February 2000 report, received 19 Feb 2000

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would like to share my thoughts and impressions about the Siberian retreat that took place January 28-31. More than 300 people gathered in Novosibirsk from different Churches of Christ all over Russia and even Belorussia. The central theme was evangelism. The program was rich and very interesting. Unfortunately, only four people were able to come from our congregation. Needless to say, we were greatly encouraged and came back very excited. One of the advantages of such retreats is the opportunity to have good fellowship. Different Churches have different experiences, different approaches to evangelism and other issues, and it is enriching. We can share, and we did share a lot. Faith was strengthened, knowledge was increased, convictions were deepened, all this to the Glory of God.

During the retreat I had conversations with many people, including Russian Church leaders. What I found out was that many of them had a common problem, namely difficulties (sometimes quite big ones) in their relationships with foreign missionaries. Since God has especially blessed our Church with a unity among leaders, I felt that I could help some of them in this matter. I realized that usually the biggest problem is the lack of honesty and openness between the Russian leaders and foreign missionaries. When the Russian leaders think that the missionary is not right, they are often afraid to tell him that. Especially if they tried and saw an unwillingness on his side to hear even the slightest criticism. Some will justify their fear by saying that after all the American is paying the Russians. However, I think that him being the salary giver does not make him perfect.

I shared my experience with a few Russian leaders. How good it is to have a real unity and openness among the leaders ! How good it is when you can openly rebuke and correct your co-worker ( or even a foreign missionary ), and not be afraid that he will reject you or stop supporting you. How can one have such relationships ? Is it really possible ? I can testify from my experience that it is. Praise God ! If you have any questions, the leaders of our church will be happy to share their experience with you.

Please don't think however that having solved this problem, we solved all problems. Far from it ! Indeed, God has been showing us recently that we have put too much emphasis on the Church, and very little on Him. Too often we have said here : " Our Church is so great, we have such wonderful people, WE helped each other, WE love each other, WE do this, WE do that ". I am more and more convinced that we have forgotten that it is GOD who has done all the great things HE has done so far. That is why the Church has not really grown the last few months. We feel very much our helplessness, our need to seriously pray, to be led by HIS Spirit, and give to Him alone the Glory He deserves. All our efforts and plans are vain without HIS power. Right now, we cannot tell you what we will do, but we believe that God will show us the way. Thank you for all your prayers for us.

Volodia Karlinski

 

Diverse news :

-Anna Perriard is in Columbus, OH, since Sunday 13Th of February. She is due between the first and second week of April. Her husband hopes it will be a girl ( so does she ! ) He will join her by the middle of March and intends to visit some churches in the Tennessee region during the last week of March. The Perriards are scheduled to leave the States by the end of April if the baby allows it. (Yves has been invited to speak at the St Petersburg conference in the beginning of May )

-Our Church is having a little baby boom:

The 11Th DecemberTanya Kozarezova had a boy, the 12 Th February Natasha Siderova had a girl, in April my wife will have a ? and by the end of May Julia Karlinski will have a girl. The Church is " growing " !

-Lord willing, we should have a VBS in June or July. Whoever is interested to participate can call Frank Chappell ( the men who want to come can study the Bible with the parents of the children )

-Our potential elders, the evangelists and all willing members will follow an intense Bible course of a few hours every Saturday morning that will last for at least one year or more. The goal is to give them depth in the doctrines that characterize our Church. The courses are taken from the Sunset School of preaching and the first one will be " The distinctive nature of the New Testament Church "

-the 16 The of January, because one of our preachers could not deliver his message at the last minute, we decided to improvise. We said that if anyone in the congregation had some Bible passage, a spiritual poem ( Russians dearly love poems ), a testimony or an answered prayer on his heart, that he came up and encouraged the Church. Surprisingly, many stood up and God spoke through them. For me, one of the most touching and biblical expression of NT worship that I have ever seen in my life was when Pavel came up in front and said he had a song he had written for the Church. Pavel does not have a nice voice, his pitch is even wrong, but when he opened his mouth in order to encourage us, everyone forgot about this. His words was all what counted. As he finished, I remembered what Paul wrote in Eph.5:19 " Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs ".  Pavel did indeed SPEAK to us with his spiritual song !

That worship service surprised us in a very positive way and was very much what one can read in 1 Cor 14:26 = "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church." In reading those verses, I am under the strong impression that the services in the early Church were more spontaneous and informal than what we have today. People were more coming with the attitude to give to each other what they had received from the Lord, rather than being passive spectators. God was not speaking through some selected professionals, but through EVERY member.

After that positive experience, we decided that if any member wanted to encourage the church on Sunday, that he came up before the service and told the leaders about his intentions. From now on, we will try to organize our worship service in such a way that some time is always allowed for this. Who knows what the Lord will do through this ?

 

Before closing, can we ask you a BIG favor ?

If you know of Bible related, or Christian oriented theater pieces, we would be extremely thankful if you could send them to us. Our goal is to encourage Christians during special services, or to reach out to Non-Christians. ( Or both ! ) Thank you !

 

Please do take notice of the Perriard's new address and phone :

Yves, Anna and Yann Perriard
Ulitsa Kardachova 1 / 23
394000 Voronezh
tel. 7 - 0732 - 55 77 33  ( add 7 hours to US Eastern time )

 

For further information:
Frank Chappell, Columbus Ohio, (614) 855-0754
fchappel@beol.net