Supporting churches in hard places

A panel with Evgeny Bakhmutsky, Sherif Fahim, and Mack Stiles on supporting churches that hold this confession in places where holding it is costly. The conversation looks at how other churches can stand with them.

Panel discussion, “Supporting churches in hard places,” with Bakhmutsky, Fahim and Stiles, Nicea Conference 2025, Istanbul. Speakers aren’t labelled in the source captions.

Introductions

Hello everybody. My name is Mack Stiles and this is encouraging churches in hard places. I’m married to Leanne. I have three sons, two daughter-in-laws, eight grandchildren. Actually, oops. Seven grandchildren and one on the way and nobody knows about it. So don’t I just let it out of the bag. Don’t put that on your Facebook page.

Your children know about it.

They know. I spent 15 years in the Middle East in Dubai and then I was the pastor of a church in Iraq for a number of years till we returned to the states where I am member of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. And my brothers here, I’m going to let them introduce themselves and as much of your context as you want to share.

My name is Sherif Fahim. I’m from Alexandria, Egypt. Speaking of the family, married to Marian for more than 20 years now. Three daughters Sophia, Nelly, and Naomi 18, 17, and 13. I have was born raised in Egypt in Alexandria. I’m still living there. Serving in the Presbyterian Church in Egypt in Alexandria and teaching at Alexander School of Theology in addition to few other seminaries and the general director of Elsura Ministries, a teaching ministry for Arabic resources

and speaker here at Nicea. A wonderful talk last night, brother. Yeah, grateful.

Thank you.

So, Evgeny is here with us.

Yeah. My name is Evgeny Bakhmutsky. I’m from Russia, originally from Siberia where my both of my grandfathers was sent in exile for their faith. I was born there, grew up there and 99 2004 my family was moved to Moscow to develop ministry for Russian Baptist Union or kind of Evangelical Christian Baptist Union. I’m a pastor of Russian Bible Church in Moscow. So, you’re all welcome to come.

Yeah. To experience in Russian hospitality and also founder and a part of leadership team of ecclesia ministry which I’m really welcome you to explore. My guys here they can give you a brochure. It’s a ministry of likeminded pastors and churches who willing to see spiritual awakening of Russia through preaching the gospel plantizing and I have four children. First born was born in Siberia and three others in Moscow. Two sons, two daughters.

Why suffering is normal

Wonderful brothers. Yeah. It’s so good to be with you. You know, I think from the start we need to say that hard places when we talk about churches in hard places, it’s somewhat relative that you know when we think of 20 schemes in Scotland, it’s a place riven with crime and poverty. When we think of Dubai on the other end of the spectrum, it seems like a wonderful place and it is if you have money, but if you’re poor, it’s a cruel place. M

there are places that are hard because of malaria and difficult climate and snakes, venomous snakes so hard places because of the living conditions. And then there’s places like where I pastored in Iraq where the snakes I dealt with had machine guns at checkpoints. And so there’s different kinds of hardness. Well, even there in Iraq, it was relative because we had a an elder in our church who was from Eritrea and he got so tired of being arrested for being an evangelical Christian in Eritrea that he fled to Iraq to be safe. So things are relative, right? So first question, it’s important to understand why Christians are surprised by hard places. Why are Christians surprised in about hard things are hard places?

I’ll start with you Sherif. I think one of the reasons is that they think that once they will they become children of God that things will be fine. Over-realized eschatology as we call it that they think okay where is the new heaven and new earth we should be here right away. On the and on the contrary, we have been promised that we will suffer.

It’s a promise.

So I would be surprised if I do not suffer or if we do not suffer.

Yeah. So the surprise is that we’re surprised.

Exactly. I mean if things go well all the time, no suffering, no problems,

what are we longing for?

