Dr Adrian Bury's blog
Christian theology, basic teachings, apologeticsChurch planting
Experiences with and lessons learnt from church planting – part 5
(other parts follow)
God is continuing to use and guide us, though we are still in rather difficult circumstances. One thing that has happened, is that we have been accepted as an official mission of the same denomination we used to be in, though in association with a different congregation from the one we were ejected from. Geographically this new place is nearer to the village where we are working, and I am sure it is to our advantage to belong to a world-wide movement. The national leaders are aware of our activities, and are very encouraging.
As we have been given the mandate to “preach good news to the poor” (Isaiah 61), we were pleased to receive a donation of clothes and food from a foundation located to the north of where we live. We also have a good relationship with the church there, which is linked with the charity foundation. We have already been able to pass on some of the gifts to the very poor people we are in contact with.
As far as the outreach is concerned, we have been back to visit the two families where we prayed for people, though we have done no more open-airs as yet. Just to recap, on the previous occasion, we prayed for a blessing for most of them, but specifically we had prayed for a young deaf and dumb lad to be healed, and for a man who was tormented by the “spirit of his dead father” in his dreams, and he also had trouble breathing and walking. In the second house we prayed for the two sisters, one who had been a Christian, and the other who had the tumour in the throat. Everyone was visibly touched by the Holy Spirit.
When we went back, the man said he was no longer bothered by bad dreams, and he could now walk into the village without any trouble. There was certainly a visible improvement. We then had a chance to pray for his mother, who was waiting for a gall-bladder operation, of which she had had several. The doctors had told her they were unsure of the outcome, and she really did look very ill.
In the other family, the lady with the tumour was very open to talk about her life experiences, and we chatted for quite a while. These people have some very serious problems, and are in need of good teaching, and also some care and attention. They also are all in need of repentance, of course, and this has not happened as yet. Both families, however, said we would be welcome to visit whenever we wanted, and stay as long as we liked; there is great openness.
Meanwhile God is continuing to guide and speak to the existing group, and it has happened that the Lord has spoken the same thing to more than one of us independently. We are being warned repeatedly to fight according to the rules and to lay good Biblical foundations. We specifically have to avoid gossip, slander, criticism and judgementalism. And remember to bless, and not curse one another. God has also been speaking about getting our attitude to giving sorted out.
When we visited the two families again last Sunday, they are very pleased to see us, and we stayed longer than we had planned. Not everyone was at home, but the guy who could hardly walk at first is now riding a bicycle, and his mother was so much better within three days of being prayed for, that she did not need the operation. She is also telling everyone about what happened, so the news is spreading. People we have not even met yet were waving to us and greeting us with “God bless”! So we are praising God for what he is doing! He is showing these people that he is real and that he cares about them, but they still need to come to repentance and begin to grow in Christ. That will be the more difficult part, given their background, but God did send us here, so we will see what happens! The latest thing is that we have been invited back to hold an open air worship meeting on their courtyard, and preach the gospel, so we now have to organise that.
(what next?)
Experiences with and lessons learnt from church planting – part 4
(part 3 follows below, then part 2 and 1)
After I came back from England, we did an open-air again, where we preached the gospel and prophesied to the village, with the help of a pastor from Brazil and his wife. We were in the same place as before, but the visible result was even less than the first time.
We then got specific guidance from the Holy Spirit about where to do the next outreach. Another time we went to the street the Lord had told us about, and walked up and down praying. Some people came out of one of the houses and asked us who we were looking for. We got into conversation with them, and it turned out they already had some ideas about God, and they would let us use their electricity for the next street outreach. One man, however, was resistant and wanted to get rid of us.
We did go back there though, and preached the word with amplification. At these times, we can see a few people standing in front of their houses, or looking out of their gateways, so they are listening, and hear the message. Maybe they are not brave enough to come up to us? One young lady did come over, though, and said that she was a Christian, but she did not have a church, and if we wanted to preach the word in her street, she could provide us with some power too.
