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Про екзистенційну ніч і три хліби, яких у мене немає…
14–21 minutes3,314 wordsМоя сьогоднішня проповідь на Лк. 11:5–8 у церкві «Скеля». Я так довго не був у нашій церкві через численні поїздки, що вже думав, чи мене часом не виключили. Називаю це самовільним залишенням церкви на певний час, а отже, і самовільним поверненням. Хочу продовжити з вами вивчення притч Ісуса в Євангелії від Луки, і цього разу це притча про товариша, який спить. Точніше, про того, хто вже ліг спати. Поряд із…
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6–10 minutes1,500 words
[in English] #BeingHuman. Morning existential reflections and confession… My daughter Tetyana came from Washington, D.C., to visit our family in Ukraine, and brought our first grandson, Wesley to meet the local family members. This morning the two of them walked the Alley of Heroes in the center of our city, past so many hundreds of portraits of fallen defenders. Wesley was looking at the portrait of Andriy, my younger brother…
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Love Your Enemies? – Part 1
9–14 minutes2,192 words#BeingHuman. “Love your enemies”? No verse of Scripture is quoted to Ukrainian Christians more often, by well-meaning believers abroad and by russian-speaking Slavic communities, than the command of Jesus: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44, NKJV). It arrives in our inboxes and messaging…
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Sunday Sermon on Luke 16:19-31
16–23 minutes3,676 words#BeingHuman. The chasm we dig for ourselves, and a distance that cannot be measured in steps. My sermon today at Skelya Church in Rivne, for those interested in what we preach during this war. People sometimes ask what is left to preach when the sirens and the explosions do not stop. We do not preach a softer Gospel here, nor a louder one. We open the same Scriptures we always…
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A New Lesson, a Little Inconvenient, On Christian Leadership and the Shape of Partnership in Wartime…
8–13 minutes2,001 words#BeingHuman. A new lesson, and a slightly inconvenient one: on Christian leadership and the shape of partnership in wartime. When we speak about seminaries, local churches and church unions in Ukraine today, we reach almost by reflex for the language of structural change. It is a large part of what we do through the Vital Sustainability Initiative, and the word at the heart of that name, sustainability, is the quiet…
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On the Great Benefits Of Ukrainian Christians Being Silent…
4–5 minutes829 wordsIf only Ukrainians were silent, what a joy the ministry of reconciliation would be. A russian seminary professor could lecture on it inside a Ukrainian seminary, untroubled by any victim in the room, and publish his paper on forgiveness in Theological Reflections. And because nobody would interrupt him, no Ukrainian student would ever put to him the single question the whole subject turns on: who, exactly, is to forgive whom.…
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Seventy a day… A Place Where Someone Stays
3–5 minutes773 words#BeingHuman. Dear friends, greetings from Lviv. Roman, Oleksandr and I are deep in the work now, going through the chapters with the authors. It is humbling to edit a book on pastoral ministry during a war while that war is still being fought around the very people writing it. Some of our authors serve in the army, and a few are writing from the front line itself, sending paragraphs between…
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Vulnerability: leadership that does not hide its wounds, and restoration that does not pretend at healing
15–22 minutes3,481 wordsWounded Leadership: Challenges and Paths of Restoration An address at the conference of the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, 22–23 May 2026, Pushcha-Vodytsia. Let me begin with a question rather than a thesis, one that I suspect has lived in each of us for a long time. When the risen Christ passed through locked doors to His disciples and said, “Peace to you,” why did He show them His hands and…
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Вразливість: лідерство, яке не приховує ран, і відновлення, яке не вдає зцілення
12–17 minutes2,746 wordsЗранене лідерство: виклики та шляхи відновлення Виступ на конференції Української євангельської теологічної семінарії, 22–23 травня 2026 року, Пуща-Водиця. Дозвольте почати не з тези, а з запитання, яке, підозрюю, вже давно живе в кожному з нас. Коли воскреслий Христос пройшов крізь зачинені двері до учнів і сказав «мир вам», чому і навіщо Він показав їм Свої руки й бік? Чому тіло, яке перемогло смерть, зберегло на собі знаки тортур і розп’яття?…
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Four months, 780 dead, 4,352 injured, 1,532 days, and the messengers are still arriving…
3–4 minutes650 words#BeingHuman. Writing this from a BlaBlaCar on the road out of Kyiv, I received the news that today’s strike on Zaporizhzhia has taken another twelve lives. In the first four months of 2026, russians killed at least 780 Ukrainian civilians and injured at least 4,352. That means one civilian killed every three hours and forty-one minutes, and one wounded every thirty-nine minutes. And the pace is only increasing. For us…
BEING HUMAN
Contemplating the Divine and Earthly through Human Eyes • Споглядання Божественного і земного очима людини
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