Professional Profile

Christian pastor, church planter, ministry leader, conference speaker, and trainer with extensive experience in evangelism, discipleship, leadership development, and church multiplication throughout Albania. Passionate about equipping leaders and strengthening local churches.

Ministry Experience

Senior Pastor Life in Christ Church, Tirana (2006–Present)

Church leadership, preaching, discipleship, church planting, oversight of ministries.

Church Planting Coordinator

Bible League Albania

Training pastors, coaching church planters, coordinating national initiatives.

Senior Pastor Living Water Adopt a Child Albania Spiritual leadership and community outreach.

National Coordinator Christianity Explored Albania Translation, implementation, and leadership training.

Board Member Digital Media Church Albania Digital ministry strategy and leadership.

Core Skills Biblical Preaching • Church Planting • Leadership Development • Discipleship • Evangelism • Conference Speaking • Ministry Strategy • Team Leadership • Community Outreach

Personal Married to Gentiana Çuni • Father of Abiel and Lois

Languages Albanian (Native), English

Hi, I'm Angel.

This mission starts right in our home.

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God chose us to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you, Pastor.

What part of the world are you in today?

I was in Greece yesterday actually, but I came back to Albania.

I'm in Tirana in the capital right now.

That's wonderful because one of the things that we're doing is attempting to have a conversation with someone, with a Jesus Believer from every country.

I believe the rules are if you are in Greece, even though you're an Albanian, that it wouldn't register.

No, no, no.

I'm right in the middle of Albania.

It's amazing.

How did you come to meet Jesus?

I came to Jesus through a missionary, through a Canadian missionary in 1994.

I was just a child, but the first missionary started coming in Albania after Albania was for more than 60 years under communist regime.

When the country was open, many Western missionaries came.

One of them was Sean Elgar, which was a missionary that led me to Christ.

I was a Muslim.

I was a Baktashi Muslim.

The verse that actually brought me to Jesus was John 3.17 because the God I knew was a judge, somebody that was always looking after me and see my mistakes.

But in John 3.17, we see that God is not against us, but he's for us.

That was the verse that spoke to me and made me read the Bible and get to know more Jesus.

John 3.16 is one of the most popular that you hear regularly.

I've not heard people refer to 17 as the thing that transformed their life, for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Well, that condemnation is the thing that people fear the most.

In our religion, everything is going to be weighted in good and bad.

It looks like always God is there to judge, but then you learn that he's not there to condemn, he's not there to judge, but he's there to save.

That's why it spoke to me.

Tell me what the journey has been like over the last, what is it, 34 years?

Yes, almost 34 years.

It's been a beautiful journey.

We have the privilege in Albania to be the first evangelical believers, first pastors, first leaders, first church planters.

Most of the pastors in Albania are pioneers.

We are now having the second generation, like the disciples that we raised throughout this year.

It's been amazing because we've done mistakes, of course, but also we have seen what God can do without any tradition, what God can build from scratch, and how God can bring revival amongst a nation that had lost his identity for almost a half century.

It's been quite a journey, I can say.

Sounds like revival.

It is revival, yes.

If you see it that way, it is a revival because there were no evangelicals or Protestants in Albania.

When the country was opened up, people didn't look that much to their identity.

They said, what was my grandfather?

My grandfather was an Eastern Orthodox, my grandfather was a Catholic, my grandfather was a Muslim, and they just picked up that religion without even looking too deep for it, to go back to their roots, of their Christian roots.

Because Albania was one of the first countries to be a Christian nation, and it's one of those countries that Apostle Paul visited, actually started the first churches.

You can see it when he mentioned that in Romans 15, 19, when he says, through signs and wonders, I preached the gospel from Jerusalem to Lyricum, which is Albania today.

It's been quite a journey.

Let's go back to you becoming saved because of a Canadian missionary.

How long is it before you get married?

Well, it took me some time.

I got married when I was 27 years old, and I had just started my first church at the time I had finished Bible school, and then we started the church.

It took me 13 years to go into leadership ministry because I always been involved in my local churches and different missions and volunteering in many other different ministries.

I've done door-to-door with everyone for Christ for almost three years when in between the 18th and 21st.

So I was pretty much involved in ministry all my life, but it's been almost 20 years as a pastor, as a church planter, that I got married.

Do you have any children?

I have two children.

I have a son, he's 17, and a daughter, she's 10 years old.

Yeah, they're quite involved in our ministry, but they also have their dreams for their life and for ministry, and I know God is calling them to different fields.

What is the biggest challenge?

Well, at the moment is, you know, same big problem that Jesus also said, workers.

Albania is still a country in transition.

There is a lot of migration, so we lose a lot of young people that migrate to western countries, and it's always like the harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.

And Albanians are open, like there is no big persecution yet, and if you strike conversation with people, they're open, they listen.

And so, yeah, that's the biggest challenge is stability, so we can raise new workers and new disciples.

What scripture versus story resonates with you the most for this season of your life?

I think Psalm 1 is actually the one that has given me a lot of comfort at the moment, but also kind of a promise that if you serve and you do whatever you do based on the Word of God, He will make it flourish, He will make it stable, He will make it fruitful.

So I think Psalm 1 is what describes my life at the moment.

Five years from today, how old would you be?

I'll be 50.

Wow, if you could imagine being 50, which is a big accomplishment, yeah, and you for some reason pick up this conversation to listen to it, what's a message present you will leave for future you listening?

You couldn't do anything different, because when we plan, we try and do our best not to plan by skills or by what we have, but we plan according to God's guidance and God's vision, which means above our skills and above our resources we have.

So if I'm planning now something I cannot achieve myself, and then five years later I could say, yes, you trusted God and you didn't do it yourself, because yourself you couldn't do it.

Asterion, it's been an honor to have a conversation with you.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share?

Well, I want to encourage every listener to obey God, but to do at least three simple things in life, and one is take some time to take care of yourself, take some time to take care of somebody else, and never forget to come together and worship God.

And if everybody would do these three simple things at least three times a week, at least three hours a week, then this world would never be the same.

This has been a pleasure that I treasure.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired by 12 Minute Blindfolds.