Moscow Inductive Bible Study Seminar

The sun shone bright when we arrive in Moscow to hold Inductive Bible Study seminar. A group of aging communists gathered in front of the redbrick edifice of the Lenin Museum to mark the anniversary - and to bemoan the end of the Soviet empire. A few elderly “true-believers” held red flags bearing the communist hammer and sickle, while speakers called for the return of communism. "Leninism! Stalinism! Death to capitalism!" they chanted at one point. Then they marched around the outside of Red Square, angrily complaining when the police refused to allow others to follow.

Meanwhile, Christianity is still enjoying religious freedoms in the Russian capital, where it once was persecuted and nearly crushed. A day after the communist rally, we started our life-altering Inductive Bible Study curriculum and seventy pastors, cell-group leaders, and Christian workers gathered together to worship the Lord openly and learn how to study the Bible productively. All these people gathered at the Moscow Theological Seminary to learn how to study and teach the Bible inductively: verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter, and book-by-book! The seminar went just fabulous! At the end of the seminar the Lord came down to us in a very special way as we were still singing and partaking communion.

One of the participants, a children minister, a woman in her 30s named Marina, could not hold her feelings back and came up front with a luminous smile to testify about what God had done for her at the seminar. She will never return to her old way of studying and teaching the Bible, she vowed.

Seventy pastors, cell group leaders and Christian workers in a city of more than 11 million people may seem insignificant, but Jesus Christ rejoices over them because He called them into the ministry and entrusted to these 70 His vision. The Lord wants to see His pastors feeding the flock on the Word of God so that the church might grow and multiply into many congregations in the days and years to come.

Moscow remains hard ground for the Christian Gospel. Many Russians seek material things and regard evangelicals as a cult - not unlike the rest of Europe. But they also seek hope, which only Jesus Christ can give. Russian pastors and ministers are offering that hope to seekers in Moscow.