Gelu is part of the pastoral team of Vox Domini Baptist Church in Timisoara . In September 2007 he withdrew from his position of coordinating pastor so that he could invest more time in BIG.
Gelu grew up in the 2nd Baptist Church of Oradea, now “Emmanuel Baptist”. During the communist period, his parents lived the Gospel of Jesus Christ at home with integrity and passion. His father served as a deacon and secretary of the church almost until his death in 2005. Gelu grew up in a very healthy and flexible atmosphere, his parents refusing religious indoctrination, and they offered him and his brother Adrian balanced surroundings, as well as the liberty to choose Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. When he was 14, he publicly expressed his devotion to Jesus Christ, but his father advised him to postpone his baptism until he was older. In high school he was asked to sign a document in which he declared that he didn’t believe in God, which he refused to do. The pressure created at school and the public condemnation in front of his colleagues caused him to no longer postpone his baptism.
From his parents he learned to live the Gospel with integrity and sacrifice. In the autumn of 1981 he was invited to translate for a team of missionaries from the USA who were working secretly, and thus he found his passion. In 1984 he married Rodica, together they developed the underground student movement in Timisoara . In the autumn of 1989, 60 leaders had been discipled by the movement. From 1991 to 1994 he studied theology at the Gordon-Conwell theological seminary in USA . After returning to Romania , he taught Biblical ethics at the Emmanuel Baptist Institute in Oradea for two years. In the fall of 1998 he heard the Lord’s clear call to ministry, and so together with a team of 5 leaders, he planted the church “Vox Domini”, a community of authentic and enthusiastic evangelical Christians, relevant among the adademic community of Timisoara .
In 2000, after 16 years of marriage, God blessed them with Ioana, and three years later with Jonathan Luca.
Gelu is the president and one of the 22 co-founders of BIG Impact Foundation, and presently serves as the strategic coordinator. The aim of his ministry is to coordinate the running of the foundation and its strategy development in order to fulfil its aim and objectives. Most of his time in BIG, is devoted to the following objectives:
1. The coordination of the leadership committee
2. The consolidation and development of a national committee
3. The consolidation and development of a work team (network coordinators)
4. The coordination of the process of creation and implementation of the programs for development of leadership
5. The supervision of the activities of the auto-financing (Sacele, BIG-Invest)
6. The launching of the MA program for global leadership
7. The growth of the quality, quantity and frequency of communication within BIG
We live in a world with a dynamic of change beyond our parents imagination. Despite a historic anchoring in religious tradition, our (...)