Monday, May 17, 2010

Mission at Hirtop




This is a view of the village of Hirtop from the grounds of the Baptist church plant in the village.

Around 800 people live in Hirtop and it is one of the villages in the county of Cantemir that we are seeking to help and encourage in my new role.






This is Misa with his wife Aliona and their two children Liviu and Catusa. He is leading the work in the village.

They have only 6 members and the work is hard because it's a relatively new thing in the village and so people are generally suspicious.

Life is hard for them. He has a bedridden father at home that they look after and because they have no financial support to pastor the church he has to go abroad frequently to work for 3-6 months at a time. It affects the family. It affects the work.

We brought a team a few Sundays ago and did a mission with them in the village.

You can see in the background (in the forecourt of the church building that they built with their own hands and money) Slavic and Aliona who were leading the worship team for the mission.
Aliona gave her testimony and I later preached out of Acts 17 on how the resurrection of Jesus is the assurance that one day God will judge the world by Him and thus we need to get right with Him now when we hear Him speaking to our hearts.
There were several unbelievers there who had come for the first time. Misa said afterwards that he was encouraged that "in his words" they were having the gospel clearly presented to them in song, testimony and message for the first time.
Our prayer is that, if it's the Lord's will, an evangelical church with a similar gospel outlook will decide to partner with Hirtop.

Keep us all in your prayers


Pastor Mark

Monday, May 10, 2010

Giving Seminars

A couple of Sundays ago I had the priviledge of being asked to do a day of seminars at Vad lui Isac church on the subject of "Giving to the Glory of God"
Other churches in the region were also invited and members from Manta and Pascani churches were among those who came about 270 in all.
We did 2 seminars in place of the morning service and then lunch together followed by another 2 seminars in the afternoon.
We looked at what our motivation for all our giving should be from Prov 3:9,10 i.e to honour God - by recognising that all we have comes from Him.
We then looked at how Abraham and Jacob did exactly this - they recognised that victory and the supply for life came from Him and they manifested this recognition by honouring Him in returning a tithe of all they received to God.
Jacob even said "...of all you give me I will give a tenth back to you.." Gen 28:22
What we then discussed was that this tithing had taken place 400 years before the law was given and that in my view God gave the law of tithing to remind the people of Israel what was pleasing to Him since they had got so far away from God by the tienm the law was given that they no longer knew what was pleasing to Him.
Thus tithing far from being a law should be a minimum goal if we want to honour God with our increase.
We looked at how the Bible shows 2 categories of giving to the glory of God. "Tithing" which we defined as "To give back to God a tenth part of your increase into the church, unconditionally as an honouring acknowledgement that all you have comes from God" Prov 3:9,10; Mal 3:8-10
and "Free will offering" which we defined as
" Every other kind of giving to the glory of God that comes from the remaining 90% of your increase or from your wealth"
We looked at some of the different categories of free will offering such as helping poor belivers ( as we see in 2 Cor 8:1-15 ), further giving into the church budget, supporting a ministry in your church, supporting a missionary or missionary organisation, helping the unsaved poor, a church building project etc etc and then we looked at how God teaches to do these things with our free will offerings ( although it is not obligatory ). We then looked at how to be good stewards of the many demands in these areas examening such passages as Math 5:42 in the light of 1 Tim 5:9,10.
There seemed to be a good, positive response to what was taught and Andrei the pastor of the church told me that the giving in the church increased fourfold the following Sunday.
My response;- "Let's see what it's like in a few months"
Pastor Mark

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

St Michael's in Chircani



We were very glad to have a team from St Michael's church from Bristol with us in April.

Here they are singing a song in the Sunday meeting at Gotesti.

We had them busily occupied while here ( nothing new in that says anyone who has ever been here on a team )

But although they slept and ate in Gotesti they had come to link up with the church in Chircani
and in particular with Ruslan and family who are overseeing the work in Chircani.

There are about 1000 residents in the village of Chircani and we have 11 members in the church there which has grown from 6 members that was the church around 2 yrs ago.


We also have quite a few people showing an interest in the gospel and a growing children's work there.
Last year the Lord blessed us and through a brother from the UK we were provided the funds to buy this building to convert into a church community centre.


Our vision is to convert the building to have a meeting hall for Sunday meetings etc along with an indoor baptistry + 2 Sunday school rooms, a youth room and a sports room and then a later phase would be to convert the left half of the building into a community centre for the poor and for the physically disabled etc.

Here is a photo of a proposal that an architect has given us which providing his estimate is real we are thinking we will go ahead with.


Always in need of your prayers
Pastor Mark