Letter to Nicolay #14

Dear Nicolay,

Greetings, Nicolay!  I am sorry that we did not see one another on this last visit to Ukraine.  I did see many of my old friends who we worked with in the early 1990’s.  They were great reunions as we met and talked about the “old days”.  I love remembering those days of revival in Ukraine, but we cannot nor should we live in the past.

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This is what I learned from all those visits.  Many of the men have begun new churches and then they built a church building and then received a theological education.  Now nearly all of these men are pastors dealing with the issues of daily church life.  They started as apostles/church planters and evolved into pastors.  While a few of them have started daughter churches, most have one church.

The churches which they began are not as traditional as the older churches, but they are still quite traditional in form and function.  I should not be surprised at this because we can only create that which is in the realm of our own experience.

When I asked about the next generation of church planters, I was told “there are none”.  That was the saddest thing which I heard – “there are none”.

Nicolay, we must react to this dismal picture.  I am suggesting a ministry of training church planters called “Greenhouses”.

WHAT ARE GREENHOUSES FOR APOSTOLIC WORKERS

There is Sharing the Life of Christ Together - Incarnational

There is Preparing of Apostolic Workers – Itinerant, Foundation Laying

There is Planting Simple Organic Churches - Reproduction

After two decades of openness for the gospel in the Slavic nations, there remains the missing ingredients of itinerant apostolic church planters and reproduction of the churches.  In short, the gospel work of extending the kingdom by reproducing churches has become stagnant becoming what Slavic spiritual leaders call “a spiritual crisis”.

We see a need for a ministry after the models of the Apostle Paul in Ephesus and Jesus with His disciples – that of itinerant, apostolic workers who have shared life together.

Greenhouses for Apostolic Workers are community/life based experiences with the purpose to send out pairs of itinerant apostolic church planters who will begins simple, organic reproducing churches and then after laying a foundation, move forward.

Each apostolically gifted team will be chosen for their commitment to reproductive church planting and be either bi-vocational or indigenously supported by Slavic churches.  They will be either inexperienced in church planting or experienced with a healthy dissatisfaction with traditional, institutional models and methods.

Each group of three to four church planters and their teams will spend intensive and extended time together.  During that time they will:

• Share the life of Christ together.
• Experience authentic community.
• Learn apostolic practices.
• Learn how to lay apostolic foundations (Christ dependence) followed by certain departure.

There will also be an extended time of initial planting with frequent coaching.  After this, the apostolic work will continue their work returning periodically to home base for encouragement and fellowship.

Participants will learn and experience the following:

Apostolic Principles and Practices

• Open participatory gatherings with face-to-face community edifying one another.
• Practice the headship of Christ.
• Practice fully functioning priesthood of all believers.
• Practice consensus decision making.
• Observe the Lord’s Supper as a celebratory meal.
• Practice rapid baptism of converts.
• Practice acts of mercy and social justice.
• Practice non-hierarchical leadership.
• Practice Incarnational Evangelism.  (Houses of peace; OIKOS)
• Practice authentic disciple-making.  (Life Transformation Groups)

Apostolic Transferable Teachings

Established in the Understanding of Scripture.

Established in the Gospel.

• The Gospel – I Corinthians 15:1-11.
• Baptism, Christ, the Church.
• Living by grace.
• Freedom in Christ/Spiritual Warfare.
• Who we are in Christ – Ro. 6-8.
• Exchanged Life – Walking in the Spirit.  Galatians 2:20
• Freedom in the Gospel.

Established in the Local Church Community

• The churches role in the Great Commission.
• The church as household/family.
• Roles and Responsibilities in an Individual Household.
• Marriage/Children.
• Roles and Responsibilities in the Household of God.
• Men/Women/Leaders.

Participating in the Progress of the Gospel

• Church Multiplication.
• Witness of the community.
• Sharing faith naturally.
• A strategy for the Body of Christ.

The Issues of Life and Ministry

• Personal Issues.
• Family Issues.
• Financial/Work Issues.
• Interpersonal Conflicts.
• Church Issues.

Nicolay, please pray with me about this much needed work.

Your friend in Christ,

Rich

Rich Correll has been involved in Ukrainian church planting for 18 years.  He pioneered church planting and church planting training in cooperation with many Ukrainian churches.  He is currently encouraging simple, organic, reproducing churches.  Contact him at: richcpti@gmail.com

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