Pensees: Slavic Shepherds at the Shepherds Conference

Slavic Shepherds at the Shepherds Conference

While I was at the Shepherds Conference I attended a small dinner hosted by the Slavic Gospel Association (SGA). Kyler Welch, the director of SGA’s Antioch Initiative had graciously invited me to eavesdrop on a fellowship of Russian and Albanian pastors and their American counter-parts in a cooperative effort to minister to the Slav churches. The small occasion ended up being a spiritual highlight in a week of highlights, and I am very grateful to Kyler for his invitation.

SGA was founded in 1934 by Peter Deyneka, a Russian immigrant who became known as Peter Dynamite. Deyneka was a tireless evangelist with a passion for his beloved people and the firm persuasion that prayer is the engine that drives successful ministry. (I have enjoyed reading his biography this week.) He died two years before the Iron Curtain came down, but his prayers are still being answered through the ministry of SGA and countless pastors throughout his fatherland.

I have grown up in Africa and France. I know and appreciate different cultures. I also know that stereotypes are not good. Yet, in spite of my cultural upbringing, I had stereotypes about the unknown world of Russia and everything Slavonic. It was a part of the world I knew little of and thought little of, but that was changed last Thursday night.

I tend to stereotype all things Russian with drab, colorless, worn, and agrarian features that symbolize the harsh reality that life is not a piece of cake. The setting for the SGA dinner did little to change that perception. About forty servants of the Lord from two continents grouped around plain, undecorated tables in a poorly lit conference room of a one or two star motel. The food was plain and all the ware was disposable. Everything was low budget. And though it fit my stereotype, it could not have been more tastefully appropriate. This was, after all, a fellowship of soldiers. And life is not a piece of cake for soldiers.

I felt myself to be the unworthy spectator of frontline action and my eyes and heart drank it in. The Russian pastors were leaders of large congregations in densely populated areas. They were leaders of men, being trained and training at the same time. One of the men, as the leader of the Baptist Union, presides over an organization of 1600 churches in 11 different time zones. That’s one thousand six hundred churches dotting a massive piece of earth, folks! I’m impressed. Yet there was no pomp and circumstance, and I don’t think I saw anybody trying to get his autograph in their Bibles. What I did see, however, is a handful of men from that vast continent where Russia sprawls, men with swarthy, bearded faces; others with the pale skin, high cheekbones, and piercing dark eyes; all with the particular Russian look that distinguishes them in my brain, whatever that is.

That is what I saw with my eyes, but the eyes of my heart saw far much more. They discerned servants, servants of God; servants who seemed to be bowing under the burden of millions untold, crushed under the load of churches untaught. I listened to the translated testimonies and heard the cry of men who saw their entire fatherland rushing headlong into hell. These men have cried out with Wisdom on the deaf ears of their compatriots, “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge” (Proverbs 1:22)? Yet, the mad, hell-bent rush to damnation intensifies, fueled by novel Western materialism. Shepherd-less flocks flounder, desperately ravishing their souls on whatever delectable source of nourishment they can find, hoping against all hope that they are not being led astray by wolves. Some of these men have come to the fertile ground of the American Church and are asking for a little, just a little, attention to their needs. They were not complaining, not whining, just humbling attempting to remind us that the world is bigger than we think.

The statistics are unbearable. One speaker said that a study of one million marriages showed that over 800,000 of them fell apart. Of the countless orphans it is estimated that one in three will grow up homeless, one in five will go to prison. Another Russian pastor said to his fellows something like this, “We think and we care just for our churches and for our needs, but there are other churches we must uphold.”

One of the greatest of theologians in all time would have nodded in agreement with the Russian pastor. John Owen asserted that the local church that lives unto itself has lost its reason for existence. He taught that no local church could fulfill its duties to the Lord Jesus Christ with out some level of cooperation with other churches. And, furthermore, the church (or denomination of churches) that was uncooperative was, in Owen’s opinion, guilty of sinful divisiveness.

And that particular church [local church] which extends not its duty beyond its own assemblies and members is fallen off from the principal end of its institution; and every principle, opinion, or persuasion, that inclines any church to confine its care and duty unto its own edification only, yea, or of those only which agree with it in some peculiar practice, making it neglective of all due means of the edification of the church catholic, is schismatical.