Evgeny. Yeah. As I already mentioned both of my grandfathers been arrested and my greatgrandfather he was killed for his face. So suffering it’s a part of u my family legacy. Actually I’m the most free generation among my family who can get university degree who can freely preach Christ. But I when I was a boy you know in our family if you happen to be a boy you’re going to start memorize Scripture from your heart. And I remember myself when I was eight years old I just asked my grandma because of honestly I didn’t like to memorize whole Scripture and she said to me without with all seriousness she said you know when you’re going to be arrested the Bible going to be with you

because of her husband my grandfather he was a pastor of a large church and only one copy of the Bible for the whole church. So when I was growing up it’s been normality to suffer for Christ’s sake.

It’s kind of strange. I kind of felt myself awkward that I’m not been arrested for a long term. I’ve been arrested only twice really. Not really long term. Yeah.

And because of I remember when we did a we had a Bible study with my family and my grandfather read a passage from Philippians chapter 1 verse 29. He says for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.

So basically it’s a privilege to suffer and it’s normality for a Christian to suffer. If you’re not really suffering, it’s something amazingly maybe gracious from the Lord, but it’s really temporal.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

I’d like to add something. I would as I was thinking of I remember Romans 8

because in Romans 8 it says we are going to be co-heirs with Christ. We will be glorified with Christ. But this root, this way for glory is through suffering. If we are to be glorified with him, we shall suffer with him. Part of being in union with Christ.

Is to go through the same path of suffering than to glory.

It’s inescapable. It’s as long as we are in Christ.

Yeah. I’m reminded of 2 Timothy 3:12. Those who desire to live a godly life will face persecution. Yes. And

they’re intimately linked as we said.

Preparing people to suffer

So, how do we prepare people? What’s the best way to prepare people for suffering? What do we do?

I will go to Romans again. Thinking of the love of God and justification. I would connect suffering always with justification and the love of God. Because when people suffer, the biggest question that would come to their mind, am I truly a child of God?

Because if I’m his child and he’s omnipotent and he’s my father,

why am I suffering? This becomes the question.

and certainly in the Psalms we see that question all the time. Why have you forsaken me?

And the answer in Romans it says is that we do not rejoice in spite of suffering or even though we are suffering we are rejoicing because we are suffering. We are rejoicing in the sufferings. We are more than conquerors in what’s happening to us. In fact, these sufferings are coming from the hands of our beloved Father.

So knowing that God is my father, knowing that he is my friend, we are not enemies. Seeing the sufferings in life not as a punishment from him,

it’s coming from a father who loves his children and who’s conforming them

to be in the image of his beloved Son.

Yeah. So how we can help people by showing them this perspective.

God did not spare his only begotten Son, right?

But he gave us

he gave him to us.

Yeah. You I’m taken with your mother

preparing you as a young age for suffering. Yeah. I that’s really not something that I think we think about doing much for our children.

Yeah. I think that we if we really tr truly love our children we got to prepare for them for coming kingdom and for reality of this broken world and you know I remember myself a teenager and I came to talk with one old man and not just me actually we’ve been discussed with among our group peers what we’re going to do when we’re going to arrest it or how we can endure this suffering. And we all I mean all these teens boys we got to conclusion that we not be able to endure we not be able to handle such a kind of persecution and torture. So we went to old man who’ve been in prison for 25 years for his face

and we asked him a question what do we need to do to be ready for and he gave us such a special answer. He said you never be able to prepare for such suffering. But if God going to give you a privilege and honor to suffer for his sake, he going to give you a special grace to endure. Yeah. So he said to us, “Use your time to know him as much as closer, as deeper as possible, and this is the only thing you can do, and he will give you what you need to endure.”

Amen. That is beautiful. You know, we had one of our staff arrested in Iran and was under interrogation and it was frightening. His pastor had been killed by the secret police and he was worried. But he said when he was under interrogation, he it was as if he felt the Holy Spirit, the promise of Jesus. I will give you the words to say when they do when they take you in.

I really understand it because I experienced this several times in my life. When you just feel that Holy Spirit, God’s presence just given you strength and given you wisdom what to say.

