Pray for Hungary on Sunday, February 19, 2012
Prayers for Hungary: Mark 9:2-9
Our most gracious Lord God,
We thank You, that Jesus invited three ordinary humans to view and experience a piece of the larger context in which he, unlike us, seemed to continuously work.
We thank You, Lord God, that The Transfiguration reminds us of a larger and greater spiritual dimension to our usual world. Thank You, that Peter, James and John were dumbfounded by their exposure to that transcendence. (And blessings on Peter, we ask, that he so humanly wanted Moses and Elijah to stay there, comfortably.)
When our lives feel too small, O God, it is possible that they are! – in Your larger panorama of all that is. Even so, we dare to pray that You will allow each of us a glorious moment, a glimpse of Your realm, on days when our lives are too grey, too mundane.
We stretch, O Lord, to grasp the immensity and limitlessness of the facts and images of Your uncountable galaxies in space, now available to us from research ’out there’; enable our faith to be equal to the ’more’ that You and Your constant creating are!
We do pray, this day, for our brothers and sisters in Hungary, as they, too, grow in the Faith. Guide their instructors and Church leaders to be of clear mind and Christly motive. Let change not be frightening for them. And enable us, O Lord of Love, to find ways to tangibly reach out to them (and to others in our mission fields), so that they can know of our mutual encouraging and connectedness in Christ.
We pray this, together, in our Saviour’s name. Amen.
Mission Stewardship Moment from Hungary:
We are completing 17 (Laslo) and 12 (Coralyn) years of teaching and leading as Global Ministries missionaries in Hungary, and yet, in the light of today’s Gospel story, we can see our work as quite minute. This, in spite of the fact that we’ve been allowed to serve here during significant and formative post-Soviet years.
As must be true in most seminaries, in our Reformed one in Budapest (and in the other five in greater Hungary), incoming students, age 18-19, believe from a spectrum of Christianity, – though usually from a traditional-rational Reformed conviction (similar to Scot Presbyterian) to a more „ anabaptist” position (similar to that in our most conservative Gospel Belt). Anywhere along the spectrum, the sharing of today’s Scripture would be a new thing; the Transfiguration is not usual in Bible readings or sermons here.
It is so important in today’s Scripture to see that only three of the disciples shared this unusual experience with Jesus, and those three were evidently hand-picked by him. Similarly, in each of the supernal events of Jesus’ life, – the angelic songs welcoming his birth, the God blessing at his Baptism, his Transfiguration, and his Ascension – there were only a small number of witnesses. None of these were massly-witnessed happenings. In parallel, let’s also recall that only two years ago, the Roman Pope declared that there are many different ways to God! Or, as Jürgens Hendriks suggested to us recently, we are a product of our „church family experience” just as we are a product of our physical family experience. (Reformed World, WCRC (Geneva), Dec. 2011, p. 192.) Even from within the sheepfold we all represent common and diverse belief orientations, (hence the 1200 different Christian denominations in America?) We Christians are not rubber-stamped products ,- perhaps because there are differences in what we are invited or allowed to ’see’.
In addition, there seems to be another new thing happening in the Faith, among many. Phyllis Tickle (in The Great Emergence: How The Church Is Changing And Why. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008. Ref. pp. 107,152,160) insists that thanks to computer and mobile phone access, individuals are getting their religious questions answered on-line, from other individuals like themselves, rather than via clergy and conventional religious education. Being technologically global is a new way of being The Church. What a challenge!.
So, we have done those jobs our partner Church here asked of us. We have served as God’s Spirit gave direction. We have shared the best of our faith and ministry gifts. We have been role and ministry models. In this constantly new world, we can only know that the ’small’ number of „witnesses” (here and in America) who can see, and use what they have seen – will build on and further the work for our Lord God. We also know that these have been the most rewarding work years of our lives!
(Prayer and Mission Moment by Coralyn and Laslo Medyesy)
Video Resources on Hungary:
Interview with Zoltan Szucs: http://globalministries.org/resources/multimedia-resources/index/video-mission-moments/zoltan-szucs.html
Global Ministries International Partner in Hungary:
- The Reformed Church in Hungary is, in terms of numbers, the largest denomination in Hungary, after the Roman Catholic Church. The existence of the Reformed Church in Hungary dates from this Debrecen Synod of 1567. At present the registered number of Reformed Hungarians world-wide is about three and a half million. Of these, some two million live in Hungary. In consequence of the dismemberment of Hungary after World War I, many congregations—even whole church districts in Transylvania—were separated from the church and placed beyond the borders of this country. These believers continue to live in their old homes, but in alien linguistic and religious surroundings. In the United States there are some 70 Hungarian Reformed congregations in two separate church bodies. The Reformed Church in Hungary maintains close fraternal relations with Hungarian coreligionists living abroad, whether in neighboring countries or dispersed throughout the world, partly through the World Federation of Hungarian Reformed Believers, and partly within the framework of the Consultative Synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church. Reformed believers amount to about 21% of the Hungarian population of ten million. 1200 congregations live in four Church Districts and 27 seniorates. http://www.reformatus.hu/
For more info on Hungary: http://globalministries.org/mee/countries/hungary/
Global Ministries Missionaries in Hungary:
Coralyn and Laslo Medyesy are Global Ministries missionaries with the Reformed Church in Hungary, based in Budapest, Hungary. Coralyn is a Teacher of Social Work and Diakonia at the Nagy Koros School. Laslo serves as professor of theology in the Department of Theology of the Gaspar Karoli Reformed University in Budapest.
Barbara and Zoltan Szucs are Global Ministries missionaries with the Reformed Church in Hungary. Barbara works with the Roma (Gypsy) mission as an enabler and Zoltan serves as a Professor of Practical Theology at Karoli Gaspar University in Budapest.