MarketPlace - August 6, 2008

What a summer it’s been at West Market!

This past Sunday we all thoroughly enjoyed being led by our children into a new understanding of the story of the faith of Daniel.

This week, we’re off on a new experience. When you get this newsletter, there will be between 250 and 300 leaders gathered in our Sanctuary because they believe the church is the hope of the world; faithful leadership of the church is incredibly important; and, the gift of leadership among God’s disciples must be enhanced. The event we will be hosting, the Leadership Summit 2008, is the finest event of its kind in the world. And, for the fifth year in a row, West Market gets to be a part of it. Some of you have never been around our church during the Summit. Swing by for a few minutes sometime this week just to get a flavor of what’s going on. You will be inspired.

The lasting impression I will have of the summer of 2008 comes from our mission experience to Bulgaria. I have shared (on a number of occasions) the path our church has followed to come into relationship with churches there. God actually planted the seed in my heart for ministry in Bulgaria during the spring of 2006 while at the World Methodist Conference meeting in Seoul, South Korea. The vision for that ministry quickly resonated in the hearts of our leaders here, who began to put names and locations on our outreach map.

A four-person exploratory group went to Bulgaria last summer to see whether or not we were truly called to serve there. The answer was a resounding “yes.”

Two weeks ago, 18 persons from our church left Greensboro for Bulgaria. Actually for most of us (including me), it was a venture into the unknown. But I believe everyone on the trip felt that God had prepared an incredible experience for us.

What an understatement! Ministry abounded there, in both directions. There was a Vacation Bible School ministry that our people shared with children in the community of Misjia and at an orphanage in Lavetch. There was sharing of our Prayer Shawl Ministry model with ladies in churches in Misjia, Voyvovodo and Pleven. There was teaching ministry with lay members of two of the churches, and with Methodist pastors from all over Bulgaria who gathered for a seminar in Pleven. (One pastor and his wife drove 300 kilometers in order to attend that seminar that the district superintendent of all of Bulgaria said was “priceless”.) There was incredible Music Ministry provided in and through our five-person mini-orchestra ensemble.

There was inspiring worship and preaching, including the opportunity to worship in a Methodist church building in Pleven that had not been open for worship since Communists took the building over just after World War II. There was the opportunity to see the beautiful Bulgarian countryside, experience the cosmopolitan city of Pleven, and unlock Bulgarian history through a visit to Bulgaria’s most significant Orthodox monastery. More than anything else, even though most of us had never even known where Bulgaria was before we left, while we were there, we were filled with an unmistakable feeling of “family reunion.”

It shouldn’t have surprised us. The truth is, we are brothers and sisters in the same family with the people of Bulgaria. God loves us all and smiles when we reach out to one another.

There was an incredible amount of reaching out from both sides of our Bulgarian mission experience. It’s what we’re made for really: relationship in Christ. May God lead you to a new understanding of the dream He has for you.