As the Lord had told us to help the poor, but we had forgotten to take any gifts with us, we promised to bring some the next time. When we went back, and took some food with us, they invited us into the house. In chatting with them it turned out that although they believe in God, and they really need him, their lives are subject to all kinds of occult influences, from the return of spirits of the dead, to divination using Tarot cards. We thought, Lord, where on earth have you sent us??? In any case, they allowed us to pray for all of them, even the man who had previously resisted.
We then went on to the street where the other lady lived, to say we did not need the electricity after all, as it was getting late, but she invited us in for a chat too. It turned out that her sister is that very lady who has the tumour in her throat, and she too let us pray for her (after all). Both we and they felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit to such an extent that we could hardly stand up. We expect some results! It is now up to the Lord to act!
The next time we went back to this second place, and with the help of their electricity we loudly preached the word. The Lord has led us to stick to the basic gospel, in accordance with 1 Cor 15, and proclaim the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our faith in not based on invented fables, but on historical events confirmed by eyewitnesses. We are also happy to pray for people’s problems. God wants to confirm his message with signs and wonders!
People were watching this time too. A guy also came up on a bicycle and tried to stop us, but we did not give in. An old lady then came out of her house, and headed straight for us. I thought, Oh no, what is she going to say now! She said, however, that if she had been outside, she would have given that bloke a piece of her mind! We should just carry on, and say what we want, because they need to hear it! We also had some good chats with a few people.
So, this is where things stand at the moment. We are waiting for a financial and spiritual breakthrough. And we are keeping on doing what we are doing.
(I am sure this is to be continued)
In connection with church planting and the support thereof
We came up with the following. Well, it may work in Hungary. What do you think?
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ
We make this approach to you as leaders of a mission group in the Hungarian village of Mezőszentgyörgy, and as your fellow servants in Christ Jesus. By the grace and love of God, and under His guidance, we have been carrying out mission work in this small, impoverished village for the last eighteen months. Our meetings are now attended by twelve baptised people.
This ministry was launched on the basis of the following Bible verse: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…” (Luke 4: 18).
We are in need of your support, because we should like to help the poor in this village, such as widows and orphans, materially as well as spiritually. We are not asking primarily for money, but we wish to collect used metal articles such as old and broken household appliances, and turn these into cash. With the income from these, we wish to support the mission and to help those in need. What we are looking for are things you no longer use, and would throw out anyway.
The following come to mind:
Slides Swings Sewing machines
Mobil phones Radiators Sports equipment
Clothes (Adult, Children’s)
Shoes (adult, children’s)
Bedding Coulters Curtains Rubber tyres
Alloy rims Metal rims Lawn mowers
Chainsaws Strimmers Electric, petrol mixers
DIY tools (even broken)
Doors, windows (aluminium, plastic, wood)
Cameras (even broken) Taps
Copper, aluminium pieces
Cable sections Acid-resisant articles
Mopeds (also motor-cross)
Bicycles (also broken)
Ski clothing, ski boots Skis Snowboards
Skates Watches, clocks
Computers and Laptops (even broken)
Picture frames, vases
LCD monitors (even broken)
Porcelain dolls Chandeliers, carpets
Pine and oak furniture Compressors, sterimos
Stoves with flue, gas boilers Surfboards
Coffee makers (also broken)
Petrol-driven cars Power welders
Scrap gold, jewelry
Cutlery, tableware Scrap iron Household metal
Sheet iron of any kind
Metal utensils you no longer use
Household appliances you no longer use and want to get rid of
Automatic washing machines
Twin tubs Vacuum cleaners
Spin driers TV Microwaves
Gas cookers Fridges Electric motors
Electric heaters Taps Pipes
Handles Iron stoves Geysers
Electric water heaters Fireplaces
and things like these.
– things you are going to throw out anyway.
We can also arrange for the transportation of these articles, even for large objects and/or quantities.
“Each man should give what he has determined in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor 9: 7).
Thanking you in advance for your help.
