Thu 28 JULY - Traveling from Kyiv to Dnipro - 16:55 GMT 

What a wonderful day of interaction, discussion, mutual encouragement and problem solving with our brother Vadym. It felt like Jesus sat with us as we drove.  We went from Kyiv to Poltava for lunch at McDonalds and are spending the night in Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk). What a gorgeous city!  We are on the way to a conference on the Azov Sea, just acros from Crimea.  There we will observe and participate in a Disciple Making Ministries conference (DMM) which is Our Legacy/Our Heritage's approach to helping lost people find Christ and grow into fully devoted Jesus-followers.  It's one of the unique, effective evangelistic strategies God is using in Ukraine with churches/ministries that are able to break free from "But we've always done it that way."  

The city - Dnipro

These are years of dynamic exponential change in the society of Ukraine.  Everything is different from the Soviet years, and so much has changed from my first journey in 1994-95.  This society today is on the move and succeeding while struggling to move into its future. 

Some things don't change.  The gospel of Jesus doesn't change.  People's desperate need for Christ doesn't change. Human brokenness only gets deeper.  The reality of eternity - heaven or hell ahead doesn't change. BUT effective methods of reaching people with the gospel must shift and adjust with the journey of a culture.  Just like Paul's message was preached very differently in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1ff) than it was at Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:18ff)... just like Jesus' work with the woman at the well in Samaria (John 4) was very unique from his work with Nicodemus (John 3)... so new cultures, new generations, new social dynamics call for a change - not in the gospel or our awareness of people's need, but in the methods appropriate to help them become Jesus-Followers.

Ukraine and it's people are not the same.  Ukraine looks different, acts different and even smells different. So how do we reach Ukrainians now?  And it shouldn't surprise us that the old methods don't work like they used to.  There was a phase after Perestroika when church-based gospel messaging was very effective. It was followed by a phase where crusade evangelism worked wonderfully.  Along that same time frame were the new children's &youth programs similar to those we saw in the US with VBS and Sunday School. Now young believers are realizing that Jesus and his disciples "took the gospel to the streets" and moved from Temple-focused worship to life-transforming relationship with needy and broken people around them.  These same transitions have been ongoing in America since before the 1780s and perhaps even back to colonial times.  The difference in Ukraine is that these changes have taken place since 1991. 

So tonight we're in Dniepropetrovsk and tomorrow on the Azov Sea (a bay really of the Black Sea).  I never thought I'd get to see the Black Sea and I'm excited!  But more important - I want to learn from these young Ukrainians how to apply the life-healing love of Jesus in relationship to family, friends and neighbors.  I'm pumped!