ki-inlineThirty pastors and 10 wives from the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, gathered in the city of Manado on Thursday, Oct. 6 for a one-day seminar with Chris Hindal, director of Regular Baptist International.

The Hotel Sahid Manado prepared a nice conference room with tables and chairs set up lecture style, complete with water and notepaper for each person. Somewhat typical, the meeting scheduled for 9:00 a.m. started at 9:30, and still not everyone had arrived. After a couple of songs and prayer, Chris took the first hour with a translator to develop 1 Timothy 1 on the profile of a Christian soldier. After a break, he facilitated an interactive discussion along with a question and answer time. One of the challenges the pastors face is that the churches are small and the people are poor. Part of the discussion centered on the apostle Paul’s tent-making model. At least six pastors had planted churches. The rest of the discussion centered on the need for Sunday School materials for children and the necessity of translating it into the Indonesian language. The pastorski-inline-2 showed interest in pursuing this approach.

After lunch, Chris used PowerPoint to show pictures while telling stories of how God is building His church around the world through the international partnership.

For the closing session, Chris went back to 1 Timothy and developed 2:1–7 around the repeated use of the word “all.”  The session closed with a time of personal prayer, asking God to apply His Word personally and to provide opportunities to have spiritual conversations with lost people. The session closed at 4 p.m., followed by tea and coffee before heading home.

Chris Hindal says, “Due to the strong Muslim influence, evangelism and church planting are very hard in Indonesia. However, Indonesian pastors see the need to send their best and brightest as missionaries to the surrounding nations.”