Russia: a new spiritual awakening

Evangelicals Now is regularly privileged to come across much faithful gospel witness by often small and (humanly-speaking) under-resourced evangelical ministries in sometimes far-flung areas of the world. The GoodWORD Partnership (GWP), founded by Blair Carlson in Minneapolis in 2005, is one of those.

Blair coaches national church leaders in local evangelism, guiding them with their outreach, including preparation and follow-up within local churches. He has just returned from Russia and Poland, where GWP helped lead a major evangelism training conference, the Forum for Evangelism in Russia, which is now in its fifth year. Blair spoke to Evangelicals Now afterwards:

en: What was the Forum on Evangelism

in Russia? BC: The ‘Priumnozhenie’ Forum on Evangelism was a three-day conference held in St Petersburg late in 2021. It was organised by GWP and the Baptist Union of Russia at the behest of a number of St Petersburg churches, whose vision is to plant churches across northwest Russia. Forum delegates looked at the gospel and at what it means to be a disciple. This teaching was then applied to specific special-interest groups such as university students, young people, pastors, etc.

en: Who was it for and how many attended?

BC: Some 450 leaders attended in person, with 5,000 taking part by livestream. The Forum was designed for pastors, church leaders and Christian workers across northwest Russia or from the Baltic countries to Murmansk. The northwest region is renowned as a hard place for the gospel, perhaps because it was where the atheistic Soviet revolution began. Large swaths of territory have few or no churches; most that do exist are small.

en: What were its aims?

BC: They included developing strong church leadership; sharing the gospel message; emphasising the need for long-term discipleship; and equipping believers to take the gospel to their local areas.

en: How will GWP be following up the event?

BC: GWP works behind the scenes, to help networking, to provide connections with evangelists and practitioners, and to share practical know-how. After the Forum, GWP will step aside as St Petersburg church leaders organise the various follow-up events. These include Michael Ots, a British evangelist, leading a university mission this Spring, and Jim Jarman from Sweden will continue to work with the local church planting network. The next Forum event is set to take place in the Volga region of southern Russia in November.

We all are familiar with the history of Russia and are well aware of the current tensions in the region. But in the midst of all this there is a new spiritual awakening in Russia as people seek God. At the same time there is a new spiritual awakening as the church shares Christianity’s wonderful message of salvation. We pray for the coming together of these two forces, that many will come to know of God’s love.