BPI’s Third Class of Students Begin Their Training

By Chuck Kelley

    PHILOMATH, Oregon – On Tuesday morning, January 19, 2010, Baltic Pastoral Institute welcomed a new group of first year students. A special dedicatory service, attended by pastors, older students, and supporters, welcomed, inspired and blessed them. This new group consists of an interesting mix of six students, ranging in age from 18 - 58. Their backgrounds range from professional photographer to ambulance driver to youth pastor to IT specialist. The spirit of the service was simultaneously joyful and serious. Joyful because our goal of training a new generation of

pastors and church planters is coming to pass; the number of BPI students is now 25, a very significant number in the Baltic regions. Serious because all in the room recognize the fact that pastoral ministry in Latvia is nothing short of tough. After a series of greetings and exhortations, the students were invited to kneel as older pastors individually laid hands of them and prayed prayers of consecration.

    The next week these students studied at the feet of Wally Schoon, veteran missionary to Sweden and a wonderful Bible teacher. His theme was Basic Christian Living.

    It was also my privilege to teach my course on Theology Proper, which focuses on the person, character and attributes of God

with a special emphasis on God the Father. I used AW Tozer’s classic, “The Knowledge of the Holy” as my text. This is one of my most favorite subjects to teach.

    All BPI students participated in Mission Days doing a combination of practical service and active learning. They helped set up, welcome, collect offerings, provide directions and assist in many other ways.  At the same time they benefited greatly from the content presented by Dr. Lindsay Brown and others at Mission Days. The next week, the class evaluated Mission Days together,

sharing what each personally learned and how they might organize future events that would equip and mobilize the next generation of missionaries in the context of their own ministries.

    Another important activity was held for the first year students

during their first month of studies. All went to a special retreat center where Peter Sprogis, BPI’s director and Bishop of the Baptist Union, guided them through an interesting process of sharing their life journeys, utilizing their own created life-lines of high and low points. This took many hours and resulted in deep bonds formed between the students and the teachers who were present, including myself.

    A few weeks later, BPI students joined with about 50 pastors and church planters to participate in an intensive Church Planting seminar, called “M4”, jointly organized by the Latvian Baptist Union and BPI, and led by Peter Sprogis. Lutheran church planting specialist, Oivind Augland, from Norway, was the main speaker. It was a fabulous time of learning, fellowship and vision casting. These “M4” seminars will take place four times a year.

    And finally, during the last week of February, it was my privilege to teach a special intensive course on “Preaching the Parables of

Jesus”.  We talked about principles of interpreting and communicating the Parables, but then I decided to actually deliver two of my own sermons which I have used over the years that are drawn from the Parables.  After each message the students interacted with me on the interpretation of the text, main ideas, structure, illustrations, introduction, conclusion and challenge. These discussions were intelligent and lively, just what a professor dreams about.  After one of the classes, a student asked if he could have a copy of my sermon from Luke 14 on “Counting the Cost of Following Jesus.”  I gave it to him. 

    This morning I received an email from that same student, “Thank you for good example of sermon you did in BPI two weeks ago. I used your sermon 28 February in the Light of the Gospel Baptist Church in Karosta (the impoverished naval port region near Liepaja). I spent almost 15 hours to translate, dig deeper facts, rewrite, change illustrations, fit into context of audience, improve language, think about translation into Russian, spelling it three times at home, bold text, print out. I was preaching in Latvian with translation into Russian. 45 minutes. Word touched hearts. One older man even remembered the day he received Jesus.  I learned a lot from this sermon - structure, illustrations, statements, conclusion. Thank you Chuck! God bless you! Jesus is Lord!”

    Wow, is this wonderful or what? That’s why I am serving as a teacher and as one of the deans at BPI.

   

Please join with me in thanking God for BPI and for all who are studying and laboring there so that a new generation of leaders can give their lives to sharing the love and power of Christ throughout Latvia.

    Chuck Kelley is one of the founders of BPI. He serves on the leadership team as Dean of International Affairs. He also teaches theology and missiology.

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