Evangelism & Mission

Guest preacher Vitalik Tkach, a pastor from Cleveland who came to the U.S. from Rivne, Ukraine, opens with David and Saul. Why did young David face Goliath without fear while seasoned King Saul trembled? The difference comes down to one word - anointing. The Spirit of God had come upon David and departed from Saul. Drawing on Luke 4:16-22, where Jesus reads Isaiah's words "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me," the sermon explains that in the Old Testament only chosen prophets, priests, and kings were anointed. Since Pentecost, however, the anointing of the Holy Spirit belongs to every believer, not to a special class of celebrity "anointed ones." And it is given not for emotional experiences but for calling - God anoints us to carry out his mission as a parent, a worker, or a neighbor, right where we are. Finally, like Saul we can forfeit the anointing through disobedience, and like Jesus at Nazareth we may be dismissed because of our past. The call is to remain in the anointing, refuse to live on yesterday's victories, and ask God for fresh oil every single day.

The evening opened with Elijah at Horeb (1 Kings 19), where God asked, "What are you doing here?" The preacher pressed every heart to examine its true motive for coming to the house of God: not to socialize or merely hear the singing, but to meet Jesus himself, who promised to be present wherever two or three gather in his name. He recalled how, at his conversion in 1979 at age 23, one name alone drew him - Jesus Christ - and reminded the church that a right motive changes the way we sing, pray, and live. The main message walked through the book of Job under the theme "Where is your happiness hidden?" Job was blameless, God-fearing, and immensely wealthy, yet he rose early to pray for his children and stayed faithful "all his days." When Satan stripped away his wealth and his children in a single day, Job worshiped: "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Never knowing of the unseen contest in heaven, he endured, argued honestly with God, repented when God spoke from the whirlwind, and was finally restored double. James points to Job as proof that the Lord is full of compassion. A visiting pastor from the Rivne region of Ukraine then testified about serving through the war - cutting and shipping firewood, food, and clothing to the east and south, and visiting war widows with the gospel. From the woman who anointed Jesus ("she did what she could") to the parable of the faithful servant, he urged the church to labor now, while it is still the day of salvation, and not to be held back by critics or fear.

Brother Nazar shared a testimony about the gift God gives every believer, a gift that too often simply sits and gathers dust. He grew up in a Christian home yet had no living walk with God until he stopped finding excuses to avoid time with Him. In obedience he sold his large dream home and moved into a tiny house during COVID, and it was then that God gave him repeated dreams of inmates reading a discipleship book. Through many closed doors that vision became a real prison ministry: prisoners gave their hearts to Christ, started their own Bible studies, and the gospel book was eventually approved on every inmate's tablet. When one door closed and he was not approved, God opened another at a juvenile detention center. Brother Mykola from Ukraine opened the letter of James: every good gift comes down from the Father of lights, and pure, undefiled religion is to care for orphans and widows and to keep oneself unstained from the world. In a world lying in evil and gripped by war, mercy is what shows people that God is real and that He cares. He told of a 12-year-old boy gathering and selling mushrooms to buy bread, and a worn-out grandmother raising four orphaned children alone; simple acts of compassion opened that family's eyes to Christ, and now they come to church. From Luke 7, the raising of the widow's son at Nain and John the Baptist's question, the call is clear: do not look to earthly kings to mend the world, but to Jesus, who heals, raises the dead, and preaches good news to the poor. Be holy and bold as a lion, and let your gift and your mercy carry the light of Christ into the darkest places, the prisons, the lonely, and the families wounded by war.

