Vision '26 - New church plant coming!

New church plant in 2026!

After months of prayer and seeking the Lord’s direction, our church leadership team made the decision to target a new area of Budapest for a church plant in 2026. Let me share a little bit about our plans.

 

Óbuda, District 3 of Budapest:

Óbuda is the oldest part of Budapest. The name literally means “old Buda.” This area predates the Hungarian conquest of current day Hungary. Óbuda was originally a Roman settlement dating back nearly to the times of Christ. Even today, you can see the ruins of an old amphitheater, a Roman viaduct, or various other buildings dating back to Roman times. Over the centuries Óbuda was integrated into what is now the city of Budapest. It is found on the northwest side, as you follow the Danube north out of the downtown area. 

 

Óbuda was originally a quiet, more residential area of Budapest, but during communism, huge apartment buildings were built to house tens of thousands of people. So, it is now a mix of quiet upper-middle class residential streets, and solidly middle-class families living in these apartment complexes. This area is home to 125,000 residents, making in the second most-populated district in Budapest. For some reason, it also seems to be the most unchurched area of Budapest, as well. I am only aware of four small evangelical churches in the district.

 

On September 29^th, we held a prayer walk in Óbuda. Despite the rain, we had 23 of our people show up to walk the streets and pray over this part of the city. Charin and I returned on a Saturday in October to walk and pray, and once again felt the Lord directing us to plant here.

 

Focus Óbuda will start as an outreach of Focus Church. We will be staying at our main church as we work on laying the foundations for this new church. We will begin building our church planting team in the new year.

 

Financial needs:

This past week I sat down with our church treasurer to work on our budget for next year. We tried to make a realistic assessment of what it will take to not only keep up our current ministries, but to add the new church plant, as well. By our calculations, we need to find an additional $17,000 of funding to make this all work. As you consider the Lord’s leading for your end of the year giving, would you consider partnering with us to make this vision a reality? This is a great opportunity to invest in the advancement of the Lord’s work here in Hungary!

 

You can send donations through our mission board by clicking on this link. Please make sure to designate it for “Marc Patton – Vision ‘26”. 

https://gfma-aso.donorstudio.com/category/missionaries/marc-charin-patton

 

If you have any questions or would like more information, please feel free to drop us a line. We are so grateful to partner with you, as we seek to plant churches here in Budapest, Hungary. 

Marc and Charin Patton

 

 

 

 

November 2025 Prayer Letter

 Dear Friends,

 

This has been a time of amazing ministry opportunities. Here are the highlights:

 

Focus Church Budapest

On September 28^th we celebrated the 6^th anniversary of Focus Church. We had a fantastic attendance with many visitors. It is amazing to look back and see all that the Lord has accomplished in six short years. We have a fantastic group of young leaders, and the church is poised for further growth. One other special blessing is the number of weddings and engagements we have seen in our church recently. We have already had 2 weddings this fall with one more on the way. Three other couples recently got engaged. We pray much for our single adults to find the right spouse, and it has been exciting to see the Lord answering these prayers.

September wedding

National Church-planting Conference

I have now been leading the church planting mission of the Baptist Union for the past two years. Our biggest annual event is our church planting conference. It is designed to encourage those already involved in church planting and to inspire more churches to be planted. Focus Church hosted the conference on October 4^th. It was a blessing to have about 30 of our people involved in everything from welcome and guest services to media and worship. We had about 170 in attendance from about 60 churches. We even had several carloads arrive from Hungarian churches in Romania. We are praying that the fires of evangelism and church planting will spread throughout the Carpathian Basin. 

News from Esztergom:

Most of you know that we planted and pastored a church in Esztergom, Hungary for 26 years. On October 19^th, they celebrated their 30^th anniversary. They asked Charin and me to return to speak at the anniversary service. They did a wonderful job of getting not only current, but also former members to attend. We felt like we were at a “family reunion” in some way. It was a joy to see so many people that we had invested our lives into. The church has struggled in our absence, but things seem to be on the upswing, and we pray that they will experience a new period of growth and revitalization.

Focus Obuda in 2026?

