A crucial shift

Another good night's sleep last night, although we forgot the time change and got up an hour earlier than we had to. Darn!

While we at dinner last night, Pastor Boris told us of a crucial shift that his church and church network had made in their reformation work. When we were here last year, much of our teaching, and much of their focus, was toward Christian government and politics. We taught on family life, education, media, etc. but the bent was definitely toward government and politics. The church here had determined that they were going to work to get Christian politicians in positions that could help to bring about the freedoms they desire in Belarus. Last night, however, Pastor Boris told us that they made a conscious decision to shift that focus toward the end of last year. Now, they are primarily teaching about self-government and a reformational view of family life and education. The thinking is that they didn't have mature enough Christians who were grounded in a Biblical worldview. To expect large political changes when the hearts of believers weren't ready or their families weren't strong enough to handle it would be detrimental. Newfound freedom without Godly restraint and foundations to employ it would be dangerous. When he shared that, Bruce and I were so excited. Boris is exactly right! The grasp of a Biblical worldview begins with self-government and extends to the other spheres such as family, church, society, and government. It showed remarkable maturity for the church here to realize that when they have a much larger and loftier goal of wholesale governmental system change. They are starting with the reformation of self, families, and Christian education. It was also a wonderful caution to us as teachers not to put the cart before the horse. Praise God!

This morning, we go to the church of Pastor Jaroslaw, a reformational fireball. We met Jarsolaw last year when we came and he visited with us in Virginia Beach earlier this year when he traveled to the US to preach at various Slavic churches in our country. He is married and has three children, one of whom is named Martin Luther! How's that for serious about reformation?! Jaroslaw and his wife pastor a local church, and he is the leader of local efforts to spread the reformational history of Belarus, which is quite deep actually. He publishes articles and newspapers regularly on the subject and produced the concert we went to last night. He's a young guy, maybe mid-thirties, and totally sold out to the Lord and the work of reformation. Really, he's a radical and proudly so. I told Bruce last night that when revolution finally comes to Belarus, Jaroslaw will be the one standing on top of the tanks preaching! This weekend is the celebration of the Day of Reformation, so Jaroslaw is all excited about church today. Should make for an interesting morning!

More to come...