Our Sunday morning

One of the joys of being here in Kharkov is our Sunday morning assemblies. Our team has been meeting together each week as a church here in Kharkov. We have a total membership of nine people (ten if you include Maximus). If you have ever visited or are currently worshiping with a smaller group of believers, you understand how exciting the little things can be. The smallest voice of a child is heard throughout the whole auditorium, if one person sings a note off key everyone knows it, if you doze off in the sermon the preacher isn't the only one who notices, or (my favorite) if you show up a little late - church service doesn't start without you.

Meeting with a smaller group also demands that every member is involved in every Sunday morning. All of the men have an active role in some portion of the service. Prayers, preaching, reading scripture, song leading, and communion thoughts keep all the men active in worship and never a spectator. Preparation of the Lord's Supper, teaching the children in Bible class, hosting the assembly in your living room, and keeping the children involved keeps all of our women active in participating in our church services too.

Every Sunday is a blessing to each one of us. We are excited to come together as the body of Christ. And we are especially excited as our team's Sunday morning assembly will be reproduced next year as we start to plant churches throughout the city! What we are doing now as a team we will be doing again next year with people we have met and helped bring into a saving relationship with Jesus. We are excited to see how things transform amongst us and how God prepares us further for the great works He will do in Kharkov, Ukraine, and all throughout Eastern Europe.

We wanted to share some our Sunday morning with you as well. For this year at least we will be meeting in English, but as we start working amongst the people here we will be worshiping in Russian. To start us in that direction we have been learning songs in Russian and singing them on Sunday mornings. Here is a song from last Sunday, see if you recognize it. You might also hear the children of the team joining in (or getting distracted) as we sing.