Discipling Christians in Kazakhstan: The Church Must Be Ready

Introduction TODD: Brother AZ and a small community of Christians in Kazakhstan experienced threats to them and their families. But during that time of resistance, the Lord brought amazing growth to the church. AZ: When we had that kind of persecution, first of all we had just grace, some kind of extra grace from God. We felt joy. The second, the church grew much faster; we didn’t know how it all happened. You won’t believe this. In 1994 we had three people; within four years we had two hundred and fifty. I don’t know how it all happened and sometimes you want it back, even with that persecution. [Music] ANNOUNCER: Jesus never promised his followers an easy path. In fact, he told his disciples that the world would hate them. He sent them out as sheep among wolves. Jesus’ words came true in the life of the apostles and they're still coming true today in the lives of his followers around the world. Join host Todd Nettleton as we hear their inspiring stories and learn how we can help right now on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio network. Start of conversation with Pastor AZ TODD: Welcome again to The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. My name is Todd Nettleton. We're on the road this week in Central Asia, and we have the special blessing of sitting down with a pastor and a church planter in this part of the world. We are just going to call him Brother AZ, so we're not going to use a full name. We're going to try to not create problems for him. Brother AZ, welcome to The Voice of the Martyrs Radio. AZ: Thank you. TODD: Talk to me a little bit about your path to faith coming from a country where ninety-nine percent of the people are Muslim. How did you meet Jesus? AZ: In 1992, we had a group of tourists from Switzerland, mostly from Switzerland, Northern Italy and several Germans. Of course, it wasn’t a coincidence; it was organized by the International Mission Board of Southern Baptist Convention. So when they came to Taraz where I worked as an assistant professor at the teachers' training college, one man, he started telling about Jesus, asking me kind of weird questions. Eventually I promised to read the Bible so I was given a Living Bible in English, so I started reading it. Then in 1993, we had the first American missionaries come to Taraz, Southern Baptists, and one of them disciple me. TODD: So then how did God call you into leadership, into ministry, as opposed to just sort of being a regular follower and having a job? AZ: I had no choice; we had three people, my wife, myself and one more man, so in 1994 we started our first ever Kazakh-speaking church in Taraz. We just started sharing the gospel, reading the Bible, praying together; that’s what we did. TODD: What was the response of like your family, your community, because at that time the Soviet Union had just ended. The Russians were gone, sort of, and they were the Christians. So the enemy was Christians, and now you're a Christian, so are you part of the enemy? How did that play in your community and with your family, and as you told people, hey, I’m not a Muslim anymore. I’m a Christian now. AZ: My parents stopped talking to me, saying that I betrayed them, betrayed their religion and that kind of stuff. For several months just we didn’t have any communication, no relationships. We had a daughter, so, a Kazakh granddaughter, so he said I want to see my granddaughter. AZ: So we... TODD: The power of a grandchild. AZ: Exactly, for a Kazakhs especially, it's just very important. Then we kept praying for like three months or so and he was drunk; he was a Muslim and just drunk and just ate fish and fish bones and stuck someway in his just guts, stomach. He was ready to die, even just the doctor said, well, be prepared to bury him. TODD: Oh, wow. AZ: So while there just God sent another person, I think it's a Russian Baptist, he also shared the gospel with my dad. He had some kind of bet, he said, “Well, if I'm alive, I will go to the place Ali goes.” So he was healed of that, and he promised, thank you, he wanted to be as good as his word, so he came to the meeting. He said, “Don’t tell I’m your dad.” So I said, “Okay, no worries.” But our daughter, his granddaughter, she didn’t know all the secrets, so she was happy to see her grandfather and saying, a Ta, so everybody actually knew that he was my father. So in a couple of weeks later, he came to faith. TODD: Is that still pretty much the case today, if someone comes to faith, that they face pressure from their parents, from their family? Does the government get involved in that kind of pressure, or is the government kind of stand back? What’s it like for a new believer today in Kazakhstan? AZ: No, it’s not top down. It was early days, probably. Now the government wants to control this larger denominations, that kind of stuff. But usually, mostly starts from the relatives, from families. Kazakhstan is really a communal people, and religion is part of a culture. So when someone goes astray, as they say, then of course they try to return him to the right path. Yeah, we have to learn how to deal with those. TODD: So you said we have to learn to deal with that. AZ: Yep. TODD: So as a pastor, how do you help people learn to deal with that? Like what is the preparation process? AZ: We