Great Beginnings in Romania

Last month I spent a lot of time setting up and organizing the official kick off for our Romania Church Planting Project. This specific project began in January of this year and will be ongoing for the next 4 to 5 years. Stage 1 of this project is from January 2007 until December 2007. Stage 1 is the developmental stage where we lay a solid foundation of training and casting vision building into the potential Romanian Church Planter. We also begin to identify and release some local staff from Romania who are instrumental in the success of the project. By the end of this year we will have a Romanian Project Director, Short Term Missions Coordinator and Administrator. They help to coordinate with us in the UK office and support the church planters in Romania. Then from January 2008 until December 2010 we will be helping the Romanian Church in this region plant churches through the partnership of Western Churches working with NLI.

This past week I had a chance to travel again to Romania for five full days that included meetings with regional leaders and potential national project staff, a church planter training seminar and having the privilege of preaching at 2 churches on Sunday. The Romania Project is still in its foundational stage as we are just beginning to develop and identify national staff that will run the project in Romania, potential church planters as well as we are still recruiting partner churches.

65 nationals made up of potential church planters and potential mother church pastors joined us at the conference. It was an exciting time of sharing the joint vision that NLI and the Regional Church Leadership in the Constanta Region have to see 12-15 churches planted in the 4 areas that make up this region in the South East corner of Romania. It was truly inspiring to see God begin to equip, empower and inspire them to believe for the vision God has given them to see a church planted in the target city He has put on their heart.

On Friday evening we were able to have Ian Green join our celebration service, and he brought us a message that not only had us all laughing hysterically but also challenged and inspired us to believe for the things God has put on our hearts for Romania and to know that He is capable of doing exceedingly and abundantly more then we could ask or imagine if we make ourselves available to Him. I know that the Romanians who attended the conference were talking about what Ian shared for the rest of the conference. It was great to see them encouraged and so passionate about what God is going to do in Romania through them.

One of the other exciting things for us as a Church Planting department was being able to identify and release the Romanian Project Directors into their role for this project. Traian & Elena Pascalau will be the Romania National Project Directors for this Church Planting Project. They will help oversee the project and be a liaison with the NLI staff as well as a support and mentor to the church planters. This is a wonderful couple who lead a church that was planted in the city of Constanta and have a real heart for church planting and a desire to serve and love the church planters. We are very excited to have them as part of the project and know that God is going to do great things in and through them.

So for us this was a very successful and foundational trip that has encouraged us. We are very excited about what God is going to do out there and to see churches planted that can change communities and lives with the Good News and hope that comes from having a relationship with Jesus who loves us all so much and longs for relationship with us.

Thank you for sharing in what we are doing.

Blessings to you all,

Ronnie +