Did you ever have to do any kind of remedial work in school? Soviet schools were famous for it. Seemingly every mistake that was made during a test or homework required remedial work afterwards. It was not all that fun, but it was a necessary part of the learning experience. Our Advent and Christmas season was great! We accomplished a lot of things that we have set out to do as a church. We had a great Christmas Eve candlelight service, incredibly warm home Christmas dinners, our youth retreat was a hit, and we had a puppet theater at our Sunday school on the Sunday prior to Christmas. Overall, there are a lot of things to be grateful for, but there were also things that we did not do and that is why we gathered with our leaders to go through “remedial work” in order to correct these shortcomings for the future.
Of course, it may seem a little bit strange to be talking about Christmas while merely weeks away from Lent, another extremely important season in the life of the church. But one of the things we discovered this year was that we need to plan well in advance if we want to take full advantage of the evangelistic opportunities that the Christmas season offers us. And it seems that these opportunities are unparalleled throughout the year. Advent may very well be the easiest time of the year to invite just about everyone to church and see them come to a worship service. Thus, we want to be even more faithful with it next year, and we are planning to add a Christmas market on the first week of Advent, a special wreath-making workshop for women during the second week of Advent, and a special Christmas program for the children on the fourth week of Advent.
Yours in praying and hastening the day of revival in Moscow and Russia,
Constantin and Alexandra
P.S. That’s not to say that we did not discuss Lent and what we have set out to do during these next few months. But again, that’s a story for another newsletter.
THREE PRAYER REQUESTS:
Please join us in praying for God:
- To bring peace to Ukraine and Russia. Moreover, ask God to use this conflict by bringing reconciliation and revival to both countries.
- To bless the start of our Sunday School for adults. We are launching our Sunday School for adults. Our first course will be a 12 week series on the foundations of the Christian faith that I shared about back in July of last year. Please pray that God uses this class to strengthen in faith those who recently converted and those who were walking with the Lord for quite some time but never took a chance to explore their faith deeper.
- To bless our Lent season. Lent is rapidly approaching. We have a lot of great things planned for this season. We have done our part in preparation and we now patiently wait for the Lord to send His Spirit and touch many hearts through our services and events during Lent season.
