Worship To The World

Posted By Chris Machen on July 6, 2009

Lucian & me. God used us in tandem to reach 15 people to faith in Christ. Lucian is a mighty tool in the hands of God. I'm privileged to know him.

Hey everyone!

We arrived back in DFW on Saturday at 2:30pm. I was so glad to be home. So glad to see Diane and Ryan. I got my Starbucks and Tex-Mex so I’m fully repatriated.

First, our team of 37 from Texas, Missouri and New Jersey had the privilege of presenting the gospel 1487 times. This resulted in 311 people who prayed to receive Christ. Many people were prayed for and encouraged. Seeds were planted that hopefully will be harvested in the days ahead.

I was personally able to lead 15 people to Christ. I may have said this in an earlier blog, but Sunday before we began the evangelism campaign, I had prayed and asked the Lord to let me lead at least one person to Him each day we went out. Almost as soon as I prayed, I got the sense that the Holy Spirit was saying to me “15.” On Thursday afternoon, after leading the last man that I’d talked to the Christ, I did a mental inventory of the week. He was number 15. Praise the Lord for His blessings. My prayers were far too small. If God had answered my prayer only 4 people would have trusted Christ. His plan was bigger than mine. I’m very thankful. “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Eph. 3:20-21 (NASB)

I have often thought that the prayers God answers quickest are those that we pray asking Him to allow us to lead someone to faith in Christ. I can’t prove that, but I have experienced it in my life. I’m thankful that the “Lord of the Harvest” chose me to go for Him into the fields in Romania that so desperately needs Jesus and the truth of the Gospel.

My person prayers now are that I’ll be a better more effective witness here at home. I pray I’ll be a more sensitive worship leader. I pray that I’ll be more in tune with the Spirit of God to be on His mission all the time.

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. It was an amazing 10 days and I’ll never forget the experience of seeing God work through me. Indeed…

God Still Moves!

Chris

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Posted By Chris Machen on July 2, 2009

The man and woman on the right were staunchly Orthodox. Now they're born again. The woman next to me is responsible for 8 of the 15 people I led to Jesus this week. Praise the Lord!

First, thanks to everyone who have made comments on this page or have emailed me. You have encouraged me more than you could possibly know. I’m dead tired and I miss “My Prize,” Diane like crazy. We have never gone this long without speaking to each other in our whole marriage. We talk everyday one way or another. But we knew communication was going to be iffy. Thank goodness for Facebook and Chatting.

It’s hard to say one day was better than another, but I could be tempted to say today was the best. The Lord allowed me to lead 4 more precious people to Jesus today. I was promised that the meetings set for me would be challenging because of the strong Orthodox faith (or religion) I would be up against. I have prayed all week, but especially today, that the Lord would go before me. Today I specifically prayed that He would tear down strongholds of resistance in the people I talked to. It was like Jericho.

The first couple was older and the woman apparently was loaded for bear. (that’s Texan, not Romanian) The first question out of her mouth was basically, “What’s the deal with 666?” She wanted to get into this spiritual debate. Lucian gracefully took her to the Revelation and briefly answered that question, but quickly moved her to the Lamb’s Book of Life. As I began to share Christ with her, I said, “There aren’t going to be good people in Heaven, nor will there be bad people in Hell. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be there. Those who say “no” to Jesus will be separated from God forever.”  Then something amazing happened. She began to cry. She told Lucian, while I paused to take a drink of water, “He’s very sincere and kind and I can tell he means what he’s talking about.” Never thought my mannerism would play into a witnessing experience. As I finished the gospel, she and her husband both said “yes,” that they would like to accept Jesus. Hallelujah! I’m not sure I heard trumpets, but the walls definitely tumbled down.

The next visit was more difficult. We we shared with a woman who was really tripped up by the whole works thing. We went through the gospel presentation twice.  Her understanding was that there was no way to know for sure you could go to heaven. We finally broke through and she prayed to receive Christ. Lucian and the other pastors are going to follow up with her along with the other people who made decisions.

I led this man in the red shirt to faith in Christ at the children's outreach. He was so ready. So amazing!

The man pictured above was just hanging out at the children’s outreach in the park near the Emanuel Church. Praise God for the spiritual sensitivity of Lucian. We got to the park and he said, “Let’s talk to that guy.” Understand, there were hundreds of people in the park and he picked out this guy. We approached him and struck up a conversation. Turned out his sister attended Emanuel and had been reading the Bible to her brother. He’d never read it. He told us that under Communism that God was expelled from their society. He said, “This is wrong. There must be a God.” We were able to tell him that not only was there a God, but that He loved him and wanted to save him. I asked him the 2 EE questions and he said, “I don’t know what to say to God, but that ‘I want to know Him.’” I said, that is exactly what God wanted and that He sent Jesus to provide the way for Him to know. When I got to the end of the presentation, I asked him if he would like to ask Jesus to be his Lord and Savior and he said, “Yes, but I don’t know how.” I said, “God sent me from America to tell you how.” And I led him in the sinner’s prayer. Awesome! On top of that, he told Lucian he wanted to go to his church and get his 16 year old daughter and wife involved. He’s already a witness for Jesus. Can you hear the trumpets?

