January 2024 Prayer Letter

Patton family - Christmas 2023

 2023 Year in Review

 

Growth:

2023 was a tremendous year for growth. We baptized 8 and added a total of 27 new members bringing our membership up to 85. We have visitors nearly every Sunday, and our average attendance runs between 90-110. 

 

New families:

Focus Church has always drawn young people. The average age of our members has hovered around 30 with more than half of our members being single young adults. This year we were pleased to add two new couples in their 50s, who add some age and experience. We also added several new families with young children to bring more balance to the church. We were excited to launch a new Sunday school class for preschool children and to see growth in the class for school-aged children.

 

Increase in Giving:

We also saw a tremendous increase in giving this past year. Giving was about 75% higher than 2022. This has allowed us to rent the additional office space and move our Sunday services into the much larger auditorium.

 

Additional Staff:

It was also a blessing to have one of our elders, Leandro Torres, join the staff full time in March. Leandro oversees our media team, finances, and also helps with teaching, discipleship, administrative responsibilities and counseling. His addition has freed me up to focus more on preaching, leadership development and vision. 

 

Financial needs:

The move to the larger auditorium demanded significant investments in sound and media equipment. We are still using borrowed/rented equipment in our sound system because we do not have the funds yet to purchase what is needed. The estimated cost of the needed equipment is $8,000. If you would be interested in contributing toward this need, please drop me a line and let me know. 

 

Goals for 2024:

·      Launch leadership training for a new group of 8-12 future leaders.

·      Launch a youth ministry.

·      Increase effectiveness in evangelism and outreach.

·      Begin laying the foundations for our next church plant. 

 

We wish you all a very blessed and Christ-centered new year. Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support of our ministry. We couldn’t do it without you!

Marc and Charin Patton

 

Support Address: Global Faith Mission Agency, P.O. Box 3326, Chattanooga, TN 37404

Sending Church: Trinity Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida

November 2023 Prayer Letter

The Big Move:

On September 10^th we began having services in the much larger auditorium located in the same building as our coffee shop. We continue to use the coffee shop on Sundays as our fellowship area and for the children’s ministry, but our main worship service is now upstairs in the main auditorium. The move has gone really well, and we are so thankful for the additional space. Our worship team is enjoying having a much larger platform, and I also enjoy having room to walk around while I preach. The empty seats remind us of our mission – to reach even more people with the Gospel!

 

In the new auditorium

4-Year Anniversary:

Enlarge the place of your tent! This was my message on September 24^th when we celebrated our church’s 4^th anniversary. We had a great attendance with around 130 people present. I cast the vision for a healthy church that will continue to grow and expand in outreach and influence. That Sunday concluded a 4-week sermon series that we called “Refocus”, where we strove to once again emphasize the unique mission and purpose of Focus Church Budapest!

 

Continued Growth:

We are excited to experience continued growth in the church. One special blessing is an increase in families with young children. One recent Sunday we had 11 children ages 4 and under. We also have two new families attending with elementary aged kids. On November 26^th we will be launching a new Sunday school class for preschool children. We are looking forward to reaching even more families with the Gospel!

 

New Members:

On October 29^th we received 7 more adults into the church membership. We now have 85 members. Each new member brings unique gifts and abilities. It is exciting to see the Lord continue to build His church!

 

Thank you so much for your faithful prayers and support of our ministry! God bless!

Marc and Charin Patton

September 2023 Prayer Letter

 Dear Friends,

 

30 years!

Charin and I arrived in Hungary on August 20, 1993, to begin our adventure here. It is amazing to celebrate 30 years in Hungary. What a privilege and blessing it has been to be used of God to bring light and hope to the lost. We are thankful for you, our faithful supporters, who have allowed us to be here!

 

Expanded office area:

This summer we have spent many-many hours renovating our office area. We now have two small offices, and one larger office that can serve as a studio and a meeting room for up to about 20 people. We also gained some much-needed storage space. All this is located in the same building we use on Sundays, so this is a huge blessing!

