Check Out Our Website!

Follow Us on Twitter

About Us

My Photo
TeamUfa
We are a team of people trying to reach people in Ufa and Bashkortostan in Russia. It is no small task and we want your support!
View my complete profile

Who's Visited Us

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Trip to Novosibirsk


Recently, Chris Carr and local pastor Andrei Dzuba gathered in Novosibirsk with approximately twenty other believers from Russia, Ukraine, Denmark, and Belarus for a time of sharing best practices in church planting.  Each participant is involved in local church leadership, with many of them already having helped start one
or more churches or evangelistic bible study groups.  Chris writes the following about their time there:

The time in Novosibirsk was very practical as we did hands on envisioning and planning together.  We had multiple sessions in which we ascertained where things currently stand in our places of ministry in relation to current goals.  We also spent considerable time discussing in small groups how to hear from God and dream bigger dreams and goals, the steps to start fulfilling those dreams, and who needs to be involved in  making those goals reality.  By the time the hands-on interaction ended, each participant had worked out overarching ministry goals and concrete steps to be taken in reaching those goals for the next two years in our respective ministry contexts.

In particular, we had these things to share about Ufa:

Currently in Ufa we know how to gather people into different groups: seekers, those wanting to hone their English, those wanting to discuss the Bible, those actually wanting to study the Bible (both seekers and already followers of Jesus), etc.  We have an open door at the moment.  Although some of the Bible study groups that have been started in the last year or so have fulfilled their purpose in a defined ‘season of life’ for the churches to which they were connected, we still have have 25+ groups and/or ‘points of interest’ in and within an hour’s drive of Ufa where we have an open door to access people.  There are a number of believers who want to serve and be involved in obedience to the Great Commission.  

Currently we are looking to fulfill the following goals.  Please pray with us for these plans/hopes for our city:

1.  Define a unified leadership mentoring process for Bible study group leaders
2.  Develop an accountability process for participants in the current missional training project in Ufa as well as for group leaders
3.  Better use the English language to gain access to the lost and connect with them with local believers
4.  Begin monthly ‘missional summits’ to establish the main missional purposes for the existence of the groups

  
We hope to gather again in May to have a follow-up time and see how we are doing with our goals.  These meetings are important for us in order to keep us moving forward with the emerging Bible study group network.  The training in Novosibirsk will help both Andrei and I take the network to the next level and increase the likelihood for reproducibility.

God spoke into our hearts while in Novosibirsk about this emerging vision for Ufa.  Again, please pray with us about this vision for the next two years.
1.  100 missional Bible study groups
2.  At least 60 new group leaders
3.  25 mother churches (none will be the size or approach of Dom Molitva)
4.  500 believers in discipleship for evangelism and starting of new groups
5.    Possibly two new Celebrate Recovery ministry centers will begin in Bashkortostan to reach those with addictions and their families, hopefully resulting in many salvations, new disciples, new Bible study groups