Drawing on Romans 15:16, this seminar reframes preaching not as a casual stage moment but as a sacred, priestly act before God. Finishing his letter to the Romans, Paul sets aside his titles - apostle, prophet - and simply calls himself one who proclaims the gospel, using a Greek word rooted in temple service. To carry God's word to people is a high privilege: God Himself regards the preacher as someone doing holy work, which is why it can never be done carelessly or unprepared. With that privilege comes responsibility. Paul warned (2 Corinthians 2:17) that even in his day many corrupted the word of God. The servant of the word must deliver Scripture unchanged - explaining it, applying it, speaking firmly where God speaks firmly, never softening the truth to please listeners or apologizing for what God has said. The speaker contrasts this faithful proclamation with the modern drift toward motivational speakers who only flatter. The heart of the message is a call to serve God rather than to please people. Do your ministry knowing whom you serve (Colossians 3:23-24) and looking for your reward from the Lord alone (2 Timothy 4:8), not from applause, likes, or recognition. Real devotion shows in the unseen work of prayer and preparation done when no one is watching, and it always pushes a person to do more than duty requires.

This Sunday gathering was a missionary service. The leaders read from Acts 14 and Romans 15, recalling how the apostles returned to report what God had done and gave Him alone the glory. The church celebrated the missions it supports: a Bible school that has trained workers for 170 Ukrainian churches across Europe, missionaries in Indonesia, a radio ministry, and a once depressed student whose life was transformed when she began reading a single verse of Scripture each day. Sister Vera, visiting from Dnipro, testified from 1 John 5 that whoever is born of God overcomes the world through faith. She described the war in Ukraine - the blackouts, cold and fear - and how people perish not from hardship but from lost hope. Jesus, the same yesterday, today and forever, is our unshakable hope, and the Spirit, the water and the blood witness together that we can rise and overcome by confessing Him aloud. The main message unfolded the power of the blood of Christ, tracing how it flows from His head, hands, side, feet and back to give us peace, authority, forgiveness, a gospel to carry and healing. Through Scripture and vivid stories, the preacher urged believers to rest in Christ's finished work and to carry their testimony into every place they go.

This communion service opened with a call to humility from James 4:10 and the assurance of Romans 8 that if God is for us, no one can stand against us. Christ died for us and now intercedes for us, so even when we fall we should never let go of our faith. The guest preacher, Pastor Choko of Chicago who now leads missions for his fellowship, shared his testimony. By the world's measure he was a negative statistic, a boy who failed third grade and was abandoned by his father, yet God used him just as He once used Gideon. From Hebrews 11:30-31 and the story of Rahab he showed that God deliberately chooses unlikely, imperfect people who live by faith rather than fear. The centurion and the widow with her two coins both teach us to trust God more than our circumstances or our money. Rahab had only seconds to choose the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the scarlet cord in her window pointed to the blood of Jesus and saved her whole household, placing her in the very lineage of Christ. The challenge was plain: make that choice yourself, serve the Lord, and your family will follow. The gathering closed at the Lord's Table, remembering His broken body and shed blood until He comes.

The service opened with Joel 2:23 - just as the rain gives life to the ground, God's people gather to be fed and to receive the latter rain of the Holy Spirit. The first message, on the atmosphere and fragrance of God's kingdom, was drawn from 2 Corinthians 2:14-16: believers are the aroma of Christ wherever they go. God's kingdom is not found in golden domes, good equipment, or strong emotion, but inside a humble heart where the Holy Spirit dwells. We are saved not merely to reach heaven, but to bear fruit and carry that atmosphere into our families, workplaces, and the world, shining as lights in a corrupt generation. A practical warning followed: the fragrance of Christ can evaporate before we even reach home, the moment an offense or a sharp word takes over. Bad company corrupts good habits, so we must watch carefully what we absorb and what we give out, being transformed from glory to glory into the likeness of Christ. The second message, from Romans 12:1, called the church to present their bodies as a living sacrifice - living (giving God our whole life today, not only in some future crisis), holy (a clean vessel set apart from sin), and acceptable to God (anointed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, like the oil poured on the Old Testament offerings). The congregation was invited to respond, Here am I, Lord, send me, and to consecrate their lives afresh.

