With a population of 10 million people, Hungary is a culturally Christian, but really secular nation. By tradition it claims to be Christian, but by what you see in the society, it would be hard to prove it. 63 percent of the population are Catholic and less than 30% are Protestant, the rest is atheist or following other religions. Within the Protestant church, the Reformed church is largest, with 16% of the population, followed by the Lutherans (4%), Baptists, Pentecostals (less than 1%). The evangelicals make an estimated 1-2% of the society.
Secularism, materialism, New Age type things are where Hungarians are seeking answers for life's questions. As a pastor from a mid-sized village said: we have 3 churches: Catholic, Reformed and the small bank in the village.
Our vision for the Hungarian church:(a picture that we would like to see becoming a reality)
We would like to see a Hungary, where the followers of Christ share the Gospel with their neighbors, where Christians strengthen their existing churches and plant new churches in their community or other parts of Hungary or where Hungarians live. We would like to see the churches sending missionaries to world mission, praying for them, supporting them.We would like to see Hungary transformed by the power of the Gospel in the individual lives, families and through this to transform the society.
That is why we serve as OM Hungary.
OM Hungary’s mission
1. We help the local churches in their existing ministries by
a., organizing short term outreaches and programs and helping and equipping them with resources to do this.
b, sending mid-long term groups to help church plants or existing churches to help the mission of the Hungarian church.
c., doing humanitarian/holistic mission activity in partnership with a local church to picture the wholeness of the Gospel and God, who cares about the spiritually and physically needy.
d., use the Bus4Life vehichle as a mobile mission center for outreaches
2. We mobilize Hungarian churches for world mission, encourage them to do mission work in their local community until the end of the Earth.
a., We help the Christians who are called to mission to prepare for ministry, to get to the mission field, to do efficient ministry there and after their ministry is over we help their re-entry. We do this in short, mid and long term.
b., We send returning OMers to present and mobilize for missions in churches
c., We organize mission events like mission preparation weekends and mission days to encourage believers to go to mission.
c, We are partnering with the Evangelical Alliance in the area of mobilizing and related events like Mission Expo.
We would like to do this around the core value of picturing the unity of the Body of Christ by caring for one another on our team, and helping each other’s ministry to make the other person efficient and successful.
Our tools for the above are: sending Operation Village Mobilization (OVM) is unique ministry in Hungary as a resource to the Hungarian church for the purpose of reaching the many villages and smaller towns in Hungary which have had relatively little exposure to the Gospel. From the fall of 2008 we host - in partnership with OM Finland, OM Romania and OM Czech - the Bus4Life mobile mission center vehicle that will serve in Hungarian outreaches and in Romania, Slovakia and possibly Austria and Moldova as well.
We see open door in developing a sports ministry profile for Hungary. It seems that sports and language learning are the tools that can make short and mid-term (GC and GA) foreign teams work efficient and Kingdom-building. 2008 will be the year for seeing that unfold.
OM Hungary plays a key role in supporting the development and ongoing ministry of the Hungarian Evangelical Alliance.
We have the ministry of returning OMers presenting and mobilizing for missions in churches, partnering with the Evangelical Alliance in the area of mobilizing and related events.
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