The mission leaders:
László Bakács Dr Adrian Bury
Contact details:
Telephone: + 36 30 567 99 13 / + 36 70 410 64 49
E-mail: bury.adrian@chello.hu
Experiences with and lessons learnt from church planting – part 3
(part 2 follows below, then part 1)
In October of 2010, we organised an opening meeting for the new church. We invited leaders, representatives and worship teams from churches we have good relationships with. The leader of one of the mission branches of British Assemblies of God also came along to preach the word; she is also leader of the church in Bangor, Wales, to which I belonged for a number of years. Although few outsiders came, we were very blessed in the meeting, as the Holy Spirit was poured out, and we heard some valuable, practical teaching. We learnt about the spiritual battle we are in, and in which we must participate as Christians. If we remain passive, we have already lost.
Our guest stayed for several days, attended a few church services, and encouraged us to carry on with the work. She also arranged for financial support, so we could change our cars. At the beginning of December, for the first time in my life I received an invitation to preach the word in Austria. The journey was a challenge too, as there was heavy snow just before I left. I preached for the first time in Austria, and I preached for the first time in German, though I have been learning it for longer than Hungarian. The Lord keeps on giving me opportunities to “get out of my comfort zone.” Besides this, the Lord also helped us at this time to establish other local and international contacts, and prompted me to start leadership training and deeper Bible study with the present and potential leaders of the mission.
Since then we have been carrying on with the house-group meetings, where we pray, study the Bible, take Communion, and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:42). For quite a while now God has been teaching us about spiritual warfare and fighting according to the rules, i.e., that we cannot react to the problems of life in the same way that the world does. We face difficulties in faith, and bless those who attack us (if we manage to!). At the same time, we kept coming across the idea that we have to keep laying the correct foundations of the Christian life over and over again, as many people are not clear on these, even if “they have been attending church for 50 years.” Recently, the subject of our identity in Christ has also come to the fore. We are all struggling with various problems, but God keeps speaking to us and leading us (if we happen to remember to ask him for his help!) We feel that we are going through the dessert, but we are learning to be dependent on God, and to trust him. (These have already come up in other writings on my blog. I therefore refer to them here).
Just before Christmas, we figured out that we would only find the people who were looking for God in this village, if we went out onto the street, and preached the gospel there. I was planning to go home for Christmas (to the land of the English), and to tell the truth, I did not feel like doing this, but the others were really keen. But after all, as I have often said, obeying God is not a matter of how we feel…
We managed to borrow an amplifier, loudspeaker and microphone, and on a cold, snowy day in December, we went forth and preached the gospel. This did not produce much of a visible result, but within a few days, the whole village knew about it. The feedback was mainly negative, but that is to be expected. (No one is interested in any of this. Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Err, no – Romans 1:16).
Just by the way, the daughter of one of our church members mentioned that the mother of one of her classmates had a tumour in her throat, but it was inoperable, as they were afraid she would bleed to death. We sent a message that we would be happy to pray for her, but she strongly rejected this suggestion, as “God had never done anything to help her.” Well, this would be the opportunity… We just prayed that if the Lord wanted it this to work out, he would arrange it.
Meanwhile, we are all struggling with financial difficulties, but the Lord has told us specifically to help those who are in need. Well, how? When our English guest was here, she said we had to ask the Lord to give us ideas. More than ten years ago, the Lord told her to open a “charity shop”, in order to support mission, widows and orphans, and Bible schools with the income from this. Since then, 13 shops have been opened, and they are doing just that, in many poor countries. (This is the homepage for the network: http://www.aogbangor.org.uk/html/annies.html). As this concept is not very well known in Hungary, and things which work elsewhere should not necessarily be imitated anyway, we prayed. We got the idea of dealing in used household appliances, but getting this underway is still in progress…
(to be continued)
Experiences with and lessons learnt from church planting – part 2
(part 1 follows below)
Now that the external attacks could have no effect on us, we thought that we were free to evangelise, go out onto the street, help the poor, just as the Lord had commanded us at the beginning. We even went out a few times, did some prayer walking and talked to people. When some of them saw that we were not there to accuse or attack them, but just to chat with them about the gospel, and be nice and normal with them, then a few good conversations occurred.
