When Cornelia Forsberg realized that God's love did not need to be earned, everything changed. She resigned from her church staff position without knowing what her next step would be — and today she leads an ecumenical movement and serves as one of the speakers at the Hönö Conference's youth meetings. Her story exemplifies a growing current within Sweden's free churches: a turn from performance-driven religion toward a spirituality centred on grace.
Forsberg grew up in a Pentecostal context in Gnosjö, in Sweden's southern Småland region. She has believed in God from childhood and vividly remembers her first encounter with the love of Jesus at a camp when she was eight or nine years old. A decade later she moved to Gothenburg to attend Bible school, and subsequently served as a youth pastor at Smyrna Frihamnskyrkan — a congregation within the Pentecostal tradition — for several years. But despite active ministry, she felt a deep hunger for more of God and more of the life the Bible described.
Together with her friend Sanna Välipakka, Forsberg began to pray and seek God more intensely. In that season, something shifted: she came to understand that God's love is not contingent on performance. "The Father's love went straight into my heart," she told Sändaren, describing the realization that transformed her understanding of faith. That conviction led her to step away from her staff role, unsure of what lay ahead. Today she leads an ecumenical movement and considers it "a great trust, an honour" to be speaking at the Hönö Conference's youth meetings — also known as night meetings — for an entire week. "We get to listen in to what God is doing for a whole week and follow people on their journey with God," she said. This is her third visit to the conference, but the first as a speaker.
(Originally published in Swedish. Summary translated by CC / Connexion.)
Source: Equmeniakyrkan / Sändaren — sandaren.se
