This trip to Bulgaria served a number of purposes. Usually at Three Worlds, we like to do things that have multiple purposes or multiple levels of meaning. In this case, we were trying to do the following things: 1) Have our first 3W Seminar in partnership and learning from an outside organization with expertise we don't have.
2) Help a Church of God congregation in Budapest, Hungary connect to a mission-field (Bulgaria). They purchased a projector for the church in Sofia.
3) Begin connecting key leaders (Bridges) millennials /Gen Xers to link from the traditional church to the Post-Christendom church. Bridging generational gaps and investing in the next generation is what we are all about.
4) Connecting Pastor Peter (of Hungary) to Dave and Kathy, as well as Nathan "Batman."
Peter is 26 years old and is the pastor of a young, growing church in Budapest. I have not been there yet, but I am anxious to go as soon as the schedule allows. Peter will be one of our featured Emerging Leaders in the future.
You will be hearing a lot about Peter in the future as he is a very promising young leader whose church is showing all the right signs of health. We will be entering into a mentoring relationship with him as he takes his place as a strategic leader.
I don't call Peter, "Peter." Sometimes we call him "Peti" but usually I just refer to him as "Hungarian Rob Bell." Look at the pictures below. He even wears black all the time. I guess it's just a coincidence. It doesn't mean that he is theologically where Rob Bell is at though so don't get out your harpoons please.
He was accompanied by another young emerging leader "Zoltan" which sounds like a good alien villain name. I actually changed his name to "Zoloft" because he has a calming effect on everyone everywhere he goes. He is an A+ person and was awesome at connecting with the Bulgarians. A perfect partner for a mission trip.
Unfortunately, when "Hungarian Rob Bell" and I get together, our maturity level drops to the level of a 5 year old. So it was important to have Zoloft around. And we also had Nathan Batman of County Line who alternates between being Zoloft like and Hungarian Rob Bell-like.
So much of what we are doing here at Three Worlds is foundational work--building a platform for the future. But it all begins with relationships.
