November 03, 2011
by Zygmunt Karel
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For decades after World War II, the weight of communism bore down on the Polish people. We lacked the freedom to properly educate young Christians for service in the ministry. So, as Communism neared its end in the 1980s, Poland found itself without a strong tradition of biblical preaching. This left the church weak and shallow when it desperately needed strength and stability to endure the trials of civil unrest.
Seeing the need to bolster the church in Poland, I joined together with then missionary and current Insight for Living Ministries board member Dr. Mark Young to found an interdenominational school of theology. We began work on the school in the 1980s during the reign of communism, and on October 1, 1990, the doors of the Biblical Theological Seminary in Wroclaw officially opened to students.
Mark and I developed the idea for the school with at least two goals in mind. First, we wanted to minister to students across the denominational spectrum, providing an education rooted in Scripture to all Christians who desired it. Second, we desired to teach Poles the fundamentals of Christian thought and ministry in their own language.
The school’s beginnings were small but filled with joy and anticipation. The first group of students—fourteen in all—met in a space rented from a local church. Satisfying the deep spiritual hunger of these first students—and of the hundreds since—with much-needed instruction is a blessing that continues to reap dividends, not just in me personally but throughout Poland and beyond. The sacrificial spirit of our students can be seen in their willingness to do whatever it takes to see ministry accomplished around the world—even doing mission work in Kazakhstan or moving to Siberia to translate Scripture into a local dialect.
My role as Insight for Living Ministries’ pastor in Poland dovetails with my desire to provide the Polish church with solid, biblical teaching. As we broadcast Chuck’s messages translated into Polish, both pastors and parishioners benefit from Chuck’s clear and application-oriented teaching style. And the more that people are exposed to good teaching like Chuck’s, the more we will find good teaching in Polish churches.
In the end, my dream for the Biblical Theological Seminary back in the 1980s is the same as my dream for Insight for Living Poland in 2011—to see trustworthy, biblical content filling the lives of people in my country. Expositional preaching—sermons taken directly from Scripture and attentive to the very words of Scripture—makes a real difference in the lives of people because God uses His Word to change lives. As the years continue to pass, as communism fades into distant memory, and as God’s Word is taught ever more clearly and widely in Poland, I pray that the faith of my people will continue to grow and strengthen, making God’s people in Poland a force for good in a world that desperately needs it.