On August 2-3, First Slavic Baptist Church hosted a semi-annual pastors’ meeting. Dr. Valentin Siniy, who is a provost of the Tavrich Christian Institute (Ukraine) was the main speaker.
He taught three seminars. On Friday evening, he preached on: “Understanding the times. Biblical Stance about Changes”. This was a theological analysis of what changes over time, and what doesn’t. A lot of time was dedicated to understanding God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but at the same time, He continues to make all things new. The biblical understanding of changes underlies all “conscious change” in the life of the local church, and that which can never change regardless of times. The meeting participants actively participated in the discussion of the questions presented to them at the time of the seminars.
The next day, the second seminar talked about: “Forms and Functions of the Church. Principles of Approaches to Church Forms”. This was a continuation of what was said on Friday, but in the context of the implementing biblical truths in the life of the local church. The issues of function and various forms are important for the local churches, and without a proper understanding of this leads to false understanding and practice which sometimes is contrary to biblical teaching.
After a small break and a short business meeting which was led by PCSBA’s president, Ivan Mileyev, the last seminar of Dr. Valentin Siniy was, “How to Properly Exercise Christian Freedom. All of the seminars focused on the practical life of sanctification in the 21st century which is sometimes hard to find answers to in the Bible. Apostle Paul was faced with a question, “Can you eat meat sacrificed to idols, or just vegetables, celebrate special days, or not, etc.” He did not give concrete answers to these questions. We need to be able to rely on the Biblical teaching to identify forms and functions of the church, and to skillfully identify to which category a given topic belongs to…If you are interested in these topics, you can watch the seminar recordings in our video channel.
Special thanks to the pastor of First Slavic Baptist Church in Sacramento, Vladimir Vasilenko and the church team which was involved in preparing the food, as well as the media team, and many others. At the end of the meeting, Valentin Siniy shared about the situation of war in Ukraine, as well as the history and continuing the ministry of Tavrich Christian Institute at the present time. He shared about the power of God at work, and how He aids the Evangelical churches of Ukraine despite all the wars and challenges that the residents of this suffering country are enduring.
PCSBA’s president, Ivan Mileyev
Links to the seminar recordings:
- “Understanding the times. Biblical Stance about Changes” (Part 1 and Part 2),
- “Forms and Functions in the Church. Principles of addressing Church Forms”
- “How to Properly Exercise Christian Freedom”
