Our STRATEGY for multiplying Church-planters in Russia & Central Asia
The Eurasian Missionary College is an integral part of an overall strategy to plant churches all over Russia and Central Asia. This column explains the College's training objectives, and where it fits into an overall strategy to raise up, train, and support church-planters in Russia and Central Asia.
Training Church-planters
The Eurasian Missionary College training has multiple objectives:
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A mentor with her students
To this end the course is structured as five teaching blocks in College of 6 weeks duration each, interspersed with four 3 week "practicals" - viz. missions off-site. On these practicals the students go in teams to places in Tatartstan or Central Asia where they assist previous College graduates in their church-planting work. It is not uncommon for the students to participate in planting a church from scratch over the course of the year. This is a great education for them.
On-going training and support
Obviously a one-year full-time course cannot fulfil all the objectives to equip a church-planter for a lifetime of ministry. So after the full-time year at College, graduates join other church-planters in the field, assisting in their churches before seeking to establish their own. They continue formal training over the next five years by attending annual intensive courses - either at the College or at regional training centres. They are regularly visited by Edik Hamidullan - one of the longest serving evangelical pastors in Tatarstan - who encourages them and provides sage advice. He is the President of the Association of Christian Evangelical Churches of Tatarstan. Graduates also meet at an annual conference for mutual exhortation and encouragement.
Church-planters from all over Tatarstan meet to encourage one another at their annual conference
Raising future Church-planters
Recruiting potential church-planters is essential if there is to be a steady flow of missionaries entering the field. Annual "Mission Motivation Seminars" are therefore run in regional centres across Tatarstan, and all churches are encouraged to come to them. A special programme is run for older teenagers and young adults, giving them the opportunity to go on a few days of "Summer Mission" with College staff and graduates. On these missions the young people engage in the work of church-planting, working alongside church-planters in the field just as the College students do. This few days of hands-on missionary experience is often used by God to plant a desire to become a church-planter in the heart of a teenage Christian. A number of the current intake of students training at the College had their desire to church-plant kindled by these seminars and missions.
Edik commissioning youth from his church for Summer Missions service
A Western Pastor's view of the Eurasian Missionary College
Eurasian Ministries UK employs Tim McMahon, Pastor of Danbury Mission Evangelical Church from 1999-2004. In this column, Tim explains why he is now devoting his working life to building partnership prayerfully, financially and practically between Western Christians and the students and graduates of the Eurasian Missionary College.
Strong Servant Leadership
EMC Staff Team 2006
"I am convinced that God has raised up the Eurasian Missionary College in Kazan
to play a significant part in sending gospel workers into the harvest fields of
Russia and Central Asia. The College's founder, Insur Shamgunov, combines
qualities rarely found in one man. He is a burning visionary, a strategic thinker,
a capable teacher, a motivator of people, and a proven practitioner. The last six years have seen the
beginning of the fulfillment of his vision to raise up, equip, and send out church-planters into
the whole region of Eurasia. He has gathered around him a team of highly capable servants of God
devoted to fulfilling that vision - men and women who seek to convey the highest standards of
teaching as well as best-practice, and yet who are also practitioners, not just teachers.
Their reliance on God to work the seemingly impossible through their weakness is reflected in
their deep prayerfulness, joyful thanksgiving, and perseverance under trial.
Transparent Accountability
The College has demonstrated the utmost transparency and integrity in their requests for, use of,
and reporting on funds provided by the churches and individuals whom I represent - an integrity that
stands in stark contrast to some other Eastern European missionary endeavours of which I am aware.
They are thought-through on the practical issues of dealing with the Russian government,
embodying what it means to be "as shrewd as snakes, but as innocent as doves". They have eschewed the
compromise that so many Russian charitable organizations with Western connections have given in to in order to
survive, and so have been an astounding witness to the Russian officials who have had to deal
with them.
