Week three

I've spent the past few weeks going to various conferences and meeting people. This is important as I need to develop contacts. Because one of my jobs will be to write a newsletter on missions for the church, I need to have contacts throughout the region so they will help provide me with information.

There is a lot of talk about mission. Which is good. But it's not all talk. Basically the solution to a crisis of pitiful church attendance at all churches in Hungary, is increased mission activity. Previously, the churches got comfortable with the assumption that people would come in to the churches and what the church offered was enough(teaching from the pulpit once a week). Materialism, globalism and individualism all play part in people's lack of attendance. But geniunely the once a week sermon is not deemed relevant.

The church therefore must "go out" and/or offer services to meet the needs of individuals to draw them in. This is working in many congregations, in many different settings (i.e. rural and urban) but it is not a widespread practise. It is for this reason that the Hungarian Reformed church is increasingly facilitating opportunities to talk about this subject and share ideas and stories. The more it is talked about, the more congregations will be encouraged to do it.

Related to this, I attended three conferences. One was a Women's society retreat talking about the need to pray for eachother. It all begins with prayer. The women in attendence were from several different Church diocese spanning 5 different countries. This took place in the West of Hungary in a little town called Mor. The second conference was an ecumenical experience with "The Missional Congregation" as the topic. There were guests from 5 different denominations and two guest speakers from the United Kingdom and Norway. It was good to hear of the churches trying to put aside their denominational differences and talk about common issues.

From west to east, the next conference took place in Mateszalka a city in North Eastern Hungary close to the Ukranian border. This too was a conference about missions but it was attended by pastors from the three "presbyteries" (they call them church counties here) and any church members. These three counties contain the majority of the Hungarian Reformed Population in the country so, this is why the revival of mission activity in the region is essential. Also, this is the poorest region in the whole country so the needs are great as well. It was great to hear more talk about missions.