RUSSIAN MINISTRY REPORT
To
Men's Fraternity, Little Rock, AR
and
The Barnabas Foundation, Birmingham, AL
The Barnabas School, Tver, Russia
July 7-16, 2010
WHAT HAPPENED?
In telephone discussions with Mr. Rick Caldwell of Men's Fraternity, he encouraged presentation of their course "The Quest for Authentic Manhood" at the Barnabas School in Tver Russia. Men's Fraternity authorized use of their materials in the course and authorized my church, Mountain Christian Church of Joppa, MD to reproduce a set of the 24 course DVDs and provide them to me for preparation.
A copy of the Quest for Authentic Manhood (QAM) Participants Manual was purchased and made available to Rev. Sergey Isakov of the church in Tver. He translated the first 13 lessons, the answer keys and the Manhood Plan pages into Russian, and a copy was provided to each man at the beginning of the course in Tver. Men's Fraternity also provided me with a copy of the narrative text for each of the first 13 lessons. I reviewed these and the complete set of DVDs in preparation for presenting the material to the Russian men of the Barnabas School class. In studying the texts, I noted a substantial number of places where edits for cultural and experience differences were needed and I made a few adjustments at that time.
I purchased a Canon FS30 video camera outfit to record the sessions for information and possible future use in ministry to Russian men. The quality of the DVDs is mediocre at best, but I believe they are useable - for information if nothing else. (I won't comment on my performances.)
At the beginning of the Barnabas School I posed the question, "What is a real man?" and invited every man there to come to my class. The class schedule had been arranged so that 4th period contained one class for women and one class for men. At the first class, 15 men came, which was just about all of them. The whole school was about 85% women, 15% men.
To make a presentation through a translator you basically have to double the time. Rev. Isakov translated for me for the lessons, and Pavel Argentov begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting translated the final evaluation session. Each class period was 90 minutes, so it was a constant struggle to get through the material and have time left for small group discussions. There were a few lessons when we did have such time, but often we did not.
There was also the problem of too few class periods. The Barnabas School meets for 10 days, and I wanted to do the whole first half of the course - 13 lessons. We tried both approaches - extra sessions and condensing lessons. We had one night session that began about 30 minutes after the evening worship service. It lasted until about 11:15 PM. That was judged too much and too late. We didn't do that again.
Condensing the lessons to have two in one class session worked better. You can judge how well the condensed lessons carried the important messages, but I found that many of the stories were too deeply rooted in American culture to be meaningful anyway. For example, I had to explain to them what a cheerleader is. I tried to retain Biblical principles and practical advice. In one case, the lesson on Mentors, I reduced a lesson to just covering the bullets in the outline. In that session we actually covered three lessons. That enabled us to spend the last day just receiving input from the Russians on what the course did for/meant to them personally.
I had to deliver on the promise to give them a definition of authentic manhood. On the 7th day of the school I preached at the evening worship service and gave everyone - men and women, that lesson. I tried to videotape that message, but the camera was accidentally turned off just as I began. On the following weekend I was asked to preach at the Sunday worship service of the Church of Jesus Christ in Podolsk, a suburb of Moscow. I preached that message again. The DVD for that service is included in the material I'm sending to Men's Fraternity.
Lesson 13 was covered on the 9th day of the school. I had determined that all of the men in the class had received Christ and were already believers. Therefore I modified the ending a bit to emphasize walking with Christ rather than focusing on receiving Him. Again, you can judge the power of the windup from the DVD
WHAT WAS THE RESPONSE?
On the 10th and last day, eight men were still with me. The last meeting was an open forum for them to comment about the course in any way they wished. YOU NEED TO VIEW THE DVD OF THIS "FINAL EVALUATION MEETING", even though I will present some of the more interesting comments in the rest of this report.
Their responses were not delivered in a dramatic way, but what they had to say was deep and profound. Here are just a few quotes.
