BUILDING THE CHURCH IN

THE HEART OF EUROPE

Die Werkstatt Internship

Is a summer learning internship program for young adults aged 20-25 where you’ll explore life and cross-cultural ministry in the global city of Munich.. Applications for 2025 are open from October 1 until January 20.

Counseling Apprenticeship

Come help the German church minister to people who are scarred and hurting mentally and spiritually. Learn the language and culture, while gaining knowledge and experience in biblical counseling through a mentored-ministry practicum.

Church Planting Apprenticeship

Come and be equipped to help meet the pressing need for more faithful, gospel-proclaiming local churches in German-speaking Europe. Learn the cultural and church context through a ministry practicum with national partners.

Theological Edu Apprenticeship

We need more people who are equipped to teach and train the next generation of German church leaders. Gain experience teaching and mentoring students at Martin Bucer Seminary Munich.

Meet the Team


  • Ben, Anna, Peter, Lucas, Lilius, Owen, Joseph

    Ben sensed God’s call to cross-cultural missions through his experiences in Romania and Slovakia as a college student. Anna grew up in a missionary family in Pakistan and felt called back to the mission field as a teenager. Ben and Anna met as two-year MTW missionaries serving in Berlin, where they participated in the final stages of establishing a church in the former East Berlin. They married and returned to Berlin as a young family in 2014 to serve long term in church planting and theological education, then moved to Munich in 2018.

    In Munich, Ben serves in pastoral and music ministry and Anna in women’s and children’s discipleship for new local churches. Ben also teaches and mentors students at Martin Bucer Seminary, and together, they receive and train new missionaries for service in German-speaking Europe through Team Munich’s “incubator” program. Through these ministries, they hope to nurture a Reformed, biblically faithful church-planting movement in Munich and beyond.


  • Matt, Jaime, Zeke, Zion, Ezra

    Matt and Jaime met while playing soccer in Austin, Texas, and married in 2016. Growing up, they were both involved in short-term missions and now as a couple, God has given them a heart to share the gospel cross-culturally in Germany. Matt served on staff at All Saints Presbyterian Church in Austin as the missions director for five years. It was during this time that they saw God calling their family to full time ministry in Germany.

     

    The Ziehrs are joining the MTW team in Munich, Germany, where they will spend time learning the language, culture, and serving at a large Reformed church in the heart of Munich. Together with their three boys, Matt and Jaime hope to build relationships with other families and help the church in Munich reach new areas of the city.

  • Luke, Michelle, and Elijah

    Missions was not always on the Stannards’ radars. Luke was headed toward medical research and Michelle was a successful hair stylist before God reoriented them. During independent trips to Hungary, Luke and Michelle saw many needs and opportunities. This compelled them to return to minister to Hungarian students. God, in turn, used this to introduce them to each other, giving a greater significance to their time on the mission field.

    After 11 years of engaging in discipleship and evangelism among students, God began to redirect the Stannards’ hearts. Despite seeing students grow in their faith, Luke and Michelle were burdened by the lack of churches equipped to nurture and shepherd them. Too often they heard and witnessed sermons that unpacked a lifestyle, but hardly focused on Scripture.

    God since opened an opportunity with MTW to partner with a church and Reformed seminary in Munich, Germany. Luke and Michelle educate and train the next generation of pastors throughout Europe; help run a local pastoral internship program focused on leadership development; and engage in church ministry. Our prayer is to see spiritual leaders emerging to plant and revive churches across Europe. Your partnership will advance God’s kingdom throughout Europe! Please join the Stannards to see this accomplished!

  • Adair grew up in North Alabama, and majored in German history during undergrad, even though she didn't know what she was going to do with that degree. Many years later, she came to faith when the Lord relentlessly pursued her, and in an instant, changed her heart of stone into a heart of flesh. After working with a local ministry that helps trafficked women, there was no doubt that God was revealing His plans for her life. Her calling to serve victims of forced prostitution led her to Germany, which is known as "The Brothel of Europe." 

     

    Adair works with national partner churches doing outreach into the strip clubs and brothels of Munich. She also works with a Christian organization based in Munich that provides safehouses and practical assistance and support for women leaving situations of sex trafficking and forced prostitution. Adair remains steadfast in her commitment to securing the long-term sustainability of such ministries by forging strong partnerships with national church partners, and equipping churches to demonstrate God's justice and mercy to the most vulnerable and exploited within their communities.

  • David and Eowyn

    David, son of a PCA church-planter, was raised in Louisiana and Tennessee. Christ captured his heart in high school while participating in short-term mission trips, and David has felt called to missions ever since. At King College in Tennessee, he majored in political science and modern foreign languages, earned a master of divinity degree from Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and a Th.M. from WTS in Philadelphia.

    Eowyn is the daughter of MTW missionaries who served in France. She came to faith at a young age and sensed a call to missions in her late teens. She majored in German language and literature at Wellesley College and obtained a master’s in biblical studies from Westminster Seminary, where she met David. They married in December of 1997.

    David and Eowyn joined MTW’s church-planting movement in eastern Berlin in 2001. Over the past 20 years that team has been involved in planting five churches and a campus of the Martin Bucer Seminary. David currently serves as international director for Europe, overseeing MTW’s vision, strategy, and personnel. Eowyn assists David in his role and supports church-planting through evangelism, teaching, and women’s initiatives. They have five grown children.

  • After seven years in Berlin, Elizabeth currently lives near Munich, working primarily with the Gospel Church Munich, though also with other local churches, in a counseling ministry to the church, in addition to lecturing part-time with the Martin Bucer Seminary and involvement in a national counseling service.

MUNICH, GERMANY

The Bavarians of southern Germany refer to their region as “paradise,” and the wealthy, influential city of Munich is its capital. It is rich with culture, boasting museums, theaters, universities, and a high standard of living. The world comes to Munich to study, to work, and to play. But with less than one percent of people attending a gospel-preaching church, Munich is lacking in the riches of the gospel of grace.