Quote from Forum Archives on August 4, 2004, 3:35 am

Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>

 

     HOPE 4 KYIV

                    NUMBER 22 A

                   August 3,  2004

 

       The “In-Pact” Prayer Newsletter of

             Bob and Jo Ann Tolliver

           Missionaries to Kiev, Ukraine

Dear Friends, Family, and "In-Pact" Prayer Partners:

 

We tried to get this to everyone yesterday, but our host had major "shut down" problems that kept many from receiving it.  So, we're trying again, with some additional information included, with assurances that everything is up and running just fine now.

 

Three very important items for this special edition of Hope4Kyiv ----  Consider them to all three be important prayer requests.

 

1)  We'll be sending another update" soon, but wanted you to know that Jim and Deanna brought Nicole Grace home from the hospital Monday.  She's 7 1/2 weeks old.  Please pray for them!  This is a monumental event with enormous challenges ahead for the family.  There are strong indicators that she may be deaf, but future tests will let us know for certain.

 

2)  International Baptist Church of Kiev will celebrate its 10th Anniversary on September 18th and 19th, and we want you to know about it.  More information will come later, but please mark those dates.  We're asking all former pastors and former members to contact us right away; we need to get information to you pronto!

 

3)  We are writing this extra letter pertaining to a matter about which we wrote earlier in our July "Hope4Kyiv" newsletter . . . . the matter of "Partnerships" and missions.  We have chosen to do so because of the significance that partnerships can have with the future ministry of International Baptist Church.

 

The International Mission Board is strongly promoting the idea of finding ways for churches in America to form personal partnerships with ministries and churches on the mission field.  The harvest fields are just too vast and too many for the IMB and its missionaries to accomplish it alone. 

 

Someone once said that IMB missions was like a three-legged stool.  One leg is the Cooperative Program, another is the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for Missions, and the other is personal hands on partnerships between missionaries and churches.  When you realize that less than two percent of Cooperative Program giving goes to IMB for overseas missions, you begin to understand just how important the other two legs are.  You can go to the IMB website and find helpful information on this subject. 

 

Such personal relationships . . . .

+  will make missions more "personal" to the churches,

+  will strengthen churches' commitments to missions,

+  will help strengthen and stabilize specific missions ministries and projects on the field,

+  will often help release IMB funding to other strategic ministries that would otherwise be hindered,

+  will create a more personal prayer link between churches and specific missionaries and mission fields,

+  will strengthen the local evangelistic and missions focus of the churches,

+  will allow "hands on" missions for church members and leaders, and will allow missionaries to visit partner churches to see loyalty and commitment first hand.

In a sentence, "partnerships" are becoming a vital and highly valued tool for expanding the horizons of missions and strengthening the hearts of both the senders and the goers.

 

When we first decided to come to Kiev and IBC, we talked about partnerships with a few pastors and churches, but really didn't understand too much about it ourselves.  We soon realized that this term meant different things to different people.  To some, it meant, "we'll be involved with you at every level possible.  Your ministry is our ministry."  To others it meant, "we'll pray for you".  To still others, it meant, "we'll adopt you as our missionary, we'll pray, and we'll write, and we'll send care packages."  To most, however, it didn't fully mean what was intended.

 

God has been moving dramatically and powerfully in many churches this past year.  The Lottie Moon Offering was a record $137 million.  Churches of all sizes are becoming strategic in their vision of world missions.  Some, such as Second Baptist Church of Springfield, MO, are even becoming "global mobilization centers" as they take on massive coordination of promoting missions and sending people.

 

As we've watched many of these churches in the U.S. create partnerships with other IMB mission fields, personnel, and projects, we've come to realize that, if IBC is to be all it can be, it also needs to have genuine partnerships with some churches and individuals for at least the next two or three years.  This seems to be the next stage of IBC's growth.

 

So, . . . What does it really mean . . . this word, "Partnership"?  If you think of it by simple definition, it becomes pretty clear.  Partnership means . . . .

 

+  Joint ownership.  Both partners have a personal investment in and responsibility to each other because they have both taken ownership of the venture.  There is a vested interest on the part of each partner because each partner has placed time, effort, energy, and resources into the project. 

 

When a missionary or a church form a partnership, it means the weaker and the stronger identify each other as part of the other's work and ministry.  It's no longer vague and abstract; it's personal.  IMB has made it possible, for example, for a local church to "adopt" a specific missionary or ministry by assigning that work to that church for various partnership opportunities.

