Jun
26
2008
Romanian Letdown
Even though I blended into the church and the village, living just like the Romanians and now speaking the language fluently, I was still seen as the American. Try as I may, I could never totally assimilate into Romanian culture. One of the reasons I did not want to be seen as American was the tendency for Romanians to view all Americans from a financial perspective. American equals Money.
During my first six months in Romania, it seemed like my responsibilities in the village church were endless. The pastor of the church had me preaching once a week, sometimes even more than that. I was active in the Friday night Bible studies. We held Saturday youth meetings, and I had several Sunday youth meetings as well.
But during this time, the village church leadership mistakenly expected my home church in the States to help finance their new building campaign. This led to misunderstanding and then to a fall-out between my church in America and my church in Romania. I was caught in the middle, unaware of how to handle the situation.
Due to external circumstances and internal misunderstandings between me and the pastor of the church, my leadership in the church changed drastically in the next few months. I still actively participated on Saturdays in the youth service, but my opportunities to preach on Sundays disappeared. The pastor suddenly stopped giving me opportunities to minister to the church as a whole.
My first year in Romania could be divided into two parts. The Fall and Winter months had me almost overused in the village, involved in everything possible! The Spring months had me underused. Other than the Saturday Bible study, I was hardly involved in anything.
The fall-out between my church in America and my church in Romania affected my ministry opportunities in the village. I was no longer utilized in any public fashion at all. During this time, I had to work to keep a good attitude and avoid becoming bitter. It would’ve been easy for me to just shake it off and say, “I’ll go somewhere else,” since other pastors had been inviting me to work with the youth in their churches. But I loved the youth in this village too much to simply shrug my shoulders and try to find a church that would better benefit from my ministry. It would have been wrong to see things that way. Instead, I decided that I would serve God in whatever capacity He gave me, even if that meant that my role would be minimized.
Through this situation, I came to understand that not all ministry is up-front, speaking in church. Much of what constitutes important ministry takes place behind the scenes, in one-on-one conversation with the youth, and in being an example.
I understood my role during the Spring as being behind-the-scenes while my friend and co-worker in the village quickly took on responsibilities that put him in front of the church. While he was given the pulpit more often on Sundays, I dedicated myself to discipling the youth through one-on-one ministry over the course of the entire weekend. We sought to complement each other as a team. He could do what I could not. I could do what he could not.
Despite the discouraging feeling of being “underused” during those difficult months, I learned some valuable lessons about what it means to reject the “seat of honor.” Christian servants must be willing to be “last” and behind the rest, to not seek the credit for the ministry successes and to accept blame for ministry failures.