He said when he left the jail, he told his interrogator, “I’ve told you everything you need to know to come to faith in Christ and he will forgive you of your sins.” He told him that and the guy hung his head and said, “Maybe I will. Maybe I will.” You can only imagine his sins the weight of his sins on his life. Well, what are the ordinary means of grace? Let’s talk about ordinary means of grace that that is an encouragement to us in the midst of hard times. What’s the best thing that that we need in terms of ordinary means of grace?

Yeah, I already spoke much maybe but I would start that I think the best thing is Christ’s body, his church.

Amen. You know during Soviet time when people were arrested quite often that church was taking care of for families of these arrested people. Pastors being replaced quickly by other men to preach and so the church was really taken care of. Being a part of church it’s be it became not just kind of formality

you got kind of real family you really living you’re doing life together and the secondly the Bible this is a way how you know the Lord how you experience his presence too and the more you memorize Scripture the more you meditate the more you spend your time in prayer actually your heart lean to pray more when you know God’s word better and deeper. So this is at least two things which I would say but there’s a third one is to we don’t need to endure only we need to see this as you mentioned your brother as a way to evangelize

to bring gospel to these people these guards

these actually they’re poor people they need to attack you and they attacking the Lord himself and they need to attack you without even knowing their conscious they’re doing wrong things. So you can bring the gospel to them.

Show a love of God and compassion and it’s might be and actually might be really it will be for some of these people road to salvation.

Amen. Yeah. Well, look at the Apostle Paul.

Yeah. Go ahead Sherif if you mention that.

Yes. It’s

as if talking and thinking of Paul in Acts asking this jailer, do not harm yourself.

he cares a lot. The jail is open.

He can just go away. I’m done with this suffering. This guy has been a wicked guy.

And he kept us here for a long time or whatever time.

Now we leave. He deserves this.

And he stopped him.

He stopped him from killing himself. I would add also the book of Psalms, especially the book of Psalms as a means of grace. It’s the word of God of course, but also praying with the word of God,

memorizing the psalms singing them or meditating on them preaching to our hearts through the word instead of listening to our hearts

with self-pity. And this sense of fear, but preaching to our heart through the word and knowing the Psalms because the Psalms, they’re not just giving us the facts about God. They are speaking to our emotions as well, our fears, our anxiety.

Oh, so true. Yeah. I’m brother, I this will sound like a product placement, but it’s not. I’m going through Christopher Ash’s commentary on the Psalms right now. Christ centered commentary and just this morning read Psalm 91.

I hope that Ecclesia Ministries from Russia they will translate these books into Russian.

They need it. Well, it’s a beautiful look at why we suffer too and that Christ suffered as you said. So I highly recommend that. I highly recommend that commentary series as every psalm points to Christ in some way or another and Chris Ash does a masterful job of pointing that out. So yeah, I don’t get any money for that. I just I’m just loving it. My concept well any what u you know I just want to say I would add into the church the need for a healthy church.

You know it’s not you know a church where the Bible is preached where you have meaningful membership. You know unregenerate members are a scourge in the modern church. So yeah go ahead.

You know Mack that persecution really purifies a church.

It does.

You can be a really unhealthy church. You can be unregenerated member and giving your comfort your perspective future for the sake of not loving gospel.

Yeah. It’s

that’s right. That’s absolutely right. That’s why you barely can find really kind of bad church when truly persecute persecution happening.

And true suffering happening.

Yeah. Yeah. It just you know we had six people under death threats in our church in Iraq and the galvanizing sense that that brought to our church that we’re in this together

and that you feel like every meeting you feel it might be your last meeting. Yes.

You cherish every minute, every second. You sing songs not because of you have to sing but because of you willing to.

You’re looking around and you see this is my brother. There’s only one enemy we fighting with Satan or who fighting against us. But the rest I need to love and to embrace. It’s such a different perspective on life.

