Who are protestants?
Protestant countries are prominent leaders in protecting human rights. They are, almost without exception, developed countries who take care of human rights and care for the most vulnerable in society. This is not a coincidence. Such a situation has developed out of protestant beliefs.
Protestants believe that the Bible is the only truth when it comes to spiritual matters. Hence, we are speaking about Biblical principles. The Bible tells us that all people are sinners and that we cannot earn salvation. We are saved by God’s grace through his Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us and our sins and was then resurrected.
Protestants believe that we are saved by God’s grace and that salvation can only be achieved through faith. True faith results in a person who believes in Jesus changing and thus wanting to help others: fighting for the rights of people with “no voice”, fighting for protection of all minority groups, ready to serve and sacrifice herself/himself for the most vulnerable.
New Hope Baptist Church - a Protestant church in Tuzla
Unfortunately, many citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina became familiar with protestant churches when they emigrated to the west. In the 90’s there were many attempts to start protestant churches in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country with the smallest number and the smallest percentage of protestants in the world. Since its beginnings, New Hope church did not want to “implement” the protestant tradition of other countries.
Keeping in mind that Protestantism can be explained in only one sentence: complete following of Biblical principles; our church has decided to follow Biblical principles in sync with our Bosnian tradition. In other words, our church has grown and continues to grow, with God’s help, through people in the Tuzla region.
Our goal is to share with our town and beyond all the projects that we organize. In this way New Hope Baptist Church has become a center from which we are helping projects in over 20 countries on three continents. Collectively we call these projects Wave.
A large percentage of our church members volunteer for Wave projects. In Tuzla these projects include: the school for kids with special needs, the senior’s home and the children’s home. Our volunteers are also helping in various projects in other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond.
Since the beginning of the refugee crisis in the Balkans, volunteers from our church, along with other friends represented our town. Citizens of Tuzla in that way have been some of the most active volunteers helping refugees in camps from as far afield as Idomeni in Greece to camps in North Serbia, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Tuzla protestant church believes that all people are equal whatever their national background or skin colour. We are fighting against mixing faith and politics. We believe in complete equality of male and female. We are promoting that for religious education the segregation of school classes into religious groups be ceased. We are asking that this form of religious education should not be part of the school system.
Our church by its example attempts to influence other religious groups to give more attention towards the most vulnerable parts of our society. Church services in our church are simple and they include worship (singing), reading and studying the Bible, and prayer to God. During our church services we often have guests who are not protestants. Everyone is welcome to visit us and we will be happy to be your hosts!
Guitar course
BC New Hope organizes a guitar course on Thursdays @ 15.15.
Meet our leaders
Pastor: Željko Puja
Worship team coordinators:
Tea Deak and Zlatan Altumbabić
Wave Projects director and missionary from Croatia: Tea Deak
Coordinator for pre-school and school children ministry and
missionary from Poland: Magdalena Sawczuk
Coordinator for mobile church, youth ministry and missionary from Poland: Izabela Sietejko
"IRCI" and "RUDARI" youth ministry coordinators : Izabela Sietejko and Christopher Leggitt
Seniors ministry
coordinator :
Sanja Kušljugić
Youth ministry coordinator and missionary from England: Christopher Leggitt
Deacon: Franjo Keseg
House groups
New Hope Baptist church in Tuzla has three house groups that meet on Tuesdays at 17:00 and 18:00.
During the house groups we read and study Biblical texts, discuss current events and controversial issues, as well as discussing and organizing upcoming projects.
If you would like to visit or become part of one of the house groups, you are welcome!
Church services
Church services are held:
Thursdays at 18.00
Sundays at 10.00
Church services are open to all and everyone is welcome to participate and visit us during the services, as well as joining us for coffee/tea before and after.
You can contact us by:
Mobile: +38761906479
Email: wave.tea@gmail.com
Wave projects in our church building
BC New Hope is a host to Wave Projects which started its work in Tuzla and today it has educational, humanitarian and serving projects in over 20 countries in three continents.
Wave is organizing educational and recreational projects in our church building and it is active in serving projects in various institutions in Tuzla.
Current volunteering opportunity for new volunteers is in a serving project "Our little heart" for persons with special needs, which is taking place on Mondays in our church. Information about upcoming events, projects and volunteering opportunities are announced before hand on this website, as well as www.facebook.com/waveint and Tuzla Internet portals.
Address: Rudarska 61, Tuzla
Contact us: +38761906479