God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

A Strategic Language
…we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. 3 John 8

By Patti Richter

A young man’s summer trip to visit a missionary in Ukraine led to a ministry opportunity the following year.
California native Jake Knotts committed to a church-plant in Ukraine eleven years ago — at the age of 19.

Knotts is now lead pastor of Christian Bible Church in Chernigov, a city of 300,000 people in north central
Ukraine. An hour from the capital city of Kiev, it’s also just 50 miles from the infamous city of Chernoble.

Early into his church-planting work Knotts discovered John Piper’s book, The Pleasures of God, which led
to reading ten more Piper books within a year. “This was a total theological shift in the beginning of my min-
istry. It developed my love for God,” Knotts says. Those resources became fuel for the work of his team of
four missionaries, providing the theological framework they needed. “We came to understand why we were
church-planting. Everything begins and ends with God. We realized who really saves people.”
The new spiritual perspective caused Knotts to seek a change from his original church and its support. He later
affiliated with Acts 29, a network that centers on “planting church-planting churches.”

Inspired by the excellence of John Piper’s books, Knotts began a publishing ministry in Ukraine in order to gain
resources for new believers. With his own savings and rights obtained from Crossway books, he published
Russian translations of two Piper books, The Passion of Jesus Christ (now titled 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came
to Die), and Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ.

Fellow Workers

In 2006 Knotts flew to Minneapolis with his wife, Anya, (one of his original church-plant team members) to
attend the annual Desiring God Conference for Pastors. He met with Desiring God team members Jon Bloom
and Bill Walsh, who encouraged him to push harder with publishing.

(continued on back)

Post Office Box 2901 Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402 T 888.346.4700 / 612.435.2401 F 612.338.4372 www.desiringGod.org
“Jake has great vision for translation work,” says Walsh. We wanted to pitch in on his next project. Russian is
one of our largest translation languages — a top focus of Desiring God International Outreach (DGIO). It’s a
strategic language with amazing an amazing reach.”

One of six official languages of the United Nations, Russian is widely spoken in countries of the former Soviet
Union, as well as many areas of Eurasia. It is also spoken in large emigrant communities around the world— in
Israel, Germany, the United States and others.

DGIO has helped Knotts’ grass-roots publishing ministry take shape. They hired Olya Velichko, a young woman
from the Chernigov church, to work as an intern at Desiring God for several months. Olya learned about pub-
lishing and distribution. She became familiar with DGIO resources and their ministry culture to take back to the
new publishing work in Ukraine.

Knotts’ ministry-motivated publishing business, In Lumine

Media, is half-funded through sales of their previously “Ukraine is more open and receptive to
printed books. Proceeds from the books (sold through the gospel, without roadblocks to operate
booksellers in Ukraine and directly through inlumine.org)
as evangelicals.”
pay for translation costs and employee salaries. Remaining
funds must be raised to pay printing costs for future books.

DGIO provided a grant for In Lumine’s next two translation projects. The support enabled the completion of
additional Piper books in Russian: God is the Gospel, offering meditations on the good news—the endless
satisfaction of knowing God in Christ — and Future Grace, which tells of God’s sustaining grace for the on-going
sanctification of believers.

A Strategic Place

Ukraine has been called the Antioch of the Slavic world. Knotts agrees, saying “Ukraine is more open and
receptive to the gospel, without roadblocks to operate as evangelicals. Surrounding countries have more
national identity and ties to Russian Orthodox religion, making it hard to find buildings and register churches.”

The fallout of communism still remains in Ukraine, however. “Atheism and resurgent traditional Christianity
blend, but younger people are more western in their thinking, more open and willing to converse,” says Knotts.
“Our church began as a student ministry of mostly first-generation Christians. They’ve grown up in post-Soviet
Union years, with non-church or holiday-church backgrounds.”
Knotts hopes to see a changing spiritual climate in Ukraine in the years ahead. He believes that training nation-
als for faithful leadership and publishing good theological resources are two primary tools to effect that change.
“Our relationship with Desiring God has been extremely beneficial and fruitful,” he says. “We’ve even seen
much interest in our books from other churches, including traditional and somewhat legalistic ones. They want
joyful—instead of cultural—Christianity.”

Patti Richter works as a Christian journalist— a writer of feature stories, profiles and event articles. She and her husband,
Jim, live outside of Dallas, Texas.

Would you please prayerfully consider joining us in spreading resources around the world? Go to
www.desiringGod.org for more information.