must provide a new environment, a new family for new believers. The church must be ready to host, to adopt those people. Second, we must teach them what is persecution; it's not something bad. We are following the footsteps of our Lord, so he suffered persecution, and we are his people, so we must do the same thing. Third, we must be faithful to pray and not only for those who are being persecuted but also for the persecutors so that our disciples see that we'll still love them and their hearts are not hardened. TODD: We're on the road this week on Voice of the Martyrs Radio in Central Asia with Pastor AZ. What are some of your biggest challenges within the church? AZ: Kazakhstan is huge, territory-wise. I mean, it's the ninth-largest country in the world. Very often we have to travel huge distances, so now we just target larger cities. So we made several trips like to Semey, that is Abai Province, that is the city I grew up as a child, so there was no Kazakh church there. There are Kazakh believers in different Russian-speaking churches but no Kazakh church. So we made a couple of trips there with the help of VOM. Someone has to move there because people must see how we are living, what our values are; otherwise they do not see a paradigm. They do not see an example. And Semey is very difficult, a very tough city. Several missionary families tried to plant a church there but they failed. TODD: We're talking this week on Voice of the Martyrs Radio with Pastor AZ. He is a pastor and a church planter here in the nation of Kazakhstan. AZ, you mentioned the fact that there are Kazakh believers attending Russian churches, Russian-language churches; talk a little bit about why it's so significant to have a Kazakh-speaking church and a Kazakh representation of Jesus. AZ: We have Russian Orthodoxy, and when we say something about Jesus, they automatically think we are preferring to the Russian God or Russian Orthodoxy; that's very unfortunate. And when Kazakh churches are separate, at least we can be contextualized. We can just be at least culturally Kazakhs. If we want to grow, if we want to invite our relatives, people from our culture, we must be on our own, having good relationships with Russians, Koreans, Americans, Uyghurs, whoever. If we want to reach out to Kazakhs, we must have Kazakh-speaking gatherings. TODD: The heart language. AZ: Yep. TODD: You’ve chosen a city to plant a church; you need someone to move there. AZ: I think so. TODD: What are the qualities or how do you train that person, how do you get them ready to go, especially, like you say, into a hard place where it's not easy? AZ: I would prefer to send a team, at least two families so that if one falls, the other helps him to stand up. It's very expensive in terms of money. We don’t have the money. So we have to think in terms of businesses, missions or something and we are not strong in that; that's why we need outside help for that. So we are praying. TODD: So you're going to send out a team, two families; they're going to go plant a church. What kind of character do you want to see in them or what kind of spiritual foundation do you want? What are the qualities that are going to help them be successful? AZ: They must go through our discipleship, and discipleship is not just reading the Bible together and praying together. It's just life-on-life. It's like chapter two, 1 Thessalonians, being dad and mom, and our disicples are our crowns, actually. That's what the Bible says. That's the greatest reward for discipleship, and that's the Great Commission. It's not just going, it's not baptizing, it's just making disciples. When you disciple someone for a year or so, you'll see how he's growing, or she's growing, and when it comes to a certain point, you feel that person is ready to continue. Besides, there is a requirement that he starts sharing the same thing, the things he or she learned, immediately to others. We must share the gospel together. Maybe I take them to see them just to the mission trips so that they see for themselves what it takes and what it means. TODD: When you go into a new place or a new city, what are you looking for that says this is an open door? AZ: We just start with prayer walks; we just walk around, just pray for people and we ask questions like do you live here? We wanted to ask some questions about the village. What if we just have lunch together? So of course we just learn just tribes, ask about our tribes, see what kind of relationship we have. Then we share the gospel, and then we ask what if we just continue the conversation in your home? If he says yes, then we do; that’s very much possible. TODD: Are most of the people who are coming to faith a certain age? Are they mostly young people? Is it all different ages, or what do you see in the Kazakh culture as far as people coming to Jesus? AZ: Young people. This is our future. It's very difficult with the older generation, like fifty-plus. It takes so much energy, so time consuming. Middle generation, they are mostly kind of practicing Muslims because they saw the negative example of their parents who are nominal, who were raised during the Soviet times; now they want to change something. This Islam thing is very popular with those uneducated, those who come from villages and they do not have a good education. They can’t get real good jobs, no