Siberian Circuit Riders

Earlier this week, I arrived back in Novosibirsk after a trip that lasted two days short of a month. The train took me as far west as the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg, and as far east as Lake Baikal.   

The enormous distances in Russia do mean that quite a bit of time was spent simply on the road. While that has a beauty of its own (even in 3rd class train wagons!), the more significant part of the journey involved visiting the people of our congregations. 

My traveling partner for most of the journey was also my boss - Pastor Helmut Grimmsmann, the Asia Secretary of my employer the Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Lower Saxony. I very much enjoyed Helmut's company - asking him about his experience as a missionary in the Central African Republic (25 years!) and reflecting with him about the theology and practice of mission service.

I felt like we were 21st-century, Siberian versions of the circuit riders of the Old West, traveling from one congregation to the next. As a rule Helmut would usually preach and I would translate; it was fortunate for me (since my knowledge of German is so very slim) the Helmut is completely fluent in English. We would then usually have "tea" (which is, more often than not, a very richly prepared mix of sandwiches, salads, cakes and candies) and talk with the people about whatever problems or issues might be facing them. 

Our congregational building in the mining town of Anzhero-Suzhdensk

Visiting with the older women after worship
(while the younger women are preparing "tea")

By the time we arrived in the south-central Siberian region of Khakasia, we had been away from home for more than a week; it would be fair to say that we were not exactly fresh. Yet five intense days of visits in the region lay ahead. One of the Abakan congregation's recent adult confirmands, Marina, took us into her home that first morning and for the next few to follow; her hospitality (and the hospitality of our long time member, Erika, who housed us in Chernogorsk) made it easier to prepare for the days of worship service, business meetings, and many kilometers of road that lay ahead.

The church council president in Abakan, Alexander, made our "circuit riding" possible by driving us faithfully from Kuragino and Roshchinsk in the east to Shira and Bograd in the west. In between he showed us some of the natural and man-made wonders of the region, including the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Dam and, together with folks from Bograd, the Borodino cave.

As we traveled I was struck again how every congregational situation in the region is unique - some are tied with German-Russian heritage, others are not. Some are open and welcoming, others are tightly knit. Some are urban, others are rural. A person with such rich missionary experience as Helmut, however, was able to provide both challenge and comfort to each of them. I was challenged, too, not only by tasks, on the one hand, as translator and the other hand as area dean, but also by Helmut's approach. While in my ministry I have put great effort into being understood by the congregation (i.e., coming as closely as possible to their mindset and values in order that they might hear the Good News in a way they could accept), Helmut put more emphasis on the way the Gospel brings something new into our lives. With such an approach he risked being misunderstood (or, even more likely, not understood at all) by many people in the congregation; on the other hand I was impressed by his willingness to take risks and challenge his listeners' assumptions. I saw that this really resonated with some congregational members, especially those around the “edges” of the church. 

Helmut (foreground) and the congregation in Bograd

Some of the questions that came up repeatedly in our time in the Abakan region were: the need to think creatively about finding long term solutions for community space when in most places we do not own our own, the necessity to improve congregational singing and worship leadership training for lay leaders. In addition Helmut and I thought about and discussed how our congregations' identity and mission are related to the issues above. One of the instruments we use in the U.S. to  help congregations understand better who they are and who they want to be is the mission and/or vision statement. In the coming months I'll be thinking about ways to help our congregations analyze themselves so that they might become more focused on the way God does and can use them as an instrument of challenge and grace in their environments.