Dear friends and supporters,

It’s been a month since my last update, and I’d like to share again what God is doing in and through Torch Church (Pochodeň). Thank you for carrying this ministry with me through your prayers, encouragement, and giving. I truly feel that I’m not in this alone.

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Life of Our Church Community

Our ministry is now running in a steady rhythm:

• Weekly online prayer meetings and Sunday services
• Every two weeks: our community group, Journey into the Depths of the Bible course, Computer Basics course, and Torch Kids youth group
• Once a month: leadership team meeting for prayer, planning, and seeking God’s next steps

In our new sermon series “The Church Under the Magnifying Glass,” we’ve been talking about the church as God’s people(September) and God’s family (October).
I’m thankful that new people are coming to our services – some through personal invitation, others who found us online. These are small yet meaningful moments of God’s grace.
We pray that everyone who visits will experience Christ’s welcome, God’s peace, and find their spiritual home.

Prayer points:

• For newcomers – that God would open their hearts to the gospel
• For faithfulness and perseverance of our church in prayer and service
• That our Sunday gatherings would be a place of rest and renewal for the weary and the seekers

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English Camp 2026 – A New Chapter

After years of partnership with the Scripture Union and American teams, we’ve decided to take full leadership of our English Camp. This decision came after much prayer and discernment, and we sense the time has come.
After weeks of searching, calls, and emails, we believe we’ve found a great location in South Bohemia (July 11–18, 2025). We are now negotiating the final agreement.

Prayer points:

• For successful completion of the contract and fair conditions for hosting the camp
• For the U.S. team joining us – that God would bring together the right people
• For unity, creativity, and willingness among the Czech team
• For full capacity (about 70 participants) and for those who need to hear the gospel
• That this new season would be a fresh opportunity to share Christ’s love and inspire new spiritual decisions

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Soup Festival – Sharing the Gospel Around the Table

On Sunday, November 9, we’re preparing the Řepy Soup Festival – a friendly afternoon featuring a competition for the best soup.
This event brings together people from our courses, groups, and neighborhood – many who might not otherwise come to church.
We want the warm atmosphere of community to carry the fragrance of Christ’s grace – that Jesus welcomes everyone who comes to Him.

Prayer points:

• For smooth preparation and coordination of all practical needs
• For God to bring those who long for connection, belonging, and meaning
• For natural conversations about faith and open hearts
• For us to listen well and serve those who come for the first time

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What I’m Working On

• English Camp – negotiating the venue and starting program preparations
• Church Planting Projects (Czech Baptist Union): together with Petr Coufal, we’re creating a new section on the Mission Possible 2035 website to present new church plants across the Czech Republic
• Courses: both Computer Basics and Journey into the Depths of the Bible are running
• Church Planters’ Prayer Group (Prague): pastors, missionaries, and planters from various denominations meet monthly to pray for God’s work in our city

Prayer points:

• For God’s guidance in preparing courses with lasting spiritual impact
• For unity and shared vision among Prague church planters
• For open hearts among those attending the public Bible course

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What’s Ahead

• Preaching and visiting the Baptist Church in Broumov, where our former co-founders now serve
• The Soup Festival in Řepy
• The City to City Europe Conference in Budapest – I look forward to learning and sharing experiences with church planters from across Europe

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Financial Support

Since September, I’ve been living fully by faith in ministry – supported by partners from both the Czech Republic and the U.S., and partially through teaching English.

My current need is $2,000 per month, which would allow me to fully dedicate myself to the ministry God has called me to. I’m praying to raise this amount soon so that I can serve without financial limitations.

I’m looking for 100 partners who would be willing to support us with $20 per month. My previous support through the sending church ended in September 2025, and I’m now fundraising to cover ministry costs until our church grows enough to sustain this work on its own.

Would you consider joining our support team with a monthly gift of $20 (or more)?
Your partnership makes you one of the heroes who keep this ministry alive and growing.

I’m deeply grateful for every kind of support you give to this mission. I say our mission because church planting is truly a family calling – one that requires us all to serve and sacrifice together. Thank you for being part of God’s answer to our prayers for provision.

If you’d like to support this ministry financially, you can give through Faith and Learning International (USA tax-deductible) using the form on this page: FLI – Pochodeň Praha

Prayer points:

• For new partners to join the ministry support team
• For continued trust that God will provide each step of the way
• For wisdom to balance time between ministry, family, and rest

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Thank you for walking this journey with me.
Your prayers, encouragement, and gifts are a tangible expression of God’s faithfulness.
May the Lord fill you with joy in service and peace that surpasses all understanding.

With gratitude,
David Živor
Pochodeň Praha

We’ve just finished the first two weeks of the new season, and I am deeply thankful to God for how He is at work. I can truly feel every one of your prayers – thank you!

