On Saturday, February 26, The Cornerstone Church and Grace Avenue Bible Church hosted a special evening in Sacramento for immigrants and families with a very romantic theme: “Under the Dome of Love”.
A few days ago, the events in Ukraine have shaken the entire civilized world by their atrocities. Russia treacherously attacked its neighboring country of Ukraine. As Christians, we must express our disdain towards the situation and must say things as they are. This aggression is unjustifiable. The citizens of Ukrainian cities were attacked by the hail of bombs. The blood is spilled, the infrastructure is destroyed, and many people are losing their lives. War is a great evil which is of the devil who came as a thief in order “to steal, to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10), and we as Christians must call this evil.
The first Sunday of March is the Day of Special Attention and Visitation of Widows, Orphans and Singles. Church ministers are invited to hold meetings on this topic.
«Calling, Purpose, Dedication” is the theme of the upcoming conference for the directors and teachers of Sunday Schools which will take place on March 12. The speaker will be Yevgeniy Dushakov who is an evangelist, and an author of the book, “Evangelism in Short Pants or Open Your Closet”, publisher, and co-author of a useful book, “The Myths of Life”.
PCSBA's February newsletter is available here: in Russian | in English.
This year’s first meeting of the Association’s department’s leaders took place on February 18 at the Association’s office. The ministry leaders were missing fellowshipping with one another and sharing what they were doing in December, January and February, about the pandemic-related challenges, plans for the future, and shared prayer requests of both their ministries, as well as of their families. In closing of the meeting, these needs were lifted up to the throne of God in prayer.
Forward Church, a church in Irvine, CA who is also part of the Southern Baptist Convention, an official North American Mission Board Church and is a part of the PCSBA, is looking for a worship leader who can develop and craft excellent worship experiences at Forward Church. This person is someone who loves Jesus and desires to be a worship leader at a local church where they can create a worship atmosphere that will bring about genuine life change. This person is creative, detailed-oriented and has the capacity to build worship teams and work with volunteers. If you are interested in this position, please email your resume or inquiry to
The International Counselling Institute Coram Deo in partnership with the Association’s Blagovest Institute and on the basis of the Bryte church is announcing new enrollment into the three-year counselling training program. Everyone is welcome to join this program, including the pastors, leaders of various ministries, as well as every member of the churches.
PCSBA's January Newsletter is available here: in Russian | in English.
В трех наших церквах поменялись пасторы. В Первой славянской церкви Сакраменто пастором стал брат Владимир Федорович Василенко; в церкви «Возрождение», Ванкувер, штат Вашингтон, служение ответственного пастора принял Михаил Николаевич Черенков; в Славянской церкви Орандж Каунти, Ирвайн, пастором стал Николай Иванович Ларшин.
«Thank you for your encouragement and prayers! », - are the tearful words of a widow who regularly fellowships with T. Senina and her husband P. Lysenko, who are in charge of this important and difficult ministry. The fate of the widow is very difficult, especially as it becomes unbearable during the pandemic isolation. It’s great to have established group chats on Viber where everyone could share their problems, ask for help, and share their prayer requests. ZOOM is also very helpful since it allows group meetings.
Our campground and the thrift store are experiencing some difficult times. However, by the Grace of God, and thanks to the dedicated service of the director and his team, this ministry is continuing.
COVID infections affected all of our churches. Both believers and unbelievers alike even have their whole families being sick. People of all ages, including children, have been affected by the spread. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated, people of all ages, including children are now getting sick. Some have been sick for their second or even third time. There are many who are sick, and also there is quite a number of those who didn’t make it, or those who are continuing to suffer as a result of this malicious virus.
On December 19, The House of Prayer Church in West Sacramento had an ordination service for Aleksandr Ivanov for pastoral ministry. The church service dedicated to this occasion included choir singing, sentiments, and of course the ordination ceremony itself. The local church has observed the evidence of God’s call and spiritual gifts in the life of this young minister who served as a deacon for many years.
PCSBA's December newsletter is available here: in Russian | in English.
