The next session in our online series on Evangelism is on Wednesday 22nd May and runs from 11.00am – 1.00pm on zoom. You can register for just this one session or for others in the series. Registration is essential, as is payment in advance, and you can sign up here. The cost is £20 per session.
Martin Povey will be addressing the subject of Evangelism That Understands Today’s Culture.
Martin became a Christian aged eight but was up and down in his faith for many years. In his early 20s he started to grasp God’s awesome holiness and enormous grace in Jesus and was compelled to share the Gospel! He completed an MA in Evangelism Studies before spending nine years with UCCF and Bishop Hannington Church. Martin now travels throughout the UK with two aims: to equip Christians to communicate and defend the Gospel naturally; and to help those who don’t yet know Jesus hear the life-transforming Good News. He speaks at church, university, and FE college mission weeks/events and loves interacting with people’s objections to Christianity – be it at a Café Night or over a burger at McDonald’s! He’s married to his lovely Essex wife Claire and have two kids
Next up in our online series on evangelism is the inimitable Vinny Commons. Vinny is based in Southport, Merseyside and was converted as a student in November 1979. Since then, he has travelled extensively preaching the gospel to all ages with a particular strength in young people’s work. He has a sports background, playing football to a high level, which he left to concentrate his energies on gospel work. He is a leader with United Beach Missions and was on the staff of Young Life as their North-West worker for many years. We know of no-one more effective in the challenging work of open-air evangelism.
The session is on Wednesday 15th May and runs from 11.00am – 1.00pm on zoom. You can register for just this one session or for others in the series. Registration is essential, as is payment in advance, and you can sign up here. The cost is £20 per session.
In the earlier post about the Polish School for Preachers, Pastor Ben Layer made mention in his video of the online ministry of The Gospel in the Centre. We warmly commend this ministry to you and thought you might be interested in this article written by the European Mission Fellowship back in 2021 and taken from their website.
Just over one year ago a website was launched by the leaders of the evangelical church in Siedlce, Poland – Ben Layer (American missionary), Jan Stefanoff (church elder) and Adam Urban (EMF missionary). Its purpose is to supply trustworthy biblical teaching in the Polish language which exalts the glory and grace of God and equips the church for Christian discipleship and gospel outreach.
These are the three main people invovled in the project – Jan Stefanoff (left), Adam Urban (middle), and Ben Layer (right)
So why is such a resource required? Well, Christians in Poland are in great need. In a country of 38 million people, there are fewer than 600 evangelical churches, the majority of which tend to be decidedly charismatic, and there are very few trustworthy resources available to help the church. This means that there is an ongoing susceptibility of Christians falling prey to the prosperity gospel, the word of faith movement and other forms of shallow, unhealthy theology. Put simply, in Poland there is an enormous need for theologically sound and culturally relevant materials and resources.
The website contains articles from Charles Spurgeon, AW Pink, Mark Dever, DA Carson, John Piper, Paul Tripp, Kevin DeYoung, Stephen Nichols, David Mathis, Thomas Schreiner, and others, with every resource translated into the Polish language. The two largest video curricula are “The God Who is There” by DA Carson and “9 Marks of a Healthy Church.” Two weekly podcasts are also being published – “Ask Pastor John” and “New Morning Mercies” by Paul Tripp. Desiring God, Crossway, and 9Marks ministries have offered lots of support enabling nearly 100 articles to be published in Polish.
In total, since February 2020, 215 different resources have been published with new content coming out on average four times a week. We now have almost 2,500 followers on Facebook and over 15,600 people used the website in its first year!
The feedback being received is also very encouraging. Here is one recent example:
“Thankyou for the effort and work in creating the gospel in the centre website. I’m not fluent in English myself so reading these edifying articles in Polish is a great joy for me. I know that this is a lot of work, so I just wanted to say thank you…”
It is clear that God has richly blessed this initiative since its commencement, and we are excited to see what is in store for the future. One of the next major developments will be adding Polish authors who are faithful Bible teachers to the American and British authors already on the website.
At the end of June, EBC’s Principal, Pastor John Brand, will be in Warsaw, Poland, for an exciting and strategic new venture. The Polish School For Preachers is the result of the vision and burden of Polish EBC Graduate, Pastor Adam Urban. Working with Adam and other national church leaders, John will be leading a three day conference which is the beginning of a three year training programme for Polish preachers and Bible teachers.
The current plan is that this event will be the first of three such annual gatherings, and in the intervening weeks and months there will be online seminars and individual mentoring.
Poland has a population of 37.5 million but there are only about 700 evangelical churches and roughly 60,000 evangelical believers – that’s just 0.17% of the population – with about the same number of liberal Lutherans. The need for strong Bible churches led by gifted and trained preachers is immense and we are privileged to play even a small part in meeting that need.