We have been seeking the Lord’s guidance and direction in regards to planting a daughter church in 2026. On September 29^th we held a prayer walk in the Obuda area of Budapest. Obuda is located in northwest Budapest ,and the name means “old Buda.” Obuda is the oldest section of Budapest dating back nearly to the times of Christ. At that time, it was a Roman settlement on the Danube River. We had 23 people attend the prayer walk. We prayed together on the main square in front of city hall and then broke into smaller groups to walk the streets and pray over them. Since that time, we have had several conversations about this with our leadership team and are beginning to plan next steps. I will share more about our plans and how you can join us in this venture in the very near future!

Praying on the main square in Obuda

Ruins of Roman Aphitheater in Obuda

Advent outreach:

Our next big event is an advent outreach event for families. Our summer English camp gives us our biggest draw with unchurched families. We will be inviting these same families to a special advent event on November 29^th. This will be a fun event for children and their parents, and we will be sharing the Gospel, as well. The Lord has given us a point of contact with these families, and we are praying that we will see several of these families reached with the Gospel.

 

I will be in touch soon with more information on our next church plant in Obuda, but if you have any questions about this, feel free to contact me in the meantime.

 

You are a blessing,

 

Marc and Charin Patton

 

 

August 2025 Prayer Letter

 Summer news from Hungary

 

We are in the midst of a very busy summer. Here are some of the highlights.

 

English Camp – June 30-July 4

We had a fantastic English Camp. More than 70 children attended this year. The majority of these children are from families outside our church, many with no church background at all. This is always a great opportunity to share the Gospel. For some of these children, this was the third of fourth year they have attended, so we are building relationships with them and their families. We had two teams of Americans come to help this year. They did a super job and everything went smoothly. It was very exciting to hear that several of the older children (ages 12-14) made professions of faith. We are looking for ways to follow up with them effectively. We also have had a couple of families visit church since then. Please pray for lasting fruit!

 

Ukraine outreach – July 30-August 3

We had a team of 8 young people from our church make a mission’s trip to Ukraine. This is the third year in a row that we have done this. This year the camp was for teenagers, and they slept in tents on the church property. Our team reported a great trip with great conversations with the teens. Once again, we pray for lasting fruit.

 

Church camp – August 17-20

The final big church event for the summer, will be our family camp. It is essentially an all-church retreat held at a conference center in Szajol, Hungary. This year we have right around 100 people signed up, which will be a record attendance. Our theme is “under construction.” Our messages and small groups will focus on God’s plan for our lives. We will also talk about things that need to be torn down, before they can be rebuilt to fit God’s plan. Please pray that this will be a time of renewal for many.

 

Family news:

Charin and I made a trip to Zanzibar to visit our son Ben and his family in early August. We enjoyed meeting our newest grandbaby, Cohen Phineas Patton, who was born in June. Our granddaughters will be turning 3 and 5 this year, and we had a blast with them, as well. We also had a couple of opportunities to minister to their team. 

 

Fall events:

·      September 7-28 – Refocus month. Theme for this year is unity.

·      September 28th we will celebrate the 6th anniversary of Focus Church. 

·      October 4^th will be our annual conference on church planting. 

 

Thank you for your prayers and faithful support of our ministry!

 

Marc and Charin Patton 

 

 

May 2025 Prayer Letter

We have some great news from the past 2 months. 

 

Baptism and new members.

April 13^th was a great day at Focus Church, as we saw 6 young believers confess their faith in the Lord Jesus through believers’ baptism. Two had a special connection with Charin, as one was a girl from her Sunday School class, who she has taught for the past five years. The other is a young lady from our small group, whom Charin has been discipling. It was also great to see two teen boys get baptized. We started our youth group a little over a year ago. It is still small, but we are glad to see that it is bearing fruit. The final two were young men in their 20s. One told how he had been considering suicide before he found our church, and how the Lord has given new hope and purpose to his life. Along with the 6 who were baptized, we had 5 others join the church, who had already been baptized previously in other churches. All in all, it was a time of great celebration!

 

New church office and community center:

Our new church office/community center has been a huge blessing. We have worked hard to create great office space for our 5 staff members, and we also were able to turn one room into a living room that we are using regularly for small groups, leadership meetings, and training sessions. The yard and terrace have also been great places for fellowship. The only room we have not yet completed is the studio. We hope to have that finished and ready to use within the next few weeks. We have many plans for the summer months and trust that it will become a center for evangelism and discipleship.