“I am very grateful to the brothers who at that time stood at the head of the Association and took the risk of opening such a store. This was a new project for the Slavic brotherhood, but very necessary,” said Vyacheslav Gladysh in his speech during the celebration of the anniversary. As a leader of the Missions Department, he came to the meeting of the Association’s Executive Committee on December 9, 2011, and suggested to open a thrift store with all the profits going to the needs and projects of mission ministry.
The leaders of the Association’s departments with their spouses had their annual Christmas meeting on December 10. An invitation was extended to the committee members and their spouses, so, to accommodate all participants, this year, the meeting this year took place at the Russian Baptist Church of Bryte.
The Association’s new partner was presented at the 83rd Convention in October – Church Investors Fund. The fund is providing loans for Baptist churches and ministries for the acquisition, building, and remodeling of churches, as well as for other projects.
Andrey Zabolotnyy and Vyacheslav Lobkov were ordained as pastors at the Slavic Baptist Church of West Sacramento.
Dear Brothers and Sisters! Merry Christmas and a Happy New year 2022!
The active stage of preparation and registration for the International Missionary Forum - 2022, which will be held from 20 to 22 May, 2022 in the city of Sacramento, USA, has resumed.
Another convention of the Pacific Coast Association’s churches of ECB has come to an end. Every convention is not just an experience for the local churches, but it is also a continuation of the history of the Association. The conventions during which voting happens are even more special.
The Honolulu Slavic Church (HSC) sends its warmest greetings from the Hawaiian Islands to all brothers and sisters of the Pacific Coast Slavic Baptist Association (PCSBA) community and wishes everyone abundant blessings and grace from our Lord Jesus Christ!
On Friday, October 1, 2021, approximately 40 House of the Gospel Ladies were ready to go to Hume Lake Christian Camp for the October 1-3 weekend retreat. This is the third year House of the Gospel ladies have done this retreat as a church. Unfortunately, due to fires and an emergency evacuation order, retreat was canceled just a few hours prior to the start. The ladies did not lose a beat, and with God’s provision were able to book a cabin in Cambria, CA. Needless to say, it was a miracle as it is nearly impossible to book a cabin for same day availability. They later found out that someone had canceled this cabin last minute and the owners were extremely disappointed considering this cabin had never had a vacancy on a weekend. Well, God had it all planned out well in advance. When the owner of the cabin found out about our situation, she saw the miraculous hand of God and allowed us to have more people than the house capacity without an extra charge.
“Nowadays there are many surviving churches, but few are alive.” A. Kolomiytsev
No more, no less but 18! Grace Family Church celebrated its full age lively and joyfully in the context of fellowship and worship. Church is a fruit of God’s work from its first brick to the last person in it. Thinking of this, you cannot stop worshiping its Author. That’s why Sunday service was started with a triumphant unison “Soli Deo Gloria”- “Glory to God alone”.
PCSBA's September newsletter is available here: in Russian language | in English language.
«How to grow the disciples? How to develop the disciplines for spiritual growth and help others to grow?» These are the topics of the seminars that will be held over ZOOM on October 28, November 4, and 11.
The goal of the course «How to Grow the Disciples» is to help churches to prepare and train disciples who will be able to form relationships with new church members and help them to establish the necessary disciplines of spiritual growth. For more about the program, visit The Disciple Maker Website.
Yes, there are many ways to spread the "fragrance of Christ". Including, by cleaning streets and removing garbage from the streets of the cities where we live. Today, September 25, Watt Avenue along Grace Family Church became bright with orange trash bags, gloves and hard-workers, cleaning out all the mess at the street.
It's good when the church associations define their position on the relevant issues of our times. One of these issues is a question of the Biblical approach regarding the family. This unified idea of the resolution came together right before the 75th convention of the Ukrainian Baptist Association in the U.S. and was supported by the Russian-Ukrainian Baptist Union of Churches of the U.S., the Eastern Ukrainian Baptist Association of the U.S., and the Pacific Coast Slavic Baptist Association of ECB churches of the U.S.
The season of vacations, camps is gone, and the beautiful golden September month became a fruitful time for the Transfiguration Church in Minnesota. With the full support of the church, their youth along with a team of brothers and sisters from California were able to organize and host an evangelistic evening (BLOCK PARTY). Friends, acquaintances, and local neighbors were all invited. Everyone who came received a warm greeting, was offered a tasty dinner, and then heard about the gift that is offered to everyone by Jesus Christ, and that is eternal life with God.
