After one of my presentations on Ukraine when I was in the US, a pastor I met for the first time asked me, "Why do you think North American Christians are responsible for helping this situation? Isn't this a European problem? Isn't there a revival among Western European youth?" I answered but he wasn't convinced. … Continue reading Is There Really a Youth Revival in Europe?
Mission in the Cloud
My last few posts have been riffs on re-imagining our approach to evangelizing a whole cultural-geographical area. Missio-mandering introduced our Union's approach to administrative regions and discussed whether the limitations of the current system might be alleviated by redistricting. This may seem like a purely political question but for rural pastors geographical proximity to partners … Continue reading Mission in the Cloud
Bottles or Pipes?
This video is a visual summary of some of my recent thinking on the changing nature of congregational ministry in Estonia. I'm thinking in particular of the way that resources can be intentionally shared between congregations and leveraged for greater missional effectiveness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucb3eAy77UY
An Excercise in Missio-mandering
I've had a number of interesting conversations recently on the question of how to divide up the country of Estonia into regions of churches. As the member of a local congregation, particularly in a Christendom setting like the UK or North America with church buildings saturating the landscape, the idea of grouping congregations may seem … Continue reading An Excercise in Missio-mandering
Introduction to Setomaa
This weekend our family drove down to Tartu to hang out with Märt and Grete Saar. In spite of a sleepless night while Maddie cut teeth, we had a very refreshing time together with the Saars. Märt is the leader of the Estonian mission organization KOMA which is closely related to Josiah Venture. Märt has … Continue reading Introduction to Setomaa
Estonian Rural Church Mission
One of the most personally exciting ministry developments in 2010 was the Union's decision to form of a Mission Council in the place of the previous Mission Secretary role. This shift to a Council approach reflects the facts that the Union's sense of mission 1) is appropriately diverse, 2) requires a corporate response, and 3) … Continue reading Estonian Rural Church Mission