The Beginning of the World Mission Team

The vision of the church is planting new churches and involvement in local missions. Many people understood this and their contribution became concrete as churches were planted in Bucharest or around Bucharest. But God opened the heart of the pastors and the members of the church for the whole world. The church had been occasionally challenged to pray for international missionaries, yet it had not developed a program for concrete activities through which it could support world missions.

The ministry of mobilization for supporting the world missions started two years ago in the “Holy Trinity” Baptist Church in Bucharest. We developed a preparation course for the young people in the church who had world missions on their hearts. A missionary who works in Central Asia presented this two-week course. The goal of this course was to train people to mobilize the Christians in the local church to become involved in the ministry of supporting and sending missionaries to the ends of the earth. After analyzing these needs and participating in this course, four of us (young members of the Holy Trinity Church) started to meet and pray, asking for God’s guidance to find a strategy and a vision for concrete activities.

Under the guidance of the pastor, we took the next step: we formed a team (the four A’s: Alex, Anca, Alina, Alex) which could organize activities to help the church discover what the world mission is, to what extent God’s Word is spread throughout the world, and how the church can become directly involved in supporting world missions.

The practical activity of the team started with organizing a first national conference for world missions to which pastors from all over the country took part. The enthusiasm response of people to the challenges we made on this occasion prepared the way for organizing other world mission conferences for the Holy Trinity Church. These conferences challenged church members to support world missions through prayer and financially.

Here are some activities that now maintain the mission fire in the church:

a) The printing of the missions bulletin ” Windows to the End of the Earth.” This bulletin offers information from the mission field and about the “adopted” missionaries of the Holy Trinity Church. Through this bulletin, we also inform the church about the missions’ team activities and its projects. This bulletin comes out monthly and is usually distributed on the day of prayer for missions (see the file: bulletin).

b) We created a system of offerings (the yellow envelope) through which the members of the church can financially support world missions. This commitment is made between the members of the church and God on the basis of a coupon. Each member receives a half an A4 page on which he can find 2 identical coupons. After filling them out, he keeps one for himself and turns in the other one, which is collected separately, so that the results may be brought to the church’s notice. This commitment indicates the person’s decision to contribute directly to the world missions. It is specified that “this contribution is made through faith and apart from the tithe”. We believe that the tithe should be brought to the Lord’s House. All the collected funds go to the church treasury, either by direct contribution or by bank transfer. From the treasury, the funds are divided by the church committee, according to the needs (see commitment coupon).
c) The organization of monthly meetings with the members of the church who want to pray specifically for missionaries and for the countries of the world. Every second Sunday of the month, after the morning service, those who want to stay for one more hour of prayer can listen to news, missionary testimonies and important events from the life of the missionaries adopted by the church.
d) The organization of conferences in the churches of Bucharest and all over the country (Constanța, Arad, Caransebeș, Timișoara, Iași).
e) The preparation of a “fair” (an auction for some objects brought by the missionaries) through which we raised funds for the missionaries and to support short term mission projects (summer projects). This way, young people from the Holy Trinity church, together with some students from the Baptist Theology University (within the University of Bucharest) had the opportunity to get involved in a one-week mission trip, in Ukraine and Moldavia. There have been organized other mission trips as well: in China, Macedonia, Serbia or between the Romanians from Germany and Greece

As a result of the ministry of the world mission supporting team, God challenged many people to get involved in this ministry. In this way, God raised up a new group of people, who are dedicated to prayer and concretely involved in the team’s activities. As a result of the team’s extended activities, there was a need to increase the size of the world mission supporting team. God answered this need as well, so that the number of the team members grew from 4 to 21.

Momentarily, we are conscious that this ministry is validated by the Holy Spirit through the church, therefore every activity and member of this team is strongly supported in prayer by our church. We wish for this revival that took place in our church to take place in many other churches all over this country, so that Romania may become a “torch” which burns in our generation for the fulfillment of the Great Commission given by our Lord, Jesus Christ: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Amen (Matthew 28: 18-20).

Presentation of the mobilization team of the ” Holy Trinity” Baptist Church from Bucharest

GOAL: the development of the world mission spirit among the Christians from the Holy Trinity Church, Bucharest, Romania

OBJECTIVES:
To promote the involvement of Romanian Christians in cross-cultural missions.
To develop a missions team to organize projects concerning cross-cultural short-term missions.
To initiate and develop short-term and long-term world mission projects.
To encourage Christian organizations from all over the country and from abroad to unify their efforts for the international missions.

WHO CAN BE A TEAM MEMBER:
All who are characterized by integrity, who prove to have an attitude of serving people and serving in the church, may be a team member. A Christian character, specific knowledge and the development of some skills (e.g. Communication, relating etc.) will be the foundation of the mobilization activity.
There are two different types of persons who can be part of this team: those who have God’s calling to go as long term missionaries and those who want to support the missionaries

We’ll also take into consideration:
• Your experience as a born again Christian
• Your desire to contribute to the cross-cultural mission ministry
• A character built on the principles mentioned in Timothy and Titus.
• Availability for ministry
• Integrity, flexibility, transparency and sociability
• Team work abilities
• Submission to the church authorities
• The capacity of accepting advice and guidance

ONGOING ACTIVITIES:
• Bible studies with the theme: world
• World mission conferences in the country and abroad
• Moral, financial and prayer support for the missionaries
• The editing of the mission bulletin
• Weekly fund raising through the established system: the yellow envelope, auctions, object selling etc.
• The organization and participation to the prayer meetings for the church world mission
• The development of some cross-cultural short term mission projects
• The development and the implementation of a working strategy for world mission and for supporting the missionaries of the church

Any church may have such a team. All its members should be volunteers and should participate in activities as their spare time allows them, taking into consideration each one’s abilities. The team should be under the direct coordination of the pastor and should benefit from his spiritual support and from the church’ prayer support.

If the torch managed to get to your church, then, maybe you would want to take it further together with other persons, with passion and dedication to touch others as well with the divine fire.