A Brief History

In early 2012 the leaders of the FeG Dresden (EV Free Church) had been praying about how they were going to realize their 10-year goal of starting 1-3 daughter churches by 2014; they were short on manpower and lacked leadership for the project. Shortly thereafter, the pastor, Ulrich Mann, got an email from TEAMer Jeff Ingram telling of the Ingram’s interest in coming to former East Germany to plant churches. A few meetings between the Ingrams and the church’s leaders led to the FeG Dresden extending an official invitation to the Ingrams to “come over and help us.”

The Ingrams moved to Dresden in the fall of 2013 and spent 2014 working in and with the FeG Dresden, getting to know its leaders and members, learning how the church carries out its ministries, and getting involved themselves in a variety of capacities.

In early 2016 the Ingrams launched the FeG Dresden-Süd (Dresden-South) with a small German team; later that year Mindy Boyd, a musician, joined the team after finishing up her work with a church plant near Leipzig. Lexi McNair, a youth specialist, joined the team and began learning German in the fall of 2018. She moved to Dresden in 2019 and recently completed an internship with the youth group in the “mother” church, the FeG Dresden. Lexi is also the team’s primary American contact for DASS_Camp, our German-American Sports and English camp for teens.

As of May 2021 the FeG Dresden-Süd has over 30 members; 40-60 folks were attending worship services in a local hotel before the pandemic shut things down. The church elected its first leadership team in late 2019 and hired its first German staff member in 2020.

For an overview of the Dresden Initiative (published in 2013), download the brochure below. You can also subscribe to the Ingrams’ newsletter, The Ingram Eyewitness, by clicking on this link: http://eepurl.com/E0jSr

Dresden Brochure (11.2 MB file)