A Semi-Independent Church

For the past 5 years, a young man and a small group of people have been maintaining a semi-independent Christian Church in Almaty. The pictures help tell the story.

The church meets in this building on the second floor.
When I began to visit this church in 2002 we used this rear entrance.	We go up this stairway.	We go down this hall way.
The Pastor and the Deacon are at the altar.
The charts on the wall will help you learn how to drive a car. The room is rented for two hours on Sunday and during the week it is a driving school.	In the center of the room is a large table with streets and intersections to illustrate driving conditions.	After the service the grandmother of the Pastor serves soup to the congregation.

If we were to give out medals for good Lutheran stuff, this place would get an award. The sermons are consistently Lutheran, correct distinquishing of Law and Gospel, the Gospel predominates, the Theology of the Cross is prominent. They use a simplified Lutheran liturgy. The Sacrament of the Altar follows the Lutheran liturgy.

Why do I call this church semi-independent? First of all, we must define "church." This group has no membership list, no official organization, and has no connection via a  "call" with the Pastor, nor does the group feel any need to support him or the ministry he provides. The Pastor merely presents a service each Sunday, and anywhere from 5 to 15 people might attend. Rather than "church" we might call this a "fellowship," or merely a friendly gathering of Christian friends.

A non-Lutheran mission enterprize pays the Pastor a little more than $100 a month for attending the seminary of the organization. The mission also gives $50 a month to all the seminary students so that they can rent places of worship on Sunday, in this case, the driving school class room. The mission has a very simple doctrinal statement, and allows the students and pastors to preach and practice whatever they might want to preach or practice. So, this group depends on the mission for finance, but the preaching and practice are independent.

The soup seems to have no effect on attendance. The offering averages about $2 a Sunday and just barely covers the cost of the soup.