International Theological Education Ministries, Inc.

Perry Tinklenberg, Teaching Trip to Eastern Ukraine

In Rev. Perry Tinklenberg's report about a class he taught in Eastern Ukraine, a part of what he wrote is as follows: "I came out of Homiletics class as if walking on air or carried by angels. At the beginning of class we were talking about the classes and curriculum and Roman said that he would like to address the class.

He informed us that he had always preached allegorically. He said that he had been reading Erasmus of Rotterdam who preached allegorically, so he did too. He also mentioned that deep within himself it bothered him that Erasmus called the Bible an allegory because that implied that the Bible was no different from any other philosophical text or religious story. But, he has been learning from me that the text is historical and authoritative and is to be preached as such and he would like to report publicly that he was changing the way he preached because of this class.

I see this not so much that I am doing a good job teaching them to preach, but the Holy Spirit is pulling together many themes from them.

It was the Spirit that began the unrest in Roman's mind and the Spirit that brought me and appointed me to teach Homiletics… After I told Anatoli (at the opening meeting) that I had been praying for the Spirit to lead me and bless my thoughts and after I said I would submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit through Him, Anatoli's eyes misted and he said, 'You have reminded me of my calling to pray for you and to direct the school according to its needs and you, Perry, will teach homiletics.'

I have been appointed to call the students in this mining district to mine the riches of the text for its riches and not for the easy message of allegory or spiritualization. Now God is yielding fruit. I am humbled. I am blessed."

 

Dr. Ludwick and Michael Williams, Teaching Trip to Eastern and Central Ukraine

Practicum for Ukrainian Students Saturday May 6th pastor Fiodor, along with Michael Williams, half a dozen Ukrainian students and I, went to a small village approximately 170 km from the college. The students were serving their practicum assignments to pastor Fiodor’s church and one requirement was to organize an evangelistic outreach to unchurched people. The students organized the event of singing, testimonies and two sermons. This particular village had had virtually no contact with Christian evangelism for three generations and yet more than 40% of the population of the village came to the outreach event and heard the Gospel presented in the singing, testimonies and sermons and again the Word proclaimed bore fruit as one woman and her daughter made professions of faith and entered the Kingdom. What a blessing to see theological education in practical application: what reassurance to those who labor that the Word does not in fact return void.

Upon arriving back in Donetsk/Makeyevka Dr. Michael Williams, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, and I undertook to teach the Bible Certificate and the Bachelor of Theology classes, he, having taught the preceding week with Rev. Peter Doyle, teaching Old Testament and Dr. Doyle teaching New Testament (Romans and other Pauline letters). The first day of class I taught Angelology to both classes, discussing the origin, work, nature, forms and appearances of angels in the Scriptures and in Church and in secular tradition. For the remaining four days of the week we undertook in the Bible Certificate class to study Church History in an overview perspective focusing on the principal events of Church History since the first century and on notable personalities within that two thousand year span; as regards to the Bachelor of Theology class, we undertook to study the principle events, focusing on creeds and confessions and on notable personalities. However, in light of the fact that the students in the Bachelor of Theology program are now undertaking English as a course (and Greek) the emphasis was on notable personalities and I assigned to teams of two students each a particular topic concerning an individual personality between 1 AD and 2000 AD, wherein the students were to read articles written in English and prepare oral statements to be given in Russian which would then be interpreted to me concerning the contents of the articles assigned or to make the presentations in English if they felt comfortable in doing so. It was a delightful teaching experience and a bit of a “turnaround” to the usual methodology.

Pastors of Ukraine are hungry for the Word both in substance and in the ability to preach and teach it. As a consequence I have recommended not only the second homiletics conference but also hermeneutics, which will be taught in September with a particular emphasis on the subject of hermeneutics rather than the application of hermeneutics to the courses being taught, as has been the case thus far in these particular students academic curriculum and schedule.

I also recommend that the Master of Theology program be considered as we will have a graduating class and they will be ready to proceeding on to the higher levels both in the sense of academic and practical application of the education being provided by ITEM, and the need for preparation of Ukrainian/national professors to take over the work in due course.

 

Chris Huckla Field Report on Teaching in Ukraine

Before traveling to Ukraine, my prayer was that the Lord would prosper the teaching I would be doing while I was there and that He would make the time be a blessing to those persons whom I had the opportunity to serve. Of course, whenever we pray to our Father in heaven, He is always gracious to respond with an answer. Sometimes that answer may be “yes,” other times it may be “no,” and still other times it may be “not yet.” While the finite limitations of human beings keep us from having a complete knowledge of God’s purposes, I am confident that in many instances the Lord was pleased to affirmatively
answer my prayer.