On September 19th, 2021, the House of Gospel church in Fresno, CA, celebrated an ordination of five young deacons. Viktor Rybalko, Artem Kulik, Valeriy Yasnitskiy, Konstantin Komissarov , and Vitaliy Grokh made a decision to commit themselves to the ministry at the church. It is always encouraging to see young people in ministry, but most importantly to see young men who commit themselves to the work of God. Each one of them are already very involved at the church and as the result it wasn’t hard to see that God wants them to be deacons.
Registration is now open for delegates to the 83rd Convention, which will take place on October 29-30 at Russian Baptist Church of Bryte The church address is 1000 Sacramento Ave, West Sacramento, CA 95605.
Registration is available at your church and online.
On Agust 20-21, the First Slavic Baptist Church in Sacramento hosted a retreat for the Association ministers. Initially, the retreat was supposed to take place at Sierra Pines Camp, but due to the forest fires and air pollution, that plan had to be cancelled. The decision to change the retreat location was made only a few days before the retreat, and for that I am very grateful to the leadership of the First Slavic Baptist Church, which responded so quickly in resolving this issue. The rest of the things planned went according to plan, which included the pre-planned speakers, food provision, and organizing the video and live stream.
On July 17, Grace Avenue Bible Church in Sacramento hosted a women's meeting for everyone who is involved in ministry of the local churches of the Association. The theme was: «What to Do When You Are Getting Discouraged in Ministry? »
On July 3, 2021, the City of Rancho Cordova hosted an Independence Day parade. Various organizations take part in this parade, and for the second year now, the New Hope Church is also one of those participants. This year, however, the youth from Sperance Church, Cornerstone Church, and Affiliation of First Slavic Church were also able to join them.
Population migration (lat. migratio — relocating) — relocation of people from one region (government) to another, in certain instances occurring as large groups and moving great distances.
We are living during the times of migration where some families are moving from one state to another. For many Slavic Christian families in California, this has turned into a mass phenomenon. The majority of these people are moving either to central or south-eastern United States. Many of these migrants were influenced by the «mass exodus» effect. While the initial people were moving based on personal motivation and the search for a new place of living, the later migrants are just following the beaten track. There are also those who leave but then recruit others to move because they miss their old friends. Following the relocation of their children with their families, grandparents can be expected to move as well in order to be closer to their grandchildren.
PCSBA's June Newsletter is available here: in Russian | in English.
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On Saturday and Sunday of early June, with the leadership of the church pastors, a number of young and not so young church members at Grace Family Church went to the streets of North Highlands with the message of the Gospel. They set up the posters to bring the message of salvation through Jesus Christ and invited others to repent and be saved.
On June 20, the church in Montebello had a graduation ceremony for the Master of Divinity program. Over the course of four years, the students went through the Moscow's Theological Seminary’s Master's program partnered with the Blagovest Institute of Ministry. Two of the students have successfully defended their Master's dissertations and received the masters' degrees, while another five students will continue their education for one more year.
On June 13, Slavic Baptist Church «Word of Life» had a special service during which the church ordained two young servants as deacons: Serge Padurary and Aleksandr Nastasiychuk.
Dear Ladies, if you are in ministry or planning to join the ministry, you are invited to this Gala Dinner! The theme is "What to do when you lose heart in ministry?"
Why we are planning this event? Because we want:
Recently at one of our youth meetings, I had a conversation with one of the youth leaders about the necessity of mass events that we are doing for our youth. By God's great mercy, we had such an event at the beginning of the year, «United Sport Tournament», which took place on March 13 and was attended by 20 churches. The guest speaker was Ben Ito.
It is rare to hear such a mother's title: «Special mom of a special child». However, that was the title of the gathering which took place on May 22 at the church in West Sacramento. Although a little bit late, these heroic and sacrificial mothers were honored for everything that they do in a Mother's Day celebration and were given small tokens of appreciation.