The service opens by lifting up Jesus and reading John 16:13, where the Spirit of truth guides believers into all truth, speaks what he hears from Christ, and announces the things to come. The leader reminds the congregation that the Holy Spirit is a Person, God himself, who comforts us, corrects us, and lights the way through life's hardest decisions, so we must never grieve him but keep close fellowship with him. In this Pentecost season the main message centers on a deep longing to see believers baptized and filled with the Spirit and praying often in tongues. Drawing on Mark 16, Acts 2, and Joel's prophecy, the preacher shows that God pours out his Spirit on thirsty hearts - on those who desire him so deeply they feel they cannot live without him. He never forces anyone; the gift comes to the one who runs to seek it. Praying in the Spirit, he explains, is friendship and fellowship with God. When the mind grows quiet, the Spirit brings Scripture to remembrance, gives boldness, and lets us proclaim the great works of God even when we do not understand the words. Through 1 Corinthians 14 he urges the church to intercede in tongues, because the Spirit knows whom to bless and what to pray, so even those who cannot go to the mission field can still labor in God's vineyard through prayer.

On Pentecost the church celebrates its birthday - the day the Holy Spirit was poured out, just as Joel prophesied and Peter declared in Acts 2. The wind and fire that filled the upper room are signs of God's presence, the same presence that once led Israel through the wilderness and filled the temple. But the preachers stress a new reality: God no longer dwells only with us - His Spirit now lives inside us. At Sinai the law was given and three thousand fell; at Pentecost the Spirit came and three thousand were saved. The law worked from the outside, but the Spirit works from within, transforming hearts and pointing every one of us to Christ. Believers become living letters written by the Spirit of the living God, and a Spirit-filled life looks so different that others begin to ask what we have. Guest preacher Pastor Thomas adds that the Spirit was poured out for one great purpose: to reach people with the gospel, illustrated by his young daughter who held an elevator door with her foot and led a whole family to Christ in thirty seconds. Just as Jesus entered the world the lawful way, through birth, we enter God's kingdom only by being born again. To receive the Spirit we must be washed by Christ's blood and truly thirst for Him, for only then can we walk in the love that is the fruit of the Spirit.

This midweek service opened with a reminder that God is searching for faith. The centurion in Matthew 8 amazed Jesus with faith greater than any found in Israel, simply trusting His word, while the crowds who had heard the Sermon on the Mount remained unmoved. Without faith it is impossible to please God. The main message followed the prophet Jonah. Called to preach to cruel Nineveh, the capital of Israel's enemy, Jonah fled toward Tarshish in the opposite direction. Through the storm and three days in the great fish, God did not destroy him but turned him back and gave him a second chance, and a whole godless city repented. Like Jonah, we often hide from God's will, slipping into comfort, indifference, or earthly concerns, yet God patiently corrects us in love, because obedience is better than sacrifice and always leads to blessing. A second word centered on the Holy Spirit, promised through Joel and poured out at Pentecost. The Spirit gives power to witness and leads us into truth, and like a marriage this gift must be tended daily through prayer and fellowship so we can make wise choices amid a noisy world. The service closed with a call to go outside the camp bearing Christ's reproach, living as pilgrims who seek the city whose builder is God, and with prayers for a missionary children's home in Ukraine.

Brother Yaroslav shares the work of the House of Mercy ministry - baking bread, feeding the hungry, preaching the gospel in front-line areas, giving haircuts to the war-wounded in hospitals, and settling rescued people into missionary communities. He explains why he gives his life to this: twenty-two years ago God lifted him out of alcohol and drug addiction. He nearly died several times, and as he lay dying of tuberculosis he heard God say, "You will not die, but be healed." From Genesis 1:26 he teaches that we were made in God's image to reflect His love in everyday life. Quoting Romans 14:17, he says the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and we serve God simply by living a visible, godly life that spreads that peace to others. You can call yourself a Christian and still fail to reflect Christ, so he urges believers never to stay silent about God. A second preacher contrasts Saul and David. Saul disobeyed, made compromises, lost his sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, grew proud, blamed others and guarded only his image before people - so when giants came, he had no one to fight them. David stayed humble, repented on his knees, refused Saul's armor and faced Goliath in the name of the Lord. The call is clear: be like David, not Saul, and let people see real faith in how you reflect God.

