Dear Friends,
This has been a time of amazing ministry opportunities. Here are the highlights:
Focus Church Budapest
On September 28th we celebrated the 6th 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.
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| 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 4th. 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 19th, they celebrated their 30th 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 29th 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!
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| Praying on the main square in Obuda |
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| 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 29th. 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