 

English day camp:

Our English day camp was fantastic with forty-six 1^st-4^th graders and seventeen 5^th-8^thgraders in attendance. Our team of Americans from Thonotosassa, Florida did a great job. We also had a great team of our own people and a few local missionaries who helped out. Charin did a great job coordinating the week and doing much of the teaching with the younger children. Of course, the most important thing was that the children heard the Gospel clearly presented throughout the week, and many of them expressed their desire to follow Jesus. We have had continued contact with several families. We were thrilled that one family of five joined us for our church’s family camp. We also have several teens who returned for Sunday services and a special event held for them in August. We would love to see a youth group launched with these contacts.

 

English Camp - 1st-4th graders

Missions trip to Ukraine:

One of the most exciting things that happened this summer was that we were able to send a team of ten to do outreach and evangelism in the Hungarian-speaking area of western Ukraine. One of our elders led this team. We assisted a pastor and his wife who minister in four Hungarian-speaking churches. Our team ran a day camp for them and also did a weekend camp for the teens. Many of these children have been separated from their fathers since the beginning of the war, either because the father was drafted into the army or in some cases the father left the country to avoid being drafted. It is sad to see all the damage done by the war, not only to those caught up in the fight, but also to their families who are left behind. Our people described these children as “love starved,” and I am so glad that our church could minister to them. We are considering sending occasional teams during the year to encourage this pastor and continue ministering to the families there.

 

Summer day camp in Ukraine

Family Camp:

We closed out the summer with our church’s annual family camp held in Balatonfoldvar August 24-28. It is amazing to see the growth of our church. Last year we had about 60 in attendance. This year we had more than 90 participate. These camps are a great time to build relationships with our own people, but also to help new people connect on a deeper level. We had 2 families of five and another family of four come to camp who are not yet members and also a few single adults. We are praying that the Lord will continue to build His church.  

 

Church family camp

The big move:

September 10^th is the big day! That is the day we plan to move into the larger auditorium for our Sunday services. We are praying that this step will bring a big boost in attendance, as we launch into a new school year. This move also means a need for more workers and an increase in giving. Please pray that we would be able to meet these challenges!

 

God bless,

 

Marc and Charin Patton 

Prayer Update - June 2023

Exciting developments and important prayer requests! 

 

Further growth:

On May 21st we added five new members: two married couples and a single young man. One of the couples formerly served as a pastor and pastor’s wife for more than 20 years. The husband now serves as general secretary of the Baptist Union of Hungary. He is about my age, and we have been friends for years. Both of his adult children had already joined our church. He has already jumped in preaching a couple times and is leading small group discussions. I hope to have him help in our leadership training in the future. It is a huge blessing to have another couple our age come along side us and help raise up the next generation of disciples and leaders here in Budapest!

New members

 

Larger venue:

After much prayer and discussion, we have decided that beginning in September we will move up into the main auditorium located in the same building as the coffee shop we currently use. This is the same auditorium that we have used in the past for baptismal services. It is a bit larger than we need as it can seat up to 400, but it seems that there are great advantages to staying in this same building. The location is fantastic with a nearby subway stop, a large parking lot, and a large park all located in the immediate vicinity. Hopefully we will be able to grow into it in the next few years. 

Expanded office space:

After the decision was made to stay in our current building, we decided to expand our office space in this same building. We were sharing an office suite with another mission organization which moved out in May. We decided to rent the entire suite. We removed a wall to create a space big enough to seat about 20 people. We will use this for weekday meetings and Saturday training sessions. This area will also double as a studio and practice space for our worship team. The suite also has two smaller offices and some storage areas. We are so thankful for the expanded space, and also that our office suite is in the same building that we use for our Sunday services. 

 

The expanded office space and larger auditorium will double our monthly rental expenses, so this will be a challenge for our young church, but as the church grows, we continue to see our offerings grow as well, and we are trusting the Lord to meet these needs.

Working on new office area

English Day Camp – July 3-7

Our biggest prayer request is for our English Day Camp that will be held July 3-7. Last year we held our first English camp with 21 children. This year we were praying for 40 children. Believe it or not we have 62 children signed up! We closed registration two weeks ago, as we felt like we would not be able to handle and additional children. 90% of these children have no connection to our church. Many are from the public school where Charin teaches. This is a tremendous opportunity to get the Gospel out and connect with unchurched families in our area. We have a team of eight arriving from Fellowship Baptist Church in Thonotosassa, Florida to help with the camp. We have several other missionary friends who serve here in Hungary who will also be helping this week. And of course, many of our church members will be serving as translators and leading various aspects of the camp. Charin leads the camp, so it has been a huge amount of work for her. Please pray for health and strength for all those serving this week, and that the Lord would work in a great way! We will have a closing service Friday afternoon for the parents and also invite everyone to our Sunday service. Please pray that we will see several new families connect with our church through this special week of outreach!

