Preaching in Romania

This is installment 3 in a series of blog posts that reflect on my time in Romania. 

When we were preparing  to leave for Europe, Jim Morgan told me that they will ask me to preach while I'm over there.  I was a little freaked out by the thought, but also very excited.  Preaching with a translator sounded very intimidating.  It was one of those experiences where half of me didn't want to do it because it was uncomfortable, and half of me knew I shouldn't pass on an opportunity like that.  Part of the goal of a short term missions trip is to throw ourselves from comfort to experience our faith outside of the familiar.  I spoke 4 times and experienced services at 3 different churches.  I loved it. 

In the region we were in, the only two denominations within evangelical Christianity were Baptists and Pentecostals.  Certainly none is better than one when it comes to divisions in the Church, but it was so refreshing to only have one.  There are so many denominations in America that I couldn't even find an accurate estimated number;  it's somewhere in the thousands.  We have the mindset that we cannot get along with other Christians with minor theological differences.  This leaves us with a broken family that is beyond dysfunctional.  Yet, in Romania, there are 2.  I even saw Baptists and Pentecostals working together for Christ.  What a novel idea. 

After I gave my first message we were invited to have lunch with the pastor and his family.  This man was an inspiration to me.  I would like to be more like him.  He is the pastor in 2 villages that are 15 minutes apart, but he has no car, so he hitchhikes between the two.  When we ate together he told me that he was nervous having an American pastor give a message because American pastors water down the Gospel; but he was very pleased with what I said.  From the state of Christianity in America I can see that his critique is accurate, but I'm encouraged that he exempted me from that critique.