Money and help from outside

Yeah. Amen. Anything to add? Sh. So often when we think of churches in hard places we think of material support or needs things like that. Talk to us about responsibly caring for people in needy situations. What things are needed and different situations are you know there we talk about getting the Bible. They might not have a Bible. You know translators are needed. Bible translators for the big push from Radius the thing that we just saw the video we just saw. You know, interesting kind of materials that are needed for churches that really beyond just money. What would you all say?

Well, speaking of money,

I can’t avoid this.

Please know I

the thing is there’s a kind of a mindset that okay, these people in hard places, they are suffering. They are under great pressure. They are struggling in many ways. So, how can we help them? The first thing that comes to mind, we will send them money

so that we will ease their lives and God knows how harmful this has been in many ways in my context. Because you are giving them not what they need but you are giving them something that would create or that would satisfy a kind of a idolatry in the heart

to be satisfied or to be eased through another source rather than God. And this is not the most helpful way to help people during their suffering. I’m not against helping people in a material way in certain ways or in many ways. But we need to be very careful as we are doing this instead of just pouring American or Western money to the Middle East. Thinking that this will help them and will ease the lives. I think praying with them being with them, thinking of them, supporting them, teaching them, providing good material, I mean books or whatever. This would be the greatest help more than the material, more than the money.

What do you think?

You know, when I was growing up in Siberia we had only two books. The Bible actually it was one copy for the whole church and we had a handwritten Bible made by my grandma which I read and memorized and the Bible was getting from my greatgrandfather the first edition of Russian translation 140 years now old and hymnal that’s it

And sometimes you can get something on radio receiver a Christian radio station. I remember myself when my grandfather tried to get this wave because it was shutting down by special security services and you can hear some words about God and I thought my mind wow we are not the only one who believes in God.

And I had a dream as a child to meet other believers.

Yeah. So the first thing which really important to know that there’s some people who really care.

Really care.

And it just to send a letter or a hug or just to pray for and this is a way more important than anything else. And a secondly to come and to ask what they really need. Mhm.

Because of the needs we need to be careful with our charitable involvement not to make it poison not to destroy.

Because of Yeah. I understand that church is universal in economy worldwide. There are some economy stronger than others. But the biggest need is not money really. The biggest need is love and brotherly care and just

know you’re there

and just pray and yeah just sometimes being there just sit still hug this person and that’s more than enough sometimes.

Yeah. I’ll give you an example a very personal example. I used to live in the US for some time for a few years and I got great friendships, brothers in Christ that I cherish a lot. When we went back as a family to Egypt to continue the work there in Egypt it has been hard it’s a different from the US of course more pressing more stressful and some days in the ministry it has been very stressful problems within the church from outside the church a lot of pressure a lot of stress and you may not even find one person to talk to and to pour all your heart

u with and then without even asking these friends would send me a message or an email

just saying we have been thinking of you

and we’re praying for you or what can we pray for

and when these things happen that’s exactly how I feel the hands of the Lord is doing this

don’t worry

yeah I so appreciate that brothers both of you and It’s my heart, too. You know, I’ve from the highlands of Guatemala to the plains of Nineveh within Iraq, I’ve seen money destroy churches and yeah, it poison as you say, Evgeny. And then what the real need was that very thing, Sherif that the friendship that was needed, people reaching out knowing they’re not forgotten. Go ahead. I just want to say that because I grew up in Siberia. Money actually not be able to reach Siberia too far away.

When I was moved to Moscow, I was surprised how much damage been done by good intentions but unwise applications. Good. No, I’m really good heart. And again we do need some and some things could be made speedier way quicker with support and assistance but it should be done in a way how it’s built not to destroy.

Yeah. And sadly as I see many people who’ve been partnering with different mission organizations, they became more Americans and less Russians and also they kind of losing respect of local people and many of them just moved or many of them been working for mission organizations living in Russia but really working for these organizations. They no longer being locals and their effectiveness was running to zero.

Lessons learned

Interesting. Yeah. So tell me brothers what have you learned that you’d like to share by being associated with or knowing or li living in hard places? What are the things that you’ve come to understand? We are desperate or we are in a desperate need for the grace of God.

