You are here :
Home / Resources / Current News Stories / Heat of Harvest in Cold of Winter
Russian church-planting movement spreads throughout former Soviet lands.
February 19, 2009
by John M. Lindner, D.Miss.
Can you imagine turning a Russian Communist national treasure into a command center for the spread of the gospel throughout the former Soviet Republic? Incredibly, the New Testament Church of Perm, Russia, has done just that.
That congregation, now 3,500 strong, was able to purchase Vladimir Lenin’s Palace of Culture in 2005 and make it a headquarters for spreading the gospel all across Russia and former Soviet states. So far they have planted 300 churches. But hold on to your ushankas: They hope to plant 100 more in 2009. And that’s not all.
Plowing a frozen field
 |
| Sibirskaya Street in Perm, Russia. Click to enlarge. |
Perm is located about 700 mi. (1100 km.) east-northeast of Moscow and about 575 mi. (960 km.) south of the Arctic Circle. It spreads along 30 miles of the Yegoshikha and Kama Rivers, making it Russia's third largest city by area, surpassed only by Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is the capital of the Perm region and its metropolitan area today includes over 1 million people.
The city was introduced to Christianity in the 14th century by Stephen of Perm, whose mother, according to legend, was a Komi, a people of the region immediately to the north. Stephen invented the Perm alphabet and put Christian writings into the local language, rather than expecting the people to learn Latin. The people of the region today follow mostly Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox traditions. Very few know the truth of salvation in the gospel of our precious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
 |
| Edward Grabavenko | Edward Grabavenko came to bring them the good news. In 1991, at age 21, he graduated from the first Bible institute started after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Edward was Ukrainian. The Bible institute he attended was in Lithuania. His chosen field of ministry: Perm, Russia, a field to which few wanted to go. But God had laid it on Edward’s heart. And he brought four fellow Ukrainians with him.
When Edward and his friends arrived, he found a small congregation of evangelical believers meeting secretly. Instead of welcoming him, however, they told him to go home. They didn’t want Edward disturbing their peace by openly evangelizing. “Besides, you have a Ukrainian accent,” they told him. “The Russian people will not understand you.”
Undaunted, Edward planned an indoor crusade in February, 1992. Through it 44 persons trusted in Christ. Encouraged, he planned another. He and his associates, with a few of his new disciples, posted some 500 “Perm for Christ” posters and started handing out invitations. They thought big and rented an auditorium seating 800 people.
More than 1,000 showed up! As a result of those meetings 189 new believers were baptized. These became the nucleus of the New Testament Church at Perm.
On day 17 of the crusade, a busload of people from another city arrived. That was when Edward realized he had to reach out beyond Perm, and began holding crusades in other cities and towns in the region.
Then he faced a new dilemma: Who would disciple the new groups of believers in these places?
That was when he realized he needed to start a Bible school to train local leaders and those who wanted to be missionaries. The first class of 30 students completed their one-year course in 1992. Today 120 day students are studying full time for a year. Another 40 come to evening classes three times a week for an 18-month program. Altogether, about 1,700 students have been trained at NTC’s Bible school.
Churches spanning 11 time zones
 |
|
Map shows where NTC has planted churches. Click to enlarge. | These have taken the gospel to the far-flung corners of the former Soviet Empire, an area so vast it crosses 11 time zones. NTC missionaries have preached the gospel in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, the Komi Republic, Udmurtiya—all autonomous republics making up the former Soviet Union, and some still part of the Russian Federation. The people groups reached include the Tatar, the Bashkir, and the Nenets (see “Bringing the Gospel to the Nenets,” January 13, 2008).
The missionaries have targeted major cities and have planted churches in Ulyanovsk, St. Petersburg, Saratov, and Vladivostok. These are strategically centered as hubs of government or business. Last year NTC missionaries planted churches in Voronezh, Chelyabinsk, Ulyanovsk, and several other locations, including two in Saratov,Of course, NTC has also planted churches in the area surrounding Perm, as well as in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Komi Republic, north of Perm. In fact, teams from the NTC headquarters church visit seven villages every week.
