Consider the values of the MTW Ukraine team:
Easy to say, but what does it mean. Reformed can be summarized in three headings:
By this we mean not only that we embrace infant baptism, but that we seek in all ways to express the covenantal promise that “I will be your God, you will be my people and I will dwell in your midst.” Thus we seek to view life holistically rather than compartmentalized. We affirm the creational ordinances of marriage, work and worship. Likewise, accept the breadth of covenantal life as expressed in scripture. We do not expect our lives to be one series of continual blessings. We see the psalms and songs of lament in Scripture. We know that in this world we will have tribulation. In the covenant, we live with God and with one another in the midst of this mixed-up and fallen world. We affirm his steadfast covenantal love and faithfulness while recognizing that this world is full of suffering. Thus we do not offer an “always happy Christianity,” but the complexity and confidence of life in the covenant. As a covenantal church, we also seek to value all ages within the body of Christ and to foster the growth of the covenantal family.
We are church-based. We are church planters seeking to enable a Ukrainian-led church planting movement. We recognize all of the problems of the church, but we also rejoice that she is the Bride of our Lord. As such, it is our desire as members of that church to build her up in purity. All of our work, be it theological education, evangelism, mercy ministries, or Bible studies leads towards the goal of building up the local church. The church has the following elements as her priority:
An outreaching community – The church is called to herald this good news of the gospel. We want to plant churches with a desire to reach out to their communities and a desire to reproduce themselves. We believe that the gospel is seen in both word and deed and therefore, we seek to encourage the church in its ministry of mercy to the needy not only within the church, but also in the surrounding community.
We are Presbyterian – This affirms that we are committed to the Presbyterian form of church government as the best expression of Biblical church rule. We believe in the plurality of elders and work hard to develop the idea that leadership in the church is best exercised by those called by God working together as a team to shepherd the flock under the good shepherd and head of the church. This also means that we want to affirm and foster a true fellowship and partnership amongst the churches of the EPCU and proper expressions of unity in the catholic (universal) church.
We are historic – We live in an age when — in the American evangelical church — much of church history and tradition is considered as unimportant and irrelevant. We believe that much of what is ‘new’ is valuable such as books and hymns/songs. At the same time, we want to take care to value history. In Ukraine, the Orthodox church recognizes a great continuity with the past. We want to recognize that continuity as well, especially within the Reformed tradition. While we do not reject the new, we also do not reject the old. Practically speaking, this applies as we encourage the reading of old books, teach the historic creeds, sing old hymns, and maintain some of the historic worship practices of the Reformed tradition though they may not be in style, such as the inclusion of a time of confession in the worship service or the wearing of robes. This reflects also perhaps on the tone of worship. In historic Reformed hymnody, worship could be described as both “sweet” and “awful”. It is awful, because the mighty God who is a consuming fire and thrice holy is in our midst. It is sweet because He comes to us in the love of His son to shower his love upon us. Our worship should seek to combine this historic sense of immanence and transcendence.
Having stated above that we are historic, it is also necessary to say that we seek to be culturally relevant and to enable the Ukrainian churches to develop culturally appropriate forms of worship and ministry. An example of this is that we seek to find good music within the Orthodox tradition and to encourage the development of Biblical Ukrainian hymnody. Likewise, we want to equip Ukrainian leaders to be addressing the needs of Ukrainians in their own teaching and writing. We recognize our limitations in this process and trust that even if we ourselves are unable to do this, that we can at least encourage the Ukrainian leaders in this process.
According to the Westminster Confession, the ordinary means of grace are the reading and preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and prayer. These are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather they are noted as being foundational aspects of God’s ordinances, i.e. His means of dispensing to us the sweet grace of Christ. We rejoice in the simplicity and clarity of these means, and we seek to enable the Ukrainian church to capably do each of these. In an age where preaching is often diminished, programmatic approaches to Christian growth are rampant and experience and signs are exalted, it is necessary to state clearly that we seek to plant churches anchored by these ordinary means.
