Opportunities
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Moscow
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St. Petersburg
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Tyumen, Siberia
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Long Term Mission

Opportunities
We have been blessed by the opportunities confronting us concerning new and already established and functioning programs in various strategic locations of the former Soviet Union which we continually investigate and share with you the progress. We ask your prayers that the Lord enable those schools in their undertaking of developing solid Biblical education programs and enable us to secure necessary funds, literature and other materials, as well as professors/pastors who teach through ITEM.

Moscow, Russia
Moscow is in the center of western ministry occurring in Russia. Any expatriate organization involved in Russia has headquarters or offices in Moscow. Our brief visit to Moscow was marked by lengthy and intensive meetings with representatives and/or chief officers of no fewer than five different expatriate agencies who are involved in long-term commitments to meeting the real needs of the Russian people through evangelism and discipleship, church planting, Christian Education, leadership development, literature production, dissemination, and translation, and theological education/pastoral training. In short, the work has only just begun. As evangelism progresses and the number of churches proliferates, translation and the training of church leadership becomes the paramount concern. In this environment, Baptist churches are both baptistic (as Westerners understand the term) and legalistic, isolating themselves from other Protestant denominations including those of a Reformed persuasion as well as the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church itself is more open to Reformed materials and thinking as they see the need for biblical principles as expressed by Calvinist doctrine in the day-to-day activities of ordinary life. The collapse of communism has left an ideological void. Even former President Yeltsin since his reelection acknowledged this void publicly by sponsoring a contest for a new national ideal to guide daily thought and life. At the same time, the Duma (the Russian Parliament) adopted laws which would restrict activities such as those undertaken by CoMission and ITEM. Additionally, at this point there is no formal recognition of any theological degrees unless they were given by a seminary of one of the officially recognized religious organizations, i.e. the Orthodox, Catholics, Jews and Moslems. Different Christian groups recognize that the long-term, sustained progress of the Gospel and social reconstruction must begin by educating the masses by providing an alternative framework/world view to that of bankrupt communism. As efforts to address this need of the masses proceeds, a parallel plan of training/preparing leaders must be in place.

In order to accomplish these goals, the following must be met - substantive Reformed theological literature competently translated into Russian in both substance and form, disseminated widely to the people; preparation and training of nationals to interpret God's Word and disciple God's people from a Reformed theological and world view. Indicative current translation projects are available. In addition there is a need for a conference of Christian translators and theologians to standardize theological terminology along with explanations/elaborations thereof.

The people of the Moscow area are avid readers and able to consume, digest and appropriate the contents of good literature. This being a strength, it appears that it would be poor stewardship for ITEM not to avail itself of so ready an opportunity. The critical factor here is that the quality of the translation is as important in its appeal to the people as the subject matter of the substance. That which appeals to the intelligentsia will also appeal to the masses, but not vice versa. Regrettably, there is a paucity of Reformed literature and a plethora of shallow and poorly translated material, denigrating the cause of the Gospel.

St. Petersburg, Russia
It has been some time since the Society for Open Christianity opened a Christian school and Bible Institute in St. Petersburg (population of 5 million). It had been specifically requested that the principles of Reformed theology be taught as an ethical base for the personal theologies of the students and ITEM has responded to that need by sending a lecturer, Gary Vander Hart, who has lectured on Reformed theology under the requested format. However, soon thereafter the school building was besieged and shut down by the local government. While in session, the students exhibited high level of intellectual knowledge and logical thinking and at times "were tough on professors." They did not come for elementary, but rather deep and extensive education, and they had particular needs focused on joining the Old and New Testaments, the theology of the Bible, the history of the Church, comparative theologies and philosophical perspectives, biblical languages as well as Latin and English, and pedagogical preparation - psychology and Christian education and methodology. Because of the mindset of the Russian student, "one-to-one" teaching/discipling is most effective. As regards courses of instruction, two and three week blocks of intensive lecture and one week of dialoguing from a pastor-like/mentor perspective is critical. It was emphasized that it is best that the lecturers would not just come and read a course and leave, but stay after the reading to disciple, test and prepare the students for "useful use of their education." The philosophical, theological and life connection sequence, so necessary to a Biblical world and life view, is quite challenging for Russian professors. It was, and still is even after the shut down, their desire to conduct conferences, inviting dialogue from the various denominations in a cross-cultural context so that the product of the efforts can be both worldly-wise, tried and true.

