So These Four Ukranians Walk Into A Church...
Pasha, Oxanna, Ura and Sasha and Oxford Valley Chapel, to be precise. And what a day it was!
These four brothers and sister in Christ took two weeks without pay to visit us from Komsomolsk, Ukraine and spend time learning how to better their ministry and deal with questions that they, as fairly new believers, and most Ukranians, as a fairly new mission field (since the collapse of the Soviet Union), have been facing. Yesterday, I had the great privelege of spending the day talking with them about ways that they can better their youth ministry. We discussed a Biblically based philosophy of youth ministry, then we talked about some ways to capture the attention and minds of the children of the Ukraine. After they spent a while shopping (they couldn't believe the size of our malls) they returned and we finished the day off with a question and answer time; this ultimately led to a discussion of how to deal with rebellious teens who don't want to follow Christ.
What really struck me was how wide and wonderful is God's love that I can sit with strangers from half-way around the world who can barely speak my language and enjoy them thoroughly because of the cross of Christ! Thank you God that, in Christ, we are one body, celebrating one faith bound together by the one hope that carries us all!
InterAction:
15 March 20062. Jesse Gardner:
Amen to that! What is the deal with our complacency? Anyhow, I think I probably learned more than they did.
There were several things they did differently I found interesting:
1. The always pray standing.
2. The take communion from one cup (probably Eastern Orthodox Church influence)
3. The women do most of the work in the church (because the men are usually working).
4. The don't usually say salvation, they say repentance (I love this) and they almost always call each other brother and sister.
YourThoughts?
(Minutia)
This entry was written by Jesse on Thursday, March 9, 2006 at 8:46 AM and appears in the World chapter. The previous article was entitled, "Goodbye Edgar", and the next entry is called, "An Overpriced Albany Hamburger". Bookmark the permalink, save it to del.icio.us or Digg it.
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15 March 20061. Cindy:
just poking around on technorati and came across your sight and read this post- I find it sad that people from foreign countries come to us for advice on how to minister, and yet we could take lessons from them in devotion and dedication.