One of my favorite ministry activities here in Estonia is participating in congregational consultations for the churches within our ECB Church Union. The churches our team consults vary in their structural choices, size and situation. We have consulted both rural and urban churches, both traditional and "emerging" churches and both small and moderately sized churches … Continue reading Assessing Congregational Readiness
Discovering the “Victory Hymns”
Last Sunday I visited a congregation in the southern portion of our region to preach and spend time getting to know the church a bit better. Attendance to the service that morning was very small: basically the pastor and his grown children and three other parishioners. I brought along my guitar and had prepared a … Continue reading Discovering the “Victory Hymns”
Proposing Free-Use Chapels
The Nurgakivi Selts proposes a network of simple, free-use chapels across rural Estonia, providing a space for worship, service, and temporary shelter, with a focus on monastic values and Christ-centered spirituality.
Rural Re-evangelization Summer Internship
Purpose The purpose of this internship is to provide a mentored, immersive, cross-cultural ministry experience for young people discerning the shape of their contribution to the re-evangelization of the post-Christian West. Growth focuses Skills for immersive cross-cultural ministry, applicable in any setting Familiarization with a functional language learning model Developing tools for asset-based community development … Continue reading Rural Re-evangelization Summer Internship
Pensively Pastoral: A Reader’s Advisory
I have been struggling to know where to start my next blog series entitled "Pensively Pastoral". The purpose of the series is to outline some of the problems that I see with our conception of the pastorate - at least in the traditions and settings I am familiar with. However, I fear this series will … Continue reading Pensively Pastoral: A Reader’s Advisory
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