Here in Budapest, our family attends Danube International Church. We have really enjoyed it and have especially loved the teaching of our pastor Ronnie Stevens. He is one of the best pastors that Valerie & I have ever heard and it is amazing that we get to listen to him each week.
Recently, he has been preaching through the book of John and yesterday he was in a very controversial part of John 6 where many evangelical churches disagree. At the beginning of the sermon, knowing that he was bringing up a hard subject, he talked about the distinctives of an International Church. In the US, typically, you have many churches to pick from. It isn’t very hard to find a church that is aligned with your beliefs almost exactly and if not, mostly. Here in Budapest, there are only 3 or 4 English speaking churches to pick from. Therefore, we aren’t as picky and we are so glad to have sermons in English that we don’t get hung up with the finer points of doctrine. It doesn’t mean that doctrine isn’t important to us, it just means that we don’t let those things keep us from worshipping together. It seems like that the church would be more unified if we all thought along these lines. There are a few things that should divide us like salvation by faith, inerrency of scripture, and few others. Too many times, we have a much longer list of things that divide us.
By the way, I thought Ronnie did an excellent job yesterday dealing with John 6:45. Whether you agree with him or not, it will challenge you. Click here to download the Feb 13th sermon and listen to it.