3/07/2017

Ecumenical Love

This week has turned very ecumenical, and it’s only Tuesday.

Ecumenism sounds so very boring but the truth is quite the opposite. It can be truly lovely.

We had the privilege of hosting the arch bishop of Estonian Lutheran Church in our office yesterday. The arch bishop is a wonderfully smart and sharp and witty man. I think the Lutheran church could not have done any better – they really elected the best man for the job. I have met him here and there, I’ve heard a couple of his speeches, and I see him once a month at the Council of Estonian Churches but we had never had any closer encounter. I hear he had declared some time ago in the media that he would like to get to know other Estonian churches better. Aparently ours was the first one he visited. We weren’t quite sure whether it was just a coincidence, an alphabetical choice, or curiosity. I personally suspect the last one – I think he was curious.

It was a nice and informal conversation we had with him. For the better part of the two hours he spent in our office, he wanted to know more about our structure and functioning. I didn’t have much to say. But in the end he was like ’So what about your theology?’ And then I did a happy dance (in my head, of course). So we told him. And I have to say this conversation made my heart so very glad. We told him about our theology and what and why we believe – and when I felt like I didn’t know how to go on, A. took over and then I. took over and by the bunch of us we were able to make it all very clear. And I was so proud of my colleagues and for the fact that we have come to a place where we can cherish our identity and explain it freely to someone as important as the arch bishop. There was no pride, no hitting or bashing with the Bible, it was balanced, it was friendly, but most importantly, it was Biblical to its core. Sometimes I get so very tired of all the theological fringes and fanaticism in our church. Then I find a lot of joy in conversations like these. There is a good and balanced way of doing theology, these moments remind me. What a relief.

Next time I’ll go to the Council’s meeting, I will shake the arch bishop’s hand with a different feeling. With a different confidence. And I might do another happy dance in my mind when I think about yesterday’s conversation.

With Mr Arch Bishop
But today I spent the whole day in the Seminary as it was the much anticipated and equally much dreaded accreditation day which all the colleges and universitites have to go through. There were a group of very serious looking people from the government and other universities who came to evaluate the Seminary’s progress and academic standards. I had to represent our conference since we have a contract with the Seminary and our students study there.

The place was like a war zone. The interviews took place in the library room in one wing of the building. The serious looking people didn’t leave that room even over the lunch time – lunch was taken to them there. We had our ’base’ in the other wing of the building, in the principal’s office. Groups of people went to the library room and then came back, and there was ever so much cheering and talking about how it had gone and what the serious people had asked and how the answers were given. A lot of coffee was passed around, and a lot of chocolate. We were serious too, and then we had good laughs which helped with the stress. Strategies were discussed, main points repeated. The president of the Baptist conference felt like praying. I too went over the important documentation and rehearsed my answers in my head because I too needed to know my stuff and do well, both for our conference’s sake as well as for my Baptist friends sake.

And the best thing about it was that I felt like home. Don’t get me wrong, I have a solid Adventist identity but it is just so cool to be part of such a process when you feel like your presence is appreciated and that you’ve become one of the Seminary’s family. The most of the Baptist conference’s leadership was present and no-one as much as raised their eye brow seeing me there, discussing Seminary’s future.

I had to leave before the ’after-party’ and sushi dinner to come back to Tallinn but I thanked the Almighty for all these wonderful contacts He’s given me across the churches.

This kind of ecumenism I love.

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And I have a new favourite song - Coldplay's Everglow. It has hit a nerve in me. 

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