Actual Ecclesiological Practice of the Evangelical Christian Missionary Union

ECMU has over sixty new Russian churches, most of which were planted within the past decade by sending out Russian church planters to begin new work. One such church plant is Great Commission Church in St. Petersburg, Russia. The church was birthed by a vision of ECMU church planter Dmitry A. Frolov. What grew from an initial evangelism event in 2003 is now a congregation of about fifty persons. This church plant is a testimony to ECMU’s attempt to practice what it preaches.

As one of the partners of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Petersburg, the Great Commission Church details their beginnings and development on their website:

In the fall of 2003, the Frolov family (Dmitry and Valentina) moved to St. Petersburg from Volgograd. They started their ministry with an anti-narcotics festival of Music, Word and Sports called "A Time to Live." This was carried out in the Primorsky region where they were serving. This festival was in conjunction with a Committee of Evangelical Churches helping to plan the celebration of the 300 year anniversary of St. Petersburg... From 2004 to 2006, annual short-term mission teams from Southern Baptist churches came to help reach people in our region through sports events and free English classes. In November of 2005, after two years of evangelism, we held our first official worship service in a local café. Then up until the summer of 2008, we held regular services on the premises of a local mission agency, "Good News", with a regular Sunday attendance of thirty to forty, twenty-seven of which were baptized. Over the course of these 3 years, there were four more baptismal services.[1]

The congregation now rents a small hall for Sunday services from 5 to 7 PM on Malaya Konyushkaya in the St. Catherine’s Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg.

According to Frolov, church planting in European Russia is usually done in several steps.[2] The first step involves teaching biblical truth to new believers. In order to acquire these new believers, Frolov believes a church planter should share personal testimonies of how Christ is actively working in the lives of those being saved. Therefore he establishes what he calls “fellowship platforms”[3] to reach young adults through multiple avenues like sports events, English classes and showing Christian films. These evangelism events are then focused on a goal of repentance and faith. New friends are invited to evangelistic church services that are also especially geared toward repentance. Frolov says that “even our baptism services are used as teaching moments about repentance and faith. They are teaching by example.”[4] This practice seems to hold true to the professed standard of community outreach that is publicized on the C&MA website and to the historical beginnings of evangelistic activities of Ivan S. Prokhanov in the early twentieth century.[5]

            Great Commission Church has a basic discipleship ministry that matches a new believer’s talents and gifts with service opportunities and leadership development. Frolov believes the pastor is the primary person with the responsibility to teach the church, but he also believes there should be “mutual accountability”[6] among all members. That is why he has developed weekly small group sessions that meet in homes to discuss the applications of Sunday sermons. This is his answer to the Acts 2 fellowship groups that C&MA promotes in its creeds and published lists of core values.

            Although Great Commission Church fully follows the creed outlined on ECMU’s website,[7] Frolov says that each church is fully independent and autonomous in relation to its own theology. In Maikop, Russia, for example, there are strict rules on accountability in tithing whereby “members have to stand and give a weekly verbal account of their income and tithing,”[8] something that Great Commission Church has chosen not to practice. The American members of their church who are associated with Christian and Missionary Alliance are considered partners in the ministry and often help with local church functions, but the main leaders of the local churches are Russians who “self-theologize.”[9]

            In order to become a fully independent church, the ECMU teaches that a group must have financial independence, a sound plan for budgeting, a stable place to meet, and governmental registration. The Union divides groups into three categories – group, developing church, and fully developed church – the latter of which exhibits the aforementioned elements. Both ecclesiological maturity and ecclesiastical maturity are concurrent goals.

            ECMU does not believe in unregenerate church membership. Frolov explains,

You cannot truly know the heart of a person, of course. Just as Paul said, ‘He went out from us but was not one of us.’ However, unlike Russian Baptists who are Arminian, we do not believe you can lose your salvation. Salvation is not a ruble you can misplace somewhere. Therefore, we have certain measures instituted to handle public sin and lovingly discipline a church member.[10]

Frolov expounds more upon this church discipline when he explains there are two levels of disciplinary action:

If a member admits to a serious public sin that we believe warrants discipline and publicly repents, we institute disciplinary probation. For a time, he or she may have to withdraw from full church fellowship during the Lord’s Supper. This is to reiterate the seriousness of sin, but then later he is restored to full fellowship. However, for those who refuse to repent and continue to live in sin, the last straw is excommunication. Adultery, for example, could be an either-or. It depends on his repentance.[11]

Frolov explains further that this last straw is used in extreme circumstances only when it appears that the member will never repent.

