Latest / Eurasia Region Podcast / S1-E48 | Everyday Eurasia | Joshua Haun

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S1-E48 | Everyday Eurasia | Joshua Haun · Eurasia Region Podcast

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  Hello and welcome to the Everyday Eurasia podcast,
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  Inspiring Faith for Every Day. Each day we are on a journey
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  with Jesus in our churches, our homes, our workplaces, and in so
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  many different places around the world.
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  Is it beautiful that no matter where we are, we can walk with
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  him every single day? Jesus is the one who connects us
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  all and stands at the very center of our lives day after
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  day. Through this podcast, you'll
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  hear voices from across the region sharing devotionals that
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  reminds us of God's presence in our everyday moments.
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  This week on the Everyday Eurasia podcast, we are grateful
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  to be joined by Pester Joshua Hum.
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  Joshua and his wife Katie have been serving for the past four
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  years as pastors and church planters with the Church of the
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  Nazarene in Sofia, Bulgaria. Throughout this week, Joshua
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  will be reflecting with us on the topic of church planting.
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  Why does church planting still matter?
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  With so many churches already around the world?
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  What makes this work so important today?
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  If we listen together this week, Joshua will help us explore
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  these questions and discover God's heart behind planting new
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  churches. Hello, my name is Joshua Hahn
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  and I am a pastor and church planter serving for my 4th year
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  here in Sofia, Bulgaria. Here in Sofia, Bulgaria, I'm
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  often asked the question, why do you think we need more churches?
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  And I think it's a really fair question.
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  After all, in Bulgaria there are existing and former church
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  facilities all around us, both ancient and modern.
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  I believe the answer to this question is grounded in
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  Scripture, tradition, reason, and my experience.
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  All these prove the faithfulness of church planting.
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  And I'll just start by saying that nothing is more reasonable
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  or observable in our experience than the understanding that in
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  general, one of the most important pieces of evidence for
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  the maturity and health of any Organism is its ability to
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  reproduce. Let me ask a very basic
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  question. What would happen if all the
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  healthy organisms of any certain family of species ceased to
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  reproduce? All living things, you see, have
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  a birth date and a death date. I believe that churches are as
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  alive as any entity and that churches, like all other
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  organisms, have a birth date and a death date.
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  Just think, are any of the local churches Paul planted around
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  today? I believe This is why we can
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  reasonably believe that churches, not to mention
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  individual disciples of Christ, are like all organisms and that
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  the ultimate evidence of health and maturity is their ability to
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  reproduce, to birth, to plant new life.
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  And nothing is more exciting and life altering for a person,
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  family and community than a new life, especially the life of a
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  new church. One of my favorite passages that
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  describes this comes from Acts chapter 16 and 17.
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  In Acts 16, Paul experiences an incredibly powerful call.
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  He receives a call specifically to journey to Europe, Macedonia
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  with the good news of Jesus Christ.
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  Now I must stop here and say that I really believe that this
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  is the inception of the Church, God's call and obedient
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  response. You see, just like life begins
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  before birth at conception, so also the life of the church
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  begins before birth at conception, which is God's call
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  and our obedient response. Paul sees a man in Macedonia
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  screaming out for help, for rescue.
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  Now, for Paul, the only righteous response is to bring
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  the good news of Jesus Christ to those in need of rescue.
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  And this means sharing the faith with the specific strategy of
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  establishing local communities of the body of Christ.
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  You see, for Paul, and even according to the prayer of
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  Christ himself, the best way for the world to discover the life
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  of Jesus is in the life of the body of Jesus, the church.
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  Paul himself has experienced this, and I'm sure many of us
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  also could testify to this truth.
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  The most powerful way to experience the love of Jesus
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  Christ is through the love of the body of Jesus Christ.
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  So Paul immediately travels to Europe with a team of believers
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  and establishes the church in Philippi.