social lifts for them to their career. Islam is the only something that helps their identity. They want to keep their identity as Kazakhs, as Muslims and that's what they can do and they are just appreciated when they go to mosque. They are very difficult to reach out, but the younger generation, the younger, I mean, the twenty-plus are probably the easiest. So if we use the right strategies and the right tactics, there is an opportunity to win them for Christ. TODD: One of the things that you said was the, the church has to become the family for new believers. What does that look like? In a practical way, how do you say to a twenty-year-old who's just come to faith, it's okay that your family rejected you because we're your family now. But what does that look like practically? AZ: We have to live love, but that's why I am an advocate of house and cell churches because they are small and we know everyone. We know what their needs are, we know their struggles, so we can help right away. And when people see that, see the attitude, see the care and love, of course they respond that they understand us. When you have larger kind of assembly gatherings, and of course if people do not know each other by name, so that's kind of difficult to show love, to know the situation; that's why we are just church planting movements, house churches. You don’t have to teach to be a family because they are small families. TODD: Would most Kazakh Christians be in a group like that, like a small house church? AZ: We have challenge. We have larger cities, and in larger cities people do not want to go to small gatherings. Maybe they are suspicious of being a spy or something, I don’t know. But in cities like Almaty and Astana, it's good to have a building to be registered. In my generation, maybe forty-plus, hospitality and having a church in a house is just very normal; that's okay. But when it comes to youth, like twenty-five-plus, those who got married, they say we would love to be a house church, but when three families with children, we meet together in a small apartment, it's a mess. We can’t do anything. And so we prefer just having this seperate children’s ministry in a larger church setting, and we don’t know what to do. It worked for us but it's not working for the second generation. But the second generation is our priority, so we let them be free to decide for themselves what's best. TODD: We're talking this week on Voice of the Martyrs Radio with Pastor AZ. We're talking about the church in Kazakhstan. Pastor AZ, we have lots of listeners who pray. I want them this week to be able to pray for the church in Kazakhstan, to be able to pray for the nation. Give us some specific ways that we can pray. AZ: Many foreigners come and they foresee some kind of a great movement in Kazakhstan and all of Central Asia. The only response is amen, we would love that, but alongside with that, if we have a movement, we will have persecution right away. That's actually what I have observed in almost everywhere. But the church isn’t prepared when we start talking about persecution. They say no, we are happy with our status quo with the government, so they are kind of very uncomfortable with the idea of persecution. If they want to see some kind of great movement, they must be prepared for that; otherwise we will not have it. So the church must hear from God, hear from the Holy Spirit, and be prepared no matter what it costs. So the second, we still have this tendency to care about our denomination, our church, so we do not see the church as one church here in Kazakhstan or Central Asia. So we still compete; these are my people and those are your people. That hinders us from doing just partnerships, real partnerships in Christ in the Holy Spirit. So that's the prayer need for the unity of the Kazakh church, at least. We have so many just divisions, church being fragmented, so now is the time. If we want to just fulfill the Great Commission, we must be united. Another problem, those older generation pastors, the first generation, many of them are not literal in terms of theology and the Bible. They do not have seminary degrees, and very often when they preach, it is just comes to, results in sharing testimonies, reading just a couple of verses from the Bible and speaking something that is not very appropriate to the text. That is why I am just concerned about and they will not come. We would just provide the training, we provide education, accredited education but they will not come because of the pride. So my prayer need is about the second generation, so they, so that they are trained properly so that they teach and preach so that we are not ashamed as church before the people because we have so many educated, competent people in, in the world, and the church must, in order to reach out to them, we also must be educated and competent. I don’t know who did the stats, but some of the folks, especially the CRU workers, they say that almost sixty-five, seventy percent of pastors experience burnout. One friend of mine, a year ago probably, he shared something. He said, “Please do not be offended by this, but I sense that many Kazakh pastors are very good people. They do a lot for Christ, but personally, they do not have close relationship with Christ.” So they love Christ, they do a lot of things for Christ, but they do not