Listen to Pastor Ben Layer of the Evangelical Church in Siedlce, Poland, where Adam Urban also serves as he explains the need for this ministry and its potential fruit for the Church in Poland.
https://youtu.be/evc6Wo_LEVo?si=1Mpw4Z5T1K73Ip_S
This first training conference takes place on Thursday – Saturday, 27th – 29th June, at Zagorna 10 Evangelical Church in Warsaw where John has had the privilege of speaking in the past and we greatly value the prayers of God’s people that this venture would be mightily blessed by him for the growth of the church in Poland. Please pray for Adam and his team in Poland as they make all the arrangements at their end and for John as he is currently busy writing the course material.
Martin Povey was due to be speaking on this subject on June 26th as part of our online course on evangelism. However, that date has now been changed to Wednesday 22nd May.
The session runs from 11.00am – 1.00pm, on zoom, and you can register for just this one session or for others in the series. Registration is essential, as is payment in advance, and you can sign up here. The cost is £20 per session.
We got some great feedback from the students after yesterday’s session with Glen Scrivener and they’re looking forward to a return visit next Wednesday (8th) when Glen will be speaking on Personal Evangelism.
The session runs from 11.00am – 1.00pm, on zoom, and you can register for just this one session or for others in the series. Registration is essential, as is payment in advance, and you can sign up here. The cost is £20 per session.
Are you looking for some solid, inspirational and practical Bible Training?
Are you looking for training that will not just inform but transform you?
At EBC we are passionate about working together with local churches to see God’s people equipped for “every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17). Whether you sense a call to some sphere of ministry – be it pastoral, evangelistic, cross-cultural – or whether you simply want to get to know your God and your Bible better and play a more effective part within the life of your church, EBC can help you.
At EBC you can study for a Diploma or Certificate or just do individual subjects.
At EBC you can study ‘full-time’, (15-20 hours of classes a week, plus personal study time, over 30 weeks), or part-time, fitting in as many classes as you can around home, work and other commitments.
Our Diploma students need to fill in an application form and have the support and active involvement of their home church. All other students just complete a simple registration form.
At EBC, all our teaching is done over zoom-based virtual classes and we have developed this teaching medium in recent years to make it work really well.
If you are interested in considering your options with us, you can find some more information here or please feel free to contact our Principal, John Brand, who will be delighted to answer any questions or even chat to you over zoom or, if possible, meet with you in person.
At the heart of EBC’s vision and passion has always been the training and equipping of faithful, effective and passionate Bible preachers and teachers. EBC trained pastors and preachers are now active in ministry in USA, N Ireland, England, Scotland, Poland, Uganda and South Sudan. This summer, at the request of national church leaders, we will be beginning a training course for preachers in Poland.
In order to make this training available to as many as possible, we have reformatted and restructured our expository preaching course and from the autumn will be running it fortnightly on Tuesday evenings over zoom.
School for Preachersis a zoom based training course to equip you to be an effective preacher or teacher of Scripture. As well as group sessions there are opportunities for one-to-one mentoring andfeedback.
If you are:
· interested in learning how to correctly teach or preach the Bible
· wondering whether you might have a gift for preaching
· already doing some preaching but want to be better at it
· just starting out as a preacher and want to develop your gift
· a seasoned preacher who would like a refresher course
then this course may be just for you.
You will learn
· how to analyse and divide up the biblical text
· how to construct a message that is faithful to the Bible text
· how to effectively preach and teach God’s Word
Over the year-long course we will guide you through the PRINCIPLES of expository preaching, the PROCESS of sermon construction and the PRACTICE of sermon delivery.
There will be assignments and exercises and evaluation of sermons preached.
At the heart of EBC’s vision and passion has always been the training and equipping of faithful, effective and passionate Bible preachers and teachers. EBC trained pastors and preachers are now active in ministry in USA, N Ireland, England, Scotland, Poland, Uganda and South Sudan. This summer, at the request of national church leaders, we will be beginning a training course for preachers in Poland.
A very profitable part of beginning and sustaining a preaching and teaching ministry is the opportunity to interact with others in the work, learning from one another and getting feedback. So, starting in September 2024, we will be hosting a zoom-based monthly Preachers’ Club which will be open to ANYONE currently involved in or preparing for a preaching or teaching ministry. Each month, on a Saturday morning, the group will work collaboratively on a passage of Scripture, helping one another to identify the key theme, the structure, the application and the Christological key.
There will be no formal cost for this group, but donations will we welcome. Further details will be available in due course, but if you would like to register an interest or get additional information now, please contact EBC’s Principal, John Brand – john.brand@edinburghbiblecollege.co.uk
