Serhii Solohub is an entrepreneur, author and pastor of Irpin Bible Church near Kyiv. He is passionate about developing young Ukrainian Christian authors and seeing families worship God together, enjoying His manifold perfections. This story is part of the Journeys in Christian Publishing: Stories from LittWorld series.
“My first calling is to be a pastor—to counsel people, to help people to grow in Christ,” Ukrainian entrepreneur, author and pastor Serhii Solohub said. “The second part of my calling is family worship. In 2012, God gave me a calling to write on the most wonderful, most amazing—at the same time, the most hard—topic. It’s to write about God and His perfections.”
Putting LittWorld into practice
“MAI helped me connect and network, and now the world can read in English this book about family worship we’ve practiced in the last eight and a half years in our family.” Serhii’s published books include Worship Alphabet for Families (in Ukrainian, German and Chinese languages) and Kitchen Table Devotions (in English by Moody Publishers, 2021).
“It’s alphabetical,” he said with a smile. “Jesus is Bright, Jesus is Close, Jesus is Defender…”
Serhii is now working with a growing team of nine young local authors. “The first book I wrote by myself. But I heard at LittWorld that it would be great to cooperate with young authors—to help them, to disciple them—so the second book just published has nine authors. We created an online platform and work together.”
At yet another LittWorld, Serhii learned a helpful tip from author Ardy Roberto’s workshop. “I heard that there is a rule: the 60-20-3 rule. If you have a book less than 100 pages, 60% of readers can finish it. If you have a book that’s 100-200 pages, only 20% of readers finish it. And if you have a book more than 200 pages, only 2-3% of readers finish it.”
“My first idea had been to write a book about 365 perfections—a whole year of family worship—but after I heard this principle, I decided to split the 365 perfections into 7 books of 52 stories. So LittWorld helped me to understand more deeply a better way to write books.”
An international and intergenerational team effort
The first book was well received and there was demand for more. “When our readers finished the first book, they said, ‘What next?’” Serhii said. “We decided to start a series, also about God’s perfections, because God has the perfect life, He has perfect holiness.”
The devotionals are designed for both individual and community use. “People can use it to encourage each other in home groups or in church ministry. We also distribute them among chaplains, who can use these stories to encourage people serving in the military.”
The team has started work on the third devotional in the seven-book series. The online platform they created in 2023, Bogopovidannya (https://write.bog.today), is aimed at encouraging young Ukrainians to write books about God. “Maybe for the next book, we’ll attract new people from different churches, and have a jubilee edition with 365 perfections for the year!”
This year Serhii came to LittWorld with Olexandr Bilousov, a Ukrainian author who now lives in Poland. During the conference they were inspired to extend their Write BT online platform to authors from Poland. “Maybe one day this platform will be translated into English, and other countries can use it also!”
The team also published a worship calendar of 365 of God’s perfections, for every day of the year with Bible verses, which has been translated into Spanish and English. A publisher from Brazil told Serhii, “Maybe we can do something in Portuguese.”
“LittWorld helps to build connections between countries,” Serhii said. “We share experiences and pray for each other. Because there is still war in my country I feel here a lot of support, prayers, compassion. So thank you so much. This is a big blessing for me.”
Light in dark times
During these last 3 years, Irpin Bible Church has baptized more than 120 people, most with backgrounds in countries of the former Soviet Union—who had never opened a Bible, had never heard the gospel as it is. “Our church has 550 members, and about a hundred of them came to know about Christ during the war,” Serhii said. “In the dark times, we see the many miracles.”
“The big joy you see when they open the Bible for the first time… God used these dark times to bring more people to Christ. Because of the crisis, because of this brutal war. Please pray for discipleship for these people—that they became strong Christians, that they share the gospel during the war and after the war for the next generations.”
“We need literature. We need hope in dark times,” Serhii said. Born in the former Soviet Union, Serhii received Christ just after the fall of communism, during an era when there was little Christian literature.
He wants a different world for current and future generations, one in which Christian books written by local authors abound and point to Christ. “There’s lots of power in local authors—and in raising them, discipling them, mentoring them,” Serhii said.
In the summer of 2022, Serhii organized a writing contest, “My War Story,” which resulted in a book of reflections written from a Christian perspective. “Each testimony is finished with hope. Only Jesus can give hope through the dark times.”
When Serhii was invited to share how we might pray for Ukraine and his ministry at LittWorld 2024, he and a colleague held up the Ukrainian flag, sharing what the colors represent. “Blue represents the peaceful sky. We haven’t had a peaceful sky because of the war. Yellow represents fields of wheat, fields ready for harvest. May God bless us with a peaceful sky and a peaceful land.”
“The war in our country…People are tired and it’s really hard to write,” Serhii said. “But God gives us strength. We have the good news: Jesus is on the throne, He is still the brightest Star among the dark times.”
