reflections from Soma

Craig and I returned in the end of last week from Soma school in Tacoma, WA.
It was a great time. Definitely very stretching.

There were 11 international guys attending Soma School (+ around 10 americans)

Most lasting impression on me was left by Jeff Vanderstelt and his talks about the Gospel, what is church, and the identities of church/christian. It was specially powerful to me cause trying to understand the Gospel has been an area where God has working in my heart the most. I am convinced that the understanding of Gospel (and the full gospel) has to be the foundation of everything that we do, and everything we are.
I am still trying to process some of the things Jeff said about the gospel. For example the full gospel (means+purpose):
Means of Salvation (Gospel power): God-Sin-Jesus-Faith not works
Purpose of Salvation (Gospel story): Creation-Fall-Redemtion-Restoration

It was great to see how their church model worked. Instead of "come to us" (attractional model) they are definitely hard-core "lets go out to them" (missional model). They are really gospel based. people in their communities really get that the church is the people. And it was also interesting to observe their dialogical story-based teaching style. People in Soma really know the Story (their term for the bible, more specifically for the redemptive arc of bible stories).

Missional communities (small groups) are really on mission, that can be the specific neighborhood or target-group specific mission. Besides that very many people had their own personal mission projects. That was really great to see.

We are starting to process everything that we heard during that week to see what can we learn from it for our local context.

Seattle skyline

Appart from everything I learned there, it was hard to be away from Anna and Emma. But I have to tell you, NW seems to be a great place to go back to. I love the nature there. Totally my type! Maybe one day I can go riding the bikes in the mountains with my family there

Czech-Estonia-USA

We just returned from spending a week with Josiah Venture family in Malenovice, Cz. It was a refreshing and a stimulating time. Starting with JV council meetings where we concentrated on what is needed in different countries to double the fruit in the next 3 years.
The theme for this years spring conference was spiritual warfare. So often we forget that we are soldiers in the battle field filled with unexpected attacks. Instead we have the mentality of retired bum who has got a free ticket to heaven and doesn't know what to do with his time.

JV council members

Emma loves two things above all other:
1. Animals (furry and moving)
2. Babies (not so furry but also moving)
She went hysterical in the conference when she saw another small kid.

We got back today evening.
At 3am i will catch a bus to Tallinn to fly to Seattle, USA. Craig and I will spend a week and couple of days in Soma school (church planters school that Acts29 network Soma school is organizing). I am really looking forward to that time. It will be great. But at the same time I really would want to go right now since I see that there are many strategic things that would need my attention here. And i dont want to leave Emma and Anna behind.

You can be praying for all the travels and that the time there would bear kingdom fruit in the years to come in Estonia.


These are some pictures from the JV spring conference

Protecting my head

Last week I realized my long-time dream and bought a bicycle.
And a helmet to protect my head.

My calculations were, that
1) having a bike enables us to go for nice bikerides as a family on warm summer nights
2) I save money on gas by riding the bike to the office. That way Anna can use the car

Well, the truth probably will be that if we go on a bike ride once in 2 weeks then thats pretty good. And brief calculations also show that i wont save tons of money on gas. So financially it makes no sense to spend the money. Probably it is more feasible to rend a bike or sth.


I guess i spent the money on bike as an investment into emotions. Emotions of feeling good after working out. Emotions of spending an evening together with the family while emma is sitting behind me in a baby chair lauging. Emotions of feeling the wind and sund, or rain and cold while driving the bike through the city.

Selling emotions - thats where there is the most money.

Confessions of a pastor

This Sunday we will start a new series in Risttee church called "Confessions of a pastor". Throughout 4 weeks I will be talking about the areas in my life where I am struggeling the most. There are of course more than 4 confessions that i could make but after choosing among them here are the ones that we will talk about:
- I can't stand of lot of Christians
- I have to fight hard to keep sexually pure
- I am a slave to time
- I worry all the time

On one hand i really look forward to these weeks cause i know that God wants to use these weeks to deal with a lot of stuff in our church. On the other hand i feel scared, cause being open like that wont be easy for me. I have never been good at showing my emotions, specially communicating them.

You can pray for me that God would give me the right words and courage to be open. And that the horizontal confessions (between me and the people) would turn into vertical confessions between God and everyone.

Fried brain

I don't know if you have ever felt that your brain is so full of information, that it can not take any more. ALl the places that we have visited and things that i have heard have pushed me into this limit and now things are starting to mix up in my head.
Today was a great day that we spent around the Sea of Galilea - the center of Jesus' ministry on earth. While I am still processing everything in my head, i will share with you a picture of my friend from South Africa. Watching him dancing and singing makes me feel sad that i dont have any black peoples blood in me!

Strategy

In Jerusalem you can see almost on every step the conflicts between Christianity jewish and muslim religions. That has been going on for centuries. One visible element of that is the fate of different building through centuries when they have switched sides. It is not uncommon for a church to become a mosque and then a church and then a mosque.

Golden gate is in the middle of the wall. Around and below that you can see the cemetary

One specially sneaky thing that the arabs have done is visible if you look from the Mountain of olives to the temple mount. There is a big sealed gate leading to the old city. It is called the Golden Gate. According to the jewish tradition (based on some bible texts) that is the gate from which Messiah will enter the city of Jerusalem. To prevent that from happening the muslims have sealed the gate and created a muslim graveyard in front of that gate. And of course no jew will step into the muslim cemetary. You can call that preventive strategy. Or cheap play.

Looking for my master to return as the King of Kings,
Peep

Life-changing contrast

It hit me yesterday, looking up to the huge and massive archways of the Holy Sepulture church - the huge power of religion.
What has been done in the name of it. How many lives have been impacted for better or worse through out thousands of years. Were they jewish, muslim or christian. Intimidating and saddening.

The power of religion from one hand - and the Message and Way of Christ on the other hand. I wonder what would Jesus feel and do if he would come to nowadays Jerusalem. What would he feel and do if he would come to our church. If he would come to me?

Yeah, i cant forget the contrast between religion and the person and work of Jesus...

Holy Sepulture church - possible location where Jesus died (catholic and orthodox tradion)

Jews celebrating bar-mitzvahs by the western wall

Group of israeli soldiers (they are so young) in a bible-study group in the old city