Russia Media Mission
Russia Media Mission page is dedicated to helping Missionaries called to Russia use Christian Media to better impact the nation.
If you are a Minister, Church, or Missionary and want to give Global Ministry Media more information about Russia please contact Global Ministry Media with your story and we can publish the information to the Russia Media Mission page. Please keep the information related to Ministry Media and how Media can help the Church reach Russia.
Video from a Russia Missionary trip:
Social Media in Russia
Russia is the fourth largest market for social media in Europe. Russians are some of the most engaged users of social media in the World. It was reported in 2011, that the average Russian spends about 10.7 hours per month on social networking sites, this is almost double than the global standard. One of the most popular sites in called Odnoklassniki. It has a reported 30 million registered users with 8 million visits per day. It is similar to the American social networking site, Classmates.com. Facebook and Twitter are used in Russian but their popularity has faded over the years. Russia has come out with a site that has been described as the “facebook clone”, called VK also known as Vkontakte. It has an estimated 135 million accounts. Russian courts have recently banned access to Youtube and three online Russian libraries on the internet due to hosting extremist ideological materials.
Mobile phones are also a widespread phenomenon in this country with a reported 193 million mobile subscribers. Staying connected is becoming as much of an obsession among Russia’s young generation as it is in the Western world. Most Russians use multiple SIM cards so they can have 100% penetration. The national average is 60%, which is remarkably high. However, cell phones are often the only means of communications in rural areas because there are few landlines so many mobile users opt to get multiple cards. Text messaging is the craze as well. Over two-thirds of Russians send text messages regularly and with youth under 24 years of age, the number increases to 90%.
Christian television is allowed in Russia right now. However, as of March, 2011, there have been 20 court cases trying to shut down the popular Christian channel, TBN Russia. According to IRR/TV (International Russian Radio and Television) recent events in Russia suggest an organized campaign to halt all evangelistic activities. After 70 years of oppression and the collapse of the Soviet Union, churches were allowed to use public buildings for evangelistic purposes. Prison, schools, and hospitals were open to do outreach ministry, it was even possible to hold religious services for the military. Russian tv and radios were open for quality Chrisitan programming. Today it is a different story. Public opinion is manipulated against the non-orthodox community, churches are denied access to major “state” television and radio media. A massive slander campaign has been launched in the press against protestant churches and believers are not allowed to refute the accusations.
No longer are churches allowed access to public buildings for worship or to minister in schools, hospitals, or to the military. In August of 2001, David Wilkerson, a well-known prophet and pastor in New York City, warned the Church in Russia that they would face hard times and that restrictions were on the way in their country. It seems that the prophecy has now become Russia’s reality. Jesus spoke about a time when the night would come and no man could work. While it is yet day, we need to pray that the forces of evil that are trying to close the doors to the gospel of Jesus Christ will be stopped in their tracks until God’s will is fulfilled in this great country.
written by: Tracy Martin
