Leading a Church in Communist Russia

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This is the Truth Network. Stuart with Yevgeny Bakhmutsky, Dr. Yevgeny Bakhmutsky from Moscow. He's the pastor of Russian Bible Church in central Moscow. Pastor, first of all, welcome to Truth Talk, and it's good to see you. Yeah, good to see you too. Give us a good common Russian greeting for all of our listeners. All right, thank you. God bless you.

What do you say? So he was raised in such a family. He went through a great biblical seminary in Novosibirsk in Siberia. He became the leader of the Russian Baptist Youth Organization, 25,000 Russian Baptist Youth. He was the leader of all of them across all of Russia. While he was the leader of that great ministry, he received so many death threats that when he was dating the woman that would become his wife, his proposal was 10 reasons why you should not marry me.

And she still married him. And he moved then from Siberia to Moscow and planted a phenomenal church, perhaps the fastest growing church in all of Russia. Dynamic Church started with 17 people about 10, 11 years ago.

Now they're probably close to 800. What's significant about their church, two things. One is they don't take people from other churches.

There's no sheep stealing. They are committed to disciple making. 75% of the people in their church have been led to faith by other people in their church.

At work, in different ways, I mean, he can tell you the phenomenal story about God's doing there. They've doubled in attendance every two years and had to keep moving. So right now they're prayerfully considering what to do. They've got a vision for all of Moscow.

Do they try to build a facility to accommodate their growth or do they keep multiplying across the city? This is where they're at. They need prayer. But Stu, you want to hear his story. Tell us your story and tell us your passion. Oh, my passion is to see the spiritual awakening of Russia.

That's the reason why I'm living for, why I'm waking up, and it's such a prayer I'm going to bed. So you've grown up in Russia. You've been there all your life. Yeah, I grew up in Russia. Actually, my great-grandfather, he was killed for his faith and his family with my grandfather was sent in exile.

And the same happened with my grandfather, my other grandfather. Yeah, I grew up in Siberia. Never thought that I was going to be in Moscow.

Never dreamed, never prayed. But God blessed such a way and we were removed. We were removed from a nice place in Siberia to this center of Russia. And when I got there, I just realized that if I want to see a spiritual awakening in Russia, it got to be a good, healthy church in Moscow. It's the reason why we planted a church for Moscowites. But Moscow is a really fast-growing city in Russia in many ways.

And they're so inflatable. So if something could happen in Moscow, people would believe that something could happen across the country. Yeah, that's the capital city. And a lot of folks listening, when they hear about your grandfather killed for his faith, they hear about being shipped out, exiled to Siberia, they're thinking, that's not in the West here in America. We don't really suffer for our faith. What is it like to have threats on your life because you love Jesus for the crime of preaching the gospel, the Bible?

You're going to be treated as a secondary-level or third-level citizen. Your neighbor is going to damage much of your property on a regular basis, but you're going to be the most joyful person. When I looked at my grandparents, my father was beaten up with his guys in the school, encouraged by his teacher because he was a pastoral son. My parents and grandparents, they lost their jobs, and the only reason why was because they were from a Christian home.

But at the same time, our lives were full of joy because when you suffer, God gives you a special grace. Tell us about the importance of, as a pastor, preaching the Word of God. We're at a conference right now in North America, and I'm so honored to meet you and interview you.

Rob, thank you for connecting us. This conference is really pushing pastors to teach the Word of God verse by verse and, of course, point to the hero of every Bible story, the redemptive threat of redemption, Jesus Christ. How is that the same, and how is that so important, both in the United States of America and in Moscow, where you're serving? It's a good question. I really like that question. My grandfather was a pastor of 600 members' church, and they had only one copy of the Bible.

That's been getting to him from his father-in-law. My grandmother's father was the first edition of Russian Bible. The only one Bible they had.

They had a calendar, how many days you can keep the Bible, and we had a handwritten Bible by my grandma. So they believed in the power of the Word. They believed, they saw that, they experienced that, because there is no one truthful book in the whole world except the Bible. And if you want to see life transformed, only the Bible. My book, by the way, was published by the largest European, it's a Russian-Russian publisher.

And the reason why, because the publisher was surprised to see so many young professionals who tried everything. They just started to read the Bible. So they asked me to write a book about happiness, which I did, and it's a poor message of the Gospel. And this secular guy who still not believed, he's shocked that such a book, I mean the Bible, can change the life of so many diverse people.

