When was the last time that you felt overwhelmed? Back in May I shared with you that City-to-City Russia started training a new crop of trainers because the demand for the Incubator for New Church Planters is so high. For a while it was a bit overwhelming. If I am completely honest, it is still a bit overwhelming, given that the Incubator presupposes a mentoring relationship of sorts and not just the transference of knowledge. Currently we have about 20 church planters from 15 different cities in Russia, and soon we will launch another group of church planters. This is the kind of load that would be impossible to handle for only two trainers. Thus, we have finished training seven new trainers and two of them have joined us for the Incubator modulars these last few days.
One of these trainers is Andrey Belozerov. He is a pastor of Novosibirsk Bible Church that is part of the Baptist Union. The reason their church is called Novosibirsk Bible is because back when they were planting their church, they were listening to podcasts from Moscow Bible Church and really liked the conservative theology that was coupled with culturally relevant forms of ministry. Thus, while Moscow Bible did not participate in the planting of this church, and even though they belong to a different denomination, we do consider them our sister church. Thus, it was particularly special for me to share the stage with Andrey at the Missionary Forum on Saturday and then to co-teach the Incubator with him on Monday.
Now, as you are getting this newsletter, I am heading out to Istanbul to join a group of facilitators at the European Intensive for Church Planters with City-to-City Europe. Your prayers for this course would be much appreciated.
Yours in praying and hastening the day of revival in Moscow and Russia,
Constantin and Alexandra
P.S. We are in the midst of preparing for our annual youth conference at Moscow Bible. But it was not that long ago that we wrapped up our youth camp. I will share more about that in my next newsletter.
THREE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Please take a moment right now, after you fnished reading this e-mail, to join us in praying for God:
- To bless abundantly these next couple of days at "The Inensive For Church Planters in Istanbul" and to provide necessery strength to Sasha to handle 3 kids along full workload while I am gone.
- To raise necessery funds for us to purchase our own building. I shared in one of my previous newsletter about our capital campaign that we just launched. Check it out if you have not yet and if you can please share about it with as many people as possible especially with the missions board of your church.
- To bring peace to Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, ask God to use this conflict by bringing reconciliation and revival to these countries.