 

Fund raising for mission trip to Ukraine:

Once again, we will be sending a team of about 10 church members to minister at our partner church in Ukraine. This year we will be doing a camp for teens July 31-August 3^rd. Most of these young people are from families of unbelievers. Over the past 2-3 years these teens have been traumatized by the effects of the war with Russia. Most of their fathers are absent – either drafted into the military – or in some cases they left the country to avoid the draft. They are in desperate need for love and attention – and especially for the Gospel. This year our partner church asked if we could cover the expenses for the camp, as most of the participants are unable to pay. We expect the total expenses to be $1800. This is a great opportunity to invest in the kingdom and be a blessing to those who have suffered much. If you are able to help, please click on this link and designate your gift for „Marc Patton – Ukraine outreach.” 

https://globalfaithmission.denarionline.com/Missionaries/Detail/?missionary=Patton%2010137

Here is a video we made at last year’s camp.  

 

Upcoming events:

·      June 9^th – Cookout in the park outreach event.

·      June 30-July 4 – Annual English day camp

 

Family News:

During the Spring Break, we made a quick trip to Jacksonville, Florida to see our new granddaughter, Verity, for the first time. All three of our daughters now live in Jacksonville, so it was great to spend time with them and our son-in-law, Keith. We have another grandchild due in June, as our son Ben and his wife Kelsi are expecting their third child. They will be having the birth in Zanzibar, so please pray that all goes well.

 

Thanks so much for your prayers and support. May the Lord bless you all!

 

Marc and Charin Patton

 

March 2025 Prayer Letter

 Dear Friends,

 

We have had a great start to 2025 at both Focus Church and with the Hungarian Baptist church planting mission.

 

New church office, studio, and community space:

On April 1^st we will be moving our church office to a new location. We are very excited about this opportunity. This is a two-story house with a fenced-in yard, which is quite unusual for this area of Budapest. This new location gives us more room for our growing staff. It also will have space for a studio where we will be able to produce quality videos for our online outreach ministry. We will also have space that we can use for small groups, youth meetings, training sessions, business meetings and counseling sessions. This will be a big transition, as our offices will no longer be in the same building as our Sunday services, but we believe that the new weekday location will provide greater opportunities for outreach, discipleship and long-term growth. Please pray!

 

Upcoming baptismal service:

In January we announced our next planned baptismal service for April 13^th. At that time, I only had one person committed to baptism. Since then, five more have requested baptism, so we plan to baptize six on April 13^th. We also have a married couple and a few singles who will join the church at that time.  Exciting to see how God is building His church.

 

Church planting retreat:

We had a fantastic retreat for church planting couples which we held from Feb 21-23 at a hotel in Tokaj, Hungary. Eighteen couples were in attendance. This was a great time for me and Charin to get to know these church planting couples better and encourage them in the ministry. We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from all who participated. We would appreciate your prayers to uphold these pastors who are “in the trenches” starting new churches.

 

International conference in Warsaw, Poland

March 20-22^nd I was part of a delegation from Hungary participating in an international conference on missions and church planting in Warsaw, Poland. There were participants from 10 eastern or central European countries. I was co-leader of the church planting track and did a workshop on how to develop a pathway for discipleship. It is great to be able to both learn from and encourage church planters from other countries in the region.

 

Family News:

We will make a quick trip to the US from April 18-May 1^st to visit family and see our new grandbaby, Verity Elise Wood, for the very first time. We always value these opportunities to spend time with family. Please pray for safe travels!

 

Opportunities for partnership:

In closing let me mention two financial needs:

·      Support for our summer English day camp. We need about $2,800 toward building rental expenses. (Please designate – English camp)

·      Furnishings for our new church offices, studio, community center. Special gifts of any amount can be used toward furnishing this new space. (office furnishings, kitchen equipment, couches and chairs for the living room area). Please designate – new office. 

 

Thanks so much for partnering with us through your prayers and financial support. God bless!

 

Marc and Charin Patton

 

Support Address: Global Faith Mission Agency, P.O. Box 1088, Hixson, TN 37343-9998

Sending Church: Trinity Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida

 

January 2025 Prayer Letter

 Dear Praying Friends,

 

January is always a busy month of planning and vision meetings for the new year. We are looking forward to what the Lord has in store for 2025. But let me back up and bring you up to date on the past 2 months.