· Andre - a physical trainer and former Russian Army Major from St. Petersburg: "We have no direction for men and where to go." Regarding church, "We only meet for an hour to hear some words and then run away from each other." "We ourselves don't really understand the depth of the problem yet."
· Vladimir - a businessman from Archangelsk region: "We had the "Wild at Heart" program. It is very similar. I believe this material will help me in my future ministry."
· Gennadiy - an engineer and pastor from Murmansk region: "I felt OK, but quickly learned that I left my son with nothing." "This course is the theoretical basis for the practical things I learned in the "Wild at Heart" program." He had six comments about the course that demonstrated that he got the messages.
· Vasily - a truck driver from the Moscow suburb of Klimosk: Drinking and drugs are very great problems of Russia. This course opens our eyes.
· Sergei - from Novgorod: "This course can really help us out. I'm a former prisoner and my brother is disabled from youth. This kind of misfortune is common in Russian families. We don't have any kind of teaching that would interest our men so they would be the head of their homes. For 70 years we lived in a country where atheism prevailed."
All the men agreed that Quest for Authentic Manhood is needed, would get a good reception in their churches, and are willing to help bring the program to their church. I gave them each a card to write their name, church and contact information on. A copy of these cards, written in longhand in Russian, is included in the material I'm sending to Men's Fraternity.
WHAT MATERIALS WERE MADE?
Copies of the following materials are being sent to Men's Fraternity:
·DVDs of all the Quest training sessions.
·A DVD of the July 16 meeting with the Russian men.
·A DVD of my sermon on the definition of a real man, delivered at the Church of Jesus Christ in Podolsk, a suburb of Moscow, on July 18.
·A CD of the Russian translation of the Quest workbook - the first 13 lessons plus the key and Manhood Plan outline.
·A copy of the personal information cards submitted by the Russian men on July 16.
WHAT PLANS WERE MADE?
Possibilities were explored, but no promises or plans were made. We have established relationships with men, including some pastors, in several locations including St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Archangelsk and suburbs of Moscow.
At this point I want to share some perspective. The signals began in 2007 in Berozovski, a small railroad town in Siberia. After I preached at the Sunday worship service, Pastor Zhanna asked if she could bring the church leaders to where I was staying for a season of prayer together. They arrived at the appointed time, with enthusiasm. However, after a while I realized that there were no men in the group. I asked about that - "Where are the men?" They agreed that it would be very helpful to have men in the leadership, but informed me that they were not available. No men were willing to take leadership in the church!!!
Later that trip, in the dining hall at the Barnabas School, I happened to overhear the conversation among some young women at the table next to mine. One beautiful and very intelligent young woman asked her friends, "Where is a girl to find a husband here? The men are all so weak!"
I discussed this situation with some of the pastors on our team and we decided to have a chat meeting with the men to try and gain some insight as to what is going on in their lives. About 20-25 showed up, and we had a good discussion. We learned that about 75-80% of them grew up in a home where the father was absent. They really had no role models to teach them manhood, and they had very little confidence in their ability to handle responsibility. Having grown up in fatherless homes under Communism, they simply felt inadequate.
This year, in an early lesson that talked about historical events that took men out of the family setting, such as the industrial revolution in the U.S., I asked the question, "What are similar forces that took place in Russia." The response took us back to the 13th century when the "Golden Horde" established a warrior civilization in Russia that has continued to this day. Tsar Nicholas I was quoted in the early 19th century as saying, "Russia is not an agricultural nation, it is not an industrial nation; it is a military nation. Of course we are well aware of the 20th century dominance of Communism under dictatorships. In short, Russia has NEVER had a social or spiritual environment that pointed a man toward his family or God. The Russian Orthodox Church has been allied with the state and has not taught the Gospel accurately or with God's power. Today there are about 65 million men in Russia. Protestant Christians represent only about 0.5% of the total population, and women greatly outnumber men in these protestant churches.
Please pray about this situation. What can be done? I look forward to hearing from you.
In Christ,
Parker Wayland