This has been such an incredible week. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe it. I just want to thank the Lord and give Him ALL the glory for what He has done here in Romania. I want to thank all of you for your prayers and in some cases financial support. You take part in the blessing and the harvest that God provided this week. I won’t be able to blog again until Sunday. We leave the hotel pretty early for some fun time with our translators and hosts and share in a final praise service. Then we drive 4 hours to Bucharest to stay a short night in a hotel near the airport. We have to be at the airport a 4:30am for a 6:30am flight to Frankfort. I’ll write a wrap up blog this weekend.

Again, I love you all and remember…

God Still Moves,

Chris

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Posted By Chris Machen on July 1, 2009

Hey friends!

Galati-Today was such an interesting day and a huge blessing. Our smaller team, including Brian and myself, went to 2 public parks here in the city of Galati. (by the way, it’s pronounced-(gaw-LOTS) At the first park, Brian and I set up in a central place between the street and the park and began to sing;  his guitar and our two voices. At first we thought, “Well, let’s do some secular tunes to draw some interest.” However, we could only come up with Desperado and Fire & Rain. We didn’t know all the words, which didn’t matter, I guess, to people who couldn’t understand us anyway. I said, “We came here to do public worship, so let’s sing some praise and worship.”  We sang for an hour or so. We drew some attention and some of the other team members got to witness to lthe people who stopped to listen.  Some here are hostile to Americans and we got quite a bit of resistance. It was funny at one point. A lady tried to give Brian and me some money for playing our music. The guitar case was laying there, so I guess it stands to reason that someone would try to pay the street musicians. We didn’t take the money, but we had a good laugh about being able to have a nice dinner.

We moved to another park and Lucian  (my evangelist friend and interpreter) and I engaged a very nice woman who was there watching her daughter play. We must a have talked with her for an hour about spiritual things. I presented the gospel using the Evangecube and she seemed to be receptive and understanding everything.  However, when I asked her if she wanted to pray with us and ask Jesus to be her Lord and Savior, all of a sudden, she had to go. I mean, it stunned us both how quickly she excused herself and left. It really is amazing how these folks are so bound by Orthodox tradition and spiritual bondage. Even as she agreed with us that salvation was by faith in Christ alone, she could not bring herself to accept the truth of Christ.

This Family All Received Christ Today. Glory to God in the Highest

The Village-Following lunch, an older couple came to Emanuel church to ask Lucian and I to go with them to meet part of her family, in particular a niece who was about 40 years old. It was like an afternoon tea. They provided a desert, colas and coffee. They were so gracious to me, “honored guest,” as is a real Romanian custom.  The lady’s mother and father were there along with some older aunts who were already believers. We visited them for almost 2 hours. Lucian did most of the talking, obviously, but he very skillfully brought me into the conversation as it turned toward the gospel and let me present Christ. This is how we’ve worked all week. We’ve been a great team. I presented the gospel, which in every case, I emphasize forgiveness of sin and faith in Christ ALONE for salvation. This is a hard concept for the Orthodox people to grasp. However, the Lord gave grace and the woman and her parents all prayed with me to receive the gift of eternal life. WOW!

After praying for this family, we left. I thought we were done and going back to town for the children’s outreach tonight. We stopped at the house of a daughter in law of a friend of this older lady and gentleman who brought us to the first house. I have to say, I’m so impressed by people who love their family and friends enough to make the effort for them to hear the gospel. We met a younger, newly wed couple. He is a school teacher and she works for the mayor of the village. Both educated and more “middle class” compared to many of the poor we’d visited in the 2 previous days. We had a really nice conversation and again, they were so very receptive to the gospel and I was able to lead them to faith in Jesus. Lucian later said, “I’m really surprised they were so ready. I expected them to have more objections, since they are so educated.”  Praise the Lord for these 5 people who we’ll see one day in heaven!

You have to know that I am flying high this week. As I said in an early blog, I had prayed that the Lord would allow me to lead someone to Him each day and so far, the Lord has answered my prayer. He’s answered yours as well. You’ll never know how much your faithful prayers have meant to me this week. I’m very tired and I’m very energized all at the same time. Know that I love you all and remember…

God Still Moves,

Chris

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Posted By Chris Machen on June 30, 2009

This family all received Christ today. Praise the Lord!

Hi guys!

This will be a short blog tonight! We have long days and short nights here, but all well worth it. Today we went to a different village called Rogojenni. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it. I heard it several times, but never quite got it.

I had the privilege of leading 5 people to Christ today and once again, got to preach the evening service. The Lord gave me a different message tonight on law and grace, comparing Moses to Jesus and and works and faith. The Lord has just been filling me with unbelievable insights that I know are coming from Him. I’m not that smart. Trust me!