As a mission, we are committed to being grace-based. Again, this is often said, but needs some clarification. We believe that one of the most important things that we as Reformed Christians bring to the evangelical church mosaic in Ukraine is the historic Reformed emphasis on sovereign grace. Of course, this is the grace that sets us free and justifies us in Christ, but it is also the grace that holds us and gives us assurance. It is the grace that forgives us day-to-day as we increasingly see the depth of our sin as we grow. It is the grace that allows us to admit sin, confess it to others and our Lord and seek forgiveness. It is the grace that enables us to forgive and to live as the communion of saints. Being grace-based means that we as a mission team are daily seeking to be refreshed by the steadfast love of God for us personally because of Jesus. We examine our hearts for sin and we seek to expose that sin to the cleansing grace. As we experience the grace, we seek to pass it along to others. This is not a grace that leads to licentiousness, but rather it is a grace that empowers and transforms. It’s grace that makes us want to put sin to death with all of our effort like the farmer, athlete, or soldier. This is a message the Ukrainian church needs to see and hear.
From the beginning, we have taken the approach as a mission team that we are here to be equippers. This does not mean that we do not do things. We must model and we must serve in the churches as we are gifted. Nevertheless, we always keep in mind the question of how we can be enabling another to take our place. The scriptural call to equip belongs to elders in a particular way, but it also belongs to all of us. We are all called to be equippers, whether we are parents, an older woman, a Bible study leader or a Sunday school teacher. Our mission team seeks to equip Ukrainians for ministry and enable Ukrainian leadership wherever possible.
Ukraine is a relational culture. True equipping and discipleship cannot only happen by developing a class for leaders. As members of the body of Christ, we are called to live in relationship, in community, with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, as a mission team, we seek to know and be known. It may be said that relationship is at the heart of all that we do as a team. Some will be better at this than others depending on personality, life circumstances and roles, but none of us can neglect developing relationships with our Ukrainian family.
We recognize that we cannot script the growth of the Ukrainian church any more than we can for the American church. Therefore, we are committed to being in Ukraine for as long as would truly be helpful and needful. We do not want to be a burden on the churches here, and we recognize that deep change and stable growth can take many years.
Sometimes (oft times!) we Americans and especially we Reformed Americans can think that we’ve got it all together and have nothing more to learn. We may not state this so directly, but it is still true. Our call in Ukraine is to be learners as much as we are teachers. This means learning about the culture and it means struggling to learn the language. But it also means more. It means that the Spirit of God is active here in Ukraine and in the hearts of the Ukrainians. It means that we need to learn to listen and seek opportunities to grow. We must humble ourselves before others in such a way that they see our weakness, ignorance and sin.
It is not the desire of MTW to be leading the EPCU indefinitely. Our desire is to be in the background as much as possible while we allow leadership on all levels to develop. Already, we have made significant movement toward becoming partners with the EPCU. This trend needs to continue as the church grows. In practice this means that in church planting we especially seek to have Ukrainians as pastors from the very beginning of a church plant.
All of us are keenly aware of the fact that Ukraine continues to have great economic difficulties. Nevertheless, we want to think deliberately and continually about how we can avoid creating further dependence on American support. One thing that this means is that we do not want to create programs that cannot be supported without significant American aid. As much as possible, we want to move the churches here towards greater self support.
In order to facilitate this vision, we have identified the following mission priorities for our team in Ukraine:
Partnering with churches as needed in various church plants to assist in evangelism, discipleship, mentoring, and leadership development. Our focus will continue to be:
We are committed to the Ukrainianization of ERSU. We will continue to seek to develop ERSU as a seminary of the EPCU and Ukrainian Evangelical Reformed Church, desiring to produce:
We will seek to encourage and enable the advance of Christian Education for all ages in Ukraine. This may be done through:
We will continue to seek to minister the Gospel in word and deed. Mercy ministries will be connected to the work of church planting so that they encourage, support and flow from the church.
For the long term stability of the Ukrainian Church, we believe that an important role for MTW is to assist in the development of church infrastructures (Examples of this may be capital development – church buildings, office space, publishing).
We are constituted by several entities that help carry out different functions in God’s Kingdom work.
MTW is a church-planting organization – we plant and revitalize churches and ministries worldwide. For over 30 years we have been carrying out the Great Commission in Ukraine.