The tendency to clannishness is universal. We are all inclined to ministerial parochialism. Our vision rarely escapes the restraints of evangelical provincialism. We often act as if all of evangelical Christianity is that which is known to us. We function ministerially as if evangelical Christianity is English-speaking. We think that our controversies are rocking the whole Church of Jesus Christ when, in fact, they are usually merely tempests in a teacup.

It struck me that while three thousand pastors from all over the USA met at Grace Community Church relishing togetherness, bigness, impact, and the relative freedom and prosperity of our affluent society there gathered simultaneously representatives of a vast Slavonic, unnumbered people. These representatives encouraged each other in the dimly lit, out of date conference room and bolstered one another to press on in the seemingly overwhelming task of preaching the Gospel to their millions and training pastors to shepherd the hundreds of tiny flocks that speckle the Slavic landscape. Three thousand gathered down the street, but few knew about the tiny band of Slavs and their supportive brethren who were fellowshipping over a simple meal that Thursday night attempting to strengthen their mutually-held faith and conviction that the work in Russia was indeed important and blessed with unlimited potential. They spoke enthusiastically of one particular missionary initiative, the Antioch Initiative.

Only a few American pastors were there, but with undaunted faith and zeal, the Russian pastors and their SGA associates were smiling and giving enthusiastic thanks to the even smaller group of American pastors that were gathered with them. And I was thinking to myself why aren’t more people here? Could it be that being connected in the big crowd we might not even know what is really going on in the world? These are Slavs. But what about the millions of Chinese? The Africans? And the host of unknown children of God in impenetrable so-called 10/40 window? I was brutally reminded that to embrace the American Church’s prosperity, enter into her issues and conflicts, and celebrate her victories was fine, but I should make every effort to avoid her seduction. She could seduce me, a third-generation MK, into thinking that she alone is the Church Visible when, in fact, she is only an infinitesimal part of a global Body.

The testimonies that night were fascinating. One pastor told of a woman whose son had been murdered. She lived in bitterness and anger for years until the Lord mercifully saved her and gave her grace to forgive. Sometime later a visiting speaker in church told his testimony of how he had murdered a man, been cast in prison, but was gloriously saved. He said he longed to meet the family of the man he had killed to ask their forgiveness. The bereaved mother and the ex-con met immediately following the service and embraced in Christian love. “The Devil took my son,” said the mother as she embraced the redeemed murderer, “but God gave a son back to me.” We also heard about the prison warden, a colonel, who appeared in church for the first time to hear none other but one of his former ex-convicts preaching. These were truly soul-stirring testimonies to fuel our evangelistic fervor.

To be sure, it could be said that the Russian church, having become a theological wasteland after years of oppression and isolation, is too Arminian in its soteriology. The responsibility of man is too easily confused for man’s ability and the Russian Church, like so many of its persecuted brethren in history, has been inclined to doubt the truth of eternal security, particularly for the believer that fell under persecution. It is possible that the angst of soul aroused by oppressive weight of Christian responsibility to “save the lost” in Russia could be potentially overwrought by the unfounded persuasion that the salvation of souls depends on our success as evangelists. But I doubt that we are guilty of over anxiety for lost souls. To the contrary, I felt that the Slavic members of the Body could make a deal with the American members of the Body, an exchange. We should share knowledge, the rich produce of freedom and prosperity that nourishes and fortifies the Church. They, the Slavonic members of Christ’s Body could infuse us with zeal.

Zeal without knowledge could be very dangerous and, if not corrected, could lead to damnable heresies. It already has. Likewise, knowledge without zeal is very dangerous, an inexcusable affront to the character of God, for He defines Himself as clothed with zeal. Knowledge without zeal is fruitless and, to use Paul’s words, “puffs up.” Knowledge unaccompanied by a holy zeal to do the work of God and seek the salvation of souls could also lead to damnable heresies. It already has.

They need some of our knowledge. We need some of their zeal. Therefore, it would seem to me that the American brethren and the Slavic brethren need each other.