Mustard Seeds Move Mountains

Testimony by Maximilian Oettingen

Organization: Loretto Community
Position: Leader
Location: Vienna, Austria

I encountered God when I was around 11 years old at a pilgrimage site.

It was the first time I ever really prayed. After that, I found myself searching for God from the time I was 11 to 17 years old. By the time I was 17, I had become skeptical, with many questions that are common to youth. I grew up in Germany and heard about Loretto prayer groups and knew a few people who attended. At that time, there were only two prayer groups in the Loretto movement—one in Vienna and one in Salzburg. (Today, we have about forty-three prayer groups with about 1,000 to 2,000 people attending every week.) What caught my attention the most was that they seemed to be very normal people. They acted normal, looked normal, and there were even a ton of good-looking girls who were involved.

At that time, I was in a life crisis because I questioned whether following Jesus would mean that I would have to live in such a way that contradicted what I had in my heart or not. Basically, I didn’t trust God. However, I knew that if I would go to one of these prayer groups in Vienna or Salzburg for a few years, while I studied, I would have a context to be around young people with some of the same questions and perhaps mature. That was the reason I went to Vienna in 1995—because of that prayer group. I began to pray with young people on a regular basis, and that is what got me back on track.

The Loretto Movement

Loretto is a movement mainly in Austria, but also in southern Germany, western Hungary, northern Italy, and Switzerland. It is spreading among young people. It’s not a normal congregation, a parish, or a monastery; it’s a movement. There are about six hundred people who meet on a regular basis in small groups. Twice a year, we have larger gatherings where all six hundred meet together, they are the core. For the six hundred who meet regularly, there are prayer groups that meet night and day throughout the week. There are prayer houses, worship schools, and different formats of teaching and discipleship. We also have a huge festival at Pentecost when we host ten thousand young people. There are also smaller festivals in Vienna.

Our main desire is that from the core six hundred, a prayerful discipleship and missionary movement spills out that makes space for young people to encounter God. The six hundred are a bit older, anywhere from 18 through their mid-40s, and they do the work for the younger generation. They create space so the younger ones can encounter God. The basic idea is that there is a huge hunger for the presence of God and not many formats where people can experience His presence. We want to fill in that gap. Young people who are hungry can just drop by and see what happens. They don’t have to do anything. So that is what we do, create space for people to encounter God and His presence.

There was a 28-year-old man who came to one of our Pentecost festivals in Salzburg who told us about how he encountered Jesus during the time of worship. When it came time for an altar call, he looked back in his mind and saw darkness and death. When he looked forward, he saw light and joy. He went to the front to accept Jesus and was filled with Holy Spirit. He immediately stopped using drugs and stopped smoking marijuana. He began to live a sober life and began to study. Now he’s on one of our fellowship programs teams—a wonderful guy.

Establishing A Culture Network

Our prayer groups that I later became part of began in 1987 with three teenagers who simply prayed the rosary for twenty minutes. Afterward they ate a sandwich for fifteen minutes and went home. That was the beginning. So that’s really simple. They didn’t do anything else for about one or two years. One of the things we always say is that if it’s a kingdom thing, it has to begin small.

Everything in the kingdom begins small. Jesus began small; church began small; everything begins small. A mustard seed is small; it is nothing. It doesn’t need to stress you out.

There are a few lessons we can pull out about what is needed: natural giftedness, a model, friends to do it with, and theology. Maybe it begins small, but it’s best to enjoy it in these stages. You should enjoy whatever you are doing. If you want to run Alpha in your congregation or you think you need to run a small group, but yet you don’t like leading small groups, just don’t do it. It has to be enjoyable.