It brings you on your knees all the time. It’s not that because you are smart or you have you have the tools or you know how the how to and you’ll be fine.

It’s just a matter of

Steps. You just do these steps and you’ll be fine. No, it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work. Sometimes you Lord I’m out of resources.

I’m desperate. I’m desperate for your grace and mercy

that would sustain me. Daily some days are great but many days are hard

and apart from God’s sustaining grace I don’t know how can we continue

amen yeah we can

we just so I would say if I learned something I would say I learned dependence

I learned dependence and another thing I know we didn’t bring it up family I mean physical family I mean my wife

My wife and children the Lord sustained me many days through my wife. When you go home desperate or after hard days, hard discussions, hard circumstances, and then you find someone waiting, praying for you, smiling.

Sometimes you would feel, okay, I’m done. No more. I will quit this or I will need that. I no more. And then she says, “No, the Lord has begun something and he can continue look to the Lord.” And u what a blessing to

to have the such a wife or such a spouse.

In the ministry. So I would say these two things.

Yeah. Dependence, family.

Family and dependence.

Yeah. Evgeny.

You know, there was a moment when I felt myself so weak, so needy, especially I think my hardest years of ministry been from 2022 till 2024. And there was a moment when I was really I know upset is no right word. Really deeply grieving and I’m really grateful for my friends who just intentionally brought me to together for the gospel last conference and I met a room with Mark Dever all these brothers Kevin DeYoung and others and we just pray together and it was u what I really needed So friendship

friendship it might be your spouse your wife it could be your close friends your local elders your brothers but it’s really needed what I learned that you are not really self-dependent

You’re not really self-sufficient you yeah you really need God’s grace and you need good friends too

like Apostle Paul saying just please come quickly Yeah.

And secondly, what I learned u that you’re not really a special person. It’s a honor and a privilege to go through suffering, but not because of you are special and because of your broken needy sinner who is just saved by God’s grace and sustained by his grace, but because of you are might be the only one in that area whom God can use to save others.

and he just putting you such a difficult situation for the sake of his kingdom and for the sake of salvation with his people. So it’s not because of your goodness or your of your righteousness. It’s because of his goodness is his eternal plan. Yeah.

To save someone. And as thirdly, it’s better as soon as possible to give up to build your comfortable life to have kind of perspective life. Your life the best life not now

your best life actually happening now but not in a terms of this world.

Yeah. The problem with the title is now

my your best life not now.

Yeah. You know Mack, what have you know when you’re suffering it’s your life now and this is the best life now but kind of a different terminology different understanding because of people really expecting to have such a comfortable nice

kind of good life

but God knows what is good for you.

Yeah. And the good for us is to be imitators of Christ to be look like son of God and you can't become like Christ without suffering.

So this is a way how God shaping you making you holy and u this is the best actually thing for you.

Yeah. Sherif did you want to add to that? Were you?

I was just thinking of the last talk with Kevin DeYoung about the incarnation.

Yeah. And thinking of what would help is looking to Christ because what would be the best place or the best situation that you would any one of us would be part of and then what would be the worst place or situation any of us would be part of compare the best place to the lowest and worst place. Yeah,

it’s you cannot compare this to what Christ has done. I mean for him the holy one, the Son before whom the angels cover their heads, their faces, their bodies. The one before whom the angels would sing holy came and live in this sinful world.

So thinking of the humility of Christ and what he has done and comparing it to the worst thing that can ever happen to us.

It’s nothing.

It’s And he did this not just to give us an example. He did this for our sake.

He did this for me.

So when again when I have this kind of self-pity, why I’m doing this? I should be in a better place. And then I think of the incarnation or the humility of Christ

for me.

And I’m convicted.

Family, friendship, dependency, all those things. I agree with you. I would add for myself great humility. I met with a young new believer, baby on her lap. She wants to be baptized. And I’m I say to her, Asma when you get baptized, there will be people who want to kill you.