            For its church polity, ECMU teaches congregationalism with a plurality of leaders. When Frolov planted his church in St. Petersburg, he immediately established a pastoral team whereby the senior pastor was held responsible for the church’s vision but was not considered a dictator. In contrast to Russian Baptist churches, where the church polity is more Presbyterian in nature, ECMU church plants seek to involve the full congregation in decision making as soon as new believers are baptized and the group constitutes as a church. There are separate leadership meetings designed for evangelism and educational planning, but the larger body is responsible for the ministry plans for the church.           

            The pastoral team is made up of the senior pastor, other pastors, deacons, and elders. The ordained senior pastor is the “key figure responsible for the spiritual formations of the people.”[12] Other pastors may or may not be ordained, but they are responsible for ministry leadership development. Some others on the pastoral team are non-ordained deacons responsible for helping to meet humanitarian needs in the church. There are also ordained elders, or older ones in the church, that may or may not function also as deacons. ECMU uses passages from First Timothy and Titus for its list of qualifications of church leaders with a heavy emphasis on outside reputation and ability to teach.[13]

            ECMU lists five ecclesiological functions in their web pages, and their church plants exhibit those same functions. According to Frolov, Great Commission Church has a teaching program designed to provide basic discipleship and mentorship to church members through sermons on Sunday and weekly home groups.[14] They place a high priority on fellowship in both home groups and community events. Frolov sees music, praise, and prayer in home groups as fulfilling one part of the worship aspect, but he believes that “our entire lifestyle should be a lifestyle of worship.”[15] The ministry aspect is fulfilled in “personal relationships as members help each other with meeting real needs.”[16] Finally, with its strong emphasis on evangelism through sports, English, films, mountain-climbing, student ministry, and Alpha discussion clubs,[17] Great Commission Church sets the evangelism function of the church as an ecclesiological priority. Frolov believes his young church is attempting to live out the mandates of Scripture and uphold ECMU’s published core values.[18]

            ECMU holds the Lord’s Supper and baptism as the two ordinances instituted by Jesus,[19] so its church plants have varying ways of observing these ordinances. At Great Commission Church, the members have the Lord’s Supper as a part of their worship service on the first Sunday of each month. Baptism can be performed at any time a person accepts Christ, but usually it is done with several in each group. There have been four such baptismal services thus far, and Frolov uses each service as a teaching moment to refer the growing congregation back to the commands of Jesus and the congregation’s ecclesial identity as an ECMU church.[20]

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[1] Great Commission Church of EMCU in St. Petersburg, “История Церкви,” (February 23, 2009). http://greatcommissionspb.ru/?page_id=10 (accessed August 1, 2009).

[2] Dmitry A. Frolov, interview by author, written notes, Moscow, Russia, 13 August 2009.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Although founded as a denomination in the 1990s, ECMU traces its origins to the Prokhanov movement in European Russia in the early twentieth century. Ivan S. Prokhanov emphasized needs-based evangelism that expanded some of the early work of prison ministry and youth ministry in Russia. See Ivan S. Prokhanov, “Мое Первое Тюремное Заключение и Работа среди Молодежи,” in В Котле России 1869–1933: Автобиография Ивана Степановича Проханова (Chicago: World Fellowship of Slavic Evangelical Christians, 1992), 187–194.

[6] Ibid.

[7] See Evangelical Christian Missionary Union, “Символ Веры,” (2003), http://www.exmc.ru/about/credo (accessed August 1, 2009).

[8] Frolov, interview by author.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] The Alpha discussion club is an informal gathering designed to allow exploration of the Christian faith over a ten week period. See The Alpha Course, “Российский Альфа-Курс,” (n.d.) http://www.alphacourse.ru (accessed August 17, 2009).

[18] Frolov, interview by author.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.