Skip to main content

A Brief Report on Our Trip to Romania, by Pastor Charlie Handren

By Anonymous

A Brief Report on Our Trip to Romania
By Pastor Charlie

From February 3-13, Ethan Larson and I had the privilege of traveling to northern Romania with Training Leaders International (TLI), the ministry with which Ethan serves. Over the last year, Ethan has worked with the staff of TLI and local Romanian leaders to set up this training opportunity. The vision of TLI is to bring college and seminary level training to parts of the world that have little or no access to it. They only go at the request of local leaders, and they require those leaders to play a substantial role in the process.
Once a site has been chosen and local leadership set up, they travel to the host country three times per year for three years, for a total of nine courses. The first course is “The Attributes of God,” followed by “Biblical Theology” and “Hermeneutics” (the science and art of interpretation). After these three “core courses,” they lead students through various books of the Bible depending on local need and desire.
Since our trip was the first of nine, Ethan and I taught “The Attributes of God” along with two American assistants. The classes took place Monday through Friday evenings from 4:30-9:00 with a one-half hour break for dinner. We began by establishing the knowability of God, and then went on to meditate on eighteen distinct but related aspects of his being. For example, we covered God’s unity and tri-unity, his unchangeableness, his grace, and his wrath. In each session, we labored to explain and discuss many biblical texts and to evoke a sense of awe in God. As I mentioned in my sermon last Sunday, theology should lead to doxology. Learning about God should lead to the heartfelt praise of God, and thus, we taught and worshiped together.
In addition to our class time, we also spent time each day with the leading Baptist Pastor in Sighet, Romania, Sorin Sorbu. Each day, he took us to various sites, and along the way we got to know one another and collaborate about that evening’s ministry. He also arranged for us to preach in his primary church (he pastors five of them) and another Baptist church in town. It was a great privilege for Ethan and I to share the Word of God with our brothers and sisters there.
Beloved, thank you for praying for us while we were away! Now please join us in praying for the Baptist churches of Romania. They are faithful and yet in need of prayer for unity and evangelism. May the Lord hear and answer our prayers as we cry out to him in faith.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflective Glory: How the Moon Displays the Mercy of God

By
Our sun is a fitting metaphor for the glory of God. In the context of our solar system, it is massive, bright, beautiful, powerful, self-sufficient, heat-producing, life-giving, and dangerous. It is, by far, the dominant feature of our solar system and without it the system would fling apart and all living things therein would die.  On the other hand, our moon is a fitting metaphor for human beings, especially for those who believe in Jesus Christ. First, compared to the sun, the moon is tiny and dim. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, its mass is 27 million times greater than the mass of the moon, and from our perspective its light shines 450,000 times brighter than that of the moon. The sun is so much greater than the moon that it’s difficult to quantify and express the difference. Likewise, the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is so much great than each and all of us that it’s impossible to quantify or express the difference. Indeed, the Lord is very great and greatly...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sermon Questions - April 10, 2016

By
Exiled in Faithfulness 1 Samuel 26:1-27:12 April 10, 2016 Study Questions 1.       Read 1 Samuel 26:1-5. Why did the Ziphites betray David? Had they done this before? How did Saul respond and why? How did David learn of Saul’s location and what did he do? 2.     Read 1 Samuel 26:6-16. What did David first do? What did Abishai encourage him to do? How did David respond? What did David assert about Saul’s future? What did David then do and why did his plan work? 3.      Once the plan was executed, who did David call out to and why? Of what did David accuse him? Was David right? 4.      Read 1 Samuel 26:17-25. How did Saul know it was David speaking? Specifically, what did David say to Saul? How did Saul respond? What did he promise? 5.        Read 1 Samuel 27:1-4. Despite Saul’s words, what did David think about his future? Why did he decide to flee to the Philistines and where in pa...
Post a Comment
Read more