On April 20 in Poltava at the Christian Ministry Center there was a children's ministry conference with the theme: "The Hands of Christ." The conference was organized by the Child Evangelism Fellowship team of Salvation church. There were 80 participants representing 27 churches in the Poltava region. There were those who work with children inside the church and outside of it, as well as people who prayerfully support the children's ministry area.

 

It should be noted that this event was specifically planned to be held before the Easter holiday. In this way we hoped to encourage those who are praying and motivate those who haven't yet started, that they might join in the prayer, that the Gospel might reach children and their parents during the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ. Another aim was to motivate those who work with children to tell the children about the resurrection of Christ. For this, we suggested to each of them that they conduct a holiday program and we provided those who were interested with everything they needed to organize holiday activities.

The conference program included senior pastor of Oleg Ovsy, who preached about the importance of spiritual guidance for children, the importence of serving them, and the power of prayer for their needs. The first session concluded with a half-hour of prayer time where all of the participants prayed for the children and about the issues related to children's ministry, as well as the upcoming Easter evangelism work.

The second session of the conference was opened by the pastor of the church in Novo-Sanzharskoy, Sergei Zakharchuk. In a simple and accessible way he laid out the biblical foundation for sharing the gospel with children, which was a great motivation for those in childrens' ministry. The CEF workers presented ideas to help teachers, gladly offering ideas for fun games, songs, Bible memorization games, festive crafts, and of course the biblical lesson about the events of Easter.

This meeting offered a wide choice of methodology, training literature and programs for the study of the Bible with children. At the end, each participant received a gift - a set of Bible lessons as well as an evangelistic packet with programs and books for distribution during the holiday. Many expressed their gratitude in their prayers to the Lord and in their comments to the organizers of the conference. Here are a few:

- Hallelujah! I really wanted to learn how to share the gospel with children, because it is very important at this time! God heard my prayer, and here I am at the conference! I got a lot of good information here. Glory to God! I believe that the fire that God lit in our hearts at this conference will also carry into the hearts of children ... (Anya Shah, Kremenchug).

- ... My name is Julia. I am very grateful to you for this conference. It was a great blessing for me, admonishing and inspiring. I realized that I was not strong, but the Lord when he calls, performs according to his will ...

- I really liked your conference. It was very informative and instructive. At first I got a lot of correction, but then a lot of useful information for the classroom ...

- I am very satisfied with the conference. The Easter program is fun and seeing it as an observer was particularly useful for me. Since I saw it from the child's point of view, it became clear how to hold his attention. (Nicholas Abazovka.)

- I would like to thank the organizers of the "The Hands of Christ" conference for the quality of the presentation, for the of evangelistic programs, games, songs, and the range of options to serve the children. I would also like to thank you for the sermons, that the regional pastor Oleg Ovsy and paster Sergey Zaharchuk prepared for us. And of course, thank you for the delicious dinner, the friendly atmosphere and conversation! I would like to see more of these conferences! (Andrey Churkin. Poltava).

Vladimir Golyuk.