And she said almost but Jesus is worth it.

You know, and I was so humbled with this brand new believer who ex far exceeded my weak faith in some ways. I wasn’t trying to talk her out of it.

I just wanted her to know. But it was clearly she knew better than me.

So all those things happened to us, I think, in these places. What else would you have to say? I want to say something about prayer here. Prayer about praying for people in hard places, but other things come to mind that you’d want to say or

Nicea and hard places

you know. No, first of all, I’m very grateful, Mack, for your questions and for this conference that we can get together.

Yeah. And to think about Nicene Creed but also to think about kind of reality because of many of these bishops they were persecuted.

And Athanasius himself was persecuted too afterwards

for holding the truth. So it’s persecution or suffering. It’s not something strange thing happening with Christians. Just kind of part of normality of Christian life. But I’m really grateful for such a conversation. I would say that pray for I can say I can’t say much these days,

But I pray for wisdom because we have to be simple as doves and wise as snakes.

This is our days. Mhm.

And especially when you’re working in hard place, hard moments or situations, you got to be like that. So pray for wisdom, pray for protection because of only God can protect. You’re not going to be protected. There are many different institutions and possibilities, but God in charge. And thirdly pray for courage.

Because of for us it’s a really natural avoid any kind of conflict, suffering, trials. It’s really natural for our human nature really. And but you need to be bold and ready to pay price. And it’s might be in the simple ways like a simple faithfulness when you give up on some sins or compromise in your kind of life or even bigger stuff you but if you’re not really ready to die for the gospel in many ways you’re not really ready to do ministry because of one day your life going to be at stake.

Wolves within

Speaking of hard places, sometimes we only think of oppression coming from outside the church. The beasts coming out from the water.

But also there’s another beast which can make your place very hard which is the coming out of the land. False ideas, false views. What we are what we’re remembering right now in this conference

they’re rules

wolves in our own midst

yes and they’re attacking you the thing is sometimes you may find yourself in a place alone I mean standing for the truth and then the pressure will be heavy and you’ll be ridiculed made fun of has been attacked people will say athanasius the world is against you. And he said, “So be it. I’m against the world.

If this is the truth I will stand for it.” So sometimes we may need to stand courage to stand for truth because we can be tempted by the fear of man that we want to please people. We don’t want to offend them if we hold to the truth. We do this in courage and in meekness, not thinking that we are better. Remembering that the Lord opened our eyes to the truth. And so we do this as Paul says to Timothy patiently, not in a quarrelsome manner,

but to do it, praying that the Lord may save these people from the trap in which they have been taken captive by Satan. Good word, brother. So, I think we need to pray for people in hard places intelligently with information, not insipid prayers, but real prayers for real people in hard places informed. So would call the church to pray for those in hard places with understanding.

Prayer

So well let’s Kevin talked about duration and eternity in his talk and I’m absolutely certain that we’ve time to end our session but let me do that in prayer and u join your hearts with me as we pray.

Oh Lord God, thank you that you refine us through suffering and hard things. We know the world is broken and sinful and in one sense for all of us we live in groaning until you return or until we meet you face to face in heaven. But until that day, oh God, give us, as Evgeny said, boldness to live out our faith in the face of danger. Lord, we pray for friendships.

We pray for families. We pray for those in hard places to know what it means to serve you and love you and persevere as Sherif has reminded us. And Lord, we pray for those people in hard places. We think of the difficulties around the world and recognize those in easy places actually are the odd ones out the world is persecuting your church in so many ways and so many places. We do pray for protection as Evgeny has asked. Lord, we pray that you watch over them. But most of all, we pray for boldness and courage in those situations to proclaim your gospel. We recognize that the blood of the saints is the seed of the church and we would pray for that. Father, we pray that you would watch over your church to the glory and praise of your name as people suffer with a great understanding that they are following a savior who has suffered himself. And so let us honor you, oh God, as we follow you in this way. Thank you for my brothers, their churches, their families, their places.

Watch over them, Father God. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you.