September Ministries

The last few weeks have been a very exciting time here in Sighișoara. Romanian schools restarted this week for the fall, as did many of our programs and other ministries. Here’s a peek at a few of the things that I’m involved in this fall:

Veritas staff devotions
Every Friday morning, the Veritas staff meets for a time of staff devotions and prayer. The Veritas staff, including the students in the Romanian Studies Program, represents a wide mix of Christian traditions – everything from Romanian Orthodox to independent charismatic. Our time of weekly devotion is an opportunity to learn from and with one another. I have been asked to lead devotions each week this fall from Richard Foster’s classic, Celebration of Discipline. We will look at not only study the 12 Christian spiritual disciplines in the book, but try to find ways to implement them in our daily lives as we grow in Christian maturity.

Sighișoara Church Bible study
On Wednesday evenings, the Sighișoara Church of the Nazarene has a Bible study for adults. This week, we began studying the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the church in Ephesus. The group is being led by Relu Cristurean, a Romanian who is preparing for pastoral ministry here in the Sighișoara church. I will be working “behind the scenes” with Relu to help him prepare for each week’s session. We have already had a great time studying the first few verses of Ephesians together while planning for the first week. Since the small group started in February, it has grown to have an average attendance of 10-13 people each week.

Children’s Sighișoara Sunday School
After taking a few weeks off for the month of August, children’s Sunday school has resumed in the Sighișoara Church of the Nazarene. Earlier this summer, I found a publisher of Romanian Sunday school curriculum. This fall we have ordered this curriculum and will be using it in the Sighișoara church. If it works well, we may recommend its usage in the other churches on the district. Having a curriculum with a scope & sequence, as well as age-appropriate crafts, activities, and games which tie into the theme of the lesson is a much-needed resource for our children’s ministries. Until now, teachers have had to create their own lessons from scratch. Having these curriculum resources available will be a tremendous blessing to our teachers, and most importantly, to the children they teach. I also recently brought back from the US many pictures of Bible stories for teaching children. In the coming weeks, I will be working closely with teachers and restart training workshops for children’s workers as well as resume working on creating a resource center for children's ministries on the district.

Romanian Studies Program
A new group of students has arrived with the Romanian Studies Program. There are 6 students for the fall semester – from Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Olivet Nazarene University, Northwest Nazarene University, and Kuyper College. They are getting into the routine of life in Romania and plugged into their ministry settings for the semester.

Teaching seminar as part of EuNC course
In just over a week, I will be teaching a 3-hour seminar in Bucharest for students in the European Nazarene College (EuNC) Romania Learning Center. The course is a series of seminars on various topics dealing with evangelism. My seminar is on the specific topic of how evangelism and discipleship are connected. EuNC provides theological education for those preparing for Christian ministry throughout Europe. Although the main campus is in Büsingen, Germany, the majority of students do not relocate to Germany but study in one of 36 teaching locations throughout Europe. This will be my first time teaching for EuNC.

Youth Movie Night
Last night I invited the teenagers and youth leaders from the Sighișoara Church of the Nazarene’s small youth group to my apartment for a time to watch a movie and play some games. I haven’t been very active in youth ministry in Sighișoara (or any of the other churches for that matter), and wanted to spend some time outside of the church setting to get to know the teens better. As it turned out, only one of the teenage boys and the male youth leader were able to come, but we still had a good time together. I hope youth night can become an ongoing activity.


This has been an amazing week. Check out my post from earlier this week about making zacuscă, going to Korond, and receiving walnuts as a gift.