Roll Call

"Let all nations call him blessed."
       Psalm 72:17

It's been a while since we blogged about our struggles finding a church home.  Thankfully, we feel like we are at the place God wants us to be... International Baptist Church of Budapest. 

The church recently celebrated its 20th year anniversary.  Pretty amazing when you think that 20 years ago, Soviet forces were just withdrawing from Hungary!  During the Sunday morning service that wrapped up a full weekend of celebratory activities, we learned more about the way the church began.  The church started with a pastor and one other person.  After preaching to that one person for a number of  weeks, the "audience of 1" confided that he was giving up.  The pastor begged him to come back one more time and thankfully, a few more people showed up that Sunday!  Now, on any given Sunday, IBCB runs between 150 and 200 people, best I can tell. 

One thing the first permanent pastor did on a regular basis was to have a roll call of the nations represented.  He concluded his sermon this 20th anniversary Sunday with that roll call.  As he called off these countries, those that were present from those countries stood up.  All below were represented:

1. Bulgaria
2. Cameroon
3. Canada
4. Croatia
5. England
6. Estonia
   
7. Finland
8. France
9. Germany
10. Ghana
11. Hungary
12. Indonesia
13. Kenya
14. Malaysia
15. Netherlands
16. New Zealand
17. Nigeria
18. Philippines
    
19. Russia
20. Scotland
21. Serbia
22. Singapore
23. Slovakia
24. USA
25. and likely others I missed

It took over 6 minutes to get through these 25 or so countries.  How wonderful it is to know that one day, Jesus Christ himself will conduct that roll call.  I don't know exactly what that day will look like. With the latest prediction of the rapture having come and gone recently, I am more confident than ever that none of us know with certainty.   Best I can tell from Scripture, it won't take 6 minutes when Jesus does the roll call of nations In fact, best I can tell, it will happen in the blink of an eye.  Even more amazing to me, is that regardless of nation represented or religion claimed, there will come a day that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that JESUS CHRIST is LORD!

In the meantime, I'm enjoying worshiping with many nations at International Baptist Church of Budapest.  May we all be found faithful, no matter where we worship or who we worship with, to tell the news of Jesus to those we come across.