2.27.2013

Three Baptisms

On our Church profile on Facebook you can see the pictures from joyful event which we had last Sunday: three baptisms and membership Magda's household. If you don't have account on Facebook, please click HERE.








2.20.2013

A visit to the hospital

One of men which found us thanks to evangelism with Chorale Gaudete – CREC choir – has been in psychiatric hospital with depression for 2 months. When I visited him two ladies (65 and 35) joined us in discussion and asked a lot of question about our beliefs, the church. During the next visit they invited 2-3 more people and we discussed in a small group in one of their rooms. I am conscious of their emotional problems but they are not disabled people, I would say that their problem is also spiritual and they are spiritual hungry people.

 I visit them twice a week, we talk about their challenges, problems, they promised me to visit our church after leaving but the biggest encouragement is praying with these people at the end of every visit. During the first prayer they asked me how to pray? They heard my prayer and then every person said: Maybe I could try. Now it’s your turn. One of them prayed: “Father, I ask you that I can leave this place so I could do a lot of funny but good things and that I can bring chocolate and cigarettes for my friends here”.

:-)

2.19.2013

2.18.2013

Short Summary of 2012

Last year we had a lot of opportunities for preaching the Gospel, fellowship, witnessing by showing far reaching and practical ramification of the Gospel. The Church is growing slowly but is growing.

Poland is still a very difficult mission field for two reasons:
-         impact of secularism from Western Europe
-         still a strong position of the Roman Catholic Church (95% of Polish people are Catholics)

Summary of 2012

We are grateful to the Lord Jesus for everything which we experienced. Among the many challenges I would like to share with you most important events of last year:

- We continued to homeschool  3 our children (Zuzia 9, Janek 7, Maja 5 years old)
- We changed a few things in our liturgy: lifting up hands during singing Gloria Parti and Lord’s Prayer, singing Doxology after Benediction, three readings instead of two, recitation 1-2 questions and answers from Heidelberg Catechism after Apostle’s (or Nicene) Creed, new melody of singing Psalms in responsive way
- We held regular meetings in Coffee Shops titled “Worldviews among us” (we had a lot of discussions after each presentation)
- Open concerts of our Christian music band
- We held regular open lectures on Reformation and Five Solas at the University of Gdansk
- Summer evangelism at the Old Town where we had our church’s stand ("sketchboard", two tables with free literature, invitations and opportunity for a lot of conversations with people)
- Family Camp in May in the mountains
- Creationism vs Evolutionism Conference (“What Darvin didn’t know?”) with British scientist Andy McIntosh. We had over 80 people attend (besides the people from our church).
- I was involved in an internet public polemic about childrearing with a famous Polish TV star (the program is called: Supernanny). There were almost 600 comments and survey where 65% of people supported necessity of physical discipline (in some situations)
- I wrote an article about homeschooling to a nation wide Polish magazine
- As family we also participate in Royal Rangers ministry. My wife is one of the leaders in Gdansk.
- I was a speaker at the conference for fathers at the Pentecostal Church.
-My blog ministry is bringing a lot of fruit. I have an average of 150 daily readers. It seems that it became one of the more influential “arms” of sharing biblical (reformed) view on reality.

2.16.2013

Public polemic with TV Supernanny


One of the famous Polish TV Show Star: “Supernanny” – Dorota Zawadzka criticized on her Facebook profile an article by  Doug Wilson about spanking which had been published on the website of our quaterly magazine “Reformacja w Polsce” and our church website (translation from Credenda Agenda). I wrote a response to that on my blog. 

The most popular web-service in Gdansk, Sopot, Gdynia (3 cities close to themselfes) published an article on their main page about the debate of “TV supernany and pasor from Gdansk”. I was surprised that most of 520 commentaries supported my view on discipline and childrearing. Alost 1600 people voted in the survey under the articles. 67% of them agreed with biblical view on spanking. Amazing.

I think it was very profitable thing because a lot of people in Poland are afraid to say what they think because of government legislation that’s been issued some months ago which defines spanking as a civil crime (violence). Thanks God it is not illegal to share publicly different worldview than Polish government. This is why that discussion was very important and necessary. 

Here is the link to that article.

Lent CREC Devotions 2013

Uri Brito informs at his blog that through the labors of Pastor Steve Hemmeke, the CREC is making available a Lenten Devotional for personal and family use. The PDF version can be found here: Lent CREC Devotions 2013 

Among contributors you can find Steve Wilkins, Todd Davis, Duane Garner, Randy Booth, Brian L. Penney, Ben House, Gregg Strawbridge.

I also wrote one of the devotionals.

 Each devotional ends with an application and/or prayer, which is often on the following page, after the name of the author. There are three devotionals for each week, and six for holy week.