Johannes Tobler grew up as a farmer’s son in the German-speaking part of Switzerland — the flatlands, he’s quick to clarify, not the mountains-and-chocolate postcard version. He never had a dramatic conversion story. No wandering years, no moment of crisis. Just a quiet, steady walk with God from childhood.
For a long time, he was almost jealous of people with better testimonies.
“I heard people with these very cool stories,” he says with a laugh. “They were away, in the drugs, the easy life, and then suddenly Jesus came. I never had that. But then I realized: even with a simple story, God is writing history. I just said, okay I’ll be obedient to whatever He lays before my feet.”
That posture of obedience has taken Johannes from a farm in Switzerland to leading M4 Ready, a 9-month training program equipping hundreds of young leaders across Europe to plant churches.
From a Youth Ministry to a Pan-European Movement
Johannes didn’t plan to end up in leadership development. His path started when, at 20, he was invited back to the very church his parents had been asked to leave, because they wanted more biblical teaching. The same church that had once pushed them out now wanted Johannes to build a youth ministry.
He took the job. Life, faith, and ministry all converged in one village.
That experience of bringing discipleship into everyday community became foundational to everything he does. Today, alongside his M4 work, he and his wife lead a family ministry at their local church built on a simple but countercultural conviction: “We believe the best place for discipleship is the family. Very often, parents outsource the spiritual side to the church. We want to flip that — the church comes alongside the family and equips them.”
Europe Needs a Jonathan Generation
When Johannes talks about why Europe urgently needs young church planters, he reaches back to 1 Samuel 14. Saul’s army is outnumbered, terrified, hiding in caves. Only two people have weapons. Then a young man named Jonathan turns to his friend and says something that stopped Johannes in his tracks the first time he read it:
“Perhaps God wants to do something through us.”
“I think that’s the posture we need from young leaders in Europe today,” Johannes says. “Not certainty. Not a perfect plan. Just… what if? Perhaps God wants to do something. Let’s find out.”
He sees too many experienced Christians hiding in caves, not out of cowardice, but out of exhaustion and low expectation. Churches that once dreamed big are now quietly hoping they can just hold on. What Europe needs, he says, is a generation that hasn’t yet learned to be afraid.
That’s exactly what M4 Ready is trying to produce.
Real Stories of Transformation
In the first cohort of M4 Ready in Switzerland, there was a young woman from a Catholic region who had gone to Hawaii, not for mission, but because it was a cheap way to travel. She ended up encountering God there, came to faith, did a discipleship training school in Norway, and eventually found her way into Johannes’s leadership school.
After going through M4 Ready, something clicked. She didn’t just want to do youth work. She wanted to plant a church in her hometown.
She started with one house gathering, five or six people. A young woman she met through the community was struggling with depression. They talked. She came to faith. She was baptized. She joined the team.
Today, there are three house churches in that small Swiss town, all with new believers in their core.
“This is a story I love,” Johannes says simply.
The Dream: 1,000 Young Leaders a Year
Right now, 412 young people across 12 nations are going through M4 Ready. Johannes’s goal is to see that number reach 1,000 and then keep growing. But the vision isn’t primarily numerical.
“My biggest dream is that a large number of these students actually get into church planting. Not just a fire that starts and ends. They go as leaders of a team, or they join a team. And the others the ones who become pastors and elders and youth workers, they carry a DNA of multiplication. They ask: what if, through our church, God wants to do something new?”
When asked what he’d want said about M4 Ready in 2075, 50 years from now, Johannes doesn’t talk about scale or strategy.
“I would love to see a revival in Europe. Something crazy and godly that changes Europe. And if M4 Ready was just a small piece of that whole thing: serving God, serving Europe… that would be enough.”
Be Obedient. That’s Enough.
His final word to young leaders and to anyone watching comes from 1 Corinthians 3:6–7. Paul planted. Apollos watered. But God made it grow.
“It’s not about whether the one watering is better than the one planting. What matters is that we are obedient, and that it’s all about God. So don’t overthink it. Just be obedient to what God lays before your feet.”