Pitch

In Gummersbach, I met a dozen young Ukrainians who had come to evangelical Christianity after fleeing the war. They spoke at length about how the teachings of Baptism had helped them think through the trauma of losing family and the uncertainty of navigating refugee life — and how they felt the Orthodox church couldn’t provide those answers. My piece seeks to answer how faith became transmitted to these young people. Are they entirely reliant on evangelical communities already present in the places where they fled? Are there particularly prominent online influencers? And how prominent is this movement? Is it powerful enough to ruffle feathers with the Orthodox Church? My day in Gummersbach will be one scene in this.

I’ll be speaking to:
– Friends of the young Ukrainian churches I met in Gummersbach, who represented multiple churches in western Germany, including in Essen and Dusseldorf
– Ukrainian church leaders and their young congregants in the United States

I am presently considering any evangelical movement, not just Ukrainian Baptists; I am interested, for instance, in talking to Sunday Adelaja, a Nigerian-born Pentacostal preacher who ran a megachurch in Kyiv before the war. I am also keeping an eye for influences from American evangelicalism; there is not a single obvious Ukrainian who has emerged as a particularly prominent voice for conversion.