7 Vision for outreach

a) Church planting

b) An indigenous trans-denominational vision to emerge

c) Missions vision

8 Expatriate Christians responded in large numbers to the sudden opening of Russia in 1990

a) Long-term missionaries

b) All expatriates to be culturally sensitive

c) Missionaries and agencies to be models in networking and cooperative fellowship

9 Nation-wide ministry challenges

a) Over 90% of Russians have no meaningful link with a church

b) The rich and influential are hardly touched by evangelical Christianity,

c) Muslims are becoming more visible and outspoken and radical Islam is increasing in influence

d) The 25 million Russians of the 'near abroad'

e) Students and young people

f) Children

g) Alcoholics

h) Drug abusers

i) AIDS victims

j)Prisoners. Over 1.7 million are behind bars in overcrowded prisons,

k) New religionists

l) Unreached peoples. There may be up to 100 ethnic minorities without an indigenous church or where work is still in a pioneer stage

10 Christian Support Ministries

a) Bible distribution

b) Bible translation is an ongoing challenge

c) Christian literature. There are now several Christian Publishers

d) Newspaper evangelism

e) MAF-USA entered Russia in 1992 and from its base in Moscow has developed an unusual service

f) The JESUS film has been extensively shown

g) Christian radio played an honoured role during Communist rule in evangelism and encouragement of Christians

h) Christian TV

Economy

Vast natural resources and potentially the world's wealthiest country. HDI 0.747; 71^st/174. Public debt 26% of GNP. Income/person $2,680 (9% of USA).

Politics

Russia has known little but autocracy or tyranny since it became a country in the 8^th Century.

Religion

Freedom of religion written into the constitution.

Churches in Russia

Missionaries from Russia

382+ in 17 agencies to 12 countries

Missionaries to Russia

2,200+ in 146 agencies from 35 countries

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Geography

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Area 17,075,400 sq.km. The world's largest country extending across 11 time zones between the Baltic and the Pacific.

Population (2000) 146,933,847 -0.16%AGR

Capital Moscow 13,200,000.

Peoples

Indo-European 88.7%; Turkic-Altaic 8.2%; Finno-Ugric 2.3%; Other 0.8%.

Literacy 98%. Official language Russian; local languages in autonomous republics. All languages 96. Languages with Scriptures 3Bi 8NT 40por 80w.i.p.

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