 

+  Mutual support.  In this sense, the partnership is much like a covenant where respective assets become available to each partner.  Whether it is manpower, finances, prayer, or something else, each partner has made a conscious decision to see that the other one never lacks for needed support.  A partner church can send people, prayer, and resources to that missionary, and the missionary can provide prayer, reports, and visits to that church, thus generating freshness of vision and commitment on both sides of the ocean.

 

+  A common task.  Even if each partner has a task or responsibility that is unique to him and is not carried out by the other, they both understand that the task is still one they have in common.  So, even if the partners are separated by distance or assignment, the common task is still the same.  In this case, it's the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the proclamation of the Gospel.  If a church in one country understands that, it will recognize that what is happening in the church or on the mission field in the other country is also a vital part of its own personal ministry.  They will jointly rejoice over victories, and they will jointly weep and intercede over struggles and setbacks.

 

+  Sharing the work load and resources.  One of the neat features of the First Century Church's missionary movement, is that, no matter how far away they were from each other, the churches shared the work load.  Sometimes they would send money, sometimes writings, sometimes food and clothing, and sometimes manpower.  Such sharing was often short term and temporary, but nonetheless vital to the accomplishment of the objective. 

 

Whenever the Church in Jerusalem was in need, the other churches sent help.  Whenever there was a problem, the Church in Jerusalem helped settle it.  Imagine where today's missions movement would be if Paul, Barnabas, Silas, and others had not been blessed by partnerships with the churches in Galatia, Berea, Thessalonica, Ephesus, Philippi, and others.  Imagine where Christianity would be!

 

+  Mutual reporting.  Partnership also means good communication where reports, praises, requests, and edification take place.  Whether it is by phone call, e-mail, letters, or even a personal on-site visit, regular reporting is vital to a good partnership.  Partners know when each other hurts, when each other has been successful, or when each other is having problems. 

 

+  A sense of personal responsibility.  Such reporting also generates a deeper sense of responsibility and accountability as each partner realizes the importance of maintaining a good name and a good work for the benefit of the other.  While each partner has his own personal duties, every partner assumes a sense of responsibility for the success and welfare of the others.  In missions, that means the missionary recognizes he is representing the partner church back home, while the partner church on the home front constantly remembers that it has a responsibility for the health and welfare of the missionary or the partner church back on the mission field.

 

So, . . . . we're asking for partners.  We're calling from "Macedonia" ---- "come and help us!"  Consider becoming a partnership church or person with the "Living Vine International Baptist Church" of Kiev, Ukraine.  IBC is still too unsteady and too limited in resources to successfully make the necessary transition without some folks to come alongside.

 

Here is why serious partnerships are so important to the present and future of International Baptist Church.

• International Baptist Church is facing a new day, a new challenge, and a new relationship.  As it celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, it also enters a new era it has never faced before.
• Bob is the last IMB missionary who will ever pastor the church.  From this point on, there will be no IMB involvement with the church in an official capacity, although emotional and spiritual encouragement will remain intact.  All leadership must come from local people and from interested and willing personnel from other countries.
• After ten years, these new circumstances the church is facing cannot be overcome alone.  We need other churches to come alongside for a period of one to three years and create a special partnering relationship with the church. 
• IBC is like a baby just gaining enough strength to begin to walk, but not yet able to be on its own.  By design and intent, its first ten years have fallen under the leadership and support of IMB missionaries as they have pastored, financially supported, attended, and led in many of the leadership positions of the church.  Through that process the church has become a viable and important part of Gospel proclamation in Kiev.
• Because the church membership now consists of about 90% Ukrainians, the leadership skills, financial resources, and ministry expertise are not there sufficiently to help the church grow and prosper on its own.

The days of IMB dependency are over, and the next step is immediately before us. 

• Beginning January, 2005, as part of our current assignment extension, the IMB will continue providing base salary and medical insurance, and we will be personally responsible for covering all housing and ministry obligations as the "weaning" process continues. 
• As part of this process, the church is re-identifying its formal membership role, and evaluating all its current resources.
• We are already responsible for developing a leadership base that will make certain the church can fully function during times without a pastor. 
• We must also begin looking for people who can come to provide pastoral leadership that will help the church reach its maximum effectiveness in missions, evangelism, and church planting.  A strong trained leadership shepherding team that is constant will make it easier for a senior pastor to come from outside Ukraine.
• We must also begin seriously looking for permanent meeting space which we can either rent or own.
• We must prepare the church for our departure, to take place sometime within the next fifteen months.  Time is running out.

