Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 3, 1993 TAG: 9308030054
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Collins, interim pastor of Preston Oaks Baptist Church in Northwest Roanoke, spent 10 days in Russia preaching in churches, hospitals, orphanages and government buildings.
He was part of a 42-person team whose trip was sanctioned by the Southern Baptist Convention's Foreign Mission Board, the denominational agency responsible for sending missionaries overseas.
That agency is affiliated with the Baptist Union of Russia, which invited the Americans to visit and preach.
During the trip, the team recorded more than 1,700 commitments to Christ. "That would say to me that the response is overwhelming and that the people want change and are responding to change," Collins said in a recent interview.
Many American mission organizations are worried, however, that the proposed new restrictions - which have yet to be signed into law by President Boris Yeltsin - could hamper their work.
When Russia passed its Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations Act in 1990, the Russian people got their first taste of real religious freedom in seven decades.
What they didn't expect was the flood of foreign proselytizers who have imported virtually every brand of Christianity and numerous non-Christian faiths.
With the encouragement of the native Russian Orthodox Church, the parliament voted July 14 to amend the law to require all foreign religious workers to be "accredited" by the state or officially affiliated with a Russian church.
Because he was part of a team invited by the Russian Baptists and assigned to work through a local congregation, Collins hopes the new law - if it gets final approval - won't affect missions like his.
That also is the view of Don Kammerdiener, executive vice president of the Foreign Mission Board. Still, he said in a release, "any government that threatens the religious liberty of foreigners has already taken upon itself the same authority to threaten the religious liberty of its own citizens."
Numerous U.S. groups have expressed concern about the proposed law, and several have written Russian officials to protest it.
Though the Russian Orthodox Church is the most visible supporter of such a law, other indigenous religious organizations - including Russian Baptists - reportedly have expressed their concerns about missionaries who don't even bother to make contacts with local congregations.
Other mission trips with similarly high conversion rates also have been criticized both in the United States and in Russia for their lack of follow-up attention to new converts.
"To a degree, that is valid," Collins said. But in this case, because he was working directly with a church in the southern Russian city of Lipetsk, he is confident the new believers will get the attention they need.
"I'm not too worried about those who have made a commitment," he said. The leaders of that local church have been tested in the fires of Communist persecution and are determined to maintain the faith. "They are going to help those who've made a commitment."
Collins, 79, said he preached essentially the same message to his Russian audiences as he did during his career as an Air Force chaplain or as he does each Sunday now at Preston Oaks.
"I tell them about the love of God and what he has done for mankind."
Collins retired from the Air Force in 1975 and began pastoring in the civilian world - much of it in interim positions as congregations sought new full-time ministers. A native of Christiansburg, he now lives in Botetourt County.
Since his retirement he also has paid his own way on overseas mission trips 11 times. He's been to Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Brazil, New Zealand, China, India, Tanzania, Russia and twice to Australia.
He said he feels the Russian trip that ended July 15 was one of the most successful.
by CNB