The midweek service opens by lifting an ailing pastor before God and turning to Revelation 22:20, where Jesus says, I am coming quickly. With Palm Sunday near, the leaders recall the crowds who welcomed Christ into Jerusalem and ask how we respond today to the news that He is returning in great glory. As His waiting bride, do we truly long for that meeting? The main teaching from John 15:7-8 calls believers to abide in Christ as branches in the vine. To abide is to remain in His word, to live in daily dependence on His grace, to obey His commands and stay in His love, keeping our hearts pure and yielding to the Holy Spirit. Drawing on Romans 11 and James 4, the preacher warns that pride wants to live independently of God, while the humble keep drawing life from the true Vine. Two stories show how sensitivity to the Spirit shapes our biggest decisions. A visiting missionary, who served decades abroad and now sends aid to war-torn Ukraine, closes with Matthew 14 and the words, You give them something to eat. Across five points he urges the church to see human need, accept our part in God's rescue, stop fixating on our lack, bring our small loaves and fish to Jesus, and watch Him multiply them. Only disciples bear fruit, and no fruit pleases heaven more than one soul brought to salvation.

The service opened with thanksgiving and worship, prayers over the children from Psalm 8, and a reading of Psalm 67. Pastor Nikolay then preached from 1 Peter 5:6-7, "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God," weaving in the story of Israel's seventy-year captivity in Babylon. While the false prophet Hananiah promised an easy two years, God had decreed seventy, reminding us that deliverance comes in God's time, not ours. The pastor taught that God controls everything, both the good and the hard, and uses our trials to remove the pride and self we were born with. Sharing how he once discovered he could not truly forgive, he urged the church to stop pitying themselves, lift their eyes to heaven, and praise God in the storm, following Christ who suffered without retaliating and entrusted Himself to the righteous Judge (1 Peter 2:21-23). A closing message and a mother's testimony of her daughter's healing carried the theme further. Like the broken alabaster jar that filled Simon the leper's house with fragrance (Mark 14:3; John 12:3), believers once cast aside like lepers are now the aroma of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14). Carrying this treasure in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7), we are called to proclaim His victory everywhere, even through suffering.

This missionary Sunday opened with a call to wholehearted worship and a reminder from Acts that the Great Commission begins at home before it spreads through the church and our city. The congregation heard testimonies from a team that served Haitian immigrant communities in the Dominican Republic, and from Christian Road of Life, a Ukrainian ministry carrying aid and the gospel into frontline villages. Every report shared one heartbeat - gratitude. Believers living in deep poverty, and people enduring war, still praised God with joy and clung to Him, convicting comfortable Christians who take their blessings for granted. As Paul said, one sows and another waters, but God brings the harvest, so we keep serving even when the result is not yet visible. The pastor's prepared notes were lost from his computer, so he preached straight from his Bible on John 15:16. We did not choose Christ - He chose us, yet never apart from our free will. A believer simply believes; a disciple has a Teacher and is sent to go and bear fruit that lasts. Unlike a single deed, fruit needs time, patience, and love to ripen; bitter fruit gets spit out, but good fruit remains and draws others to Christ.

The service opened with 2 Peter 1, where Scripture is a lamp shining in a dark place. The first preacher turned to John 9 and the man born blind. Jesus' disciples assumed someone had sinned, echoing Job's friends (Job 8:20), but the Lord answered that the man was born blind so that the works of God could be revealed in him. Pointing to the blind tenor Andrea Bocelli and to Nick Vujicic, born without arms or legs, the preacher said God uses people whatever their 'packaging' and turns our weakness into his strength. He shared how he once left university for army service as a step of faith, and there led others to Christ. Visiting missionaries Yurek and Rita, originally from Poland and now serving in Brazil, spoke on our identity in Christ and the free gift of righteousness, peace, and joy that no money can buy (Isaiah 55). Yurek told of tasting the kingdom of God at age ten, and Rita of being an empty cathedral organist who finally found assurance of salvation while reading John 10. From Deuteronomy 28 the missionaries warned that we lose God's blessing when we stop thanking him in times of plenty. They told of 102-year-old Ema, who was given 27 more years of life after she learned to give thanks to God in everything, and of fruitful mission work among Polish settlers in Brazil and elderly Jews in Argentina.