Tyumen Russia
The region of Tyumen, Siberia may seem far away not only from us but also far away from God Himself and yet this is far from true as Dr. David Ludwick, President of ITEM, can attest having undertaken a trip there personally. He had been contacted by a group of Christians desiring to receive adequate training in order to plant churches and organized evangelism groups in the vast region of Siberia. The government that once was so hostile to Christianity is now more tolerable.. The young men of Tyumen who wish to get a seminary education go to the large cities, Moscow or Kiev, according to the ministers in Tyumen. After the young men receive their seminary degrees, they usually choose not to go back to places like Tyumen, to use a slang expression, "the boondocks". If there were a Protestant seminary in Tyumen, there is confidence that the young seminary graduates would be more willing to stay.

Tyumen Region is one of Russia's largest regions. It has an area of 1.4 million square km (8.4% of Russia's total area), which is equivalent to the combined areas of Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain. The region has a population of more than 3 million. People of working age make up a large percentage (67%) of the population, whereas pensioners make up only 12%. This distribution is the result of high population growth in the younger age groups due to migration in the years when the oil and gas industry was forming and developing. The average age of the region's population in 2002 was 33.7 years (vs. 37.8 years for the Russian Federation). Tyumen Region is Russia's third-largest region in area and thirteenth-largest in population. It is also one of Russia's most multinational regions, with representatives of 125 nationalities, including 26 small northern ethnic groups. Russians form the largest group, followed by Ukrainians (8.4%), Tatars (7.3%), Belarussians (1.6%), Bashkirs (1.3%), and Chuvashes (1%). Northern minorities living in the region number 51,900, or one-third of their total population in the Russian Federation. The regional capital Tyumen, with a population of nearly 600 000, is the region's administrative, scientific, and cultural center. Tyumen accounts for nearly 5% of the region's total industrial output, and most of the freight and passenger traffic passes through it. Higher and secondary vocational educational institutions, research institutes, and regional health, cultural, and educational departments are all located in Tyumen.

Despite all the growth, the low moral and spiritual climate in Tyumen is cause for any spiritual help that can be given. Communism was very successful in removing nearly every vestige of Christianity from the area. It has been estimated that only about a thousand Protestants gather to worship God on any given Sunday, and even this estimate is generous. The Orthodox Church has a prominent presence in Tyumen, but the spiritual input of the church is minimal with its predominant emphasis on ritual, external beauty and form. Vibrant preaching of the Word of God is scarce. Drug addiction is like a plague. Thankfully the government faces this problem and drug addicts spend a year in prison if caught. Use of alcoholic beverages is extremely heavy; drunks can be spotted nearly every time a person walks a few blocks. Walls in stores from the floor upward have shelves filled with alcoholic beverages. The people are extremely heavy smokers, men and women. Lying and stealing are rampant. Divorce is at a sickeningly high rate. Men divorce their wives for younger women and leave their former wife and children emotionally devastated and seem not to have any feelings about it all. The marriage ceremonies have no reference to God at all, just promises from one to the other. The army seeks new recruits every year to meet its annual quota. A knowledgeable woman told me that the army is unable to fill its annual quota because so many of the young men are drug addicts, alcoholics, or have AIDS.

As of yet, there is only one known Protestant seminary in Tyumen, supported through the efforts of the mission organization Footprints International. ITEM has been asked and has been cooperating with this organization and sent professors and resources on a number of occasions. Through ITEM's work Russian Christian leaders are being equipped and teaching their own people how to evangelize and worship and share in Christian fellowship at local churches. God will use these people to change Russia's heart village by village, family by family, soul by soul. The fact that the training and outreach is taking place under the leadership of Christian nationals signifies a major step forward in Russian history. It means that pastors with training and prepared church planters will start new churches and the work can go forward even under severe persecution because it does not rely solely on foreign mission workers.

Long Term Mission
The long term is to fulfill the Great Commission in Russia by equipping enough believers to establish enough churches so that there would be at least one Reformed church for every 3,000 families. This is happening primarily by developing Cultural and Educational Centers like the one in the Tyumen region, through which nationals and expatriates work together in an integrated and coordinated environment that promotes nationals equipped for leadership, evangelism and church planting with emphasis on family ministry at the local level.

The current needs of the people justify our efforts and costs. The people of the former Soviet Union now live in political and economic distress mingled with a spiritual vacuum that provides little hope for the future. There is hardly any help from traditional human service agencies designed to meet the daily needs of people, not to mention the ultimate need for forgiveness of sins and salvation of souls. The only hope rests in churches, which are few and lack recourses and training. By focusing training and resources to target evangelists and church planters is the best hope for the future of Christianity.

Approximately $50,000 will be needed to sponsor 12 months of ministry at one such site. Each site is expected to be sponsored for 5-7 years, after which they are expected to have developed their own sources and resources.