This is a post from our 15 December 2008 newsletter, v.16.2 (MEC)
Evangelism remains difficult. Moscow society and culture has become very
resistant to casual forms of informal evangelism. Most growth trumpeted by churches and
missions in Moscow is simply transfer growth from one new endeavor to another. The most successful evangelism is now done
almost exclusively through personal relationships. The challenge then is to constantly widen your
circle of natural relationships because after several years, you’ve already witnessed
and extended invitations to everyone you know.
This challenge only increases in the current environment of urban stress
and economic uncertainty. Pray for
one-on-one evangelism!
In Russia,
there is an added challenge faced by church efforts that are not Russian
Orthodox. The national church has widely
condemned, on television and radio and in the print media, the efforts of
non-Orthodox movements to “proselytize” natural-born Russians. Hare Krishnas, various doomsday cults,
Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Baptists, the Salvation Army, and all non-Orthodox
form of Christianity working in Russia are categorized together as “cults”.
This is what our children face at school, and what their parents face at
work. We are not Christians, we are
“cultists”. After almost ten years of
this reactionary psychological aggressiveness that oppresses both the hater and
the hated, both the feared and the fearful, Romans 1:16 brings new
conviction. Many Russian Christians
today must shake off a load of shame and fear before they can share their faith
or even offer to pray for people. The
boldness that came so easily to them as young Christians 10-15 years ago is now
a silent wistfulness as they have families to feed, rent to pay, and jobs to
keep. In Moscow, outside our separate Christian
communities, the darkness falls rapidly.
We hear the cries for help, we can even see it outside our windows, but
it just feels like we can’t do anything about it. Pray against this tendency to give way to
darkness!
The
economic crisis affects all of us. In Moscow, things are much better economically for
most people now than during the Yeltsin Era, but there isn’t much “trickle
down”, even though Russia is a wealthy nation. Economic stress is
worldwide, and Russia is threatened along with many other nations. Like literally millions of other people, many
Russia Christians have moved to in Moscow because there is so little opportunity back home. In Moscow,
the economy demands 50-75% of their income for rent. There isn’t much left for anything else and
most people have no reserve for a rainy day.
Pray for economic stability in the nation and for the financial
well-being of Christians, their churches, and their missions. But pray also against the stronghold of materialism
that has choked the vetted spirituality of so many Russians. The revival that so many of us anticipate may
depend on huge breakthroughs in that sphere.
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