Cultural Observations

Certainly, this is no professional nor exhaustive list of cultural observations.

HISTORICAL
Back in the day…
Orthodoxy was the official religion. You could be something else, but you had to register. Registering means that you were UN-officially discriminated against. You would run into problems with schooling and you would get inferior jobs. You may not get police help if you needed it.

In the US, there are divisions in almost every major denomination, mainly due to social divisions originating in the Civil War. But here, there are divisions among the Baptist church because there were some Baptists who were officially registered and others who chose not to be. The un-registered ones were persecuted, and the registered ones were favored more and so the persecuted group developed a “not real Christian” view toward the others. The rift still exists. And there is even more non-cooperation with Charismatics.

FAMILY
Many broken family, alcoholism, divorce, AIDS, abandoned and neglected children. Lonely people.

COMMERCE
Kiosks, new stores, new styles, availability has changed, inflation, especially in real property; growth boom of construction and credit industry. Homogeny in dwellings Fashion.. Choices rising in food and home.

COMMUNITY
Closeness of a big city, surface hospitality. Sense of individuality rising, esp. among youth. Kyiv is BIG CITY Culture. Metro, busses, crowds, главны.

Language and Culture
Speaking of language, there is an interesting phenomenon going on in Ukraine right now, right before our very eyes. (No, I’m not talking about the real estate boom, even though it’s happening before our eyes, too.) As a thrust of Ukrainian nationalism, the Ukrainian language has been revived and mainstreamed into daily life. Having been FORBIDDEN under the communist takeover of Ukraine, the Ukrianian language was suppressed by being deemed illegal by the USSR. But now, the street signs are slowly being changed back into the Urkainian names, the government officials are conducting their business in Ukrainian, the television stations are either broadcasting or subtitling in Ukrainian if the broadcast is in Russian.

Geographically, the “capital” of the Ukrainian culture is really in the western side of Ukraine, centered in the city Lviv. The country is divided by the Dnepr river. The western side speaks mostly Ukrainian, and the eastern side will hold out the longest with the Russian language due to its geographical approximation. But the phenomenon is that we are learning Russian in a country where this language is quickly becoming a “bad idea” to speak.

We were talking about our language studies with Rick Pinchuk, a Canadian citizen, missionary to Kiev, son of Ukrainian natives, Ph.d in Slavic languages and literature—i.e. the right guy to talk to about it!—Rick said that we should keep on plowing forth with our Russian because you have to learn one before you learn the other anyway. The good side of learning Russian is that with Slavic languages, you have to start somewhere. And factually, there are a lot more people in the world who do speak Russian than do Ukrainian. Russian is still a primary trade language in many Asian countries. And then there’s Russia, too.

RELIGIOUS
There is a national connection with Orthodoxy in a way that is completely foreign to our US/Western/perspective of 200 years of separation of church and state (whatever that is).
Young people think the Bible is for old people. They’re too young to read it.

Cпасибо— they don’t use the word for “thanks” in prayers because the origin of the word is “God save you” and you don’t say that to God.

Встрастьвуите—They don’t say this at church because “back in the day” it would be code that they were NOT outside infiltrators. Приветствую is used instead.
Same thing goes with a strict view on cigarettes/smoking. It is unlike the American puritanically based moral. If a person went out back to smoke, he was considered a suspected infiltrator, not a true believer.

They also have to register their churches, as in the “old days.” Distrusting individuals within a highly regulated system, how do you think this would affect a faith system?
Back in the 90’s there was a flood of Western protestant influence, but much of the fire has died down. Evangelism has died down, churches are at a level of growth, but not growing by evangelism. Except Sunday’s church. The second phase has largely been a dropped ball.
Need for more unity and trust of other groups; a locally born vision.

Defining Baptist

In the old Soviet Union days, there was 1- orthodox, 2- Catholic, and 3- All the rest were Baptists. This doesn’t mean that they were ACTUALLY Baptists, but that as far as the state was concerned, if you weren’t the other two, you were Baptist. For this reason, early on after the wall fell, those who were actually Baptists already had a foothold because they were already here. That means that Baptist to us means something different that it does to Ukrainians and other FSU countries.

Building projects:

There are rising costs in real estate all over Ukraine, but we have seen it especially here in Kiev. Some church plants who got in early have nice places. There is a long-standing church (Schevchenko) who are basically getting run out of their building that they have occupied since the early 1990’s due to rising costs of rent.

There is a mindset among worldly people in this culture that we should pay attention to. A church should look like a church. If it does not, it lacks some sort of legitimacy. There is a feeling that there should be a set-apart place for worship.

A form of church planting back a decade ago was this: 1- evangelizing to form a core group, 2- the core group maturing and existing for a while, 3- then the foreign churches assisting the local church to purchase a building. Due to rising costs of real estate, this option seems to be slipping through our fingers.

There are other options to the “default” idea about church planting that we have seen working:

1- There is a interesting model here in Kiev of a multi-church building project. An American missionary who has become fluent with the language having worked here since Ukraine opened up. This preacher and his supporters foresaw that many religious groups needed a place to be sheltered, but with the red-tape and expense, few groups were able to build on their own. The building is still being finished, but is now in operation. Seventeen (17) church groups meet under this one roof. The rent is manageable for each group and the “landlord” is a non-profit religious group. They have a bookstore, an office space, and even a parsonage (they rent out) on the premises.

2- A friend of ours from our language studies works with the youth from a big denominational church. This church has been going through the red-tape for many years trying to get their building built. There are rules about the city subsidizing some of the building project and working with architects and contractors to enforce code. And then there’s the palms that require greasing, but that is another issue all together. They are meeting in a public theatre, but they have to be “portable” for every service. Their building project continues to be bogged down in red tape and a growing bill of expenses.

3 - Some missionaries have hosted church groups in their own flats. This is a more de-centralized form of mission work. Some church planters feel more comfortable to actually have a “place” they support. To go to a de-centralized form would free up personnel and finances to put into people rather than real estate. If the stability of Ukraine ever becomes threatened politically, such a de-centralized structure may be what allows the church to survive duress in times of trials.