On February 25, The House of Prayer church in West Sacramento hosted a semiannual meeting of PCSBA’s ministers. The pastors’ wives were also invited to come and have their own time of fellowship. During the meeting, four seminars were presented, each dealing with various aspects of the pastor’s ministry.
Andrey Dzyuba was the speaker of the first seminar, and he spoke on: “Pastor and The Missionary Purpose of the Church”. He went in depth about the missions’ work throughout church history, its purpose in the world, as well as the inner motivations for missions in light of the Bible’s teaching and current opportunities, as well as how to practically get involved.
The second seminar was taught by Vadim Dashkevich, senior pastor of The Spring of Life Church, and he shed some light on “Leadership Development”. He spoke about various aspects of a pastor's life: his experience in ministry, showed the strengths and weaknesses of the life of a minister in various areas such as: personal relationships with God, family, church, church leadership team, community, etc. Pastor Vadim has unique and extensive experience in ministry, and he shared it with all of us. This seminar was a great blessing to all the listeners.
The third seminar was prepared by Pavel Belev who is a pastor of the Spring of Life Church in Mukilteo, WA. He covered a topic of “Developing a Strategy for the Church”. Using the example of Nehemiah, he showed the importance of having a pastoral vision for the ministry. That is a necessity in a purposeful development of the church. He emphasized that the changes that are taking place through the development of the church strategy, must be subordinate to the main vision for the church. That vision must include the awareness and readiness to adapt and change based on the conditions of living in the U.S.
The concluding session was by Ivan Mileyev, who taught about “Knowing Your Church’s Potential”, how to realistically look at the snapshot of a church without any embellishments, and see those opportunities that are given by God for the development of the church today. He emphasized the importance of intentional relationship building with those members who could become the driving force of changes and growth of the church. There is a need “to see” the potential leaders of the old and young groups, their spiritual gifts, and bring them into the leadership of the church, and continue to be their mentor today.
After the seminars, the members of the House of Prayer Church organized a reception. The fellowship continued around the tables. No one wanted to leave home. Special thanks to Aleksey Delkhman and the members of the local church for their hospitality, great organization, and a delicious lunch! For those who were not able to be at the meeting, the seminars were recorded, so you could always review the materials.
I think that the relevance of the seminars was clear. This is what the pastors of churches need to hear today. I heard a lot of great feedback about this. Praise be to God! We need to have more meetings where we can not only support, but also enrich each other!
President of PCSBA, Ivan Mileyev
Links to the seminars recordings:
- "Pastor and the Missionary Purpose of the Church". Speaker – Andrey Dzyuba, pastor of the Cornerstone Church
- "Leadership Development". Speaker — Vadim Dashkevich, senior pastor of the Spring of Life Church in Sacramento, CA.
- "Developing the Strategy of the Church". Speaker – Pavel Belev, senior pastor of the Spring of Life Church in Mukilteo, WA.
- "Knowing The Potential of the Local Church”. Speaker -- Ivan Mileyev, President of PCSBA.
