On October 7, 2009 a pastors’ meeting took place at the campus of Donetsk Christian University. Pastors came from different churches and Evangelical Christian Baptists (ECB) unions. Among the participants there were representatives from the Brotherhood of Independent Churches and ECB missionary organizations (V. Kiyan, S. Shaptala, L. Shatohin), the Donetsk regional union ECB (A. Budaretskiy, V. Velgus, A. Zhurba), the Christian Association “Light of the Gospel” (P. Minayev, F. Bespalov, A. Salfetnikov, A. Malov, L. Malov, P. Kislyak) and some pastors from independent churches (A. Nagirnyak, P. Ilchenko, V. Semyonov, N. Dudnik, A. Moseichuk, V. Yakubovskiy).
The Head of the University, Oleksii Melnychuk, shared about “the manifold grace of God”, which is able to be revealed in different forms and aspects of the Christian life. He pointed out that while realizing and comprehending the distinctions, we should always keep in mind the main calling that unites all Evangelical believers. This call is to be and remain “the light of the world” and “the salt of the earth” (Mt. 5:13-14). To be more effective in carrying out one’s mission in the world, it is necessary to take into account the circumstances of social and cultural life in modern society. We should not shut ourselves off from society, but instead try to understand the world and each other on a deeper level. Christians’ desire to protect and guard their faith and their purity of life from the influence of the modern secularized world is quite understandable. However, to yield to this desire too much means to limit our opportunities in sharing the Gospel. In this regard we need to work out new strategies and goals in the development of our Christian education, which should help ministers and the new generation to enter into dialog with society in a more effective way. Nowadays many paradigms of evangelical spiritual education in Ukraine require change. DCU must not simply copy what has been used before, but seek the best model of education to fit the spiritual needs of Ukrainian churches and Christians.
Oleksii Melnychuk shared about a program of changes at Donetsk Christian University and called on the pastors to support these changes. This would help to maximally bring Christian education nearer to the needs of the Christian community, and to help better understand which licensed programs would help future DCU students be equipped in responding to the world’s needs and remain faithful witnesses of Christ at the same time.
During a time of discussion, the ministers expressed many opinions and wishes to the leadership of the university concerning issues of organizing the process of educational and spiritual formation. Specifically, the discussion included the issue of students’ field education in local churches, pastors’ teaching ministry, the program of professional development for them, as well as the importance of keeping a missionary spirit and developing a counseling ministry at DCU. Despite their various concerns, in general the Christian ministers at the meeting were optimistic about the future of evangelical education in Ukraine.
Many difficulties in the modern state of Evangelical Baptist educational institutions are conditioned, particularly, by the complexity of the history of the Evangelical brotherhood, as well as by long-term government persecutions at different stages of our history. The plans to teach a series of historical seminars and to establish a museum of Evangelical Baptist history are designed to help better comprehend this experience and find new ways of integration for churches into society. Alexander Nagirnyak and Oleksii Melnychuk shared more about these projects.
In a closing speech, pastor V. Semyonov reminded that in this “stability of times” (Is. 33:6) the Lord is expecting Christians to fear God, be wise, competent, and to teach, serve and share the Gospel so that our churches would be filled with more and more saved people.
The meeting was closed by a group prayer.