Preaching

Costel Ghioanca has served as a HeartCry missionary for many years. While he is gifted in teaching, writing and translating, he maintains a distinct humility that enhances the effectiveness of his outreach to others. From the previous two months, he shares of how the gospel is relevant in his shepherding, conference speaking and counseling:

I continued to be involved in preaching and counselling our church members. During the summer I peach random messages, as the Lord is guiding me. Then in September we will start a new series on the epistles of John. Even though we have a small church, I still need to do a lot of counselling. People are struggling with job issues, with spiritual battles, anxieties, and other challenges. So there is a need for counselling. We try to invite someone from the church to come and have lunch in our house every Sunday afternoon. This provides us with an opportunity to build relationships and encourage our church members.

The month before last I was invited me to speak at a youth conference about LGBT challenges. It was a difficult subject, but I tried to explain some of the myths associated with LGBT with the biblical perspective on the matter. Although it seems that subjects like this are far away from us, we need to acknowledge that the youth are under continuous pressure from the world. Silence is not an option. We need to address these issues, point out what is wrong with them and then go to the Gospel. We believe that we can find strength only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing as strong as the Gospel!

We had an evangelistic outreach in Pucioasa. God worked with power and we had some very good discussions with people in the park, in the market and on the streets. I had a very good discussion with a man who is living close to the church building in Pucioasa. Although he has a sharp mind and went to college, he is addicted to alcohol. He started to quote from Heidegger and that provided me with the opportunity to give him some quotes from Someone greater that Heidegger, our Lord Jesus Christ. We had a good discussion about life, sin, salvation through faith and the world to come. We talked for about 45 minutes and I think that this man is open to the Gospel. Unfortunately, the alcohol addiction is so strong. We have to pray for the power of God in His life.