How I planted a church in Russia

(“It always seems impossible, until it’s done.” Nelson Mandela)

2017

Tammy and I moved from Russia to Texas in 2017. After our return I was contacted by a few missions organizations. Most wanted to know what we did while in Russia. Some wanted to know if we could help them in their endeavors.

1000 CHURCHES IN TEN YEARS

One man contacted me and said he spent 10 years in Moscow, Russia and planted 1000 churches. (That’s planting two churches per week, 100 churches per year ten years running. It just doesn’t work like that, but I didn’t feel like calling him out on his claims.)

I told him we were in St Petersburg Russia for 21 years and I planted and registered one church. He told me what I was claiming to have done was impossible. He knew it was impossible because he spent ten years in Russia. And again told me “It cannot be done.” 

I repeated myself a second time and said I have the documents to prove I planted and registered a church in St Petersburg, Russia. He repeated himself a second time and again said what I claim to have done cannot be done. It is impossible.

After I repeated myself a third time he said, “Then tell me how you did it.” This is an accounting of how I planted and registered a church in St Petersburg, Russia.

MY HELPER

One evening in 1998 I went to a meeting of Russian pastors with two men who were working with me to start a church in St Petersburg. At the meeting I was asked to share what I intended to do in Russia. I did not go prepared to speak. Through an interpreter I told them that I wanted to plant and register a church.

The people there, many of them pastors, knew I didn’t know the first thing about planting and registering churches in Russia. At the fellowship afterwards, extreme grace was extended to me. Instead of pointing out how presumptuous my statements were on church planting they just gave me side glances.

During the fellowship a man came out of the crowd and spoke to me in English. He said that if I was going to register a church in Russia I would need help. Then he said, “I will help you.” I will refer to him as “my helper.”

DATA

Before long the two men with me that night began gathering data from the few members we had. It was important information. When I realized what they had collected I was concerned for the welfare of the church members and told them this might not be such a good idea. They told me the people were fully aware of the ramifications and wanted to do this. They were doing this because my helper had contacted them and told them what needed to be done.

CHARTER

Then my co-laborers began preparing a charter for our church. They collected copies of charters from other churches and began compiling data for our charter which included so many minute details. I told them I did not think the charter had to be so all inclusive. My helper told them what needed to be done.

STAMP

Then we had to make a stamp. Stamps are very important in the culture. Nothing is official until it has a stamp.

LET’S DO IT

After the data was gathered and the charter compiled my helper called and told me to gather the required information and the charter and meet him at a certain location. From there we walked to a government building, went through passport control, and proceeded to an office in the building. Alone I could not have found the multi-story building, let alone the small office hidden in it.

Then my helper said we needed to do some paperwork. I nodded in consent. That’s when I was handed a blank sheet of paper and told that I had to write my request to register a church in Russia. It had to be done in the Russian language with no mistakes or I would have to do it over. I was stunned by the expectation and just looked at him. That’s when I became fully aware that I truly did not know what I was doing.

The information that went on the top of the page was copied from an example. The rest of the information he dictated to me in Russian. I had only been in Russia 2 years and my Russian language lessons had not prepared me to write legal documents. So he dictated not only word for word what had to be written. He often dictated letter by letter. Honestly, I had no idea what I wrote on the paper. At the bottom I signed my name and dated it.

From time to time my helper would call and tell me to meet him in some remote area of the city. Together we would go to some government building, go through passport control, and go to the required office in the building. Sometimes it wasn’t an office. But just a small window in a long hall with lots of closed doors. Below the window would be a shelf so one could write out the necessary request or statement on a blank piece of paper.

Each time my helper would dictate word for word and letter by letter the necessary information to be submitted for consideration. This seemed to happen every two or three months for more than a year.

One day in July 2000 we followed the same procedure and found the necessary building and the necessary office. That day they handed me documents saying I had registered a church in the Russian Federation.

I wanted to celebrate and asked my helper to let me buy his supper. He refused. I offered to buy him a cup of coffee. He refused. I offered to pay him. And he refused.

I told the veteran missionary who said it was impossible, “That’s how our church was registered.” And he said, “so that’s how it’s done.”

LAUGHTER

The day after I wrote this, I woke up at 4 am laughing, asking God “what have you done? And “how weak is weak enough?”

What had I done? I didn’t plan to speak at the meeting in 1998. I did not know to ask for help. I did not know where to go or how to get there. Once there I could not even write out my own declaration of purpose. When it was written I couldn’t read it. I did know the alphabet, though. And that was enough for God to register a church in a post soviet country.