Greetings! In a short form I would like to share with you how the Lord Jesus has been leading Liana (my wife) and me in this past month.

I have been preaching from the gospel of John throughout the first half of September. On September 15th we began teaching the second level of the Bible school for the church members and whoever else wishes to attend, all as planned. We began with Bibliology. Our main goal is to teach good practical theology to the church to help them form biblical convictions and principles. Our desire is to be as clear as possible while teaching and explaining how to live according to Scripture and live out the gospel. We want them to know how to apply the doctrines of the Bible in their everyday lives, in numerous practical situations. Also we decided to add orthopraxia and orthodoxy lessons in the form of discussion. We draw a lot of help from the website “propovedi.ru” which we are greatly thankful for – a wonderful resource! We are planning to end the study of each doctrine with a topical sermon. We want to learn from each other and also teach people to live the gospel. This is how we see the basis for the righteous life of our church and for its evangelism.

I was previously a minister in such a church where christian propaganda was quite successful, the church was great in turning people ‘church-worthy’. But now many of these people are coming to our current church with numerous spiritual issues, they do not understand the gospel and obviously do not live the gospel in their lives. Today my brothers and I can hear the calling of our Lord Jesus Christ to serve such people first and foremost, those who are starving for the gospel even being in ‘the church’. We of course continue to proclaim the gospel to unbelievers outside the church as well, people from the streets of our city, our coworkers, fellow-students and so on. We keep considering which form the evangelism in our church should take on a regular basis.

At present we have a few people who are open for the gospel and need regular meetings with the purpose of gospel presentation. One of these people is my mother. It is for the sake of such people that we are planning to hold special get-togethers during the week. We have rented a location for six months for this purpose. It is a large room in the market place building. First we felt awkward about connecting evangelism and the place of trade but then we reminded ourselves of the Apostle Paul and his preaching in crowded places.

Recently I got a call from a man who asked me to meet with him. He told me he was a russian orthodox believer and wanted to pray with me. He came to our house one evening and by God’s grace I was able to explain the gospel to him over the course of a few hours. His name is Dima.

Now a little about myself: my greatest need is that I may be a good shepherd for my own family, my wife and kids which in its turn will help me be a good pastor for our church. I understand that if I lose in my family I will lose everywhere else. I am especially grateful to the Lord for all His saints who sacrificially take part in supporting our family and our church. It is due to this support that all these things I am writing about can take place in Omsk.