Eastman native helping lead in Russian church planting movement

In 1991 Russia opened its doors to the western world. Many Christian denominations and churches sent mission teams to evangelize the people who had lived under communist rule for more than two generations. The Russian people, who had been indoctrinated with evolution and atheism, were hungry to hear those who came to tell them that there was a God who loved them and had a divine plan for their lives.

Unfortunately, there was almost no support mechanism in place for those who had made decisions for Christ in those early years of evangelization. Many of the new converts turned to whatever support group they could find. In some cases that was a cultic group that distorted the gospel.

Many went silently back into the frozen corridors of the Russian Orthodox cathedrals to kiss icons and light candles to continue their Christian pilgrimage.

 

A challenge to face

The International Mission Board immediately began to respond to this challenge by not only continuing to evangelize the people of the former Soviet Union, but also discipling them and starting new churches.

Russia is an enormous landmass that extends from the Artic Ocean to the Black Sea and from the corner of Alaska to the borders of the Ukraine. It encompasses 11 time zones and 126 people groups, with many of them living in a state of hopelessness as a result of 75 years of communist-imposed atheism.

When Buck and Leslie Burch and their daughters, Ashlyn and Amielle, arrived in Moscow in August 1998 they were ready for the challenge facing them. They were even prepared for the cold weather and had coats designed for sub-zero weather. They were pleasantly surprised to discover that the warm temperature (at least in mid-summer) was not at all unlike what they had grown accustomed to in middle Georgia.

Buck Burch, who calls Eastman home, is the son of a Georgia Baptist pastor. He graduated from Dodge County High School in 1985 and went to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. to major in English Education. While at the university in Virginia, Burch trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior. After a year at South-western Seminary in Fort Worth, the Eastman native returned to middle Georgia to teach high school English.

While employed as a high school teacher the Lord called Burch to become a bi-vocational pastor of a small church in Eastman. Buck met Leslie, who owned a clothing store, married her and together they went to Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., where he completed his Master of Divinity Degree.

After graduation from seminary the Burches moved back to middle Georgia, where Buck served as an associate pastor for three years. During that period of time Burch began to sense God's call to full-time missions.

The International Mission Board assigned the Burches to a ministry in Russia and the first year was spent in language school in Moscow. Burch reports, "While we were taking language classes, our daughters had a babysitter. We would return home in the afternoons to stumble through a few vocabulary words or phrases with our babysitter, and then Ashlyn, who was 3, would say in perfect Russian, 'What Daddy is trying to say is ...' The kids picked up Russian super fast."

After a year, the Lord gave the Burches a son, Luke. It was a difficult pregnancy for Leslie and the doctors gave Luke only a 10 percent chance to live. Burch recalls, "The Lord taught us a dependency upon Him that we had never known before. Now Luke is the healthiest one of all of us."

After language school the Burches moved to Bryansk, a small city in Russia on the Ukrainian border. The new church, which the Burches started there in 2000, has now planted churches that have succeeded in planting yet other churches.

"The church was started with a group of Russian youth who were sold out to making an impact for Christ regardless of the cost," Burch explains. "Today some of those youth are married and serve as deacons and church leaders."

Reassurance in God's call

Another great victory recounted by Burch involved the discipling of a middle aged Russian woman that God used to reach her neighbors for Christ. This one woman was instrumental in bringing 1/3 of her village in northwest Russia to faith in Christ. "It is wonderful to see the torch of leadership passed on from one faithful believer to another," commented the IMB missionary to Russia.

Burch admits that giving up the luxuries of America has not been too difficult because of the surety of God's call, but admits, "Knowing that my kids are missing all those days of influence and fellowship with Papa and Mema or Granddaddy and Grandmama is tough."

However, when Burch thinks about the Russian people he realizes his own personal blessings stand in sharp contrast to the disadvantaged people all round him.

He says, "The Russian people are economically challenged with an average salary ranging from $100-$200 per month. They are emotionally challenged, because the cold war produced a defeatist/defensive mentality among so many of the people. They are spiritually challenged, because the Russian Orthodox Church, the state church, errs greatly in minimizing the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and emphasizes a mystic celebration of being born into a group of people who pride themselves in being the one true church."

 

Praying for new churches

Although the state is reluctant to endorse any evangelical presence as legitimate, the Burches have a good relationship with the government as they seek to keep all of their work open and transparent. New laws passed in January, however, place restrictions on evangelism and no longer can churches meet except in buildings deemed by the government as religious structures. Burch states, "This law removes the legal standing most evangelical churches have had, because the great majority of them rent places to meet."

For the past three years Burch has served as a strategy coordinator for St. Petersburg with the responsibility of mobilizing IMB missionaries to start new churches - 500% more churches by 2008.

A new and larger assignment has recently been given to Burch. Now he will take on more responsibilities for a larger geographic area in European Russia. He expresses his dream by saying, "Our prayer is that a church planting movement will break out in Russia, so that literally hundreds of thousands of new churches will be born and give birth to even more."