close, they are not close to him, so they do not have this intimate relationship. That’s shocking. TODD: So pray for spiritual renewal. AZ: Renewal, especially for the second generation. I understand just people of my age, but the second generation, they must have a good example because they will not do what they are told to do; they will do what they see us doing. So very often, we are not a very good example. TODD: You’ve mentioned several times the second generation. What about the third generation that will come soon, probably soon, right? How will they be different than the first generation that was here, had independence in those years and then the second generation, how will the third generation be different in your mind? AZ: Well, they will be actually, if kids raised in Christian families, I don’t know, this is not my first responsibility. My first responsibility is the second generation. And the second generation must take care of the third generation. TODD: They must raise the third generation. AZ: Yeah, we can help with just a little wisdom. I mean, we can share just our negative experiences; we have a lot of them, like just my oldest daughter. They just rebuked us and said, “Well, you were so busy with ministry, you would even forget me to pick me up from the kindergarten,” that kind of stuff. And you know, this is our pain. Many children of the first generation pastors, they are not in the church. So we have to deal with that and teach our children, the second generation, not to repeat our mistakes. We had no paradigm; we didn’t have any example of Christian families, what it meant. TODD: It’s interesting, that dynamic, though, of, of being raised in a Christian home and how that, how that sets you in a different mindset as you do ministry and as you go out as opposed to having come out of Islam and, so I'm fascinated by that difference. AZ: My only concern is that they do not take their Christianity for granted; they must experience the Lord personally. So very often they may think well, I have been attending Sunday school. Children’s ministry, summer camps all the time, I'm a Christian. That may not be the case; otherwise, it would just lead to a syncretism. That's my concern, but hopefully the second generation, because we still live in a hostile environment, so they will not repeat those mistakes. So that's kind of vaccine. TODD: Yes, a little bit of persecution is a vaccine against just taking it for granted. AZ: We had persecution back in ’95, pretty severe. I mean, we had threats for our wives to be raped, especially in villages, to beat our children, to put our houses on fire. In some villages believers would call and say do not come, please do not come because these fellow villagers want to shoot you dead, actually, if you show up in the village. So physical abuse and all kinds of stuff, but when we had that kind of persecution first of all, we had just grace, some kind of extra grace from God. We felt joy, just over, overjoyed. The second, the church grew much faster. We didn’t know how it all happened. Like you won’t believe this. In 1994 we had three people; within four years, we have two hundred and fifty. TODD: Wow! AZ: I don’t know how it all happened. TODD: And that was the time of the most intense persecution. AZ: Exactly, and sometimes you want it back, even with that persecution. TODD: Sometimes you want it back. That’s a pretty amazing statement. Pastor AZ, thank you for your ministry. Thank you for sharing with us. I am so glad that VOM gets to partner with you and to help some of these things that are happening in Kazakhstan. Thanks for being our guest this week on Voice of the Martyrs Radio. AZ: Thank you for taking time and just interview me, and thank you for the prayer support back in the states; that’s very appreciated. We need that. I strongly believe that something will happen here in Kazakhstan and I believe that Kazakhstan will be a sending country, sending to other Muslim countries. So we must be prepared for that, so pray for us. [Music] TODD: I am so grateful that we could hear from Brother AZ Closing and get his firsthand account of building God’s kingdom even in the middle of so much hostility. I hope this week that you will pray for our Christian brothers and sisters in Central Asia. You know, you can find more stories like this when you visit our website, vomradio.net. Our archives there have nearly ten years' worth of programs that will give you examples of trusting God while under trial in places like Afghanistan and Iran and China and other places. In fact, this program is about to celebrate our tenth anniversary. I would love to know how God has used VOM Radio to open your eyes to the needs of our brothers and sisters around the world. How are you praying differently now than you were praying when you first heard VOM Radio? I'd love for you to tell me the answer to those questions. Just send me an email, radio@vom.org. Again, that email address: radio@vom (like Voice of the Martyrs). org. Next week we're going to hear how technology is being used to spread the gospel all around the world, including hostile and restricted nations, some amazing ways that technology is being used. You'll be encouraged by that; you'll be excited to hear how God is at work. Please be back with us next week right here on The Voice of the Martyrs Radio network.