“Church Planting is Scary”
By László Baczynski, Hungarian pastor,
national partner with Jon and Lori Haskell
We all have a natural tendency to avoid, fear, or be cautious toward
the unknown. Most often it takes God's calling, the boldness of
faith, and the encouragement of fellow believers for us to venture
out into new territory. Of course it depends on our personality,
maturity, and experience how boldly we tackle these new challenges
of our life, of our walk with God.
 Facing the Unknown
Church planting was a huge unknown to me in 2001. To tell the truth,
I was not even thinking about it. I was involved in an evangelistic/discipleship
ministry and was active in our well-established local church. I
knew that this church had been planted by my fellow elders but it
just had not occurred to me that I could ever be involved in planting
a new church.
Yet as time passed, I started to hear more and more about what
it takes to plant a church. Through testimonies I saw how fellow
Christians sensed the need in their neighborhood, and, after praying
it through, established a local fellowship to reach out into the
community and build the local believers. So God started to plant
the seeds in my heart (unnoticed by me) to open up to this new and
beautiful area of ministry.
At the same time God brought a family into our lives. Jon and Lori
Haskell with ABWE joined our church. Was it easy to become friends
with them? Very! Both of them spoke Hungarian well, they were fun
to be around and could relate to and connect on the spiritual areas
of life so quickly. God had blessed us with a new friendship.
As my eyes were being opened more and more to church planting,
my family moved to a new town called Budaörs, one of the fastest
growing communities near the capital, Budapest. We were happy with
our first home, and were preparing for our first child. We slowly
started to sense the need for that local fellowship I had heard
about in those testimonies. We sensed the need to have a solid local
church for our kids to grow up in. We felt the need to reach those
people living in our community for Christ.
Starting a Church Together
 I knew Jon was involved in church planting. I realized that everything
I had discussed with him up until that time about ministry, about
what we thought a church should look like, was all building up to
a vision in both of us to start a new church. I still remember asking
Jon the question, “So, when do you want to plant a church?” And
I still remember Jon's eyes! He was so excited, I could tell!
Of course I was still struggling with the unknown factor of church
planting. And that's where Jon and Lori became a catalyst for us
to step out in faith into the unknown, challenging us to start a
new church in Budaörs. I don't think I would have ventured
out on my own, without them. They brought in their expertise, their
calling, and their vision for Hungarian church planting. I brought
in my friends from Budaörs to form the core team to start with.
I remember the numerous morning meetings with Jon when we wrote
down our vision on paper for our church, and shaped the core values
we wanted to live by as we started to follow God's calling to build
His Kingdom!
Today, Koszikla Baptista Gyülekezet (Koszikla is
the word used in scripture where the Lord is referred to as “my
rock”) has about thirty members. It has become an officially recognized
local church by the Baptist Union of Hungary. We have four programs
for the different age groups of our children. All that we dreamed
of is becoming reality. The unknown is becoming known. It is not
scary anymore. It is beautiful! All it took was God shaping and
calling His people, and sending fellow Christians who themselves
would move with God and encourage others to follow God into territory
only seen by Him. That's why I am very thankful for Jon and Lori.
They were ready to come alongside, to encourage, to train, and to
help shape the direction of the new local church in Budaörs.
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