Veronika Pohrebna

I decided to study for several reasons. Firstly, in addition to secular education, I wanted to get a theological education, at least in order to broaden my horizons and have a general understanding of my faith. Secondly, I want to be more useful in my ministry, in particular to better understand the context in which I and my church live. For this reason, I liked the theology of the city.

It’s hard to say what influenced me the most during my studies. In terms of expanding my understanding of life, formats of the ministry, project activities and horizons in general, of course, communication with instructors had a serious impact: I realized how much I still do not know, and that these gaps need to be filled as soon as possible.

What I liked during my studies is, first of all, the expertise and approach of my instructors. I was impressed by their life experience, spiritual experience, and experience in the ministry. Secondly, communicating with my colleagues from different denominations and who live in a “Christian tradition” different from mine. For me it was a useful and informative experience of getting to know the otherness of others. Thirdly, I both liked and disliked a number of tasks and materials that needed to be worked on. Without any experience to study and even just read theological literature, such volumes are difficult to grasp at first. To some extent, I was not completely ready for them, but the materials are very cool, so this challenge will be overcome 🙂

Talking about the practical significance of what is acquired through my training, I will give one example. In our ministry (media), my team and I, working with certain projects, began to pay more attention to the vision and calling, so as not to engage in creating projects for the sake of projects. Before that we used to do just “something”, and this “something” either did not bear fruit at all or gave very little fruit. We got disappointed and looked for reasons, though more from the technical perspective rather than spiritual. We are currently actively learning how to see and respond to the needs of our community and those related to the church, in the long run our entire district. How? We are launching educational projects, clubs, improving and looking for new forms of interaction with non-believers in the digital space (relevant Christian interviews, translation of sermons, etc.).