Over the course of many years, the mission department of the Pacific Coast Slavic Baptist Association has provided pastoral care for the missionaries in Europe. At the end of November, Joseph Sheremet, a pastor of Grace Family Church, visited our missionaries in Europe.
- Joseph, what was the main purpose of your visit, and which churches were you able to visit?
- Besides visiting a number of churches, we organized a pastoral missionary retreat for the ministers of the Slavic Brotherhood in Europe. It is interesting and thanks to God's providence, according to various statistical data, there are approximately 10 million Russian-speaking people. A few years ago, some ministers of our Pacific Coast Association saw a great need of preaching the Gospel among the Slavic immigrants. They are dear to us not only because of a language and culture, but also because of where the immigration is headed. We are fully aware how difficult it is to endure the first few years of the immigration. At the same time, they are also very encouraged when the hearts of people are open to the Gospel message.
Many believers from Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, and other countries of the former Soviet Union provide the European missionaries various support, go on short-term missions, hold seminars and retreats. Surely, other believers in America have great opportunities to provide financial, as well as spiritual support to missionaries' families, which is what we are trying to do.
Today our Association successfully develops a plan to provide pastoral support of missionary churches in Valencia, Spain. This church was established out of nowhere, and now has 30 believers who have been baptized, and have services that are available to all people who seek the Lord.
There is also a great improvement in the church at Strasburg, France, where Sergey Babich who is a missionary from Russia leads the services. There is a great missionary field in Poland. According to various estimates, there are approximately 2 million Russian-speaking people most of whom are from Ukraine.
My purpose was to provide pastoral care for the missionary families. As I already mentioned, during my last visit to Europe, my main purpose was to organize a prayer retreat where we studied various Scripture passages, prayed together, and planned future ministry. This was a very good and encouraging time for the 14 missionary brothers who were able to come.
- How would you evaluate the condition of European Christian churches? Do you see any problems there, and if so, what are they?
- It is hard to draw conclusions of every country in particular, but generally, the way I see it, the picture is not very good: Christianity in Europe is diminishing. In the majority of the countries that just recently were the leaders of revivals, have churches that are dying out. Let us take Poland, for example. Out of the 40 million population, about 5,000 are members of Baptist churches. In addition, a few dozen churches do not have any pastors at all. In addition, if you were to unite the churches of all denominations that are considered Christian, Poland, which is one of the most conservative countries of Europe, would hardly have 150,000 believers. The Catholic Church, which dominates the religious sphere, continues to lose its members mostly consisting of young people who are not satisfied by the spiritual nourishment. They are attracted by modern technology and are going into the world where they feel welcome and are being drawn to through various means.
For Poland, our missionary ministry is a great blessing from God because the brothers adapt quickly by studying their language, and begin preaching in the local Polish churches, which have a lack of spiritual oversight.
Truly, God has His plans, which are not that clear to us today. The missionary efforts of our brothers in Europe helps not only the Russian-speaking population, but also the local residents as well and that is an undeniable fact.
The vision of the PCSBA’s mission department is to develop the European missions, to locate regions with many Russian-speaking population, and to send missionary families who will care for them physically as well as spiritually. The other purpose is to organize retreats for missionary ministers where they could unite in prayer, share their success and needs, as well as study the Scriptures.
The last November meeting was unique due to the intensity of prayer since most of our time with the brothers was spent in praying for each other, our families, ministry, and the reception of the Gospel. This support is extremely important for encouragement, bond of unity of the spirit, pruning the hearts, and future ministry on a great harvest of God in Europe.
Svetlana Timofeyeva documented the conversation
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