If Our Target is Not Planting Churches – What Then are We Doing Here?

Answer: “Our Ministry to Russia is ‘Being the Salt, the Light That Enriches and Empowers Christian Brothers and Sisters in Existing Christian Expressions of the Russian-speaking world”

A Story of New Beginnings (St. Petersburg, April 2004)

There’s a promising group of new Reformed believers who have arrived on the scene in our city of St. Petersburg. Pastor Max (age 34) and Larissa, her sister Galya and a dozen others call themselves “Reformed Charismatics”. Most of the group became believers in the early 1990s, and they have a huge experience in gathering the lost into the Christian faith. They’ve moved en-masse from the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don to St. Petersburg precisely because they discovered two special gifts from God: Reformed theological books that the CRC published and the website of the Presbyterian seminary in St. Petersburg where Max is now a student. The CRC supports this seminary with an annual grant. And this summer’s CRC Summer Mission Team and myself will be doing neighbourhood outreach with their newly-formed music team that draws members from several churches.

Max's church is one of the three churches within the Presbytery of the Presbyterian Reformed churches, a small group of churches that have grown out of the seminary.

Charismatic churches are the fastest growing churches in Russia, and Pastor Max and his church came through many struggles in the faith during the last 10 years. Answers from the Charismatic position to their questions didn’t satisfy them. “Why do some people refuse to believe? Why do people suffer? Why doesn’t God heal everyone when we cry out to Him, and we pray in faith? Why do I not have abundant life?”

“We lost interest in Charismatic teaching and books – Life is not so simple. What really is abundant life before God? ‘Ask and you’ll get’- is that really the God of the Bible? We’ve come to believe in the sovereignty of God – that my life’s path is directed by God’s divine plan; He chooses me to be His instrument of grace, and it really isn’t my fault if my neighbour does not become saved. Results, conversions are in His hands, not mine! That’s a peace that charismatics here just do not have – they are told from the pulpit that their faith is just not strong enough if God is not answering their prayers as they wish!

After reading Orthodox books, we found Alexandr Men’s books were good – evangelistic and in modern Russian. Then we came upon Reformed theology - it was like very hungry people finding food again!

“We have been here one year – our fellowship meets in a local Catholic church hall. We have our musicians training twice a week, getting ready for outreach in the summer. We have a special calling to reach out to former or hurting church members who have become disillusioned by a shallow theology and a guilt-ridden message. And of course there are many who have never heard about God’s grace that we want to reach. We are ready to preach the comforting words of our Sovereign God, as we have come to know Him through our deep study of Scripture that is found in the Reformation teachers. Thank you, Reformed brothers and sisters in America, for giving us this new beginning! Help from Gary Timmerman and his ministry completed our music instrument needs, and the CRC summer missions team will help us evangelize in many ways in June. Pastor Max is ready to preach the radical nature of God’s grace as he has come to know it through Reformed doctrines (yes, he’s a 5-point Calvinist!). Pastor Max’s copies of Calvin’s Institutes are all marked up, showing his years of exploration and discovery of the graciousness of God, and the biblical teachings that lie behind it. We are becoming familiar with the rich hymns and songs of the Reformed tradition that we will add to our music ministry. You are our friends, our partners as we reach out to proclaim the King of Kings!”

Another Teacher Shares the Value of Calvin’s Institutes in Russian language:

"The publishing by the Christian Reformed Church in North America of Calvin's Institutes (in 3 volumes from 1997-1999) I consider to be one of the greatest best Christian projects offered to us since the opening of our spiritual freedom. John Calvin was the greatest Protestant evangelical author and best Biblicist! Reading and re-reading these volumes is useful to me as I prepare lectures and seminars at the Seminary. They have helped me to understand the difference between modern Calvinism and the actual teachings of Calvin, and clarifying for me the my difficulties I have with Luther."

- Eugene Bakhmutsky, age 27, Siberian region Bishop's Assistant in Youth Ministry, Novosibirsk
Biblical Theological Seminary instructor, and local youth leader in Union of Evangelical
Christian Baptist congregation

Not Without the Challenges…

"I see pastors and seminary students fall in love with those volumes of Calvin and with the man Calvin himself. They nearly fall to tears while reciting from it! But we must admit that in this country we have some difficulties with modern Calvinism. Calvin taught divine election, but we can read in his Institutes that "the chosen person is a holy person". This idea of 'saved today -saved forever' is trouble for us in our churches. And this idea is first established in his books. A lot of people who live badly will grab on to this idea, while godly Christians see the name of God and his church dragged down. Modern Calvinism that Russians have seen so far via the Calvinistic American Baptists who have come here, have demonstrated that they accept people into their fellowships who live very unholy lives."

- Andrey Melnikov, age 46, Pastor of Evangelical Baptist congregation, Novosibirsk, Siberia.
Director of Novosibirsk Christian Publisher "Posoch" and project manager of Siberian mobile
libraries system (sponsored by CRC grant)

“Books like Calvin’s Institutes and Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism are only useful on the Russian scene when the truths of Calvin are matched with the existing teachings within the Orthodox expression of faith and Christian life. And there are great truths to be found in the Institutes! Only from this approach will Russian culture and Church come to respect such authors and spokesmen of the Western church. Any Russian pastor who waves the Calvin’s Institutes from the pulpit and says “Here I’ve found the Real True teachings of the Bible” will be glad if he can see his church grow from 15 to 25 people in 10 years. Russian people will never accept such foreign packaging!”

“This whole system is fundamentally contrary to the Orthodox system and to Russian mentality. Calvinism and ideas of the Reformation of the priesthood of all believers are foreign to the Russian mind and life. Calvinism as a life system is very contradictory to the Orthodox system, not only on the issue of security of salvation, but in the whole Orthodox system of governance which is pyramidical. In the Orthodox system, it could not be imagined that a priest would lose his job, except if he is caught in sin. People see the priest as the one who loves them and knows their struggles and leads them. People are very comfortable in this pyramid and they don’t aspire to have responsibility in the church. Any development of democratic ideas must happen inside the pyramid of Orthodox hierarchy.

- Dr. Sergei I. Nikolaev, age 60's, Bishop of Northwest Russia Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists, President of St. Petersburg Evangelical Theological Academy