On February 9, Grace Avenue Church hosted a meeting of PCSBA’s churches head pastors. The wives of pastors were also invited to this meeting, as well as the members of the Association’s committee. After a unified prayer and a word of exhortation given by the vice-president of the PCSBA Gennady Gavelovskiy, the women continued their fellowship in a different location where Vera Ivanovna Orlova who is a guest from Russia was one of the speakers.
The main goal of the pastors meeting was to discuss and approve the program of churches development in 2019. After discussion and voting, the following suggestions were approved:
- Organization and development of small groups in churches (goal: to attract 25% of all of the members by the end of the year). Special attention must be given to the establishment of small groups for young families with small children.
- Training of enough leaders for small groups keeping in mind that one small group should not exceed 15 people. The number of leaders dependents on the number of people who are a part of the small groups.
- Training and recommendation of those who are called by God to ministry for the role of spiritual leaders for the age group of 30-40-year old. One potential minister would potentially oversee 150 members. A healthy church is a place where new ministers are born, trained, and supported.
- Every head pastor is to become a mentor to one of the younger potential church ministers (for example – youth leader).
- Identify one candidate for training in the seminary (considering the support of the church-association-student ---- 50%-30%-20%.) The candidate must be multi-cultural and able to speak in two languages.
Even though all of the churches are independent in their spiritual development, the role of the Association is to help churches to be more goal oriented in accomplishing the Association’s vision of “Proclamation of the Gospel, in making disciples of Jesus Christ, in training them to accomplish the Great Commission, and sending them to ministry both in the local as well as the global ministry”. At the end of the year when there will be an evaluation of the churches’ ministry, it will be possible to identify how achievable were these goals as well as to thank God for specific results of mutual ministry.
During the meeting, there were considerations of some current issues such as the planning of the next PCSBA’s convention as well as hosting an International Slavic Missionary Congress in 2020. In addition, during the program, the Association’s vice-president Vasiliy Stupin gave a word of exhortation and a guest from Russia –Mikhail Orlov also participated in it.
In the conclusion of this event there was a delicious dinner prepared by the women of the local church. Each pastor also introduced his wife and briefly shared about his family and ministry. There was a suggestion to share unusual stories from their ministry which turned into a very interesting fellowship, so much that we did not notice how fast the time flew by. This was a great time of getting to know each other.
I am always full of gratitude to God for the families of minsters who along with their wives minister in the Association’s churches. God especially blessed us with dedicated, sacrificial families of those who have spiritual responsibility for the spiritual development of the Association’s churches.
We are especially grateful to Grace Avenue Church’ pastor Vladimir Ivanovich Troshin who along with his wonderful team was able to organize such a special event in the life of PCSBA’s churches.
Ivan Mileyev
Please click on the first slide to see photos in a bigger size
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