This midweek service fell during a week of fasting and opened with a call to sanctification from Psalm 73. The pastor reminded the church that God is good to the pure in heart and that the Holy Spirit quietly convicts, guides, and comforts us even when no one else can see. Our deepest desire, like Asaph's, should be God Himself: whom have I in heaven but You, and with You I want nothing on earth. A second message urged believers to number their days, echoing Moses' prayer, and to stay faithful to gathering with God's people. Using Ruth and Orpah, the preacher showed how Orpah turned back partway while Ruth pressed on into blessing, and pointed to Genesis 17:1 and Ephesians 1:4: God chose us before the foundation of the world to walk before Him holy and blameless. From Abraham to Anna the prophetess, a long line of faithful saints proves that anyone who truly wants to serve God will be helped by Him. Missionaries Waldemar and Heidi then shared. Heidi told how, though raised in church, she met the living Jesus only after marrying and moving to Mosul, when an American believer told her she needed Christ in her heart; she repented in tears and went on to serve as a missionary in India. Waldemar preached Luke 15 - the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son - reminding everyone that Jesus receives sinners and leaves the ninety-nine to seek the one. The service closed with a call to come home, prayer for persecuted believers including an imprisoned pastor, and prayer for healing.

The first message taught magnanimity - a large heart - from the life of David, who showed nobility, forgiveness, and generosity. He held back from avenging Nabal when Abigail stepped in, twice spared the Saul who hunted him, refused to silence Shimei who cursed him, and even mourned the death of his enemy and of his rebel son. To be great-hearted is to refuse revenge, to guard ourselves from wrong emotions and ambitions, and to treat others as Christ did on the cross when he prayed, "Father, forgive them." Whoever claims to abide in Christ should walk as he walked - in our homes, at work, and in church. David's generosity pointed to Christ. He fed everyone when the ark came, gave from his own treasure for the temple, and poured out before the Lord the water three mighty men had risked their lives to bring. As Jesus was poured out like water for every sinner, we are to pour out love, mercy, kindness, and generosity on one another, doing everything as unto the Lord. The second message asked, "What are you investing in?" Earthly houses and wealth burn, but an investment in God's Kingdom never fails. Like Rahab, who believed the living God and was saved with her whole family and entered David's lineage, we are called to serve with the gifts God gave us. To sit saved and do nothing is a loss. The service closed with the two blind men at Jericho: cry out to Jesus in faith, ask according to his will, and trust that he will answer.

This first session of a preaching seminar focuses on the thematic sermon. The teacher warns against the most common mistake - pulling a verse out of its surroundings, like uprooting a plant and replanting it where it cannot grow, and then wondering why God's Word seems powerless in people's lives. Drawing on the second chapter of 1 Corinthians, he reminds us that the gospel - that God would unite all nations in Christ and come to earth Himself - is something no human mind could ever invent; it is revealed to us only by the Holy Spirit. He offers practical tools: topical concordances and Bible guides that gather rightly studied texts by idea rather than by isolated words. A sermon must move, he says, not run flat like the pulse of a dead man. Build it from the known to the unknown and from the simple to the complex, in a clear order. Lead people from problem to diagnosis to cure - speak first about the people, then about the text, then back to the people with something they can actually do tomorrow on the job site, behind the wheel, or at college. Above all, every sermon must show the way out. Like the green EXIT signs hung in dark theaters for those who feared closed rooms, the preacher must let people turn their heads and see the door. No matter what sin or trouble is raised, the ending must be bright and full of grace: sin was defeated by Christ, who died for it. He points to the steps of salvation - hear, believe, repent, confess, and be baptized - and closes with the heart of it all: a sermon is not information, it is transformation.

