Ukraine
Leadership in Context with Keith Tucci
Episode 183
We talk about leadership in context because Truth is the context and the Church is God’s vehicle. I want to talk to you about something important and relevant to what is happening in the world right now.
Genesis 1:27-28
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
To have a proper biblical worldview, one of the things you must understand is that man was not made for the earth; the earth was made for man. The earth is here to serve the purpose of God in subduing the earth and taming it. That’s why we pull weeds, channel water, build shelters—we are subduing the earth. That’s why we domesticate animals and raise livestock. That is a righteous thing to do because God said it is a righteous thing to do.
There is a great clash in worldviews when people suggest that the earth is greater than humanity, that the earth is a personality—i.e., Mother Earth. That is a great tactic—to identify the earth with someone they love, their mother. It’s a great marketing scheme.
Today we are in a crisis regarding “Mother Earth.” There is a war going on in Europe because many of the nations of the world are dependent on Russia’s oil. They won’t drill for their own oil because they don’t want to contaminate the earth.
By the time this podcast airs, I’ll be on my way to the Ukrainian border with Pastor Steve Crombie from The River Church in Minnesota. We will go into Romania and then go to the two areas of the border where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people are seeking help. I spoke to a Romanian pastor who said their sanctuaries are full of those who need a place to sleep and eat until they can figure out what to do.
The Ukrainian people are desperate. They only want a place to live. They only want to protect the life of their children. They are fleeing an impending death sentence. Their only crime is having a nationality that is not Russian. It seems that most of the world thinks that is worthy of a death call and not worth disturbing our environment for.
The Ukrainian people understand tyranny just as much, or maybe more, than any other piece of geography in this world. Hitler murdered at least 1.6 million Ukraine’s, mostly by firing squads. Some of the biggest mass graves in the world that have ever been discovered were in Ukraine.
Ukraine is one of the richest natural pieces of geography in the world. It was called the Breadbasket of Europe and it fed millions. It has a great port that some of the smaller nations around it depend on. Shutting down that port, which was one of the first things Putin went after, meant that the people can be controlled and beaten into submission because they won’t be able to make a living.
The Ukrainian people are resisting even more now because they don’t want to live under tyranny. Their grandfathers and great-grandfathers gave their lives to protect their families. They don’t want to go through that again.
Ukraine, probably, was the leader in religious liberty in the former Soviet Republic. In 2020, the current president prohibited local governments from making churches register. Some of the largest gospel-preaching churches in all of Europe are in Ukraine.
My dear friend, Evon Lubchanko, was born to Polish parents in Ukraine and spent 25 years of his life in the Russian gulag, three separate jail sentences, for preaching the gospel. He’s the man who posed this question to me, “Is your church more American or Christian?” That was a game-changing question! Were we more patriotic or more Kingdom?
Why am I going to Ukraine? Because there are precious people there. There is a viable church there. There are authentic people there. They are God’s precious people, part of His bride that He loves.
Jesus said, “As much as you do it to the least of these, you do it to Me.” These are the least of these. There are many women who will never have husbands again. There are many children who will never have their fathers again. We need to be in a place to strategically help them.
Fortunately, we have good Romanian contacts. These Romanian churches, with very limited resources, are doing a great job. I want to have boots on the ground. I want to go to the border. I want to be with some of these pastors and see what they are doing. I want to pick out the churches that are doing the best job possible. I want to form an alliance with them where we can funnel resources to them and they are accountable. I want to be able to send ministry, medical, and teaching teams to help them. We are going to be years into this project and helping these people.
I would covet your prayers. Putin is not a good guy and Ukraine is not the most perfect place in the world as it has its share of problems, but what this boils down to is a slap in God’s face—saying the earth is not big enough, the resources of the earth are not great enough, and that God is not smart enough to sustain His people. We are feeding the Russian war machine by placing what we consider to be environmental issues above the life of people. (I’m going to address some of those environmental issues in the next podcast.)
Pray for us. If you would like to donate towards these people and the churches we are helping, you can do so through our website HERE. Make the greatest donation you can. What would you want someone to do for you if you were in this situation? You have loved ones there. You have brothers and sisters in Christ there. We will develop some great strategic alliances, and we are going to do something for the Kingdom that I believe will be a legacy.
Join us next week as Keith Tucci continues to put leadership truth in the context of the local church. And as always, please like, share, rate/review, and invite others to listen. See you next week!
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