Cultural Understanding
EMC clearly understand the realities of post-Communist Russia and the effects this has on the people they are
seeking to reach, as well as upon those whom God raises up to join them in their work. The College's strong emphasis on
mentoring not only reflects the seriousness with which models of discipleship and ministry described in the
New Testament are taken, but also shows a keen insight into the realities of abuse and brokenness that most Russians
have had to endure. The abuse that nearly all students bring with them as baggage at the beginning of their College training
are addressed and processed in a mentoring relationships throughout the course. Consequently, the graduates of the College
are effective when they hold out the gospel to their kinsmen and women, because they embody the transforming effect
that the gospel has had on them while living in the College community. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this holistic
approach for training church-planters to work in a very difficult harvest field.
Perseverence in Gospel Ministry
I have been so impressed by the work of EMC that I requested my church to free me from the responsibilities of being Pastor
so that I could devote myself to raising support for EMC in the UK. I visit the College for a few weeks each year to give lectures
and consult with the College staff and board. I believe that the work EMC is doing has the potential under God to impact with
the gospel the whole of Russia, Central Asia, and even further afield, if it is pursued for decades to come. I want help establish
the work of the College for the long haul, and give Christians and churches in the West the opportunity to participate in this
all-important work of building the kingdom of God in a spiritually barren region of the world."
Tim McMahon
Pastor of Danbury Mission Evangelical Church, UK, 1999-2004
now Director of Eurasian Ministries UK
UK Director's Story
Tim McMahon
Tim McMahon, having served as a Pastor for nearly ten years, is now bringing the vision and work of the Eurasian Missionary College to the attention of Christians and churches throughout the UK. This column explains the story behind this development.
First Impressions
In June 2001 Tim McMahon, then Pastor of Danbury Mission Evangelical Church in Essex, met Insur Shamgunov at a preaching conference in the UK. Insur was studying part-time for his Masters degree in Theology at Queen’s University Belfast – while also running the Eurasian Missionary College in Kazan! Insur invited Tim to lecture at EMC on “Evangelising from the Gospel of Mark”. Tim went to Kazan in December 2001 – when temperatures were typically –15 °C! Tim was so impressed by the calibre of the students and staff at the College, the nature of the churches planted by College graduates, and their breath-taking vision to plant churches throughout the whole of Russia and Central Asia, that he made it his personal ambition to become a partner in their work – God permitting.
Tim McMahon lecturing in 2001
To Russia
At first Tim thought this partnership would take the form of long-term missionary service with the College in Kazan. After a number of lecturing trips, Tim took his wife to visit Kazan in October 2003. They explored the possibility of moving to Tatarstan with their two children to help with the work of the College. They returned to the UK convinced that the practical arrangements for the move could be achieved – viz. finding accommodation and a school for the children to attend.
A Christian School in Kazan for the children
But there was a question mark over the likelihood of the McMahon's getting long-term visas to do missionary work in Russia. During the time of their visit to Kazan, an American missionary couple had their visas revoked - after five years of service! They were just at the point where their facility with the Russian language was good enough to make them really effective in ministry. Since then the long-term Latvian missionary Tahir Talipov has had his visa revoked. All indications were that the Russian government would not allow Tim and his family to live in Tatarstan long enough to be useful in the College’s ministry.
Serving from the UK
In early 2004 the decision was made for Tim to seek to support the College’s work from the UK. The leadership of Danbury Mission Evangelical Church agreed that the College’s ministry is highly strategic for the evangelisation of the Muslim world. They saw the value of a Pastor like Tim becoming an advocate for the work in the UK. But they were realistic about the impossibility of building a mission support organisation in the UK while also trying to the fulfil role of Senior Pastor in a church with 200+ adults. In September 2004 Danbury Mission released Tim from his Senior Pastor responsibilities so that he can work for Eurasian Ministries UK. He is charged with raising prayer and financial support in the UK for the work of the Eurasian Missionary College and the churches established by its graduates. He will lecture at the College in Kazan two or thee times a year, and sit on its Board.