During the day, Lucian and a man from the small church here, wandered into  the village for some appointments that the man had set up before hand. I had the chance to visit with a  woman ( she was from Moldova originally which is just across the river from where the village is) her husband and their 15 year old daughter. It was so obvious that they were ready to receive the word of truth. I went through the gospel using the Evangecube and they seemed to understand it all. Then the Lord reminded me of the “chair” illustration from Evangelism Explosion; trusting the chair to hold you up if you, by faith, would sit in it. The light seemed to go on for them. I also told her the story of the Philippian Jailer who asked, “What must I do to be saved?” And Paul’s reply, of course, was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, you and your household.”  I asked if they wanted to receive Jesus and they all said, “Yes!” They all prayed out loud and were wonderfully saved. Hallelujah!

I also had the chance to lead a woman and her 12 year old daughter to the  Lord later on in the day. It was incredible because we’ve been told how resistant to the gospel these people would be. However, I’ve been really amazed at how ready the people I’ve talked to were to accept Christ. Wow, this is cool! God is so good! And the best part is that both of these families came to the service tonight and are being followed up for discipleship. “The Lord added to the church daily…”

Thanks again for your prayers and love. I can feel them all the way over here.

God Still Moves,

Chris

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Posted By Chris Machen on June 29, 2009

Youth Group from Emanuel Church. They assisted with the outreach.

It’s going too be hard to keep this short. We went to a small village an hour from Galati called Onecae (pronounced WAN-CHAW) to do door to door evangelism. My interpreter and I got to go to visit a extremely poor family. The husband is a drunk and regularly beats his wife. She is a believer and a member of the little pentecostal church there (not as demonstrative as our American pentecostal churches). We’d been requested to meet and share Christ with her 73 year old mother. She’d had a stroke, but more important, she didn’t know Jesus. You have to understand this culture a little bit. Romanian is Orthodox, much like Catholic, but involved in the worship of relics and icons and dead saints. They don’t believe you can know for sure you’re going to heaven and that the church has more authority than the Bible. Plus, if anyone becomes a “repenter” they are shunned and mistreated by the church, community and family in many cases. Repenter is a derogatory term they use for us, as well.

Anyway, to be brief, it was one of the poorest homes, I’ve ever seen. No one owns pets in Romania, but there are stray, mangy dogs everywhere. They were all over this property and home. We were able to go into this sick woman’s home and I was able to lead her the faith in Christ. In that dark, dirty house, Jesus’ light shined for the first time for this poor woman. It was an amazing thing. I’m so grateful to the Lord for this. It’s part of the reason we’re here.

Preaching at Oncea Pentecostal

We invited people from all over the village to a special service that night. I was told about 15 minutes before that I was to preach. It was the most amazing experience I think I’ve had in many years. Immediately, the Lord moved me to John 9, the story of the man born blind. Then, as if I had special spiritual glasses on, the Lord began to give me insights into this passage I’d never observed before. It would take to long to share each one. Perhaps, I’ll add it to the blog when I get home. However, the Lord showed me that the blind man accepted Jesus without seeing Him. His life was transformed by

Brian & me with my interpreter, Lucian and his wife, Mihaela

his FAITH in what Jesus had told him to do, go wash the clay off his eyes. His entire being and countenance changed, he began to be bold in his witness and as a reward for his faith, he finally got to see Jesus. Isn’t that the reward we’ll all have when we arrive in Heaven? We’ve never seen Jesus, but by faith, we trusted Him, He changed our lives and one day, we’ll see Him face to face. I called the message, THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX. The Pharisees had made a box and put God in it. Jesus wouldn’t fit into the box. Never has, never will. The Orthodox church in Romanian has put their version of religion in a box and forced everyone in the box with them.

God just opened my eyes to amazing things today. I had prayed specifically that He’d allow me to lead someone to Him everyday this week, that I’d catch His fire for evangelism, again, and that He’d refresh my spirit. Boy, did He answer my prayers!

I love you all and can never thank you enough for you prayers,

God Still Moves, (Amen!)

Chris

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Posted By Chris Machen on June 28, 2009

Hey everyone.

Today was not as hectic. Being Sunday, our main focus was worship at Emanuel (spelled correctly for here) Church this morning and Holy Trinity Baptist Church tonight. Both wonderful, cooperating churches in the same area of the city. One Pentecostal and one Baptist.  So gratifying to see two very different churches helping and support each other. Both churches participating in the evangelism that’s beginning tomorrow in villages around the city. I was blessed to sing at both churches.

The rest of the team, from Dallas, St. Louis and New Jersey, arrived yesterday. Unfortunately, some of their bags didn’t show up until today. That’s happened to us before. Not fun for them, but everyone took it in stride.  One day isn’t bad.  Our experience from our trip to Spain several years ago, was 3 days without our bags.  One of the missionaries we worked with there, was my waist size  but not my height. He was much shorter. Therefore, I looked like I was prepared for a flood of at least 5 inches. I don’t usually look that idiotic… most of the time.

I’ll close now with these prayer requests. First, it started raining tonight. We’re on the streets tomorrow. Pray that it will stop raining and if not, that the Lord will provide another way to accomplish our mission. Second, pray for “divine appointments” in our witnessing; that people will be receptive to the Gospel.

I love you all and really appreciate your love and prayers.

God Still Moves,

Chris

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