After the winter season, the campground usually has a lot of work. The list of things to do includes fixing of porches of cabins and fences after the abundance of snows, general cleaning of camp, replacing of the once-frozen water and sewer pipes, and much more. On Saturday, May 22, the campground had a general camp cleanup. There were about 70 helpers from Sacramento: Bethany, Zion, and Second Slavic Church. There were also representatives from Bryte Church, and First Slavic Church.
The elected Executive Committee is chosen to take care of all the spiritual and administrative tasks of the activities meets a few times a year. Another one of these meetings took place on May 21 at the Association's office. The time has come to return to the format that everyone is used to, despite the fact that the ZOOM meeting attendees are from other states or are unable to be personally present at the office.
For more than 5 years now the Transforming Nations ministry has influenced societies, changing destinies and bringing the Gospel to people in the different parts of the world. Started in Kenya, the ministry grew from sharing God’s Word and helping children, opening an orphanage where currently 49 children found shelter, daily food, and can get an education which lots of them have never experienced before. Also, through the Bible lessons, the children know how to build their lives with God at the center of it.
Despite the continuing limitations of the pandemic, the Education Ministry continues active service. A. Pronin, who leads this ministry shares the following:
On April 30th through May 2nd 2021, Word of Grace Bible Church in Battle Ground, Washington hosted their bi-annual Reality Conference. Reality is an extension of Word of Grace Bible Church’s college and young adult ministry, TwoTwenty. In 2007, the conference was established and has been hosted every other year since then. It has become a great opportunity to meet new people, build relationships, and most importantly, profess the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those around us.
PCSBA's April newsletter is available here: in Russian | in English.
Over a hundred people from various countries registered to participate in the online conference about ECB Media which was organized by Euro-Asian Federation of the Unions and Churches of ECB. The meeting took place on April 8-9. The chairmen of unions, staff from churches and various Christian organizations that work in the media were discussing the theme of “SMI After the Pandemic”. Everyone came to the consensus that generally Baptists are trailing behind on this issue; our involvement in SMI is very, very limited.
Today, we are experiencing some difficult times during which the circumstances of life carry us along at a rapid pace. We are in this race during which some couples get lost in the unending obligations of family life. At a certain point, the wives discover that there isn’t much time left for a meaningful conversation with their husbands, while the husbands notice that the family expenses exceed the income. All of a sudden, the children have grown up, and the parents need to focus on helping them in discovering their place in life. On top of that, there is a lack of trust in the medical doctors which compels many to study medicine. The social sites demand constant presence, and the new laws require more protection and oversite over the children. Under this scenario, the parents become bloggers, doctors, teachers, pastors, policemen, as well as taxi drivers for their children.
The memorial service for Adolf Andreyevich Pichaj took place at Rose Hill Memorial Park on April 17. The service was attended by about 200 people who were the relatives, close friends, and fellow ministers. Adolf Andreyevich left behind a good impression on many, including those who attended the funeral. He was a husband, father, pastor, secretary and later the head of the literature department at the Association. He did a lot of other ministries that were indicative of the sacrificial service of this man of God! There were many wonderful memories, vivid stories, as well as images that were shared from the life of Adolf!
On April 11, Slavic Baptist Church of West Sacramento had a joyful church service during which Andrey Zabolotnyy was ordained as a deacon.
«Let Everything that Has Breath Praise the Lord» - this was the theme of the meeting that took place at the church in West Sacramento (where Igor Antonovich Verstak is the head pastor). Since the quarantine, this was first meeting of the parents and their children with special needs.
Girls of all ages are invited for the fellowship that will take place at 828 Solano Street, West Sacramento, CA 95605 (old Bryte church building) on May 1, 2021. Guest speaker: Maria Gusenkova. Topic: God’s design (Purity).
The Euro-Asian Federation, together with the ECB Unions and Associations of Europe, America and Australia, will hold an online conference on the Zoom platform on April 8-9, 2021. Conference topic: “Mass media after the pandemic. Increasing the efficiency of information ministry ”. The conference program can be found here - click this link.
We received Easter congratulations from brotherly unions, missions and individual churches:
PCSBA's March newsletter is available here: in Russian | in English.