A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of traveling to Chisinau, Moldova, to visit Steven and Teresa Yeats, friends of mine who have been missionaries in Eastern Europe for many years.
Steven is a pastor and a church planter, but a few years ago he started a business in Moldova, and in this episode of the Theology for the People podcast, he talks about the spirituality of money and the reasons for considering doing business as a form of mission.
We talk about sustainable church planting and unique needs that exist in the developing (majority) world for jobs to be created so that Christian people who want to be part of what God is doing in their home countries can stay without feeling the need to emigrate.
Additionally, Steven and Teresa share about how the war in Ukraine has affected their lives and their ministry, and how we can be praying for them and for the church in Moldova.
Business as Mission – with Steven and Teresa Yeats, Missionaries in Moldova –
Theology for the People
Steven and Teresa Yeats have been missionaries in Eastern Europe for many years. They currently live in Chisinau, Moldova. Steven is a pastor and a church planter, but a few years ago he started a business in Moldova, and in this episode he talks about the spirituality of money and the reasons for considering doing business as a form of mission. We talk about sustainable church planting and unique needs that exist in the developing (majority) world.
Additionally, Steven and Teresa share about how the war in Ukraine has affected their lives and their ministry in Moldova. Finally, they share how we can be praying for their ministry and the church in Moldova.
Make sure to check out the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org
In this week’s episode of the Theology for the People podcast, Michael Payne and I speak with George and Sharon Markey, who are missionaries in Kyiv, Ukraine. George has been in Ukraine for 30 years now, and is able to give unique insight into what is happening there right now in the midst of the war.
In this discussion, recorded when George and Sharon visited us in Colorado in June of 2022, George tells the story of how his family moved to Ukraine in 1992, and Sharon tells her story of meeting George and joining him on the mission field.
They talk about their family’s experience in evacuating from Ukraine when the war began and how they are continuing to reach out with the love of Jesus to the Ukrainian people, and how the mission of God is progressing even in the midst of the current calamity.
Check out George and Sharon’s new website, mentioned in the episode: BridgeUA.org
If you find this episode interesting or helpful, please share it with others and leave a rating and review on your podcast app, as that helps other people discover this podcast and its content.
In this episode, Michael Payne and Nick Cady speak with George and Sharon Markey, missionaries in Ukraine. George tells the story of how his family moved to Ukraine in 1992, and Sharon tells her story of meeting George and joining him on the mission field. They talk about their family's experience in evacuating from Ukraine when the war began and how they are continuing to reach out with the love of Jesus to the Ukrainian people, and how the mission of God is progressing even in the midst of the current calamity.
Check out George and Sharon's new website, mentioned in the episode: BridgeUA.org
This episode was originally recorded for the White Fields Community Church YouTube channel. Please visit and subscribe to that, and you can visit the Theology for the People blog at nickcady.org
Today as we celebrated Easter at White Fields Church in Longmont, Colorado, we had a special greetings sent in from some of the missionaries we support around the world, including several in Ukraine.
Here’s the video of the Easter service, which includes the greetings from those missionaries:
Some of the missionaries in Ukraine mentioned that their country celebrates Easter a week later than we do in the United States, leading some people to ask why that is.
Council of Nicea (325 AD): Setting a Common Date for Easter
The First Ecumenical Council of Christin leaders around the world as held in 325 AD and is known as the Council of Nicea.
Prior to Nicea, churches in different parts of the world celebrated Easter on different Sundays of the year. In order to bring unity, council members created a formula to would calculate the date for Easter for all churches around the world: the first Sunday after the first full moon which follows the vernal equinox, after the Jewish Passover.
To avoid confusion, it determined that the vernal equinox was on March 21. This system guaranteed that all churches around the world celebrated Easter on the same day.
The Great Schism and the Introduction of the Georgian Calendar
In 1054 the Eastern and Western churches split. The division was for theological, cultural, and political reasons. Shortly after this, Pope Gregory VIII introduced the Gregorian calendar, whereas the Eastern Empire continued with the Julian calendar, which had been used since the time of Julius Caesar.
The reason for the introduction of the Gregorian calendar was the realization that the Julian calendar was discovered to be 11 minutes too long, which, though not much, led to the spring equinox no longer being on March 21 by that time. The Gregorian calendar sought to bring correction to this issue, whereas the Eastern Empire (and its churches) continued with the Julian calendar despite the fact that according to it, the vernal equinox was no longer on March 21.
By using two different calendar systems, the vernal equinox now fell on March 21 under the Gregorian calendar and April 3 on the Julian calendar. The two empires (and their churches), as a result, began celebrating Easter on two different days, though on occasion Easter date does still fall on the same day for both calendars (e.g. in 2017 and next in 2025).
We’ve got a few things happening at White Fields Church in Longmont, Colorado that I wanted to let you know about:
Tomorrow we will be starting a new series called “Church Matters” in which we will be taking four weeks to talk about church: why it matters to God, to us and to the world. We’ll be studying the Bible to see God’s vision for the church, and what therefore we should be about.
There is a great local company that helps us with some of our graphic designs: CryBaby Design. Check them out and hit them up if you’re looking for someone to help with graphic design, branding or web design.
We also have a great administrative assistant on our staff who does some design and media work for us, like the following graphic for our upcoming Outdoor Worship Service on August 13, 2017 at 10 a.m.
If you are in or around Longmont, we’d love to have you join us!
Finally, here is a video preview of what’s happening tomorrow at White Fields. Our mission team we recently sent to Hungary to work with the church that we planted years ago is now back and will be giving an update about what God did through them.
We also have some friends in town who are missionaries in Athens, Greece: Travis and Kristen Spencer, who will be giving a presentation after service about their ministry there.
For many years, the third week of June was one of the highlights of the year for my wife and I. That’s because this is the time when the Foundations Conference takes place in Vajta, Hungary. Foundations is a conference for Calvary Chapel missionaries and national workers from all over Eastern Europe to gather together for a week of fellowship and teaching. It was a time for us of seeing friends we often only saw at that conference, as well as a time of being recharged physically and spiritually, and seeking the Lord.
This year I’ve been keeping up with some of what’s happening at Foundations on Instagram, where I get to see familiar faces and places.
Today on Instagram I saw this photo, which filled me with so many emotions:
In that picture are friends of mine, and they are praying for a young man named Jonathan, who is serving as a missionary in Eger, Hungary at the church Rosemary and I started 9 years ago. Standing behind him is Jani, a man who I first met when he was not a Christian, but who I had the privilege of leading to The Lord, pouring into, raising up in ministry, and who is now the pastor of that church in Eger.
I remember how on the last night of one of these Foundations conferences several years ago, I was up front praying for people, and Jani came up and asked me to pray that God would bless him and his wife with a baby. Only a few months later, we got the good news that Tünde, his wife, was pregnant with their first child.
I’m a bit jealous that I can’t be there withy them right now, but it fills me with so much joy to see these guys who now carry that baton, going for it with all they’ve got. It is a good feeling when something you started takes on a life of its own.
My wife and I were missionaries in Hungary for over 10 years, where we were doing church planting and humanitarian work with Calvary Chapel. In 2012, we moved from Eger, Hungary to Longmont, CO.
A friend recently asked me how I knew it was time to leave Hungary, and how God spoke to me and led me during that transition. I thought that a video blog would be the best forum for answering that question. Check out my response in this video.
If you have any questions about this topic, leave a comment below – and if you have any questions you’d like me to answer here on the blog, feel free to email me at nick [at] whitefieldschurch.com
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