What’s happening and how can you pray with us?

Leadership Team
At our big planning meeting, we welcomed a new family into the leadership team. We’re grateful for their encouraging faith and servant hearts as we continue to build community together.

New Series: “The Church Under the Magnifying Glass”
On the first Sunday of September, we returned to the Průhon Cultural Center and launched our new year-long series, The Church Under the Magnifying Glass. I remembered how one year ago, on our very first Sunday there, no one came to the service – so we just took a selfie with the Shaddox family and went home. This year, including kids, there were 18 of us!

New Young People Coming
Over the summer, four young people began attending our gatherings. Please pray that they will find a spiritual home with us, and that others will be drawn as well. I am especially joyful about one young man who has been coming to English camps with us for years. He has been gradually finding faith, and last Sunday he made his faith public! Please pray for him.

Courses for the Community
In October we plan to launch two courses: a Basic Computer Skills course and a course called Journey into the Depths of the Bible. Please pray for the people we hope to reach through these programs.

Support for Our Ministry
Our current need is $2,000 per month. I would love to fundraise this amount as soon as possible to be freed more for the ministry I am called to. I am looking for 100 people willing to support us with $20 monthly. My position as a church planter through the sending church expired in August, so I am raising support to cover as much as possible until the church grows to a size where it can finance this itself.

Would you consider giving $20 (or more) a month and become one of our heroes who keep this ministry going? More information is in this presentation: DavidZivorPCPpresentation.

I am very thankful for every kind of support of our mission. And I say our, because church planting is a call for the whole family – one that requires sacrifice and serving together. We are so grateful that you have become an answer to our prayers for God’s provision in this season.

➡️ If you would like to support David’s family financially, you can give via Faith and Learning International (USA tax-deductible) through the form on this page: FLI – Pochodeň Praha.

Dear friends,

Thank you for your support in prayer and encouragement—thanks to you, we were able to experience a powerful English camp last week. We returned physically tired, but our hearts were encouraged and filled with gratitude for what God did among us.

This year, I felt that the camp was more spiritually open than ever before. The gospel was heard not only during the evening programs, but also during the daily Bible discussions, which were regularly attended by about 20 participants this year – just a few years ago, I sometimes sat there alone… I was particularly encouraged by a group of young men who, together with our good friend and missionary Isaac, reflected on different religions and what makes Christianity unique. I was encouraged by their sincere seeking, their desire for truth, and their honest questions. One of them asked us to pray for him because he wanted to share the gospel with others. Another took a Bible with him with great gratitude. I pray that all the seeds sown will bear fruit in faith and transformed lives.

To give you a sense of the atmosphere, I am attaching a photo and a short video so that you too can pray more personally for specific faces and stories.

Summer rhythm and outlook for the new season

August is a quieter month for us, but we want to make good use of this time—for worship services in a more intimate setting, for prayer, reflection, and planning for the next season. And here, too, I invite you to join us in prayer:

🙏 For our missionaries in the US
They are on a six-month stay and we miss them here – as leaders of the English Club and as close friends. Pray that their stay in America will be full of rest and spiritual strengthening. They will return in January.

🙏 For the new series “Church Under the Magnifying Glass.” 

Starting in September, we will have a thematic series on what it means to be the church – God’s people, family, the body of Christ, the community of the Spirit… We want to invite people to deeper involvement, partnership, and shared life in faith.

🙏 For the new direction of my ministry. 

In September, my contract with the Vinohrady congregation ends, and I am entering a new phase as a pastor who secures his own support. I want to continue to serve faithfully where God leads me—but it will also be a step of faith, because I will have to secure the finances for my ministry myself. I am thankful for you, who are already supporting me – it brings me closer to my calling, because I have a space to serve. I feel your prayers and see that something is shifting. Pray also for creating strong Czech support team that will bear the ministry with us.

Thank you for your loyalty, friendship, and spiritual partnership. Your support has a real impact. God is at work, and we can be part of it—through your prayers as well!

With gratitude, 

David Živor

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a church asking me if I would like to preach there. The email seemed suspicious, but I replied that I would be happy to preach and asked them to send me the details. I thought it was one of the international churches in Prague. I couldn’t have been further from the truth. The emails seemed increasingly suspicious—no one signed them, the only contact information for the church was a link to a video conference, and I began to think that it was definitely some kind of internet scam. But I wanted to see it through to the end, which I ultimately did—we arranged a Zoom call, and on the other end was a real person. Sister Marie is from Pakistan, and she and her husband lead a congregation of about fifty people. Christians are persecuted there, so they don’t want to sign their emails so that they can’t be easily found. One thing led to another, and I had the honor of preaching a word of encouragement online to Christians in Pakistan. I am attaching a screenshot and a request for prayers for these brave Christians.