We soon realised, however, that the problems were far from over. Although we had explained to the new converts that the Christian life is not just about good feelings, but there would also be times of trial, when unconverted relatives, neighbours and friends attacked them about their faith, they got a shock! Some have even turned away, unfortunately. We are still praying for them.
Unexpected internal tensions also arose. Certain people, who had been able to work together well for years, began to fall out and argue about trivial matters. Why does everyone listen to the others, and not to me? I have some good ideas too. Why wasn’t it mentioned in the report that I am also working in the mission? One or two even left the mission, on the pretext that, “I feel out of place here, because no-one listens to me.” Once again there were fewer of us, but we still carried on.
We must not forget that mankind has an enemy, who is not pleased if we obey God and preach the gospel. He often uses people to oppose the work of God. One of his tactics is external attack, as we have seen from Acts chapter 4. Another is internal conflict. In Acts 7 we see that contention arose in the Jerusalem church in connection with the provision of aid for the widows. The apostles responded by praying, then they solved the problem and continued with their important work.
I understand that if those who call themselves Christians are actually following a false gospel (Galatians 1:6-9), then we cannot cooperate with them. If division arises for personal, carnal or emotions reasons, however, that is a different matter. At times like these, Paul speaks of carnal behaviour and immaturity (1 Cor 1: 11-13; 3:1-9). Who is our favourite teacher, what music style should we use in worship, what pictures should we put on the wall? If someone leaves a church because there is false teaching, and the situation is not going to change, then that is fine. If someone leaves because he is offended, however, because e.g. he is not being given appropriate respect, then it is not. The question arises, are we building God’s kingdom, or our own empire? Are we representing the Almighty God, or ourselves? (2 Cor 4:5). Do we persevere in faith, or throw tantrums like a two-year old? Another point is that if we make a decision based on what we “feel” instead of asking for God’s guidance, how do we really know that it was the right decision?
Following these difficulties, we noticed that our times together had become dry and formal. When we stepped out at the beginning, we experienced God’s presence and met with him at every meeting. We could hardly wait to get together, because the Lord always gave us some fresh “food”. We asked God if this dryness was normal and we just needed to persevere, or was there a real problem.
We received an answer immediately, based on the story found in 2 Kings 6. The prophets were building a house together with Elisha, and while one was cutting wood, the axe-head fell in the water. They found it by Elisha throwing in a stick and the axe-head floated to the surface. In some way we had managed to “lose our axe-head” and we needed to go back and find it.
We became aware of the fact that we had taken our eyes off the Lord and started looking at people, but not to bless them. We had started criticising, complaining and judging. These things are detestable to God, and specifically forbidden in Scripture (Matthew 7:1-2; Romans 2:1-3; 1 Cor 5:11; Galatians 5:20). Churches have been ruined by these practices, as well as whole revival movements, and we were doing it too! The Holy Spirit was saddened because of this, and had drawn back. We asked forgiveness from the Lord, and now try to keep away from these sins. If others slander us, we try to bless them, and ask the Lord to give them light. Since then, conflicts have arisen to try and divide us, but if we notice what is happening, and fight against it, the Holy Spirit is poured out again, like at the beginning.
(to be continued)
Experiences with and lessons learnt from church planting – part 1
Although I had been involved with church planting in the eighties together with Bangor Pentecostal church in North Wales, I cannot claim to have a great deal of experience in this area. In Hungary, I concentrated more on helping existing churches with teaching and prophetic ministry, with mixed results. Eighteen months ago, however, I had an opportunity to become involved with a new work.
At that time I was an elder in a small-town church, and I was leading one of the church house groups. The first sign that something new was happening, was that a relative of one of the members came along to a meeting, and said that he wanted to get saved. Everyone was very pleased, and that very day we prayed for him and led him to Jesus. An indication that he had really been born again was that he was immediately filled with enthusiasm, he wanted to know about everything, asked loads of questions, and there was no way we could get rid of him. When it could be organised, he was baptised in Lake Balaton, and got baptised in the Holy Spirit the next day, accompanied by speaking in tongues.
