How to adopt a Eurasian Church

We suggest the following for successful church adoptions:

Talk to those in the CREC that Already Have Experience in Church Adoptions

For right you may write to the elders of the two churches that have already adopted Eurasian churches. This includes the sessions of Christ the King of Springfield, MO, and Grace Covenant, of Nacogdoches, TX.

Commit Yourself and Your Church to Spiritual Warfare

Proverbs 21:22 reads, “A wise many scales the city of the mighty, and brings down the stronghold in which they trust.” The city has to be scaled because it is built to keep you out. The mightier the city, the greater the spiritual and moral warfare will be to take the city.

Eurasia has 220 million Russian speakers in it, almost the population of the United States. Eurasia is almost 2X’s larger than the United States, has more natural resources, and produces more oil than any country on the earth today. Russia has dominated her neighbors for 500 years, has the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal and has until 1990 never allowed Evangelical churches to be planted by foreigners among natives.

Every single CREC church planted will very likely be the first time anything like it was ever planted there. As far as is known, if we have 10 CREC churches planted by 2015, we will have one Reformed church for every 2.2 million people for the first time in the history of the Russian empire.

Each CREC church plant in Eurasia will probably be the first time a church will be in that city or region that preaches the Russian Bible in the Russian language, takes Christian education seriously, has large families of 3 or more children, believes the promises of God for the victory of the Church on the earth, is male elder ruled, sings Psalms and celebrates weekly communion as a congregation, and practices church discipline.

Before spiritual combat, we must count the cost, as Luke 14 tells us:

For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

The mightier the city, the more there is to scale, the stronger the stronghold.

Next,

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Attack the strongholds of the mighty in Eurasia, first and foremost with prayer. Adopt your church with much supplication. Unless the Lord adopts the church, those who adopt it adopt it in vain.

Believe in the Ultimate Success of Your Church Adoption

Every one of the distinctive of the CREC is a straight forward challenge to the local culture and government in the Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. If you do not believe their church can be successful, you will have a very hard time being an effective resource for them, so you will have to begin to find and cling to the promises of God with them.

If they need coaching to be successful, and they probably will, after serving them enough to gain their trust, share your views with them. In reality, the Eurasian believers and leaders will will probably ask for your advice before you feel prepared to give it.

Understand that every church adoption will be unique within 3 contexts

Just like each of the 7 churches of Revelation 2 and 3 had its own personality, and history, every future CREC church of Eurasia will grow out of its own peculiar situation. There are 3 basic contexts for church planting in Eurasia:

1. Planting a church from scratch through a proven Reformed native church planter.
2. Reforming an existing church through her current native pastor who is in training with the CREC.
3. Planting a church by enabling a serving native pastor to leave his current non-Reformed church to start a new Reformed and Presbyterian church.

Even so, within these three broad categories of situations currently in existence in Eurasia, your church adoption will have to be something done with finesse, sensitivity, and perseverance as you and your native Eurasian pastor and congregation get to know each other.

I Corinthians 9 in the Amplified version is a guideline in principle for the kind of being light on your relational feet that will be required for successful church adoptions. It reads:

For although I am free in every way from anyone's control, I have made myself a bond servant to everyone, so that I might gain the more [for Christ]. To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to men under the Law, [I became] as one under the Law, though not myself being under the Law, that I might win those under the Law. To those without (outside) law I became as one without law, not that I am without the law of God and lawless toward Him, but that I am [especially keeping] within and committed to the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law. To the weak (wanting in discernment) I have become weak (wanting in discernment) that I might win the weak and overscrupulous. I have [in short] become all things to all men, that I might by all means (at all costs and in any and every way) save some [by winning them to faith in Jesus Christ]. And I do this for the sake of the good news (the Gospel), in order that I may become a participator in it and share in its [blessings along with you]. Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.

Get to know the pastor you are adopting, his family, his church, his city, his country. You can learn a lot on-line about the former Soviet Union and Eurasian cities.

Adopt Churches with Coaching from the More Experienced Ministers on the Field

In 1994 wonderful Dutch believers invested 2,000,000 in Open Christianity, a Christian school which was to be a partnership between Russian Orthodox and Protestants. After a year of the schools existence the police in St. Petersburg stormed the building while 100 students were in it, ran off the kids, plundered the building, and left it empty. Why were they able to do this? Because the woman that was the head of Open Christianity never had complete legal ownership of the building, but the Dutch did not know this. The Dutch had no proven local leader, Russian, or expatriot, to coach them and to verify that that woman was honest. She wasn’t, and they lost a cool two million dollars and thousands of man hours of Dutch volunteer workers in one fell swoop.

