By Drew Steinhart
Pastor, Disciples Church in Medina, Ohio
Disciples first sent a team to explore a sister-church partnership with the Hungarian Baptist Church in Brasov, Romania, in October of 2022. Between then and now, I have spent more Sundays worshipping in Brasov than any place besides my home church. In fact, I’ve now spent more than a month’s worth of days in a city halfway across the world that I didn’t know existed before our first trip.
If you had told me these statistics before we began exploring sister-church partnership, I would have thought you were crazy. And yet, having recently completed our fourth trip to Brasov, I can tell you with complete sincerity that time with our friends in Romania has been one of the greatest joys of the past few years.
“We were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our lives as well.”
That’s the gift of sister-church partnership. It’s one thing to know that in Christ we have brothers and sisters spread throughout the world. It’s an even greater gift to get to know some of these brothers and sisters, to learn their names, to serve alongside them, and to be enriched by entering into their unique and beautiful culture of worship and devotion to the Lord.
Brian, a long-time friend and member of Disciples, joined me and several other NAB pastors on our recent trip to Romania. On this trip, we got the chance to visit Camp Falcon Rock for the first time, to join the Convention of Hungarian Baptist Churches of Romania’s Spring Missions Conference, and to see a corner of Romania previously unknown to us. Brian didn’t grow up in an NAB church, and there are only a few NAB churches in our area, so seeing Brian get a taste of the diversity within the NAB was a real joy for me. We both enjoyed sharing our experiences with sister-church partnership as our teammates prayerfully considered forming their own.
Romania is not a small country, so getting to Brasov involved a six-hour car ride from the missions conference. We spent this drive catching up with Pastor Daniel Budai from our sister church. Unlike our last two trips to Brasov, both of which included a specific ministry component, the focus of this quick visit was entirely relational. During Sunday morning’s service, Brian gave a vulnerable testimony about how the Lord had been reminding him of his need to trust God more boldly through the example of our friends in Romania. Brian’s attentiveness to the Holy Spirit was a great reminder of what is required to make these partnerships most effective: openness, flexibility, and a desire to grow in our love for Christ and his Kingdom.
Our final morning in Brasov was spent in a coffee shop built in 1689, trading stories, prayer requests, and dreams for our churches and lives with Pastor Daniel. The Black Church, one of Brasov’s most popular tourist attractions, sat less than 250 feet away, yet Brian and I would choose the gift of friendship and conversation with our dear brother over sightseeing any day.
learn more about sister-church partnerships
We’re already a few weeks into Lent, but it’s still not too late to start receiving this year’s Lenten devotionals.
This year, we are are focusing on Philippians 2:5–11, a poem written specifically for the Christian Church that speaks of Jesus’s divinity and servanthood. This poem isn’t just important for our Christology – how we understand the person, nature, and role of Jesus – it’s important for how we live our day-to-day lives. After all, Paul reminds us that this servanthood of Jesus is the exact same attitude we should have in our interactions with others and how we engage with the world around us, shaping what kinds of people we are to be
The next two weeks of devotionals – weeks 4 and 5 – are now available to download to share with your congregation, Bible study, or whomever.
Spring Missions Sunday is March 29.
We invite every NAB church to join in by praying intentionally for the nations and by giving generously to the Global Missions Fund as part of the 2026 Spring Missions Offering.
Even as God continues to work powerfully through the faithfulness of NAB missionaries and partners, there remain large portions of the world with little or no access to the Gospel. The kind of mission work to build this access does not happen quickly, and it cannot happen alone. It requires patient discernment, deep dependence on prayer, and long term commitment through the local church. That is why the NAB’s Global Missions Fund remains essential. While individual missionaries are supported through partnering churches and personal networks, the Global Missions Fund provides the shared foundation that allows NAB International Missions to send, support, and care for workers with wisdom and faithfulness for the long haul.
To find out more about the 2026 Spring Missions Offering, you can visit SpringMissions.com or follow the links below.
Bonfire 2026 registration is open! This year, Bonfire will be taking place in Medina, Ohio, May 5–8, 2026.
This year, we are streamlining this event in a way we hope reflects this purpose. There will be two main evening sessions for the entire group, including dinner, fellowship, worship, and a unified speaker. During the days, each attendee will join their specific group gathering, or Ministry Track – Multipliers Summit, MAT, Missional Initiatives alum, etc. – to engage with each other.
The evening speakers for Bonfire will be NAB pastors Doug Kempton from Detroit, Michigan, and Rev. Rob Cripps, from Toronto, Ontario. During the day, those attending Multipliers Summit will hear from Jeremy and Monica Chambers, while those in the Missional Alumni track will be spending time with Alan Roxburgh.
It is our hope that Bonfire 2026 will serve you, equip you, and encourage you in ways both specific to your individual group but also in broad ways as a vital member of our conference of churches.