What does it look like to plant missional churches in a post-Communist, post-Christendom city? In this conversation, Hoffman Rhyne sits down with Dr. András Lovas, a Reformed pastor, church planting consultant, and City to City Europe trainer based in Budapest, Hungary, to hear his remarkable story of gospel ministry in Central Europe.Dr. Lovas served for over 22 years as the founding pastor of Gazdagret Reformed Church, a missional congregation planted on a Budapest housing estate, before transitioning to serve as the church planting and mission consultant for the Hungarian Reformed Church. Drawing on the missiology of Lesslie Newbigin and his doctoral work at Bakke Graduate University on urban mission and missional leadership, Dr. Lovas has spent decades equipping pastors, mentoring church planters, and building the Budapest City Network for the City to City Europe movement.In this interview, Dr. Lovas reflects on the challenges and opportunities of gospel ministry in Hungary, the vision for a missional church in a post-Christendom context, and what the Church in the West can learn from the renewal taking place in Central Europe.---This conversation is part of Christ Our Redeemer Seminary's Global Missions in the 21st Century course and our "Learning with the Whole Church" initiative: a commitment to listening to and learning from the global Church, particularly those serving among the least-reached peoples of the world. As the Apostle Paul wrote, "the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Cor. 12:21). The Church in the West has much to learn from brothers and sisters who have long labored faithfully in hard soil.Christ Our Redeemer Seminary is a partnership of churches in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, equipping Christlike leaders for God's global mission.Learn more: christourredeemer.orgFind us on podcast platforms: Christ Our Redeemer Seminary Podcast

Interview with Giotis Kantartzis

There is nothing quick about the Great Commission. It takes time, commitment, and lifetimes of work. There are no shortcuts!
That's how Dr. Timothy Tennent opens this conversation, and it only gets more searching from there.
Dr. Timothy Tennent, who spent fifteen years as President of Asbury Theological Seminary, has taught every year for over three decades at New Theological College in India, and wrote Invitation to World Missions, one of the most important missiological texts of the 21st century. He now holds the Methodist Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. His daughter Bethany has spent 16 years among a Muslim people group in Tanzania and has now translated half the New Testament into a language with no prior Scripture.
In this episode of Global Missions in the 21st Century, Dr. Tennent joins us to unpack what it means to say that mission is fundamentally trinitarian and eschatological, why the West urgently needs a "missions selah," and what genuine preparation looks like for a new generation called to pioneer work among unreached peoples.
If you want to think more clearly and more biblically about the remaining task of global missions, this conversation is for you.