Omega Message – July 2000
By Molnar Nandor & Nagy Zoltan of Kiskunhalas, Hungary
January 2000
Dear Brother Mark,
Here I am sending you, partly in answer to encouragement by Brother Michael Tennes, a “report” on what we have seen in Romania, to be printed or used as you think most fit. It also contains hints of the process of their development along the way they have gone so far, or at least as we can see it from Hungary.
In the end, we also give a short account of our last visit there. We are all glad to be able to send you this short account also because writing it has helped us to think over how helpful the Lord has been to us all in this field, also through your obedience.
With greetings, from Nandor, Zoltan, Melinda, Marika, Magda, and from all of us here—wishing to Sister Janet and yourself, and all your Fellowship a blessed New Year.
An account of the present situation in Zalau, Romania
The first visit to Zalau, Romania by Brothers Tom Campbell and Mark Jantzi was to a group of people to whom it had become clear that in the Baptist fellowship to which they belonged, they did not receive proper spiritual food, and who had also become dissatisfied with the limitations which were imposed on the way they were allowed to exercise their faith.
That was why, besides the “official” fellowship meetings, they gathered in the house of one of the sisters. During these meetings they chiefly sought and practiced those charismatic type of experiences that they were not allowed officially to live out in the church.
It was this pursuit which led them to gather regularly and to form a kind of prayer group. They thought that, seeing their renewal, the whole bigger fellowship would then follow in their steps, and budge and move forward in God, and out of the formal religiosity that it had sunk into.
These people read Brother Cecil duCille’s book The Pattern (some of them more than once) with the same diligence that they had shown in reading the Charismatic books. However, from their questions, it was evident that they were seeking the very same things in The Pattern, only in a greater measure than they had learned in the Charismatic books. They were somewhat shocked by some of the teachings, e.g. the one about “rapture.”
It meant great blessing to them when Brothers Tom Campbell and Mark Jantzi prayed for them, and they did get strengthened in their faith—however, as could well be expected, this did not bring them complete deliverance, and then they were only waiting for the brethren to go and pray for them again.
It was from this point of view that the visit to Zalau of Brothers Burt, Mark, George, and Jim, with their wives, was of great importance in the summer of 1999. They saw that, however important it was to pray for people, this time a greater emphasis must be laid on the examining of the foundations and on teaching.
The teaching that the brethren in Romania received (with the Hungarian brethren present) is helping them visibly to think of themselves and to define themselves as a fellowship in its own right.
What we feel is that what these people must obtain is not merely comfort and peace which lasts for a time, based on certain selected verses from the Bible, but that they must become a fellowship whose members have a testimony which will actually help them go on in the Lord. They need to obtain a vision which would be powerful to help them to work on the coming forth of the Christ in their midst, and one which will enable them to see the difference which we now have between the Body of Christ on the one hand and the churches on the other.
We feel that the conference in Zalau last summer helped them in a mighty way to that end.
However, we know from our own personal experience that in order for that vision and understanding to be formed, the labor of a much longer period is needed. Our brethren in Romania started from a place quite different from where we (Hungarians) started. They grew up in a much more religious environment, and even now live within the body of the Baptist fellowship—that is quite different from our own position when we first heard this message.
To obtain the Vision which would then bring a deep and thorough change in their lives, they will need a revelation from God’s Word of a deeper dimension than they now have, and also relationships characteristic of the Body of Christ will have to be formed amongst them, constituting that environment where ministries of the Spirit can operate so that it leads to the coming forth of God’s nature.
For this, God’s people must meet; revelations from His Word must be shared, so that the brethren might be encouraged by the testimonies to go on.
Our last visit, on December 10-11, was the first one since the summer conference. What we saw was that the brethren have gone a long way towards becoming a fellowship. One of the signs pointing in that direction is that the fellowship now has its own money reserve—however small—which they collect besides and independently of the money of the Baptist fellowship, for the purpose of the fulfillment of God’s purposes in their midst.
Within the meetings, which had been essentially prayer meetings, now reading of the Word and teaching is gaining ground. They now feel the need, beyond the so-called Charismatic experiences, for a deeper communion in and with the Word of God. They have now begun to understand that God wants man to become a partaker of His divine nature.
During our visit, both in the morning meeting and in the afternoon, practically everyone was there of those that make up the core of this small fellowship. We could see that some of the brethren had been greatly strengthened since the summer conference. We are convinced that a number of deliverances had also taken place at those meetings.
When we went there, God’s Word to us was that His greatest promise is that in Christ we become partakers of His nature (II Peter 1:4). Word was given on the Body of Christ, in the same context as we heard at the Prague Conference last summer.
God forms His nature in man gradually. For this, it is necessary for us ALL to walk in the light, so that the entirety of the ministries may work (1 John 1:7, Psalm 123, Zechariah 13:1-2 and 12:8B).
We could see that the vision concerning the Body of Christ is growing in stature among the brethren there. In our opinion, for it to grow further, it is necessary for all of us to continue laboring together in this field.
Molnar Nandor and Nagy Zoltan of Kiskunhalas, Hungary
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