My ministry started with a series of failures of pastors in Murmansk Region. None of them had real friends or mentors. They didn’t have any men who they could share their lives with. Their successes, fears, temptations, sins, failures, struggles. The were “lone rangers”. And I felt same vulnerable, too. I saw that if I don’t change the situation, if I don’t find other men to be accountable to, I will end up as those guys. And very soon I started gathering men together.
We met with the guys who left in the church every week, but I didn’t know how to go deep. I didn’t know what to start with, so our meetings were all about chatting about jobs, cars, wives and reading some random Scriptures. We all realized that wasn’t what we wanted and needed. So eventually we quit those meetings. At that time I was very busy in Polarny establishing the ministry to the Navy, and didn’t have much time to do anything to develop men’s ministry. But later when Navy Ministry was running well, God focused me on the men again.
I started researching and studying programs for men, adjusting them and mixing together. Eventually I developed a very interesting program and tried to apply it in the Rehab first, and later I started men’s groups in Nickel, Olenegorsk/Monchegorsk, Murmansk and Polarny.
During my research I met a man who lived in Ulan Ude, Siberia. He was using similar program, and he was using it the way I wanted to apply it – he was doing men’s camps in the wilderness, he was doing hiking, backpacking, kiting, snowboarding and other very interesting activities with the men. And that was my deep desire! I came to one of his conferences in April 2011. We had a 3 day camp on the shore of lake Baikal, with no electricity, no running water, no plumbing and heating.
The teaching was amazing, but the best thing was that we had small groups after each class, where we discussed and prayed about the issues of the lesson. That was a very unique time, because we opened ourselves in those small groups. I had never had such an experience before. After the conference we walked across the frozen lake Baikal to the other side – 43 km, encamped there and walked back the next day. That was one of the hardest and coolest experiences in my life. The time, when you can apply all the knowledge you got at the conference.
Our small group in Baikal:
The same year in August 2011 we had our first men’s camp in Murmansk Region. We spent 3 days in the tents on the tundra, on the shore of a beautiful lake. That was a breakthrough, a time of great openness and unity. Many men received freedom from porn addiction, from smoking, many men came back to Christ. Later I heard that families were healed because the men changed. That was awesome.
Since that camp we have had a few more camps with even better results. We are doing trips, backpacking, fishing. I want to do climbing and skydiving soon.
The message is all about the men, who we are by original God’s design. What we lost on the way and why. The man and society, the man and the church, the man and his wife, sexual sanity and purity, addictions, life in accountability and transparency, mentorship, our role as a man in the family, our responsibilities.
