September 11th & 12th we held our Expositors’ Institute. Joel Teague, from Faith Community Church in Woodstock, GA joined us and taught an Introduction to Biblical Counseling covering the importance of the ministry of biblical counseling and how it applies in the everyday life of the church. The lectures are available on the web page of our Academy.

TBA STUDENT CHRISTMAS BANQUET

In keeping with tradition, the students and professors of TBA marked the end of the semester and celebrated the Christmas season this month. We gathered together for a time of singing, prayer, and a message from Scripture.

1200 MILES THROUGH SERBIA IN 4 DAYS
At the beginning of December, professor Brackett, Dr. Horvatek, and our school translator Momir Horvatek had an opportunity to travel throughout Serbia. Over the course of four days they visited pastors, church planters, and church leaders in eleven different areas. Serbia, with its population of 8 million, has about eighty-seven Baptist churches. Many of these congregations have fewer than ten members. The churches there have a great need for trained workers to serve them. While Serbia does have a two-year Bible institute, there is no school that fully equips expositors for pastoral ministry. For years we have been praying that God would send us men to train from this area so that Serbia would have examples of solid biblical exposition.

For this reason we were eager to visit the home of one potential student who is very anxious to start his education next year. Dragish became a believer three years ago as a day-laborer in the suburbs of Paris. He continued working his job while systematically studying his Bible and faithfully attending a local church in Paris—becoming in the process a real “walking concordance.” Not long ago he returned to Serbia as his visa expired. Before his return he acquired a few books by John MacArthur, including the MacArthur Study Bible in French. Immediately upon returning to Serbia he involved himself in the church where his mother and uncle are members, and he contacted us expressing his desire to be trained. He has a great heart for his own city, in which there is no evangelical church. He has even started distributing literature in open markets, both in his own city and in a neighboring city. Pray that Dragish would be able to begin studies next year. Pray also for the salvation of his father.

While we were on our journey it was also encouraging to see some of our graduates who finished their education while our school was located in Vienna. One of them, brother Žika, who now works in Christian publications, told Dr. Horvatek that his years in Bible school were some of the best years of his Christian life, and that he is the man he is today in large part because of the influence of the school and the church in Vienna.

Thank you for your prayers and support of the Theological Biblical Academy!