There were six in our team (counting me), four being ministers, or pastors. I wish you could meet them. They were always cheerful, rarely critical of others, and happy with their lot. All were unpaid volunteers. One of the pastors was from Romania and three from Ukraine, and they all had long experience of operating in the war zone in eastern Ukraine, whereas I had none.
Also, they were all Protestant Evangelicals, and that was a point of difference with me, a liberal Protestant. I was initially a little nervous that I was entering a foreign religious culture, let alone a foreign culture. However, the perceived barrier melted away. I warmed to the simplicity of their formula, which involved a local church base, but action on a much larger scale. Their church buildings are relatively small, plain and unpretentious, built by themselves in recent years. In their services, there is little liturgy, and no special clerical clothes at all (not even a suit, I say to those who are used to seeing me in one). They just wear t-shirts and fleeces emblazoned with their mission name: ‘Un Pas spre Salvare’ (Romanian), or ‘Krok do Spasinnya’ (Ukrainian), meaning ‘A Step towards Salvation’.
This shows us at the county boundary of Donetsk. The team, L-R, is Nicolai, Vasil, Adi, myself, Pavel and Ionel. The emblem on the Ukrainian flag says, ‘a step towards salvation’. It is the title of our joint effort which spans the borders of Romania and Ukraine.
Faith leads to miracles. That is their robust claim, and, they say, we must ‘live in miracles’. Faith must come first, otherwise the request for God’s action has no basis; and a miracle is a particular understanding of why things sometimes happen in an unusual way, when faith and prayer are involved. This does not mean that problems are completely averted, but when they do happen, the problematic element is resolved, often beyond normal expectations.
Of course, in these secular times, here in the West particularly, the possibility of living outside normal probabilities and within such an environment of protection is not generally credible. For that reason, the miracles of Jesus are often reduced to a symbolic level, in order to by-pass scepticism. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, the whole scheme of miracles within Jesus’s ministry is offered by the authors of the Gospels by way of proof: the occurrence of the miracle demonstrates the authenticity of Jesus’s identity and his message. If we evade this, then what is left?
Our team, with me as new boy, found such proofs everywhere, and greeted them with a smile, and sometimes, a ‘hallelujah’. Troubles that turned to success through faith were their justification. It was humbling to be in this environment, and as we rode through Ukraine, I pondered what resemblance there might be to the early church, which was also composed of small informal groups, locally based.
Unpaid ministers have to do a bit of work on the side to pay the bills. Adi is a plumber, Nicolai an electrician. Pavel used to be in the army as a younger man, as driver of a huge vehicle carrying rockets. We did not have a carpenter or a fisherman, but you will get the point of comparison. So, what is a pastor? Shepherd of a flock is the first thing, but also a robust practical person who is prepared to take on challenges, and see God’s guiding hand and his help available even in dire circumstances. Indeed, dire circumstances are his particular territory.
Pray for Ukraine, says the blue and yellow panel.
You may say, the church prospers in difficult times, and withers when things get easier. That view is, of course, much too simple, but it is a starting point for understanding what energises the church for mission. That is, voluntarily stepping out of good times into bad, to share the burden of others. The word ‘mission’ applies.
We are very inclined in Britain to judge the success of a particular church or denomination by the numbers it attracts, talking of ‘bums on seats’, or how full the church is. I talked to Adi (the Romanian pastor) about expanding church numbers, and he was adamant that he would not try and compete with other denominations, because it’s a zero-sum game, and even if you are inclined to congratulate yourself that you have done better than some others, the Kingdom has not taken a step forward. Therefore, he said, he and his neighbouring Orthodox church are on friendly terms, ploughing parallel furrows. The target groups are the unchurched, the unfortunate, and outcast groups, like the gypsies.
I wish there were a way to summarize the effect of the church in mission terms. In Victorian times, there was lots of talk about mission: missionaries overseas, the Mission to Seamen, the West London Mission, are all examples. I think the name is useful. I have titled this series of articles ‘September Trip’, but I see now that it was the September Mission.
© James Mather 2024
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