Lenin’s palace “born again”
 |
| Lenin's Palace of Culture is now a Gospel center for New Testament Church of Perm, Russia. Click to enlarge. |
As the NTC grew in outreach and size, an unusual opportunity presented itself in 2005. Suffering from an overload of government buildings and a depletion of operating funds, many localities put government buildings up for sale. So Lenin’s Palace of Culture in Perm went on the market. The asking price was $1.8 million. Edward knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and negotiated privately to purchase the building. He was able to raise the equivalent of $500,000 for a down payment, and has since been able to pay off the building.
 |
| The remodeled opera hall of Lenin's Cultural Palace seats 1,000 for NTC worship services. Click to enlarge. | This was made possible in part by the government’s offering of stocks in newly-formed companies to individuals as part of the “take stock in Russia” campaign in the early 1990s. Though the stocks were next to worthless when distributed, some of the companies grew exponentially. Edward took their stocks, which many had donated to NTC, and cashed them in at peak value. The congregation, composed of doctors, teachers and engineers, as well as laborers, pensioners, students and single mothers, contributed generously.
Today NTC owns the largest church building in all of Russia. Its remodeled opera house auditorium seats 1,000 and NTC conducts three services each Sunday to accommodate its congregation of 3,500. Still, the building complex is far bigger than NTC needs, so it rents out portions to businesses, including a Christian bookstore and a restaurant that many church members patronize after church meetings. Rent from the merchants provides more than enough for the upkeep of the building and supplies funds to supplement other aspects of NTC’s work.
Prison ministry
One of these is outreach among Perm’s numerous prisons. Under the Soviet system, the Perm region was the heart of the Russian Gulag, hosting not less than 87 prisons. It is said the government spends less than 20 cents a day to care for prisoners, who live in crude cells. They endure freezing temperatures in the winter and hordes of mosquitoes in the summer. They are crammed 20 to 25 to a cell; their toilet is simply a hole in the ground. Many prisoners suffer ill health and up to 50% have contracted tuberculosis.
 |
| The infamous White Swan Prison is located in Solikamsk. | The most infamous of prisons is the White Swan Prison. Bob Emery, President of Global Opportunities for Christ that supports NTC, said, “When convicted criminals find out they will be assigned to the White Swan Prison, they often break down in tears.” Besides the ordinary rigors of prison life, Special Forces reportedly practice their crowd control skills on the White Swan’s hapless prisoners.
Yet the government is glad for any assistance it can receive in caring for prisoners, and gladly has given NTC teams permission to visit the prisons at any time. The teams visit up to 40 prisons on a rotating basis, and have established congregations of believers in at least 25 of them, including White Swan. Many of the converted prisoners have papered their cell walls with Scripture verses.
Besides preaching services the NTC teams conduct musical concerts, provide counseling for prisoners and their families, bring medical aid, and help released prisoners procure legal documents and find work. They could make the rounds more frequently with additional vehicles ($15,000 ea.) and video projection equipment ($700 ea.).
Gospel provides permanent help
 |
| Crowds of over 1000 stood outside in below freezing weather to hear the gospel in Kudymkar. Click to enlarge. | Evangelistic crusades are still a part of NTC’s strategy. For example, in November, 2005, Edward conducted an outdoor crusade in Kudymkar, a city of about 35,000, about 125 mi. (200 km) northwest of Perm. The first night 1,000 people stood outside in the 23°F (-5°C) cold to hear the gospel. The second night more than 1,500 came. The third night the crowd swelled to over 2,000. Besides preaching the gospel, the NTC team gave out food parcels to some 3,000 persons.
While Perm is one of the more prosperous regions of Russia (ranks fourth in the Russian Federation), Kudymkar is one of the poorest regions—ranking 88 out of 89. Only Chechnya is poorer. Many are out of work and resort to drinking to drown their problems. Also, according to Edward, it has the highest syphilis infection rate in all of Russia. “People who live in this region have lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong,” Edward said.
So though material aid provides temporary relief, Edward preaches the gospel as a form of permanent rescue. So far at least 120 have responded to the gospel and are part of the NTC at Kudymkar.
An NTC team also conducted a crusade in Chelyabinsk last summer. It’s a 14-hour train ride to Chelyabinsk, 270 mi (450 km) southeast of Perm near the Kazakhstan border. The crusade ended with a new church planted there.
The same thing happened in August in Samara, 400 mi (660 km) southwest of Perm. In fact, a youth band from NTC donated their summer to conducting an evangelistic tour of 36 towns and cities in the Perm region.
The NTC is on a roll. Not only do they aim to plant a hundred more churches in 2008, they want to reach 2010 cities, towns and villages by the end of 2010.
There is no freeze on the gospel, thanks to Edward Grabavenko and his teams of warm-hearted Russian believers. They have faced the challenge before them courageously, and the fields are still white for the harvest. I am sure they can do even more with backing from friends around the world. They welcome your prayers and support.
For more information contact Bob Emery at Global Opportunities for Christ, 434-970-7990. E-mail Bob@GOforChrist.org or go to www.GOforChrist.org.
|
