Borisov joins USMB staff

USCMBC news release

Aleksandr Borisov, a Mennonite Brethren pastor from Spokane, Wash., has been hired to serve the U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches (USCMBC) as Slavic Ministries Director. Borisov will provide leadership to a renewed collaboration between the 32 MB Slavic congregations and the USCMBC and its agencies. He began his new assignment Aug. 15.

The addition of a Slavic Ministries Director is made possible by a unique partnership between five MB entities: USCMBC, the Pacific District Conference, the Central District Conference, MB Mission and MB Foundation. While Borisov will represent all five partners and all partners are helping to fund the position, Borisov is officially a USCMBC staff member.

“Bringing Aleks into the national team represents the kind of ‘oneness’ we are pursuing as a national family,” says executive director Ed Boschman. “I am enthused about giving focused attention to a partnership and relationship with our Slavic churches.”

Boschman cites three goals of this partnership: inspiring Slavic youth for connection and mission, equipping Slavic churches to join with the other U.S. MB churches in mission at home and internationally and providing mutually advantageous avenues for ministry relationships.

“Aleks is a man of passion and ideas and is enthusiastic about Kingdom mission,” says Boschman. “He has a particular vision for helping Slavic churches be effectively missional in their North American context.”

Borisov will work part-time from Spokane where he will continue serving part-time as pastor of education at Pilgrim Slavic Baptist Church; Borisov has been on the PSBC pastoral staff since 2006. Locating the USMB Slavic Ministries Director in the Pacific Northwest is a logical move given that all but four of the 32 Slavic USMB congregations are located in the Pacific District and 17 congregations are in the state of Washington. The other four Slavic congregations are located in the Central District Conference—two each in Minnesota and Nebraska.

Borisov’s experience working with people of diverse denominations and backgrounds will no doubt assist his efforts to build bridges between the USMB family and its Slavic constituents. Regardless of their U.S. denominational affiliation, it is common for Slavic congregations to identify themselves as Baptist or Pentecostal, a carry over from the Russian church culture.

Borisov, who speaks English and Russian, brings 20 years of ministry experience to his new job. During these years he has been involved in Christian education programs, pastoral and missionary leadership training, Bible study development, church planting initiatives and mission strategizing in both the United States and Russia.
Before serving the Pilgrim congregation as pastor of education, Borisov was the assistant to the pastor from 2006 to 2010. 

While in Russia, Borisov was the field director in Volgograd for Bible League International from 1998 to 2005 and was the senior pastor at Volgograd Central Baptist Church from 1997 to 2002. From 1996 to 2005 he was the assistant to the regional pastor in the Lower Volga District for the Russian Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists. Borisov served St. Petersburg Christian University, St. Petersburg, Russia, in number of roles from 1993 to 1996. He is a 1993 graduate of St. Petersburg Christian University.