 

These are exciting times! Thanks so much for standing with us in your prayers and support! 

Marc and Charin Patton

New video Update - May 2023

Please take three minutes to watch our new video update. 

f you have any questions about this opportunity, please drop me a line.

If you need the video in higher quality, you can download the original from this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BTXbimGn9s_pucBLZLmwXefJ_TbnhYaA/view?usp=sharing

If you would like to make a donation toward this need please click the link below and make sure to designate the money to Marc Patton Hungary, rental expenses.

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

Thanks so much!

April 2023 - Prayer Update

During the past few months, we have seen unprecedented growth in our church. Here are a few highlights.

 

New Members:

On March 5^th we received seven new adults into the church membership. We have prayed much for families with children. We are so glad we could add Zoltan and Zsani who have a five-year-old son. Both Peter and his wife Sara, and Joci and his wife Evelin were married in the past year and moved to Budapest. They are great young couples with a lot of potential. And we are thankful for Panna as well who is a university student. All seven have jumped into the church and become active in the church life. 

New Members

 

Baptismal Service:

Definitely the highlight of the past couple of months was our baptismal service which we held on March 19^th. Eight adults bore testimony to their desire to follow Jesus by following the Lord in believers’ baptism. All are young adults between the age of 17 and 35. We were grateful to see Benji and Roberta Lakatos get baptized together. They are a young couple with a three-year-old daughter. The others are single young adults. We do a one-on-one discipleship program with all our converts, so each of these met multiple times with a mentor who took them through the 12 lessons we have prepared on salvation, assurance, spiritual growth, baptism, church membership and helping them find their personal gifts and calling. This gives them a good foundation for the Christian life, and a strong relationship they can lean on in the future.

The eight who were baptized

This was our biggest service ever. We had more than 250 in attendance with numerous visitors. 

You can find more pictures of the service by clicking on this link: click here for more pictures

 

Larger venue:

Our biggest prayer request now is for a larger venue. We have really maxed out the coffee shop where we meet. We are currently looking at other options. Please pray that the Lord would open the right door for us. It is not easy to find a location in our area of Budapest that meets all the criteria needed for a growing church, and fits our available budget. 

 

These are exciting times! Thanks so much for standing with us in your prayers and support! 

Marc and Charin Patton

February 2023 Prayer Letter

Dear Friends,

We are already well into the new year. We are off to a great start and looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us!

Elder ordination:

On December 11^th we ordained two new elders. Tamas Kertesz and Leandro Torres have both been with us from the very start of the church, faithfully and humbly  serving in worship and media and as leaders of small groups. They each have unique gifts from the Lord and have personally been such a blessing to me. I praise the Lord for the great leadership team He has given us!

Elder ordination

Christmas in Florida: 

We were so excited to be able to spend two weeks in the US to celebrate Christmas with our four kids and their families. We were also able to see our new granddaughter Eden Sage for the first time. These were precious days that we had together. We also drove up to Tennessee to visit my parents and sister which was also a blessing. We returned to Hungary on January 6^th to start a busy month of ministry. 

Christmas 2022

More discipleship training:

On January 21^st we had our annual training on spiritual gifts and calling. We had 24 people in attendance making it our biggest group yet. It was a great opportunity for our people to discover their gifts and calling and better understand the unique way God has prepared them to serve in His kingdom. We closed out the day with a great time of prayer, and we have received a lot of positive feedback. I am praying we will see much fruit as many of our new members become more active and involved in ministry. 

Training on Spiritual Gifts and Calling

A Look Ahead:

1. On February 11^th we will hold our first Valentine’s dinner for married couples. Please pray that many visitors attend and all goes well.

2. On March 5^th we will be receiving nine new adults into church membership.

3. On March 19^th we will hold our next baptismal service. Please pray for all the preparations. 

 

These are exciting times! Thanks so much for standing with us in your prayers and support! 

Marc and Charin Patton