Moldova – Pastors’ Conference – February 21, 2016

Report on CSI Pastor’s Conference,

Glodeni zone, North of Moldova,

21 february 2016

The day of February 21, 2016 was a blessed day for CSI Moldova and the Churches of Glodeni zone up North of Moldova. Bishop Legcun invited CSI to make a presentation of the CSI strategy in each of the 12 zones which he runs up in the North of Moldova. Such meetings are usually organized by Bishop Legcun, once in half a year for each separate zone. So the first Pastors meeting of this year was a CSI Conference, organized for the pastors of the Glodeni zone which took place in the Village of Kuhnesti, just at the border with Romania.

The CSI team was welcomed by the Pastor of Kuhnesti Baptist Church and the 25 Pastors, representing the Baptist churches of Glodeni zone. Peter Legcun is a great strategist, he made an introduction about the Great Commission and the need of teaching the Baptists how to evangelize the people who surround them – their families and friends which is CSI main objective.

This time CSI team included a volunteer, Mihail Gorbani, who accepted the invitation of Peter Legcun, the Bishop of North Baptist Union of Moldova to teach a lesson from “Is God calling me” as a model of the interactive method of teaching used by CSI in teaching the world the Word of God. Mihail has done a great job, since he has been working with CSI materials for many years. He encouraged the pastors to teach their churches how to use the materials and help their churches grow spiritually.

The pastors really liked the discussion of the questions from lesson 2, entitled “Investing oneself”. They have been stirred up by the theme about the talents, which was discussed with much zeal and a lot of opinions have been shared. The final questions about the readers’ personal experience and self evaluation were welcomed by the pastors. They considered the final questions very important for the participants, be they Christians or not. This lesson was a great example for them that it is an easy method which can be used by every Christian, young or elderly.

Stella Gorbani, CSI coordinator and interpreter explained the CSI strategy and introduced the variety of materials which can be used in personal evangelism.

Bishop Legcun was happy that Moldovan pastors could not only see how somebody is teaching the lesson using the interactive method but could participate in the training. He believes that now the pastors will change their ways of teaching the church and a new stage in the development of the personal evangelism will start with the help of the CSI materials.

One of the Pastor said that he did use the John’s studies and the studies from Acts in the past after the CSI conference in 2000. He said that it was during that time when his church grew most of all in numbers. He witnessed that people from the world could easily understand the Bible truths and accepted Christ.

Stella has made a review of the CSI materials and they had been offered 3 portfolios with CSI materials:

Folder 1 included the book Is God calling me in 2 languages, each lesson being presented in 5 copies. We have invited them to teach it first in church, for the church to learn the method of teaching. After this course the Christians are supposed to go into the world with the evangelical materials of CSI.

Folder 2- the evangelistic folder included three works each in 2 languages: “People who knew Jesus”, “Faith Power”, God’s Eternity Quiz, in 3 copies each. One of the pastors said that these are valuable materials, because they contain the Bible verses and the questions which will help people see that it is not the people who challenge them to believe in Christ or accept Him, but the truths come from the Bible. He added that this might motivate people read the Bible.

Folder 3 comprised the children’s materials from Stories for all ages: NT -1 series, lessons 1-7. Each got a folder with 7 lessons, each in 5 copies, in 2 languages- Romanian or Russian which came with the English variant of the text on one side and the picture with the Bible verse in 2 languages on the other side. Now CSI plans to print the children’s materials differently by putting the same lesson in 2 languages used in Moldova on one page, which will save funds and be easier in use.

The pastors asked many questions: about the ages for which these materials are good for, about how often they must be taught. They received with much enthusiasm the news that most of CSI materials are translated into Russian and Romanian and that they will be soon displayed on the Internet.

As a whole the Seminar took place in a very creative atmosphere. Many Pastors were interested in using CSI materials for helping the church return to the fulfilment of the Great Commission which as they have said became mainly the duty of Pastors and other laymen.

Its time to return our churches to the original plan for Church, to help it go into the world with the Word of God!