Starting from the Roman centurion, the preacher shows a man who understood authority. Because he commanded soldiers, he knew Jesus did not need to travel anywhere - one word from the King would be enough, and in that very hour the servant was healed. That is what great faith looks like: trusting the King to act simply by speaking. The message then turns to us. The Kingdom of Heaven is wherever God's presence is, and through the Holy Spirit that kingdom now lives inside every believer. So we carry it everywhere we go. Paul calls himself an ambassador for Christ, sent into a foreign nation to deliver one message on behalf of his King, clothed with the King's full authority. Like the lone messenger in Job who always survived to bring word back, a true messenger is protected - to strike the messenger is to strike the King. The preacher challenges us to be faithful ambassadors who actually deliver the message instead of getting distracted by the comforts of this world, because a faithful ambassador brings healing to a broken earth.

The sermon opens with wonder at the miracles of Jesus recorded in the Gospels - healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, commanding the elements of nature, and feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish. The Gospels describe dozens of such signs, yet John reminds us that the whole world could not contain the books needed to record everything Jesus did. These miracles were given to strengthen faith and to glorify God. Turning to Luke 10, the preacher recalls how the seventy disciples returned overjoyed that even demons submitted to them in Jesus' name. The Lord confirmed their authority over the enemy but raised the bar higher: do not rejoice that the spirits obey you, but that your names are written in heaven. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself rejoiced that the Father had revealed His kingdom to simple, childlike hearts, calling blessed the eyes that see what prophets and kings longed to see. The same promises belong to us. Christ still sends His people to proclaim the Gospel and still works miracles, especially on the front lines of the battle for souls. The greatest miracle of all is when one person comes to the Lord and their name is written in heaven, where the angels rejoice over every sinner who repents. We are called to receive this by faith, to rejoice, and to actively share salvation. The closing reminder is plain: faith, trust, and patience come before the miracle, and only when we truly rely on God do we see Him act.

This missionary Sunday service was built around the words of Jesus in Luke 10 and Matthew 9: the harvest is great, but the workers are few. The preacher reminded the church that Christ chose seventy disciples and sent them out two by two, not wherever they pleased, but to the places He Himself intended to go. The least we can do is pray for the Lord to send laborers; the most is to become those laborers ourselves. Through the stories of Saul on the road to Damascus and Jonah fleeing Nineveh, the message showed how God often sends us toward the very people our own hearts resist. Paul longed to reach his own nation first, yet the Lord made him an apostle to the Gentiles - the rejected, the broken, those once called not a people. True servants learn to pray, not my will but Yours be done, neither running ahead of God nor lagging behind Him. The service overflowed with testimonies of God already at work: street evangelism in New Jersey where hundreds came to Christ and the sick were healed, a mission school training young Ukrainians, and missionaries serving in the Dominican Republic, Thailand, and across Europe. The invitation was clear: God still calls ordinary people, fills them with the Holy Spirit, and asks only that we be willing to go.

The preacher begins by facing the injustice of our world. Even in free countries the people at the top, when they do not know God, look out for themselves first. But we have Jesus, who judges justly and with mercy. From there comes the theme of the night: give them Jesus. The one thing that saves and truly changes a person is Christ Himself, never religion. Jesus refused to bless the empty traditions of the religious leaders and rebuked them for setting aside God's Word to keep their customs. The same pattern repeats through history: revival after revival (Wesley, Moody, Azusa Street, the Pentecostal and charismatic movements) began alive in the Spirit, then slowly hardened into rules and died, because the church fixed its eyes on its own forms instead of on Christ. Our debates over worship styles, hymns or modern songs, drums, Sunday school - these are only forms, law without life. Mother Teresa, asked the secret of her work, simply said, I show them Christ - nothing more. Like cleaning a fish, the old selfish self has to die first before anyone can really be taught. So we give people Jesus and let Him do the rest. A second brother adds that we love because Christ loved us first, while we were still His enemies, and that His Word, sweeter than honey and a lamp to our feet, is the treasure through which God reveals Himself.