Meanwhile, at the wedding of the son of our house-group member, we met up with some of his relatives again, who live in a small village where I had led a house group a few years before, but it had been abandoned. They expressed the wish for it to start up again. We agreed, and together with my house group and our new convert, we started to go over to the village again. It did him a great deal of good to be active in mission work so soon after his conversion. We really accepted this as the Lord’s leading, as we had been “raring to go” for a while, and received the following Biblical guidance as the basis and direction for our mission: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18).
I went home to England in the summer, where I had a chance to go to a Christian camp. From various sermons and seminars, I received confirmation that we were going in the right direction with the mission. They were talking about church planting here, and also at a denominational pastors’ meeting I attended back in Hungary. There was teaching about prophetic evangelism, as well as a warning based on the book of Nehemiah that if we are active in the work of the Lord, we will encounter opposition, particularly if we move up to a new level, but we must not give up. New levels, new devils. I’m glad I heard about this!
When I got back to Hungary, the inactive section of the church were already complaining about the mission, why are we doing this, it’s going to lead to division, it would be better to stop everything, spend the next six months studying eschatology, and discussing how we can evangelise. I got really annoyed at this, and said we have been talking about what we should be doing for the last ten years, but we have not actually done anything. We now have a functioning mission branch, people have got saved, I’m not stopping it just so we can talk about things again. We carried on!
During this period, the meetings in the village house group were really blessed. The Holy Spirit was poured out, gifts of the Spirit were in operation, even the new people received visions, prophecies and guidance. We went through basic teachings, so we could make people into disciples for Christ. People came to the meetings, they were interested, they got saved and joined in with the work. Some of the children of existing members also got saved at this time.
In February 2010, 5 people from the mission were baptised. They could hardly wait, because they had understood that this was the way to enter into covenant with God. On the way home in the car, three of them were baptised in the Spirit and began to speak in tongues. The next day, one of the others was also filled with the Spirit after being prayed for. We understood this to mean that the Lord had set his seal on what we were doing, but not because we are some special people, but because we were preaching the gospel. (Miracles occur to confirm the Lord’s own word, not the minister who speaks it.)
I have always longed to live the Christian life in a completely Biblical manner, and also to evangelise in the same way. As I have often had to fight against traditions and customs in the churches, many of them meaningless to me, I wanted to do an experiment with this mission and obey Christ according to the teaching of the Bible, as led by the Holy Spirit. The Lord drew our attention to the story in 2 Samuel 6, where they were transporting the Ark of the Covenant on a cart, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah died because he touched the Ark. We understood from this, that David and the Israelites wanted to do something good, because they were taking the Ark up to Jerusalem, but they did not do this in the way the Lord had commanded. It is written in the Law, that the Ark must be covered over and carried on poles by the priests (Numbers 4), and not conveyed on a cart in the sight of all. Now therefore, even under the new covenant, if we are really disciples of Christ, we have to do what he says in the way he says it, and not follow some agenda of our own. God has also spoken to us several times about new wineskins (Matthew 9: 17), so we must not allow God’s work to be frustrated because of our inflexibility. We began discipleship training, therefore, with the repentance, water baptism, and Holy Spirit baptism of the new converts (Acts 2: 38).
At this, people in the old church totally rebelled, once again wanting to put a stop to everything. I don’t really want to go into the details, but this was a very difficult and painful period. Just briefly. A turning point for me, was when I explained that Philip baptised the Ethiopian eunuch immediately when he saw he had understood the message, and did not worry about where he would be attending church. The response was: “We have traditions and customs in this church, and there is no way we are going to do what the Bible says. NO WAY!”
To cut a long story short, the final result was that the mission group was put out of the church, and they found themselves suddenly with no church backing, and no denominational affiliation. I stayed for a few more months to see if I could do anything to save the situation, but I left too when I realised that there was no point in staying there any longer. They don’t need a radical prophet like me in their midst.
I can see that all this happened to us for the simple reason that we were obedient to God. It is interesting to note that when the early church first began to expand, starting from the day of Pentecost, the first opposition came from the religious leaders. The apostles answered thus: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 4). We still carried on!
(to be continued)