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  And by the time Paul leaves Philippi, there's a new church
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  there and people are baptized. They're gathering for worship
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  and experiencing incredible miracles.
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  And then next he travels to Thessalonica.
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  Now after the church is started and this new body of believers
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  have begun their life together in Christ, they begin to face
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  difficulties. And in the midst of these
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  difficulties, one enemy of the church, one of their neighbors,
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  declares in Acts 17, verse 6, these people who have been
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  turning the world upside down have come here also.
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  What a work of God's Spirit. Individuals, families,
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  communities, and entire regions begin to see their world turned
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  upside down, or rather we might say right side up.
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  And this is the radical, dangerous, and incredibly
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  blessed result of church planting.
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  It is not just individual lives, but communities that are
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  restored as the Spirit works through the body of Christ.
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  And this is not the work of anyone individual, not even the
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  apostle Paul can take sole credit, but rather it's only the
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  work of the Spirit of God through the body of Christ.
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  For Paul, a missional response to the call of a missional God
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  is to start new churches in desperate communities.
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  I want to finish today with some thoughts on how church planting
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  is at the absolute heart of our tradition in the Church of the
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  Nazarene. The Church of the Nazarene began
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  in 19 O 8 with around 10,000 members and about 230 churches
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  with 11 districts. One of the founding leaders, a
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  man named Phineas Brizee, stated that the purpose of the Church
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  of the Nazarene was a mission, a desire for places where the fire
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  falls, where hearts are melted, and where God is glorified in
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  the salvation of souls. In fact, preaching on our
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  missional call while addressing students from the Pacific Bible
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  College, which would later become Point Lomanager in
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  university, Brzee declared quote.
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  We seek the world for Jesus. We draw it through His love with
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  bands stronger than the bands of men, but it is because His love
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  lives in US and we want it for Him.
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  We have fellowship with His Saints because He abides there
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  in them and makes the fellowship sweet and blessed.
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  He is all and in all. Where Christ is is heaven in
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  quote. Hiram Reynolds, another early
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  leader in the Church, declared that the greatest priority for
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  this mission of the Church of the Nazarene was for this to be
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  a, quote, mission to the world. In quote, one of the great
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  strategies behind this mission of seeing souls saved, of seeing
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  hearts melted and seeking the world for Jesus was church
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  planting. So the church began mobilizing
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  to make this possible. For example, in 1915, NMI became
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  an official organized ministry of the Church of the Nazarene
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  and began practical planning and strategizing to quote, mobilize
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  every congregation in the Church of the Nazarene to missional
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  action. In quote, The result over the
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  last 100 years, this spirit empowered missional calling has
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  led to a church that is today an incredible missional church
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  planting movement that consists of over 30,000 churches with
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  over 2.7 million members in 165 world areas.
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  Now I don't know about you, but I am really proud of this
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  incredible missional church planting heritage and tradition.
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  So why do we need more churches planted?
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  Well, because God is still calling us.
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  Because we still experience the life of Christ best through the
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  life of the Body of Christ. Why do we need more churches?
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  We need more churches because Scripture urges us to hear the
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  cries of broken communities in Native Rescue and to respond
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  with new church communities because it's who we are.
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  We are rooted in a passion to see soul saved, hearts melted,
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  and God glorified. As we seek the world for Jesus.
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  Let's pray together. Dear Lord of the Church, we want
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  to invite you to call us to participate in your mission to
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  those in need of rescue, to families, individuals,
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  communities and regions. Perhaps, Dear Lord, your Spirit
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  is inviting us into your work today, where with our obedient
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  response, we will be a part of the conception of a new life.
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  We are yours, we pray, in the name of Jesus, the Lord of the
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  Church. Thank you for listening to the
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  Everyday Eurasia podcast, Inspiring Fate for everyday.
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  For more Everyday Stories, subscribe on this podcast
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  newsletter Snapshots. For our newsletter and further
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  information about the Eurasia region, visit our website,
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  eurasiaregion.org.