Opening from Peter's confession in Matthew 16, Bishop Vasily preaches that the church is the body of Christ and the family of God, built by Jesus Himself and purchased at the greatest price, His own blood (Acts 20:28). Because Christ is its head and lives within it, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it, and no believer can grow alone. He gives four reasons we need the church: it confirms our faith through fellowship with God's people, so that whoever draws near to God draws near to His church; it frees us from selfishness, teaching mercy and service even toward enemies; it carries the gospel to the whole world, since the mission endures as long as the church does; and it builds each believer, like a living stone, into God's temple. Drawing on the stones of the Jerusalem temple, shaped and fitted together without the sound of a hammer, he reminds us that God patiently smooths our rough edges so we fit beside one another. He closes by urging each listener to examine their motives and stay ready for Christ's return, when He gathers those who are truly joined to His body.

The service opened with a call to stand watch and listen for the voice of God (Habakkuk 2:1). It was underscored by a sobering poem about a young man whom the Spirit prompted to tell a dying woman about Christ, yet he kept putting it off until later - and the chance was gone forever. Sometimes obedience must happen now, or never. The main message came from Ezekiel 37, the valley of dry bones - a picture of the spiritually dead people and the dry, hopeless situations we walk among every day. God did not tell the prophet merely to pray over the bones; He told him to prophesy, to speak God's word directly into the lifeless scene. We are quick to believe a doctor's diagnosis or a boss's verdict, but slow to trust and act on the word of the Lord, our great Physician. Using Moses striking the rock instead of speaking to it (Numbers 20) and Jesus calling Lazarus out of the tomb by name (John 11), the preacher urged believers to obey God's word exactly and to declare it specifically, never adding to it or trying to improve on it. When we receive a word from the Lord, we must hold it, obey it, and proclaim it in faith - especially over our unsaved loved ones, trusting that God still raises dry bones to life.

The evening opened with a visiting brother from Pakistan, who described the cost of following Christ in a land where churches are burned and believers are attacked. His team distributes audio Bibles to villages where most people cannot read, screens the Jesus film, feeds the hungry, and teaches children to pray. He told of a paralyzed man who was healed as he listened to the Word of God day after day. The main message turned to Colossians 1:15-20, where Paul presents Christ as the exact image of the invisible God and the firstborn over all creation. The preacher stressed that "firstborn" does not mean Christ was created but that He holds first place: He existed before everything, all things were made through Him and for Him, and He is the heir of all. A wrong view of Christ opens the door to every other error, while only through Him can we rightly know the Father, ourselves, and the world. From this came a call to a God-centered life. Quoting Augustine, the preacher said God left a place in us for Himself that money, family, or career can never fill. Modern people put themselves at the center and become slaves of their own passions, but the believer builds life around Christ, who is its meaning and goal. The service closed in worship and prayer, recalling that the risen Christ walks among His church today, with thanksgiving for a successful surgery and quick recovery and intercession for the lost and the persecuted church.

The service opens in worship with a reading from Revelation 22, where the angel refuses John's worship and points him to God alone. Reflecting on Psalm 144 and Matthew 16, the preacher reminds the church that no one comes to know Christ as the Son of the living God by flesh and blood; it is the Father who reveals the Son. We gather not because of anything in ourselves, but because God in his sovereign mercy has drawn us to Jesus. The heart of the message is grace. The preacher contrasts the law, given through Moses, with the grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ. Drawing on Jesus' invitation in Matthew 11 to come, take his yoke, and learn his meekness, he explains that Jesus is the only flawless original. When we copy other people we merely multiply distortions, so we must trace our lives directly onto Christ. By his grace, the undeserved gift, we are freed from sin (Romans 6) and enabled to bear fruit as branches abiding in the true Vine (John 15); apart from him we can do nothing. Finally he warns that grace can be neglected or traded back for the false security of the law, because the heart resists change. Faith working through love (Galatians 5) keeps grace alive in us. The service closes with thanksgiving and intercession for the sick, for students, for travelers, and for loved ones who need to stand firm in the Lord.

