Partnerships
Acorn and Crosslinks bringing God's word to God's world
Acorn boasts a total of 4 full-time staff and 2 part-time staff. Churches in the UK linked with Crosslinks London mission agency have sent 4 of this staff team.
Andy and Zsófi Oatridge and Anna Poór are mission partners, whilst Szilárd Tam is in Hungary as short-term mission partner serving with Acorn. All receive essential practical and spiritual support and encouragement through their links with Crosslinks.
Acorn working with Hungary’s biggest youth leaders conference
Hungary’s national Youth Leaders Training conference – Ifivezető Képzés (IVK) – is a high-quality weekend conference held online or in person in Budapest. It is the annual high point for hundreds of youth leaders throughout the country. The IVK conference is a buzzing opportunity for over 300 youth leaders to unite around their desire to offer Christ to young people. Acorn is also able to share its passion there for Bible-centred youth ministry throughout Hungary.
Andy Oatridge, Acorn Team leader, is part of the leadership board for the conference. He regularly gives talks, and seminars, and Acorn has run the workshop stream on teaching the Bible to youth. It is a great blessing that IVK and Acorn can work together to serve youth leaders in their ministry.
Their leader Áron Ablonczy is keen to grow the partnership with Acorn and is highly supportive of the Acorn Bible Training course. Praise God for this partnership! Please pray that through it more youth leaders would be trained in Bible-centred youth ministry.
Andy teaching at National Youth Conference
Working together to train preachers in preaching
Acorn shares Langham’s values of raising up biblical leaders within the church and establishing training that self-multiplies. Acorn works closely with the Langham group in Hungary, in particular developing together the expository teaching approach and vocabulary in Hungarian. Both promote principles of faithfulness to the Bible text, relevance to the listener and clarity in how the message is communicated. Both prioritise God’s Word setting the agenda for the sermon / youth talk.
The Acorn Bible Training course (ABK) runs on this basis. The main difference however is simply that Acorn is focused on training youth pastors and teachers. Andy Oatridge, Acorn Team Leader, is on the Board for Langham Hungary. Since 2017, the Langham movement in the Carpathian basin has gradually grown, with 9 preaching ‘clubs’ of Bible-teachers meeting on a monthly basis to sharpen one another in preaching.
The partnership continues to grow as more “Langham” pastors are involved in the Acorn Bible Training course.