Foreign cultures in 2nd and 3rd world situations have such a different set of pressures upon them, and function in such a corrupt environment, and little dependable source of income, it will take a while for you to understand their world.

One way to help your understanding of honesty, and language in their world is to have a coach who has lived in both cultures.

One reason the Pushkin and Tyumen adoptions have been so smooth and successful is that both Eurasian pastors, it that their pastors had been discipled by Westerners for years before they were adopted. They had not only been proven to be faithful in a very little, as Luke 16:10-12, but they understood what Western Christian leaders meant by what they said. James Jordan, Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers and John Mahon and others, as well as our Russian seminary staff, all confirmed my trust in them before we ever introduced them to their adopting churches.

I suggest you consult the above men plus other Reformed pastors that have been on the field before you make hard commitments to your church. You may write me at blakepurcell2000@yahoo.com for their emails.

Grow Into Your Church Adoption

What do I mean by grow into the church adoptions? First of all, what I mean is that ideally, your church has already been supporting the SRS seminary with a student scholarship so that you know what kind of experiences the pastors have had in their training, and have already invested in that training, and continue to invest in the seminary even after you adopt a church.

Second of all, you adopt a proven, officially sanctioned pastor from our movement and through a few years of this adoption with annual visits to or from the field you learn the nuances of the culture and some Russian. In adopting I suggest you visit them on the field before you make any financial or other types of long-term commitments.

Thirdly, once you have been faithful in these things, and have seen the church you adopted get on a firm foundation, then consider branching out from their in some of your own initiatives, such as adopting non-proven pastors, or pastors not in our movement. This is a naturally wise set of steps to go through as you engage in the international world for Jesus Christ.

Make Sure You are Invest Enough to Help Your Eurasian Church Reach “Critical Mass”

Jeffrey Meyers church, Providence Reformed in St. Louis just sent 90 of the congregants to another part of town with their former assistant pastor to start a new PCA church. They also pledged to pay the more than the pastors salary for the first year. This is standard procedure for PCA church plants. They understand that in that metropolitan environment you need to start with momentum to be considered legitimate by visitors.

In St. Louis, with over 10 PCA churches and Covenant Seminary, in a part of the country that is on the edge of the Bible Belt, so has about 50% of the population that is the member of some Christian church, they feel the need to invest this heavily. Therefore, to see a successful church in Eurasia, what is a critical mass, absolute minimum investment? Just as in the United States, it depends on the city, and what you are starting with.

St. Petersburg is the world’s 10th most expensive city, so for a pastor to be freed up to have any time to minister and build the church they need a minimum of $1200/month. On the other hand, Ravil, I think, is only needs $600/month because his church pays him and Tyumen is about 40% cheaper to live in than St. Petersburg.

Likewise, some of the churches are in very difficult circumstances to grow and will need more creative counseling than others, and help on strategies for that growth, and perhaps more financial support for the pastor or even an assistant pastor. Some will need help maximizing the Christian education of their children. You may need to see to it that Doug Wilson’s books on the family are translated and printed for that to happen.

(We printed 3,000 copies of Reforming marriage 7 years ago, and it sold out in 6 months. We have never had any money to translate any more and right now, Her Hand in Marriage is desperately needed, for instance. Do not expect Russians to flourish in a hostile oppressive country without the essentials that helped you grow in a relatively church friendly, just country.)

How to Bring Your North American Church Along With Your Vision for Church Adoptions

Whether you are a church officer or not, your North American church will have to be discipled in order to be able to adopt the Eurasian church in unity. I had one elder tell me that he would visit Eurasia but wanted me to know that some of his elders were skeptical about the effectiveness of church adoptions done 6,000 miles apart from each other.

For folks that are doubtful about how effective your help can be from such a distance I would suggest the you consider the following things:

1. Pray for the situation. You do not have because you do not ask, James 4 tells us.

2. Ask the doubting folks what it is exactly that bothers them about long-distance adoptions. You cannot scratch if you don’t know where the itch is.

3. If their concern is that you do not have the man-power or finances to help the Eurasian church hit critical mass in the near future, they may have a good point! I would suggest then that you consider partnering with one or more CREC churches in the adoption.

4. If their concern is that traveling to Russia and the Ukraine and Belarus, and Kzakhstan is dangerous they also have a made a good point. All traveling, statistically speaking, is dangerous. So I would help them consider whether or not your travel is a calculated risk or fool-hearty. I would not advise anyone to travel to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, or Iran now to do open air evangelism.

Most of the big cities of Eurasia have hundreds of thousands of tourists a year visit them, many of them of retirement age, so Eurasia at this point in time is just as safe to travel in as Europe, if you don’t mind paying small extortion fees along the way of up to 20$. But before you travel always check on the safety of a given area on the internet.