We Met the Brothers

June 23, 2018 by Christ Church United Methodist 1 Comment

By: Rev. Brandon Dirks

Andre’a Men’s Covenant Group: Elijah, Vitaly, Andrei, Brandon (me), Mark Danzy + Anton taking the picture

“There we found some brothers who invited us to stay with them…” Acts 28:14

When I awoke for my first day in Russia, I had no idea that God had a surprise in store for me. After spending the day at “The Hermitage” (once the Winter Palace of the Royal leaders, now The Hermitage is a gigantic state museum and worth several days of exploration…I could write an entire series of blogs!), Andrei contacted us and invited us to come to Pushkin and ‘meet the brothers.’

A mile walk, two subways, a train, a bus, a car ride and we finally arrive at Bethany United Methodist Church. Bethany is one of the larger UMC’s in Russia with about 35 members, and they are extremely unique to have a building–actually, it’s the pastor’s home converted into a church. It truly is a house church…the pastor’s bedroom is in the balcony! He even rents the building out to three other local churches to use (Episcopal, Pentecostal, and Seventh Day Adventist). Now that is commitment to Kingdom building! Sadly, one year ago, Bethany UMC had grown to 50 members, but three prominent families got upset with each other and they all left. I guess they aren’t so different than many American churches!

Andrei has been the pastor since 2007 and participated in the discipleship training last year, where he committed to starting his first covenant discipleship small group with Elijah and Vitaly. Anton joined us to help translate. We had no idea that Andrei had invited us to join them for their weekly small group meeting tonight!

For the next two hours, we were moved at what the Holy Spirit was doing in these deeply faithful men. Not only did they open their lives and scriptures to us, I was dismayed to hear just how difficult it is to be a faithful, passionate Christian disciple in Russia.
Andrei is required to be licensed to preach by the government, and the members must also be licensed just to invite neighbors and friends to church! Andre’s wife had lost two school teaching jobs because some of the parents found out she was married to a non-orthodox pastor. (He said that God took good care of them because now she is a teacher at an orphanage of handicapped children. They don’t have parents who will complain!).

Vitaly and Elijah are both handymen who have lost jobs when clients have found out that they are non-orthodox Christian. Anton, our soft spoken translator, works in administration at St. Petersburg Christian University, where they have been banned to allow American, English, and Ukrainian students any more. But they praise God for how good He has been to them…and constantly pray that they may be fruitful for the Kingdom for God. It was so good to meet our Russian brothers! I couldn’t help but think of Christ’s Church’s IronMan groups, and Soul Friends!

We were honored when they asked us to pray for them. The small group has only been meeting for four months, but each man is excited about one day being ready to disciple a covenant small group of their own, and multiply themselves in other men for the Kingdom.

If this is what God had in store for our first day, I wonder what will happen tomorrow when we join the city at the city square to watch the World Cup!