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Equipping the Saints, Advancing the Gospel
A historic meeting took place in London on 27th July 1950 when the decision was taken to form the UK arm of the Slavic Gospel Association. It did not ‘grab’ any headlines at that time, but by the grace of God the intervening 75 years have witnessed the growth and development of the Mission so that today tens of thousands of people can testify to SGA(UK)’s life-changing witness to Christ and His saving power.
As the small beleaguered evangelical churches of Eastern Europe emerged from under the shackles of atheistic Communism, they had many critical needs. One cry was uppermost – the need for trained church leaders for the thousands of churches which had none. Providentially SGA was in a position to address this, since leadership training had been carried on secretly in Romania in the 1980s. With the demise of Communism this was then openly developed into a planned curriculum of sound Biblical teaching, and so SGA’s Biblical Leadership Training was launched.
From Secret Training to Strategic Mission Schools
The value and effectiveness of this Gospel-focused ministry was soon more widely recognised, and the training ‘exported’ to a number of other countries with great benefit to the evangelical cause. Regular Mission Schools were organized. Students, potential leaders, would travel and congregate for a weekend or more of intensive training. SGA teachers travelled to teach and mentor students, many of whom were helped financially with travel and accommodation costs. That Mission School pattern has continued, but more recently, for positive and encouraging reasons, has become less ‘traditional’.
Today the range of delivery methods is greatly expanded. Mission Schools are still organized over weekends, or in the case of Balti, Moldova, two-week intensive teaching blocs, which students are able to attend with financial assistance supplied by SGA. Some of these sessions now operate without the regular presence of an SGA teacher, because there are local teachers available, well qualified to undertake the training of their students for the ministry. While the Mission continues to monitor the teaching in all the schools, there is a recognition that in many countries the evangelical churches have ‘grown up’, and with the prayerful and practical support of SGA, are well equipped to train their own future leaders.
Long-Term Partnerships Bearing Fruit
This is discernible today in an exciting development which has its roots in a 30-year-old partnership between SGA and Almaty Bible Institute in Kazakhstan. Links were forged at that time and SGA teachers travelled to Almaty and ‘fed into’ the teaching programme already in place, supplying help in subjects and training areas for which no local teacher was available. Financial help was also offered to students to make it possible to ‘take time out’ from their employment to engage in their studies, and a commitment was made to support the Institute itself. That investment has been the means in God’s hands of incalculable blessing to the cause of the Gospel in the whole of Central Asia, for many students from the other Central Asian countries are among the Almaty student body.
Today SGA(UK) supports and invests in the training programmes of a number of strategic institutions which offer solid, faithful, Biblical teaching and training to students in several countries and regions. Emanuel University emerged out of the ‘School of the Prophets’ set up in Oradea after the Communist era, and SGA still invests in the invaluable training of pastors and Christian workers which takes place there. In the war-stricken land of Ukraine, the Odessa Seminary continues to train evangelists, church planters and pastors for the ongoing and often thriving work of the Gospel. Who would have thought of Siberia as a location for the training of Gospel workers? Yet, quite recently, through links with the Almaty Bible Institute, SGA has become partnered with the Western Siberian Bible College, located in Omsk. Students from across Russia are enrolled in a five-year course in Christian Leadership. Eighty students are currently enrolled, with others waiting to commence their training.
Expanding Methods, Unchanging Mission
SGA has seen the need for flexibility in presenting opportunities for leadership training. Teaching and training by correspondence has been the only means for some in Central Asia to be trained, and so SGA supports the Independent Bible Correspondence Course (IBCS) which has students in all five republics, providing training for hundreds of Christian workers. Perhaps the most surprising development has been in the land of Mongolia, where the Mission is investing in a ‘Preachers’ School’ under the direction of an SGA-sponsored missionary, Oleg Sinyakov. Twenty-five students are enrolled, and Oleg and his fellow workers are prayerfully seeking ways to further develop this training opportunity, so that more regions of that land might be reached with the Good News.
The purpose of it all?
To take the good news of Christ and His gift of salvation to as many as God will enable us. The focus is the Gospel. The means is the training of Gospel-bearing workers. The goal is the glory of the Saviour through the salvation of the lost.