It was the spring of 1996. András sat stone-faced across from Debbie and me in our Budapest flat. For two months we’d been attending the small church he was pastoring in our housing estate, and he’d made few attempts to talk to us. We thought inviting him over might break the ice.
Debbie and I battled to communicate in our broken Hungarian while András mostly stared at us and gave terse replies to our questions. After 45 awkward minutes, András finally offered, “We can speak English if you’d like.” He’d had no qualms about letting us suffer, even though he spoke English well enough to work as a high level translator, a fact that he didn’t reveal to us until much later.
This visit was just the first in a series of hoops András had us jump through. He had a strong distrust of Americans—not without cause, based on his prior experience with American missionaries. He wasn’t exactly eager to see us at his church.
Relationship building is difficult—often doubly so cross-culturally. Yet relationships are crucial to effective, transformative, enduring ministry and mission. Whether you’re called to cross-cultural missions, like Debbie and I, or called to serve as Jesus’s ambassador in your hometown, you’ll find that the Kingdom multiplies along relational lines. Why? Because relationship is the very thing we were created for.
Relational People Reflecting Our Relational God
“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26)
“I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” (John 17:21)
We serve a Triune God, one God in three divine persons. However difficult for our finite minds to understand, these three have existed eternally in relationship with one another. Their oneness is the ultimate model of relationship and the inspiration for our creation according to Genesis 1:26. We were created to mirror their connectedness and interdependence. Jesus prayed that we, his followers, would be one just as he and the Father are one, as a witness to the world.
Since relationship is woven deeply into the fabric from which we’re made, it’s not surprising that from the time of Jesus to the present day the good news of the gospel has moved along relational pathways. Research has shown that 86% of new believers identify a close relationship as the key influence in leading them to become followers of Jesus. Is it any wonder that Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and to love your neighbor (Matthew 22:36–40)?
Novo staff strive to keep relationships at the core of our mission. First and foremost, we consider our relationship with Jesus to be our most important work and the foundation of all we do. As one example, organizationally we’ve set aside the first Monday of each month for all staff to spend time together pursuing intimacy with Jesus.
This intimacy with God blesses and unifies us. It also equips us to see God’s heart for people and discover what part he would have us to play in bringing them to him.
Like Jesus, we’ve been sent by the Father into mission fields around the world to represent him and build relationships that make a difference spiritually. We do this in many ways:
We pursue those far from God to find those who are ready to respond to the good news and miraculous signs of the Kingdom.
We build partnerships with believers with similar vision in order to encourage and equip them to live out their own calling in God’s mission.
We meet the felt needs of the people around us as we live out the gospel in deed.
We learn the language in cross-cultural settings from a posture of humility. We do this not solely to communicate a message, but as a means to build meaningful friendships in the heart languages of those we’re hoping to reach. (This also applies in our home contexts as we interact with segments of society very different from us, e.g. generationally, ethnically, economically, etc.)
We partner with others to fight against systemic evil and injustice in the contexts where we live and minister. Where would William Wilberforce have gotten in his battle to abolish slavery without the relational partnership of his friends in the Clapham Sect?
Jesus is our model for all of the above. He came to live among us while sustaining an intimate relationship with the Father and doing only what the Father showed him to do. He sought out the 12 disciples, built deep relationships with them, and established his Church through them. He loved Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. He performed miracles not only to prove who he was, but also because he cared about people. Jesus intentionally rooted his Kingdom in relationships.
Even though it was challenging, Debbie and I continued to pursue relationship with András because we felt it was an important aspect of what we were called to do in Hungary. We committed ourselves to watch and learn; we were careful not to push our ideas. We helped with practical needs whenever we saw them, including stacking chairs after church for two years. Slowly we began to earn Andras’s trust, as he saw that we were going to stick around and weren’t pushing our own agenda.
We ended up in a partnership with András for over 18 years. His young church grew ten times in size with significant Kingdom influence near and far. András now serves as a regional missions leader for the Reformed Church in Hungary, giving his life to see new churches birthed across the country. He became and continues to be one of my closest friends.
What About You?
How are you doing in following Jesus’s relational example in your own life? Do you begin by pursuing intimacy with him as your most important endeavor? Are you loving your neighbor and doing your part to expand God’s Kingdom along relational pathways? May the Spirit help us all to grow in our love for God and in our love of others for the sake of his Kingdom!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bobby Booze and his wife Debbie live in Greensboro, NC. They served in Budapest, Hungary for 22 years, training and mentoring church planters, pastors, and church leaders. As the operations director for Ethne, Bobby uses his experience and passion for the nations to help lead and support the work of 140+ Novo staff around the world.