He's never seen anything like that. Pastor, how would you challenge a pastor from Moscow? You've seen much suffering from the Gospel, you've seen much fruit, you're a pastor in church, you're teaching the Word, you're making disciples. We're so encouraged by this, we need more of what you have over here for sure. You know, we're kind of consumer Western believers, microwave, you know, we want our comfortable lifestyle. But how would you encourage us to actually share our faith, actually be bold evangelizing, be committed to the Word, and maybe wake up a little bit?

What challenge would you give us if you could speak to all the masses out there just through this radio talk show and podcast? I would encourage my beloved fellow believers to know that there's much better, joyful, satisfying lives than they experience right now. Because when you are in the middle, in the midst of God's will, you're going to experience an amazing God's presence. And when you suffer, when you're giving yourself, when you're just living out of your faith, it's going to be much, much, it's beyond our bravest expectation life.

So I would encourage to say to you, what you experience right now, it's almost nothing compared with my experience. When you leave your comfort zones, you will come to a wonder zones when God will mighty use you. It might be very well seen, it might be unseen, but it's going to be so blessed to live and to die for that you wouldn't go back. But we're all talking about what we love. We're all natural evangelists. If our hearts are going to be full of Jesus, we're going to talk naturally. So if you're not really talking, because you're not really loving, and probably because of you don't know the Bible so well, maybe you don't understand the gospel so well.

So if you want to experience a better life, you just go deep to the Bible, deep to the gospel, and you will see how your mind, your heart is going to be transformed, and you become a vital tool in the mighty hands of God to save others. And your grandfather killed for his faith in Russia. What would he say? He's in heaven with the Lord right now. He's doing mighty fine. But what would he say to everyone right now?

What do you feel like his message is, his legacy is? Just pour your life for gospel sake. This is the only worthy way to live your life. How can everyone listening to my voice right now pray for you, Pastor, and for the church in Moscow and across Russia, a land that is desperate for the gospel, a land beleaguered by all kinds of issues, poverty and alcoholism, and you face all kinds of things there, and is a believer of the attacks. But how can we pray for you? Pray for spiritual awakening in Russia and a certain awakening in the U.S.

So it's the first prayer for a spiritual awakening. Second, pray for us to develop more leaders. In order for the church to grow, you've got to have more leaders.

This is a passion I have in my heart. Third, pray that Russian Bible Church will buy a building in Moscow, because there is no strong, good evangelical church with a good building in Moscow, which is really surprising. And pray that we will plant more churches.

And pray that more Russian officials will repent and believe. Amen. And we're going to pray for you, Pastor, and that's just such a blessing, the growth of the church driven by the preaching of the gospel, by discipleship. And we're going to pray for a pastor by name. I'm going to have my mentor, Rob Provost, say your name for us. Rob, say it one more time, will you, brother?

Sure. Yevgeny Bakmuski. Pastor Yevgeny Bakmuski. God bless you, man. Thank you for your stand for the gospel.

Thanks for encouraging us, man. You come over here, it's like coming on a missions trip. You're mobilizing us to do what the Bible says to do. In fact, we say, is this guy some superhero? Is he some abnormal Christian? No, you're a normal Christian. Oh, normal.

We're the ones who are abnormal, because we're not doing what the Bible says, you know. So, God bless you, and thanks for that. Thanks for loving us enough to share these things with us. Yeah, thank you very much. I really love your American style of conversation. It's very American. I'm going to teach your listeners a Russian phrase, because if you know, we're all going to speak Russian in heaven. That's right. Okay.

I'm not arguing with you. It's so hard language. You've got to spend the whole eternity to learn it.

So, if you want to say in Russian, I love you, you've got to say a strange phrase in English, but it really sounds like I love you in Russian. Yellow blue bus. Yellow blue bus. Oh, that's easier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a yellow blue bus. Yeah, exactly. If you say yellow blue bus, it sounds for Russian English.

Even a basketball player like me can get that. I still have to write it down, but yellow blue bus. That's I love you. Yeah, exactly. Now your subscribers can be more prepared for heaven, because they know Russian phrase.

And maybe they're rushing to get there. Who knows, right? So, yellow blue bus.

And what is God loves you? Is that a bog? Bog. Bog, lubet, vas. Okay, awesome. God bless you.