The time that I spent in the classroom while I was in Ukraine was particularly beneficial because it afforded me the opportunity to present a survey of events that have affected the church over the course of the last two thousand years. This gave me a sense of historical perspective that will hopefully equip me and give me an opportunity to exercise wisdom as I think about how I may serve the church both now and in the future. My prayer is that learning about church history will have also been beneficial for the students. The diligence that some students demonstrated while they were taking notes leads me to think that this may, indeed, be the case.

Moreover, when history of the development of various creeds and confessions was covered in class, several students asked thoughtful questions which testified to their engagement and the grasp they had of different theological concepts. It encourages me to know that both teacher and students were learning throughout the course of the class. Aside from the time that was spent in the classroom, I was also thankful to have been given the opportunity to observe the church in a setting that is very foreign to what I have known having only lived in a North American context. Ukraine is a country that faces many challenges and this consequently presents the Ukrainian church with challenges that are unique. However, in many instances, I was able to see how people responded to difficulty with resilience and determination that was admirable.

Learning something about the history of the congregation I visited serves as an example. From what I understand, members of that small but growing congregation have invested more than ten years of their lives in service to the Lord as they labored to construct a building that is used to His glory. The Word of God is preached from the pulpit of that congregation every Sunday and the facilities they have been graced with are being used to train up future leaders who will serve future generations of God’s people. And those who are currently serving the church are native Ukrainians, who, in many ways, find themselves to be in a better position to serve the people of Ukraine than someone who is not familiar with the history and traditions of that country.

Worship on Sunday was a blessing. What moved me the most was hearing the message of the Gospel go forth with such clarity from the pulpit. The packed pews demonstrated the extent of the harvest that is reaped from the preaching. It was also a tremendous blessing to hear members of the congregation sing praise to the Lord with a great deal of enthusiasm in their native language. While I could not understand the words, it made me think of how incredible it will be when people from every tribe, tongue, and nation are gathered to sing praise to God when all of His children are glorified and brought before His presence. At that time we will all understand each other and we will be able to sing common praises to our God and Savior in one common language. One other source of encouragement was the kindness and hospitality that was shown to me by God’s people while I was staying in Ukraine. A very generous family who did not possess much welcomed me into their home and did everything they could to make me feel comfortable.

They even took me into the city and showed me a side of Ukraine that was much different from the community in which they lived. It would appear that this is a country that is beginning to grow economically and stabilize politically. My prayer for the people of Ukraine is that God will use this growth and stability to bless His Church as He continued to prosper the labors that His children faithfully offer in service to Him. My prayer is also that God would continue to glorify His name in that part of the world by raising up a church that grows ever more vibrant in the years to come.

Soli Deo Gloria!

 

Alister Torrens, ITEM missionary in Ukraine, teaching Covenant Theology course at Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine

The overwhelming majority of my time for the first half of the month was spent in preparation for teaching a course on Covenant Theology for the Certificate program of the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine. In addition to reviewing some of the standard literature on the topic (Vos, Robertson, Murray), a significant amount of time was spent discovering(!), exploring and trying to resolve in my mind, the disagreements within the conservative Reformed circles on the relation of the Mosaic covenant to the covenant of works, and of both to the covenant of grace. I also invested time in carefully structuring the course material, opting for showing the unity of the Scriptures and how they are brought to culmination in Christ as the overarching goal of the course, and then organizing the material under that into three main (but not equal) sections:

1. One Divine Author (the God who reveals Himself): the Bible as God’s self-revelation; the nature of that revelation;
2. One Big Story (the God who saves): (Creation – Fall-Redemption) the overarching Story – the History of Redemption;
3. One Eternal Covenant (the God who graciously relates to His people): the who, the why, the context, the assurance, and the signs of Salvation.

Joyously, David Ludwick was able to be there for the beginning of the course, and on the second day taught a couple of the classes! To drive home the practicality of the material and help these lay leaders see its immediate relevance to their own ministries, I also taught them the necessity of redemptive-historical preaching and had them preach for me as part of their assessment. There were only three students in attendance for this particular course , but each of them was very keen and active. However, I only realized at the end of the week that I probably had overestimated their acquisition and mastery of the material. With hindsight I think this was in part because they had (as required) read Christ of the Covenants before the lectures, and so when they often seemed comfortably able to answer the questions I put to them and familiar with much of the material I presented, it gave me the (as I now see, false) impression that they already had a good grip of the subject matter. As a result I went through my material at a quicker pace than what would likely be more helpful for them – admittedly, this also left me thinner on the material I had prepared, at certain points, than I wanted. I used my last 90 minutes of lecture time to do an overall review of the course material and on the final exam the students evidenced a reasonable retention of the acquired material.

Other
As part of my ministry at Church of the Holy Trinity in Kiev, I continued to prepare and teach a lesson on the Confession and Shorter Catechism for the group of present and potential future deacons in the church. This group normally meets every other week, and is led by the pastor. I also preached at the church (two morning services) and I am thankful that many people commented on how they were helped by the message. This was my first time preaching in Russian for a long time, and preparation took the vast majority of my time the previous week.