Let me start this time by saying thank you! My thanks belong to all of you, who are faithfully praying for our ministry and supporting us. More faithfully than I keep this blog updated.

I am very thankful for our Polívkobraní – the soup gathering contest we did at the beginning of February. The event is simple – we eat soups and rate them. Everyone who wants to compete brings their soup to the party. This year we had 14 different soups. We really enjoyed the event and had a good time with our friends. We do this contest every year because it provides us an opportunity to keep in touch with people we know from English camp and other ministries who wouldn’t come to church otherwise. But by doing this we have an opportunity to meet and share a gospel with them (I used the theme „half of the kingdom for lentil soup“ this year – Jacob buying his share for a soup in Gn 25).

What is the current exciting news? We have started computer classes for the public! I used to teach those classes for the local social services department of the town hall, but they didn’t get enough funds to start this in the past two years. I know the demand is still high in Řepy, so I decided to buy a few computers and start doing those classes as a ministry of our church to the city. From this idea grew a concrete plan and we started those classes a few weeks ago. A few people signed up and it provided me an opportunity to connect with them and serve them. The great news is it isn’t just teaching computers. 

On the first session, out of the blue, one lady stared through our window to the office and was reading our invitation to computer calsses. I have invited her in and she joined. Later she mentioned she would be interested in a counseling session with the pastor as well. So we met the following week and I gave her the Bible. Last session she told me she hasread through the gospels and that she has some questions. I guess we are about to start Bible study classes soon. 

How can you pray for us?

• pray for the computer classes. We have filled our capacity and I believe it goes well. Pray for deeper connections and for opportunities to share testimonies and the Gospel.
• pray for our friends. One family is very close to us, and we believe God is moving something in their lives. Since January we have visited each other a few times and they came for the first time to our worship service. Their mother joined the computer classes this week.
• pray for small groups retreats – in the beginning of March we have ladies and gentleman’s retreats. Pray God would build us and move among us.
• pray for Linda’s entrance exams. Time flies. Our oldest daughter is going to secondary school. Nowadays there’smore children than places in schools in Prague. Pray she will pass the exams and get to school she’d like to.
• pray for our big church retreat we have in May.

Sometimes I feel life goes too fast and I don’t quite catch up. Maybe it is my new reality I have to deal with. Anyways, It reminded me this coffee I have recently bought… The answer is not in the perfect coffee though. Our answer is to cling to Jesus even more. Even when life gets busy. Especially then. In the midst of all the rush of everything He is still the King. And we can experience His blessings, that are not a few.

Today is the Thanksgiving day in the USA – happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends behind the ocean. I have learned something new about this as I taught it as one of my English lessons. And it reminded me how thankfulness is important for our lives. I believe it is the key to being rich – to be thankful for what you have and not being stressed about what you don’t. What am I thankful for since my last newsletter?

For our church. With November, we have started prayer and fasting for Pochodeň and I believe God is answering our prayers. I see more desire to follow Jesus and more desire to serve among us. We feel our friends from various outreach ministries are getting curious about what do we believe. I pray it would bring some fruit.

For our big Thanksgiving dinner party we hosted as a church last Sunday. Big thanks belongs especially to our missionaries and their family, who cooked all the food for 70 of us! It was a blessed time with many of our friends. In September we wrote a list of people who we are praying for. Every single one of them attended this event. We continue to pray that it would make a deep mark in their lives and lead them closer to God.

I am also thankful for upcoming advent time. I am excited about what God has in store for us in next season that begins now. We have invited everyone to our advent services, so you can keep praying with us it would bring bountiful harvest for God’s kingdom.

What’s ahead? Good things. We have put together the structure for our church and defined the boundaries between guests, members and leaders and created a pipeline of next steps that would help us growing. We have heard the first decisions of people about where they want to be and we plan to honor those decisions in January, when we would have a special service for celebrating members’ and leaders’ decision to participate in what God is doing in our church.

We also have a new project! I have started buying computers for the computer classes I want to start teaching in January. I have taught them for 5 years in the social department of local town hall, but they didn’t get any grants this year. People are still hungry for basic training in computer usage. That made me realize we can step into this need of our city as a church. I have bought those computers from my personal budget because I believe it is a good way to serve a local community. If you’d like to help me with that, you can give extra one-time gift for this purpose. In numbers, I’m looking for $800 to cover the equipment cost. You can use the link below.

Pochodeň Praha

Many blessings, happy Thanksgiving and all the good to all of you.

Is it even possible that it’s already October? It felt like a blink of an eye since I visited USA and prayed for strong start in a new season in our church. And here we are… Many good things happened and I’ so excited to share about it with you! So what’s new?

A new family started to attend our church and prays for guidance if we are „the church“ for them – a new home and place to serve – which is their desire. I pray for them and hope we are.