 

TV interview:

In November one of Hungary’s national TV stations interviewed me and some of our members for one of their religious shows. It ended up as a 10-minute portion of the program describing the founding of Focus Church. The reporter was Catholic, but I felt like he did a great job presenting our vision and ministry in a positive light. It is always hard to know how many people actually watch the broadcast, but we were thankful for this opportunity to introduce our church and vision in a broader way. You can have a look at the show by clicking on this link: 

Advent outreach:

We held an outreach event in December targeting the families of our summer English camp participants. We invited them to a “family advent evening” of games, crafts, songs and a Gospel message. We were very pleased with the turnout. It is our goal to have more than just the one point of contact with these families over the course of the year. 

Advent outreach

Family news:

From December 20-January 3^rd, we made a quick trip to the US to be with family for Christmas. We always treasure these times we have together, especially when we have all four of our kids and grandchildren together at the same time! We were not able to stay long enough to be there for the birth of our third granddaughter. Our daughter Nancy gave birth to Verity Elise Wood on January 20^th. We are so thankful for her safe birth, and she is certainly a beautiful baby. We are enjoying the pictures and video calls now, and hope to see her in person during our Spring break. 

Nancy and Verity

 

A look ahead:

• January 26^th is Vision Sunday at Focus Church. We have exciting plans for the new year and look forward to sharing them with the church.  
• February 6^th I will be cohosting a “church-planting open house” with about 15 young Hungarian pastors to share with them a vision for church planting in Hungary. 
• February 21-23 we will be holding a retreat for church-planting couples at a hotel in Tokaj, Hungary. These are Hungarian couples who are already involved in church plants. The goal will be to not only express appreciation for their faithful service, but also to encourage them in the ministry. 

 

We value your prayers and financial support.

 

Marc and Charin 

November 2024 Prayer Letter

 Dear Friends,

 

Fall ministry is off to a great start. We have had several big events and exciting developments. Here are the highlights:

 

New worship songs and concert:

Over the past few months our worship pastor collaborated with others on our worship team and a few other worship leaders to write seven new worship songs in Hungarian. These were recorded in a studio by our worship team and introduced in a concert on September 21^st. The worship songs are fantastic with great variety in content and style. We are already using them on a regular basis in our services, and it is my prayer that they will be used in churches all across Hungary. I’m grateful for an amazing worship pastor and team who were able to put this all together!

Worship team and those who helped with the concert.

 

5-Year Anniversary of Focus Church

We celebrated our church’s fifth anniversary on the weekend of September 28-29^th. On Saturday several of us went out into the area around the church to pass out flyers and invite people to church. On Sunday several of our families with young children went out to a nearby playground to pass out balloons and invite people to church. It was a blessing to see one family with children and three other individuals show up for our Sunday afternoon service. Our Sunday service was a celebration of God’s goodness and also an opportunity to share the Gospel with the visitors in attendance. We also received three new couples into the church membership. 

New members

 

Conference on Church planting

On October 5^th we hosted a conference on church planting and evangelism. We had 165 participants from about 60 churches or church plants. The goal of the conference was not only to encourage those already involved in church planting, but also to promote church planting and see new people called into this great work. There is a huge need for church planters in Hungary. I am praying especially for young men who have the needed gifting and ability to start new churches. Please pray with me that we will see God raise up a new generation of church planters in Hungary!

Church planting conference

 

Leadership Retreat:

Leadership development is one of our priorities at Focus Church. On the weekend of October 11-13, we invited some of our key leaders to join us on a retreat in Egerszalok. The goals of the weekend were to share vision, strengthen unity, listen to our ministry leaders and spend time in prayer and worship together. The retreat was a great success, and we returned home with a greater sense of purpose, anticipation and unity. 

Leadership retreat

 

Fall Break:

Charin had her fall break during the last week of October. After two intense months of ministry, it was a treat for the two of us to get away for a few days of rest and recuperation. We also spent time in prayer and seeking vision for the next season of ministry.

 

A Look Ahead:

November 8-10 – Charin and I will be attending a retreat for pastors and their wives and will be sharing at one of the sessions.

November 19 – I will be interviewed by a national TV station about Focus Church. 

November 23-24 – I will be speaking at church plant in Romania.

December 7 – Evangelistic program for families at Focus Church

December 20-January 3 – Brief trip to the US for Christmas. 

 

Thank you so much for your prayers and support! You are a blessing!

Marc and Charin