For some believers the New Year Celebration as a combination of Christian and ancient pagan slavic traditions and they don't celebrate it for that reason. The rest celebrate it; they just don't see the New Year celebration as a continuation of the ignorant customs of our ancestors, but as an opportunity to stop and reflect on the past year, as well as a time to create a vision for the coming year. In the remainder of the article you will see that the members of Salvation Church belong to the second category, that is, to those who celebrate.

 

It all started with the New Year's Eve service.

In his New Year's Eve sermon our pastor, Valery Antonuk, asked the audience about their fondest dream for the coming year. Ukrainian Christians do not like to be specific. The broad range of the Slavic spirit came to expression: general plans, that is, "so that all may believe that all should repent, for all to come to the Lord", the strategy was no less immense, "as God provides, as God leads, as God blesses." Almost no one set concrete goals for themselves or for ministry (except Nikolai Romanovich Koval and the pastor himself). Maybe most of us were too hesitant to say their dreams aloud: "What if God doesn't bless? Then is it just a self-righteous Christian ambition and no more?"
Then, let me ask you, how do you know if God answers your prayers or not? Are your desires in harmony with God's plan, or are they far from His plan? Without specific questions and requests, there can be no specific answers. Only when we open our dreams to God and accept full responsibility for their future realization, can God begin to work in our lives. In some cases He will bless and open all the doors, and in some cases He stops a person and prohibits them from moving forward. So, brothers and sisters, don't be afraid to dream! Don't be afraid to experience God! His character, will, and heart we can know only when we work with him. God blesses those who are not afraid to take risks, not afraid to fail and lose. These are the people who are changing the world!

New Year's celebration.

New Year's Eve continued with a celebration that included a fun program prepared by Luda Rubtsov and Kostya Kononenko. It is worth noting that for Luda and Kostya this was their church-wide debut in the role of activity leaders - a role they performed as well as anyone before them. The program itself, in addition to being entertaining, also contained the serious idea of ​​the unity of the church and of ministry, and in general, unity among its members.
For Salvation Church, with all of its activities and ministries in different areas, the theme of unity is always relevant. It's not often that members occupied with one area of ​​service pay attention to the work that others are doing. But the leaders of the New Year's Eve celebration managed with fun games not only to all of the areas of service together, but also to get some of the key representatives of the various ministries of the church to exchange places with each other. And the ministry leaders coped with this task surprisingly well. Imagine, Andre Khudyakov helped a pregnant girl calm down and accept that she would become a mother. The secretary, accountant, and head chef of the Christian center happily sang Christmas carols ... We won't talk about every person, but we will point out that none of those present regret spending this time with their church family! We received the greatest joy from the prayer we prayed together as we boldly entered into 2013. We hope that the proverb "as you enter the New Year, so it will be", will be true in our case :)

So, in conclusion:
- We support unity ...
- Our dream is ...
- And we move towards the desired and long-awaited day for all Christians who love the Lord. It coming very soon ...

Tanya Varyanitsa