In order to fully understand the significance and complexity of this process, you must understand the extraordinary background of eastern Europe and its political, economic, and religious history.  The average American will not have such understanding; it will come only through prayer.

 

Kiev is an amazing city of nearly three million people, representing not only Ukrainians and other eastern European countries, but also other countries.

• 6,000 Chinese students
• 4,000 Spanish speaking residents
• 2400 Romani (gypsies)
• Thousands of street children (some estimate it to be 25,000)
• Thousands of homeless men and women
• 300,000 university students on over 50 campuses
• 225,000 teenagers
• 125,000 Jews
• Thousands of Asians
• Thousands of Muslims
• The list goes on and on and on and . . . .

Tradition tells us that the Apostle Andrew stood on the banks of the Dnipro River and prophesied that one day a great city filled with churches would rest on these hills.  Whether that story is true or not, in 486 AD, after more than 3,000 years of Tripolian pagan culture setting the stage, Prince Kyi and his three siblings came down the river from the Scandinavian territories and settled here, naming the city after Kyi.  Nearly every century of its 1600 year history has been filled with tragedy, invasion, hardship, and suffering.  The psyche of the people here is fatalistic in every way . . . . but they always hope for something better.

 

We know we have the "something better" for which they seek.  But we can't deliver it alone.

 

The specific purpose of our coming to IBC was to help the church through this process of transitioning out of dependence on IMB to becoming a self-sustaining congregation.  However, this has to be accomplished progressively, and we feel that "Partnership" is part of the next step.

 

In order for the process to be completed successfully, we need partner churches to help us in many different ways. 

 

We need churches who can help provide . . . .

• Prayer warriors . . . more than we've ever had.  We have over 1,000, but we need three or four times that many. 
• Volunteers to come and help on short term trips.  We need others who would come for longer periods of time (six months or more) to help teach, train, and equip our local members. 
• Pastors and professors who would come and serve as equippers and/or teaching pastors as part of the pastoral team for periods of two months to two years, teaching sound Bible doctrine, worship, missiology, evangelism, discipleship, prayer, ad infinitum.
• Churches and individuals who can assist in providing a variety of material resources for undergirding and equipping the church.
• People who can guide us in securing adequate places to meet. 
• People who will come and prayer walk this city. 
• Intercessors who will mobilize others to become part of our "PrayKIEV" city-wide prayer strategy.
• Stateside support personnel who can provide technical service and help to things such as a church website, maintenance of other websites, stateside phone calls for special needs and purposes, etc.
• People who will come and work with other language groups, students, orphans, widows, ESL programs, and more. 
• A senior pastor who will come and take our place no later than the Fall of next year, ---- preferably much sooner.

We need all this and more.  We need real partners who understand the principles of partnership as described above. 

 

As you pray for us, make this matter a priority of your praying.  And, if God moves your heart to consider partnering with us in one or more of these ways, please contact us immediately.

 

Remember, we are "co-laborers together with Christ", just as Paul was with his partners.  And, just as they enthusiastically did in his day, we need partnership churches to come to our aid as well.

 

In his encounter with God, Isaiah heard God ask, "Who will go?"  He said, "I will!"  When we heard the same call, we said "we will!' ---- and now we are asking from Kiev, "Who will come?"  Is anyone out there who will say, "we will!"?

 

If you or your church have any questions about or interest in possible partnership such as we've described, please contact us immediately. 

 

Thanks again for caring and for praying.

 

In His Bond and For His Kingdom,

 

Bob and Jo Ann

 

IBC - Hope4Kyiv
   Bob:  lifeunlimited@pobox.com

   Jo Ann:  grandma12@pobox.com

 

Our Websites:

  http://www.hope4kiev.org/team/members.asp?ID=10

   www.hope4kiev.org  for the general work in Kiev.

   http://community.webshots.com/user/01lum for access to our pix albums.

 

To receive "PrayKiev", a monthly (or more) prayer letter on a city-wide prayer

   network, send a blank message to praykiev-subscribe@associate.com.

To reach the "PrayKIEV" website, go to www.praykiev.org.

 

To Receive an e-mail prayer guide on Central and Eastern Europe, write

   shirley@healynet.net.

 

For weekly spiritual encouragement and current stories of our work here,

subscribe to "Shoulder To Shoulder", a letter to "lift up hands that

hang down", at shoulders-subscribe@welovegod.org. 

 

For Back Issues of . . .

   "Shoulder To Shoulder" go to www.welovegod.org/groups/shoulders .

   "Hope4Kyiv", go to www.welovegod.org/groups/hope4kyiv.

 

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