We have started the new season with „Solid foundations“ series. On our worship services we go through the main foundations of christian faith – Decision for faith, Bible, Trinity, Father, Son, Spirit, … all the good stuff. Sice September we have started using the full sound gear, so the worship time sounds great. I am so thankful for our worship team that leads us into worship every Sunday. We pray that everyone who walks by the venue would be touched even by hearing a little peace of the worship songs.

Our English Tuesday Evenings (English club for public) started strong. We have a big group attending every week and we are praying for ways how to share the gospel with them sensitively. 

Our prayers for starting children ministry have been answered – we have a children club (that we call Pochoden Kids – until we have a better name for it) that meets every other Thursday and we have a leader from our sending church that ministers the children. I believe that this is an important milestone for us because we wanted to start something for our children (and hopefully soon their friends also). 

The other other Thursday we started Bible study for anyone who wants to go deeper into the Word.

From the less visible things, we have spent some time planning and praying for the church organization for this season and we have plans for most of the year ahead (outreach events, parties, church retreat and so on). We have also worked on the structure and ministry philosophy to make clear and inviting lines between guest, member and leader in our church. Now we have to put it into practice.

There’s so much more, but I want to close this update with prayer requests:

• New people
  • the new family’s decision to join our church
  • New people from outreach
  • New leaders
  • New baptisms
• Ongoing ministries (worship services, small groups, English club, Kid’s club, Bible studies)
• Spiritual growth of our church, strength for our members and wisdom in time-management
• Planned events (street outreach, ministry events – Thanksgiving dinner, soup gathering party, mens retreat)
• Putting the renewed structures to motion
• Next steps in our process of becoming individual church in near future

To support my ministry financially, follow this link: http://faithandlearning.org/projects/pochoden-praha/

In May, we went on a retreat as a church. It has become beautiful tradition, which we started three years ago. On May 1st and 8th we have state holidays, which means there is an opportunity to go somewhere for a longer weekend. So we did – and took our friends with us. And it was a great time of deepening our friendships, sharing our testimonies and thinking about ways God speaks to us.

Not long after weekend retreat, I went to pastoral conference of CZ Baptist union. It was a great time and best pastoral conference in years. I loved the missional theme and collaborative thinking about how we can move our church to growth in the future. Some great opportunities came out of it in terms of collaboration of Prague baptist churches in Řepy! With pastor and leaders of international baptist church we talked about how can this all help to Pochodeň church to grow and become individual as soon as possible. I am so thrilled!

A dear brother in Christ, pastor of Russian speaking church, is starting a kindergarten in Řepy. He wants to closely connect to local Czech church. What’s more, Eliška and one lady from our church will start working there as teachers – so it opens even more possibilities.

Last Sunday we had a blessed outdoor service. Our friends, missionaries who served with us in Řepy for 4 years, came to Czech Republic to visit and connect with us. Two of their children came to Christ recently and we had the honor to witness their baptisms! And the baptism itself was a witness, because we did it on a popular place, where many people go to swim.

What’s ahead?

Sunday 23rd will be our last regular service of this season. The following week school ends and summer holiday starts. During holiday, we will meet for more relaxed services, sharing, and prayers.

English camp will take place on July 20th-27th. So far we have about 60 people signed up. Please pray for strong witness, gospel sharing and opportunities to grow.

On August 1st-21st I’m visiting the USA. The first 10 days I will accompany Vláďa Zeman, the leader of CZ baptist missions board with whom I’ve been serving along for past 10 years. We will fundraise for new missional projects in our country, church planting and possible collaboration with US churches. You can meet us on Aug 1-4th in Conway, AR; Aug 5-7th in Louisiana and Aug 7-9th in Hot Springs / Little Rock, AR. After that I’ll hopefully visit some of you and Eliška will arrive on 13th.

In that time I want to share and fundraise for the future seasons, which would ideally set me free to serve more in Pochodeň and teach less (I teach English for businesses as my part time job). I’m looking for 100 heroes who would help oour church to grow by supporting our ministry by $20/month. Maybe you are one of them! Please check my fundraising page: https://faithandlearning.org/projects/pochoden-praha/ and connect with me. I’ll be happy to share more.

Many blessings and see you soon!

Save the dates! I’m going to visit USA in August 1st-21st to pray, share and fundraise for our ministry – for myself and also for CZ Baptist Missions Board. I’d love to meet you and catch up. Let me know if you are up for something. The schedule is still being planned as well as the locations. I can go nearby the mentioned locations, so I hope to squeeze in some time for us! Please contact me for more details.

When and where?

Aug 1st-4th in Arkansas

Aug 5th-7th in Louisiana

Aug 8th-13th in Arkansas

Aug 14th-18th in Missouri

Aug 19th-21st in Arkansas