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OUR CHURCH
PLANT GOD'S GIFT TO OUR MISSION
Under Romanian law, it is impossible for a non-denominational congregation to legally exist under the official “church” classification. The government does, however, allow independent churches to form non-profit religious foundations through which they can own property, publish materials, provide religious training and do humanitarian activities. For that reason, a religious foundation was formed shortly after the Arad church was established, and the church has used that foundation to legally operate for the past 12 years. From its inception, the Arad church was operated as a mission of the Grant Street Church of Christ in Decatur, Alabama. The Grant Street Church purchased a building and a church van for the congregation and they provided for its operation expenses. However, the Grant Street church is now facing some difficult times and could no longer continue to maintain their mission in Romania. Our two ministries had worked together for years, and since we had needed to start a foundation of our own to operate our children’s home, the Grant Street Church gave their foundation to us, complete with its property and the church plant… no strings attached. This arrangement not only allows us to minister through the work of the church in Arad, but it also will save us a great deal of time and money when we are ready to open up our children's home.
ABOUT THE
ARAD CHURCH The Arad Church was started in the fall of 1998, when the Grant Street Church of Christ sent a missionary named Terry Smith, along with his family to Arad, Romania to establish a new church plant in that city. They had already made contact with several local people through correspondence Bible courses that had been advertised in a local newspaper. Through these contacts, a small church was born. The church grew steadily in its early years, having as many as 30 active participants at one point, and even holding services in a nearby village with the hope of eventually establishing a second congregation. By 2002, however, many of the church members had moved to other parts of Europe to find better paying jobs. Plans for the additional congregation were abandoned, and membership dwindled. By the time we were given responsibility for the work in April of 2011, average attendance had fallen to about 5 people per week. We were in America at the time and returned to find a church in a dire situation... by July 2011, worship attendance had fallen to an average of only 3 believers, and those that still did come were close to giving up. I met with what was left of our church and we decided that some major changes needed to be made to ensure the future of the congregation. We implemented those changes within two weeks of my return to Romania. Our worship service is now modeled more like a small group because we are a small group. We meet together in an informal setting and try to do things like the early church did them, without following any particular traditional model or worship style. We now sit in a large circle and sing songs together, and have the Lord’s Supper… After the Lord’s Supper we break for refreshments and fellowship, and then later continue with a Bible lesson and an extended prayer time. The lessons are more like a Bible School lesson as we encourage group discussion, and during prayer time we ask for prayer needs and pray for each need individually. This has helped us immensely to bond as a church just in the past few months, we feel like a family more than ever before and attendance has steadily increased. We started this process having had an average attendance of only 3, and by November we had grown to an average of 25. On December 11, we even set an all-time attendance record for a Sunday without a mission team or special guests with 32 local people attending our worship meeting.
We are very excited about the future and if we can maintain growth into 2012, we
hope to split into two separate worship groups as we can only hold about 35 in
our current facility. We also want to keep the close knit, intimate atmosphere
of our church as long as possible. In time, we hope to have 3 or 4 groups of 20
to 30 people meeting for worship at various times on Sundays, we will then have
a strong body of people to organize a larger, unified worship service somewhere
in a rented auditorium. Our worship groups could then continue as small groups
meeting at different times during the week. Because of its size, the church has no elders and until it does, we will be very much involved in its day to day operations. Throughout its history it has been a non-instrumental church, however, it has chosen not to make the use of musical instruments in worship a test of fellowship and thus affiliates itself with both the non-instrumental and instrumental branches of the Restoration Movement. It is the first and only church in Romania as far as we know, to consider itself a part of the brotherhood of independent Christian churches and churches of Christ. Click here to learn more about our general area, Arad County Click here to learn more about our region, Transylvania |
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