How can the church respond effectively to the needs of society in the 21st century? How can we find a common language with our society? Is secular culture the enemy of the gospel? Or can it still be a tool for the proclamation of the Gospel?

These and other questions were discussed by participants at the festival "Without Walls", which was held for the third time now in Ukraine. This time it took place at Donetsk Christian University from August 24 to 26. Salvation church sent seven participants to the festival, which constituted the lion's share of the delegation from our region. Three more came from Kremenchug. In all, the festival attracted about 300 young people from all regions of Ukraine and from neighboring countries.

Each day, participants were invited to attend workshops on one of the specified topics: education, art, engagement in the community and media. That is, participant were supposed to attend only the seminars on the topic that they selected at the begining of the festival. Each topic consisted of five seminars. It should be noted that some of them were really interesting and relevant and some were rather superficial.

Another key element of the program were the plenary sessions, consisting of worship, the preaching and participation of guests. Worship was lead by the group "New Day" from Zaporozhye, a joint worship team of Donetsk region and a Ukrainian-American singer from Lviv, Bria Blessing. Bria's singing so impressed the Poltava team that her appearance at the youth conference this fall is very likely.

It is worth mentioning the entertainment aspect of the festival program. On the second day everyone had the opportunity to defend the honor of their region in sports and intellectual competitions, including a giant jumping rope, a relay on a soap track, throwing darts at baloons, guessing eastern riddles, etc. The ten people in the combined team from the central region of Ukraine (Poltava, Cherkasy and Kyiv region - we dubbed ourselves "Centrifuge") finished a respectable 2nd after a bitter struggle, bested only by the team from the western regions.

In conclusion, we must give the organizers their due for providing tasty daily food for the participants. A wise move, because food accounts for probably 40 percent success of the event :)

In general, the festival made a positive impression. In fact, we would hope that the level of culture among young Christians would grow so that we can effectively respond in accessible language to the need of the world: proclaiming the great message of salvation given to us by Christ.

 

Vladimir Golovash