Pioneer Christian Monthly - September, 1992

Sharing The Gospel and Methods of Ministry In The Ukraine
Murray Moerman

Recently, Pastor Murray Moerman of New Life Community Church, Burnaby, B.C, returned from a trip to the Ukraine and was interviewed by Pioneer Christian Monthly. New Life has made it possible for Rev. Moerman to make a number of these trips to share the Gospel and to train church leaders in the former Soviet Union.

PCM: What was the purpose of your recent trip to the Ukraine?

Murray Moerman: The purpose was to show the Jesus film and to train churches in the showing of the film, its follow-up and the incorporation of new believers. I also spoke at a three-day Pastors' Leadership Conference on such topics as: Forming Small Groups; Evangelism and Follow-up; Church Growth Principles; Church Planting; and other subjects related to church leadership.

Our group of twenty people visited many places to show the film. We split into teams and visited hospitals, TB. sanatoriums, schools, apartment complexes, etc. In the hospitals we saw many children from Chernobyl who are dying of cancer. Thirty percent of the children living within a 1000 km radius of Chernobyl are expected to die before they reach the age of 15 years. Because of the lack of medical treatment there is no chemotherapy or radiation treatment available to these children - nothing but massages and surgical removal of visibly detectable surface tumours (there are no x-rays to determine the location of non-visible tumours). These children just go to these places to die.

We showed the film in schools and one principal, after seeing it, asked if he could have the projector and film so he could show it to all the classes. There was a great openness in the public schools. We showed it in parks, amphitheatres... any place we could find.

PCM: How was the film received?

MM: Very positively. There were always people who came forward to receive Christ with whom we shared the four Spiritual Laws and then took their names and addresses for the local churches to follow-up. We left films and projectors with a number of churches asking them to show the film once a week on an on-going basis in the same way we had done. In one school the principal took down a beautiful wooden carving of Lenin and said, "Today the anti-Christ comes down in this school and Christ will take his place." He was then going to get a picture of Christ to hang. This is one of my favourite images of what the trip represented.

PCM: How does Christian life differ in the former Soviet Union?

MM: First of all, the Christians there are not at all convinced that the Communist government won't regain power. They are still very cautious and the KGB continues to collect information as to who goes to church. While the KGB is not presently using this information, the Christians are concerned that if there is a change in government the information would be used against them. Every Christian still has memories of the past that are very vivid. I spoke to one woman whose grandfather was taken in the middle of the night without any explanation or indication as to where he was going. They then received two letters in 20 years, both from the government. The first letter, received ten years after he had been taken, said he had died, and the second letter, received ten years after the first, said that the charges against the grandfather had been reviewed and he had been found innocent of all charges.

It struck that churches don't have crosses on the outside no visible signs - and they aren't listed in the telephone directory. So if you become a Christian and are not invited to a church by a Christian, you will never find a church. The Christians are still very cautious about letting anyone know where their churches are located. There are very few churches in the city of 1.5 million people I visited. There are only ten churches in the whole city and no one can remember the last time a church was planted here and they are very cautious about doing such things. The services are about two to three hours in length with two, three or even four preachers who each speak about one-half hour each, with a view that hopefully one or two of the sermon topics will reach the needs of some of the people attending. These are lay-preachers as there are no paid pastors. Churches are very poor and all pastors are over 65 years of age who have spent 40 or so years working in steel mills and then are retired with a pension of $1.00 per month.

By this time most of these people are old and worn out and lack energy. So churches have no full-time pastors, no youth workers and no Sunday School. It was illegal to attend church until one had reached the age of 18 years even if one attended a registered church and a person could not be baptized until 30 years of age at least. This was the government s way of deterring the younger generation from attending church. Now they have no concept of how to do Sunday School or youth work.

PCM: What would you consider to be the major needs in the Ukraine?

M: There is a great need for Western missionaries to go to the Ukraine to help train and support church planters. These missionaries are not needed to plant churches but to train planters. The local people have not done this and, therefore, there are only ten churches in a city where there should be 1,000. Missionaries are needed for a period of two of five years to go and help train church planters. One church per year could easily be planted. (Perhaps the RCA should consider this.) There is also a great need for help in training youth and Sunday School workers. Some level of financial support is needed to develop younger pastors, 35 to 50 years old rather than 65 to 75 years.

People must continue to pray for this country as I think that after Communism fell many western Christians stopped praying, but these people live in as fearful and intimidating a society as ever. The Mafia has moved in. The daughter of one of the pastors we were with received a call the night before we left demanding an exorbitant amount of money for the protection of her 12-year-old daughter. When asked why they didn't call the police, we were told that they (the Mafia) own the police. So the Church definitely needs prayer at all levels.

PCM: Many people have images of remarkable Spiritfilled Christianity operating in spite of Communism. Did you see evidence of this?

MM: Secret worship services are held by the river in a remote area in what looked like an over-sized beaver hut. There seems to be little difference between the two main groups, Pentecostals and Baptists. They always pray kneeling or standing, never sitting and they all pray aloud simultaneously. Their faith is very fervent and one can see Christ and real joy in their eyes. These people have been terribly beaten down so they are understandably cautious. But the fervency of worship and of singing is so intense. They are very happy to see Westerners, overjoyed in fact, as for seven years no one, not even people from other parts of the Soviet Union, were permitted to enter. It was extremely isolated.

PCM: Are you planning to return?

MM: I hope to return in October (9 - 19) and there is a possibility for other lay people within the RCA to travel with me then or in the next year or so. The cost will be approximately $3200.00 (Canadian). We do not know how long this window of opportunity will be open as the government could change and revert back, maybe not to Communism, but to some other form of totalitarianism. The intention is to train two Ukrainian men, one a university worker and one a doctor, and to plant two churches. Since most people have only a grade 6 or 7 education there is a great need to plant a church in the university area for the university-educated people. The university worker already has an oversized Home Group. The doctor lives in an apartment complex with his wife, four children and his mother-in-law. The complex has 10,000 units and would be an ideal place for the second church to be planted.

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