Youth Apologetic Conference “Present-day Christian”, Voronezh, 2008

Scientific Biblical Center

"The Apologist" Russian English

“It is a pity that you weren’t with us!”
During the whole month of March young people would call, or sms, or chat with each other and ask one question: “Are you going to come for the conference to Voronezh?” They all looked forward to the Conference. And on the 5^th of April it did happen!
The main idea of this huge gathering of about half-thousand young people was announced as this: “With respect to history and with faith in future let us be Christians of our times!”
A half of participants were locals who exercised the gift of hospitality. But there were many guests from neighboring regions: Kursk, Lipetsk, Tambov and Belgorod regions. In spite of a long travel there were young people from Orel, Smolensk, Bryansk, Krasnodar regions and even from the Ukrainian city of Simferopol’! There were representatives from for capital cities: Moscow; Kiev (Ukraine), Petersburg and Kazan (Tatarstan).
It was great to see not only members from the Baptist churches but also students from the Russian Orthodox seminary, young Methodists and Pentecostals.
The conference was opened by Andrey Gursky who is the director of NBC Apologet. He raised this question: What is the Christian apologetic and what role it should play in our society? It was nice to discover that we all are apologists because we all have to defend our faith while sharing with nonbelievers.
Eugenie Bakhmutsky, who is a leader of the youth department of the Russian Baptist Union, didn’t let anybody to get asleep because he was very emotional when presenting his thesis: “Apology of your faith among students”. Mikhael Cherenkov, PhD, representing association “Spiritual Renewal”, spoke about being faithful to your call. “We are living in times of change”, he said, “Try to see not only difficulties but also new opportunities for serving God! Take your turn and take first steps on your own! Be a leader!” Interesting and rather unexpected statistic was presented by Anatoly Pavlov, professor assistant of Tambov State University. The first part of the Conference was closed by a musician and evangelist Pavel Begichev, who shared on: “Apology of your faith among creative people”. Then four seminars were offered for the people to choose from. “There is no prophet in the homeland!” was assured by a young doctor Dmitry Likhikh, a leader of Medical ChristianCenter “Colleagues”. He said that biblical prophecies may become a first step to lead someone to accept Biblical teachings. A seminar of Eugeny Golovina was on of a great interest. Her topic was how to share good news among marginal young people. Elena Lubyanskaya spoke about huge but not yet used opportunities of evangelism through the Internet. But the theme of being rich and successful was not less interested to the young people than the Internet. The Biblical view on riches was shared by Alexandr Spichak, PhD Candidate, a scientific secretary of NBC Apologet.
Then all the people got together once again to listen to Igor Savich, PhD in biology, a vice president of S-Petersburg Christian University. His theme was “Creationism. Biblical teaching and scientific theory”.
During the whole day a music group “Most X” from Smolensk stayed at the Conference. Their nice and challenging songs motivated participants to believe and to serve God.
It was late in the evening when the Conference was closed and the people began to leave with reluctance. Some of them went home but some went to the downtown of Voronezh sharing opinions and expecting new meetings and also the disks with materials in order to share with those who couldn’t come with us.
Tanya Belousova (Kursk).