Heinakuhja Selts (“Haystack Society”)

The Heinakuhja Selts is a community of motivated servants of the church dedicated to addressing the challenge of reaching all of Estonian society with the transformative and liberating good news of Jesus Christ. We are particularly focused on empowering the smallest churches to attend to under-represented parts of Estonian society such as rural areas and ethnic minorities.

The name Heinakuhja Selts is an Estonian translation of “Haystack Society”, which is the name adopted by a group of American seminary students at the turn of the century who sought shelter from a thunder storm by crawling under a haystack. From this point of refuge, they prayed together for their common burden for world mission. Under the strong blessing of the Holy Spirit, the passion and dedication of the resulting student movement helped to fuel one of the most formative and influential mission movements in modern Christianity.

Taking inspiration from the Haystack society, the Heinakuhja Selts is composed of seminary students, local church ministers, summer ministry interns, and international supporters. We communicate our network during the year using WhatsApp groups but as the community grows, we will meet in person once a year to identify strategic aims and coordinate our resources and opportunities to accomplish these goals.

At this early stage in the development of the Heinakuhja Selts, my goals are:

1. to identify two new seminary students each year to receive the “Maasool” Small Place Theology Scholarship,
2. to recruit society members from within the ranks of Central Estonian pastors
3. to recruit short-term international interns for summer ministry projects in line with Haystack goals