The service opens with a call to quiet our hearts and truly listen for God's voice instead of merely coming out of habit. A visiting missionary recounts how God used him as a postman: He woke him at night to remember a widow's two hundred dollar gift and led him thousands of miles to a poor widow who needed exactly that sum for surgery. He also remembers a roadside evangelism near a loud club where six people repented, one of whom later brought his whole family to Christ. The main message walks through the wise men of Matthew 2, who traveled nearly two years past every obstacle and mockery to find Christ. From this come three calls: press on to the goal God set for you and let nothing separate you from His love; fall down and worship Him with open lips; and lay your gifts and talents before Him, because God's kingdom has no retirees. A guest from Belarus then shares seventeen years of orphan ministry, where serving simply means doing God's will, and where prayer, volunteering, finances, and adoption open closed doors for forgotten children. The evening ends with a call to weekly fasting and prayer for the church.

The service opens with praise for the resurrection and the reminder that the God who saved us never abandons us. Using the story of two teenagers stranded far off course on the water and rescued by a stranger who fed them and stayed close until they reached home, the preacher pictures a Savior who not only rescues but keeps giving living water and heavenly bread. Christ himself prayed with loud cries and tears, and he hears ours. John 3:16 holds the whole gospel, and Isaiah 53 shows how he died as the silent Lamb, wounded for our sins, raised for our justification, with his Spirit now living in us. The evening message, called God and His Bride, turns to Jeremiah. God keeps calling unfaithful Israel home, only asking them to acknowledge their sin, and above all he watches the heart. He compares the heart to soil and asks us to wash it, circumcise it, and cut away evil so his word can take root. Repentance, not ritual, brings healing, and like a surgeon God sometimes allows pain so that a stubborn heart finally cries out, as Manasseh did in prison. A stiff-necked heart resists, saying we will not walk in it and we will not listen. The preacher closes with the memory of a dying coworker whose silent, desperate eyes begged for an answer he never fully gave, and with a call to become the fragrance of Christ, ready to bring hope to a world that groans for it.

This Sunday missionary service began with a reminder that each of us first heard the gospel because someone - a parent, a friend, a missionary - carried it to us. The leaders urged the church to worship God not only for two hours on Sunday but with their whole lives through the week, because a holy life is itself the truest way the gospel is preached (Colossians 3:16-17). How we live, speak, and act lets the light within us shine and makes us the salt and light of the world. The main sermon turned to how we react when people hurt us. Drawing on David's lament over a close friend's betrayal (Psalm 55) and Paul's command not to let the sun go down on our anger (Ephesians 4), the preacher insisted that we are not responsible for those who offend us, only for how we respond. Forgiveness is a decision, not a feeling, and carrying unforgiveness wounds both spirit and body. He contrasted David, who poured every hurt out to God in the house of the Lord, with his wife Michal, who bottled up her pain until one bitter quarrel fractured their home - a warning to guard our marriages and families. The service closed with missionary testimonies and a sending. The Samaritan woman at the well and the man freed from demons became the first to tell others what Jesus had done; an evangelist recalled bold open-air preaching in Odessa in 1988 and a terrifying plane landing that silenced the mockers and opened hearts. A Bible school team preparing for Guatemala shared their songs and stories. The final word reframed missions for everyone: a missionary is simply someone who faithfully carries out the task God has given, whether preaching abroad, running the sound and cameras, or raising a child in the fear of the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24).

The preacher calls believers to do everything - at home, at work, in ministry - as if it were done for Christ Himself and not merely for people. When we serve with our eyes only on a person's face, the work can turn careless; but when we serve as unto Christ, we give our whole soul and our very best. Feed your husband, take your wife out, sweep the floor, and preach all as though the Lord Himself were receiving it. He then turns to mission and preparation. Just as the missionary team spent about six months getting ready for Guatemala, and an astronaut is trained long before launch, no one is sent unprepared. We are created in Christ for good works (Ephesians 2:10), yet we must grow - reading and meditating on Scripture (1 Timothy 4:13), maturing past spiritual milk like a child who grows up to help the family - so that we can fulfill the mission God entrusts to us. Finally he warns against doing great works in our own will rather than God's. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, our prayer should be, 'Lord, what do You want me to do?' The message closes with a call to evangelism and prayer: inviting people home and to church, an upcoming outreach service, buying Bibles to give away, and prayer for a missionary school and various needs.