now does English classes for adults and children, English camps, Awana, youth group, men’s and women’s Bible studies, and leads a thriving church plant.

“From the time we arrived in Germany to the moment where we were standing in a church service, in our own meeting space, was around 13 years,” Ben says. While the road to that moment was long—including the beginnings of the church plant in 2019, served with brunch in the Careys’ home, which was then soon disrupted by COVID in 2020—Ben is clear that God was faithful to bring growth, to work underground in unseen ways, the entire time. “We’ve seen fruit from the beginning as we’ve been going along. We just maybe didn’t realize it was fruit, or budding fruit, at that time.”

One of the ways that God has brought fruit to Alliance ministry in Germany is by bringing more workers to the field, like Karissa, who first went to Germany on a short-term trip and then did an apprenticeship, which she served partly with the Careys in Waren. This is where she met Kenny Young, who came to Warn on a short-term trip to support a prayer retreat. Now, Kenny and Karissa are marries and joined the Waren team as Alliance international workers in January 2019.

Another is Salome, who Ben and Sarah met as an attendee at an English camp when she was 13. Already a believer, she asked the Careys if they would start a youth group that she could attend. When she was in high school, Sarah was able to pour into her life through discipleship, and after she left school and met her now-husband, Tommy, Salome even did a short internship with the Careys. Two years ago, while Tommy and Salome helped at an English camp, the Youngs and Sean and Suzy McLain, also part of the Waren team, asked them—would they ever consider full-time ministry and being a part of what God was doing in Waren?

Tommy and Salome joined the Waren team in January of this year, and the Careys are thrilled to have a German national couple who can begin to lead at the church plant, which is something they’re been praying for from the beginning. “In church-planting ministry, you want to have a national pastor,” Sarah says. “I want to work myself out of a job.”

Further In

The prospect of bringing a German couple onto the team also opened up new doors for the Alliance workers already in Waren. When Kenny and Karissa Young went back to the States for their first year-long home assignment in summer 2023, God began to move on their hearts. They wondered, Could it be time to advance further into northeast Germany? The answer seemes to be a resounding yes as God confirmed this transition with the Youngs and the Careys and McLains. Through prayer and dreaming as a team, the Youngs chose Rostock as their new home—a university city and a commercial hub in the region.

The Youngs have been in Rostock since July 2024 and have thrown themselves into building relationships within their new community. Starting at square one in a new city, relationally and with ministry, felt daunting, Karissa shares. “No one loves to be constantly in change or transition, but God is steadfast,” she says. They have needed to lean on His steadfastness as they navigate all the changes of transitioning from Waren, a town of 20,000 people where they were working with a thriving church plant in the center of town and had close friendships, to Rostock, a city of 200,000 where they barely know anyone. One of the things they began with in Rostock was making sure that their three kids have settled well. And as they take them to school and various activities, Kenny and Karissa have made sure to get to know the parents that are there. They’ve also worked hard on getting to know their neighbors.

In January, the Youngs started a brunch church in their home, just like the Waren team first did in 2019, with someone they met through the English camps in Waren. “He has a church background and isn’t a part of a church right now, so he is interested in joining us,” Karissa says. “We’re just taking those, what seem like really small, steps, and praying and committing them to the Lord to see how He grows relationships.”

The Youngs’ dream for Rostock is that God would help them plant an established church, and that they could also eventually work themselves out of a job there. “The vision is that there will be local German leadership of the church plant so it’s not just us leading things, but someone who knows the heartbeat of the people here,” Kenny says. “Leading something that hopefully produces other churches, other communities of faith beyond just Rostock.” And, yes, Kenny and Karissa are also praying for more Alliance workers to join them in the city. “We know that God can do amazing things, but He wants to use more than just us to see a church established here. So that’s one of our hopes—that there are more workers sent,” Kenny shares.

Stay For The Answer

Those 13 years that the Careys spent in Germany tilling the soil and planting seeds are on the minds of the Youngs as they begin ministry in Rostock, and on the Careys’ as they have sent them out and continue to pray for them. “A statistic you hear is that eight years is how long it takes for someone to come to faith in Jesus,” Karissa says. “And if it takes eight years, then praise God—we’ll be ready for it when that day comes. But also it could happen in eight minutes. The Holy Spirit can transform a life in a matter of seconds, minutes. Maybe it’s going to take eight years or ten years, but it could also happen right now.” Because of their belief in the power of the Holy Spirit to change hearts, Kenny and Karissa are committed to praying that way, boldly inviting that way, and believing that God will bless their obedience as they sow and wait.

While the spiritual atmosphere in the former East Germany is difficult, it is apparent that God is at work. Alliance workers are seeing that even for those who have not committed to belief in Jesus, church is still drawing them in. “A good percentage of the people who come to our church aren’t believers,” Sean McLain, an international worker on the Waren team, says. “They will often say they don’t know why they are drawn to coming to church—but it’s the presence of God, and His people.”

Kenny and Karissa are hopeful that God will continue to bring about fruit in this region. “We truly believe that northeast Germany, although it has a really long, difficult history of God being removed from culture, that we’re seeing a change. We’re seeing what used to be a dry desert turning into that harvest field,” Karissa says. “And we know that in order for that fruit to be harvested, we need more workers. We believe that there are people here who are ready to say yes to Jesus—who for generations have not had the opportunity to hear about Him, but as they hear are going to say yes.”

In reflecting on the long work of building trust and relationships with German people, Sarah says, “I’ll never forget when a German said to me in Berlin, ‘Don’t ask me “How are you?” like Americans ask, because you ask but don’t really want to know the whole answer.’ If you’re going to ask that, stay for the answer.” And this is what the Careys, and now the Youngs, are committed to on a broad scale among the people in northeastern Germany—staying for the answer. Straying until God answers and this fallow field, the most godless place on Earth, bears a new harvest of belief.