We recently had a men’s conference. It was the 1st event for men in the Murmansk Region in history. That fact itself was encouraging and exciting.
We had it in the Olenegorsk Church. This is the only church in the area that can host such a conference because they own a pretty large hall and a few rooms. And it is located right in the middle of the Region, so it is easy for the men from opposite sides of the Region to come there.
We had 3 speakers: myself, pastor Sergey Latyshev from Archangelsk and pastor Martin Reen from Sweden.
My topics were:
1. Manhood in the state of confusion – the historical roots
2. Genesis and manhood
3. Biblical definition of Manhood
Sergey’s topic was The Role of the Man in Marriage. Martin’s topic was Sexual Purity.
We started on Friday, Dec 7th, at 7.00 p.m. There were over 60 men that night. Men came from Murmansk, Nickel, Olenegorsk, Monchegorsk, Apatity, Kirovsk, Kandalaksha and Tuloma. There were many men who I didn’t know, and who never attended a men’s event, a camp, a retreat or a men’s group. But for some who did, some part of the message was familiar.
I promised everybody “a non-compromising, non-politically correct, sincere talk about non-popular topics”. And we had it all!
The first non-popular thing, and one of the best things in the conference was Worship. Pastor Sergey is also a great musician. He leads worship in his church, and he also plays in a thrash-metal band. It all resulted in a powerful, anointed and heavy-sounding worship during all the conference. We had the on-the-spot worship band. Sergey played the bass, I played the drums, a guy from Olenegorsk church played the rhythm guitar, and another guy from Murmansk played the lead guitar. For me, that was the best worship band ever. I really enjoyed flowing in the Spirit during the worship and powerful anointing.
The other thing was the message. Sergey didn’t send me his teaching, although I asked him for that. I was a little worried about it. I didn’t know him, didn’t know his teaching, I only knew the topic. But I know there are a few points of view in Christianity on this topic. So I was worried that our views wouldn’t match. But they did.
So all our topics were in a row and perfectly matched each other, and were extensions of each other. And they were not politically correct! (The very thing I like.) And not popular at all. I’ve never heard in a church such a teaching before. We in churches don’t like those topics, we try to avoid them, because they might hurt somebody’s feelings.
We all tried to focus the men on the importance of smaller groups. The important part of all message was accountability and transparency.
So we had 3 big sessions on Saturday.
We’ve decided to have a conference like that in Archangelsk someday. Sergey, Martin, and me. Sergey liked it a lot, Martin did, too. Martin wants to have this conference in Sweden, and we will do it soon.
The next big event will be in March, 1 – 3, in Vardo, Norway. That is going to be an international retreat. But now we will focus again on small groups, and maybe we start new groups after the conference. In Feb we will start our short trips (2 – 3 days) with small groups (up to 7 men).
That’s all for now, thank you for your support, for your prayers!
Blessings
Yura
