Management
Thorsten Moll
Pastor Thorsten Moll – short biography
As the third child of the family, Thorsten Moll was born in Eckernförde on the Baltic coast. His parents ran a small yacht and shipyard and were very involved in building up the company. Through his hobby of sailing, Thorsten learnt to appreciate freedom from an early age and, at 14, he started working as a bar assistant on his grandfather’s tourist steamer. Alcohol soon lost its attraction, and so he turned to marijuana and hashish. In order to finance his own needs, he also sold it on to others. On being caught doing this in the school yard, he was expelled. Later, with his secondary school leaving certificate, he tried to gain a better qualification via second-chance education. This became very difficult due to the consumption of stronger drugs and an increasing lack of will power. A social deterioration developed which found its expression in occultism, deception and partying. Relationships fell apart.
Then, at the age of 20, a dramatic change took place in his life through a personal, inner experience of faith in Jesus Christ with the forgiveness of sins which set him free from the power of drugs on the spot. He abandoned his destructive relationships and patterns of behaviour. After now managing to pass his exams, he went on to study Theology for five years at a Free Church College near Darmstadt with a curacy in Hamburg. Married, in the meantime, to Sybille, after his ordination he continued his studies in England and at the “University of the Nations” in Kona, Hawaii, as well as taking seminars against scientific materialism with Prof. Wilder-Smith in Switzerland. His ministry in the “German Federation of Pentecostal Churches” (BFP), and additionally with the mission organization “Youth With a Mission” and in other churches, has taken him to many cities in Germany, to other European countries, North, Central and South America, Australia, countries in Asia and to Africa. For eight years, the Molls ran a Christian recreation and conference centre in the Harz Mountains near Clausthal-Zellerfeld, with up to 20 000 overnight stays per year. They simultaneously acquired and set up a speciality restaurant, as well as planting a new church. Now blessed with four children, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Molls followed their inner call to go to Magdeburg in order to plant churches in Saxony-Anhalt. They have been living there since 1992, taking on the role of pastoral leaders of the church “Father’s House” (“Vaters Haus”). In the meantime they have also become grandparents. In addition to this, they have been involved with church planting and growth in other towns in Saxony-Anhalt. In 1999, the city of Magdeburg gave the church a former day-care centre with approx. 10 000 m2 of land in order for it to be converted for Christian social purposes. In order to facilitate the church’s social activities, a charitable association of the Pentecostal church was set up, chaired by Moll. It is a member of the Diakonisches Werk and of the BFP’s consortium of charities. As one of the founding members of the Magdeburg marketing association “Pro-M”, Moll has served as cash auditor there for several years. In the summer of 2000, Pastor Moll was elected Regional Director of the regions Lower Saxony – East (Hanover) / Saxony-Anhalt (Magdeburg) for the German Federation of Pentecostal Churches, thereby becoming a member of the BFP’s Executive Committee, concentrating as of 2006 on developing Saxony-Anhalt as a region in its own right. Being committed to the good cooperation of the few Christians in the city, Moll got involved in the federation of the “Christians in Magdeburg – C I M D”, where he has worked as part of the leadership. Through an educational trip to Tacoma, USA, and later several times to London, cooperation with the “Jesus Ministry” of Pastor Mike Riches has developed. In the summer of 2007, after the founding of the association “Responsibility and Values” (“Verantwortung und Werte”), of which Moll has been a salaried member since that time, his ministry in the public sphere has developed through Christian cultural projects, the “Marriage Week”, businessmen’s forums, prayer with politicians and cross-cultural activities to promote understanding among nations with a strong commitment to fighting world poverty through “microfinancing” with “Opportunity International Germany”. His ministry in the local church has changed to the function of Senior Pastor – in part due to the increase in his travelling ministry.
(Summer 2009)