The weblog of the Bunnells, missionaries serving in Romania on behalf of
Friday, August 01, 2008
Chew on this
Something to think about and digest--2 Cor. 5:20 says, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ's behalf, 'Be reconciled to God.'"
That says a lot about what our perspective needs to be, in both our preaching of the gospel, and our one-on-one evangelism. Namely this: Evangelism is not you and me as believers talking to other people about God. Evangelism is God talking to other people about Himself and using believers like you and me as His messengers. There's nothing we do that is more important than that, and nothing we do that is a greater or more undeserved privilege than that.
Well, as you know, baseball is a sport that can be rained out. And it hasn't stopped raining for a few days in the northern half of Romania, so our baseball club was rained out today. But there are worse things than that. Many Romanians, especially in villages, are dealing with flooding and sometimes great loss. Pray for God to minister to people in need.
Tonight's home fellowship was with a gospel message from Romans 3, and God was working in the heart of one man who attended, who came from a completely unreligious background and had no previous knowledge of Christianity in his home culture. If you'd like to hear the message online, you can listen here.
The Lord has provided us a way to get a new startup website for our new church-planting work here in Cluj. You can check it out here. (It's only in Romanian with no English version, because it is designed only to reach Romanians.) Praise the Lord for giving us this opportunity to tell about the ministry, put our Romanian audio messages and Bible study notes online, and promote outreaches like the weekly Bible studies and the kids club. An online version of our main gospel tract "Good enough for heaven?" is also there.
We received permission to use a local high school for our baseball club on Saturdays through the first half of September, so now we're beginning to promote it with flyers and other means, to try to get a big group of kids out. God moved mightily, and the school director not only approved the activity on the grounds free of cost, but said she would help and enlist teachers to help contact students and invite them to attend. Praise the Lord, and pray for Him to use this open door He has given us for His glory.
Tomorrow, the director of a local
high school will be giving us her decision about whether we can use
the grounds there for our baseball club. It is in a central part of
the city in a very highly-populated neighborhood, which seems ideal
to us. Pray for God's will to be done, as He is the One who opens a
door no one can close. Please pray for healing of my back
problems, which are worsening the last couple months, so that I can
be better-equipped for sports-based ministry.
Praise the Lord for some growth in
our home fellowship, with three new men planning on attending for
the first time tomorrow evening, and another woman planning on
joining next week. The study of Romans is being taught for a group
ranging from the mature believer to the brand new babe in Christ to
the unsaved. Please pray for God's Spirit to work powerfully
in this group, for the salvation and ongoing discipleship of all who
attend.
Our campaign with the team from
Slobozia to evangelize in Cluj is now scheduled for August 20-25.
Please pray for all our arrangements for that outreach campaign, and
for God to bring much fruit. Also, a friend from Texas is planning a
trip to work with us in early September. Please pray now as his
arrangements are being made, for God to guide, provide, and bless.
At our weekly home fellowship this evening, we had a time of prayer, discussion, Bible study, and some praise music led by Lili, who is continuing to learn the guitar. For the study, we looked at Romans chapter 2. We recorded the study again, and you can hear the message, that has me teaching in English and Lili translating into Romanian, at the link here.
Last night in Cluj, a traveling musical group did an evangelistic concert at a soccer stadium. It was encouraging to see a crowd of thousands attend an explicitly Christian event, and at the close of the evening they had a pastor from the city of Oradea preach a gospel message from Luke 5. They did a Billy-Graham-crusade-style invitation after that, and it appeared that almost 100 people responded to the altar call. Those who did have been invited to a Baptist church in the city for follow-up, and we pray that the Lord will bless that. Click here for a brief YouTube video that shows the stage and the crowd at the concert, listening to the song, "Dumnezeu e taria mea," which proclaims, "God is my strength / a shelter for my soul / a help when the burden is heavy." You'll recognize the tune, because it was written to the same music as the Rich Mullins song "Our God is an Awesome God." And this second videoshows a moment from the invitation at the end of the preaching, when the group sang, "Come! Come to Him, don't wait. Today Jesus is calling you, Come, come."
DaveBunnell Romania The Missionary's Day weblog-- Authored by Dave Bunnell. Dave and his family are missionaries for Calvary Chapel Garland (Texas) , working to plant Biserica Harul Domnului (Grace of the Lord Church) in Cluj, Romania. This blog features exciting stories about what God is doing on the mission field, as well as reflections on the Bible and thoughts about walking with Christ.
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Sing to the Lord, praise His Name; proclaim His salvation day after day. Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens... Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns." --from Psalm 96
