What I am reading

When I was in Seattle for the Soma School I had a chance to acquire a lot of books. This is always a real please of mine. I really enjoy reading and try to do some everyday. Also, I am taking the bus to work now so i have some time on the bus to read. Diesel for our minivan is now almost $8 a gallon and that just doesn't fit into the budget. Plus this leaves the van with Reena and she can do somethings with the boys during the day and get back and forth from her lessons easier.

Anyway, I am reading two books that I have been enjoying. One is Vintage Jesus from Mark Driscoll. This book is similar to More than a Carpenter from Josh McDowell and really just answers the major questions about who Jesus was, his life and what it means. Its a lay mans theological book and I would recommend it to anyone. Driscoll is a pretty funny writer and can come off a little rough around the edges but that's what makes it a good read. I have found myself laughing at times while reading it and also challenged by many of the ideas and thoughts. I think its always good for a person to review the things in this book, so i hardily recommend it.

The second book I am reading is Organic Church. This one I am only into about 50 or so pages, but its been very good as well. The book is about creating a movement of church planting that happens organically. The main idea her is multiplication, not growth. The writer feels the current church has lots its first love and lost its calling from Christ. I have been very challenged by this book in the first few pages and can't read to get through the rest of it. It really is putting me to thinking about what kind of church am I part of building here. Am I more concerned with building institutionally or movement based. Its a pretty tough one to ask and one that I and our leadership here at Risttee are working through. I desire to be part of a movement of churches in Estonia that see people turn their lives to Jesus and form Churches that are making this happen. I have to stop and think, is Risttee trying to do that, or are are off on some other pursuit, which isn't bad, but just not what Christ has called us to. Again, its another book I would recommend.

Sitting on my shelf to read next are the following books
Forgotten Ways by Allan Hirsch
The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller
Reason for God by Tim Keller
Unceasing Worship: Biblical Perspectives on Worship and the Arts by Harold M. Best

And, before anyone judges me I am still reading the Bible, and enjoying using my One Year Chronological Bible. Its cool to read something in the old testament about David and get the Psalms that go with that and you really get a sense of how he is processing whats going on in his life. Basically this just divides the bible into 365 daily readings and then reorganizes the sections chronologically. Not a bad way to read the Bible and it helps with getting a good overall view of Scripture as what God is doing throughout the entire Bible.

So what are you reading?

Going UP-Battle for Extreme

This past Saturday night, we had our final Going UP event for youth. The theme was Battle for Extreme and was built around living an extreme life without drugs and alchohol. We felt this was a topic we needed to address and offer an alternative message to all the beer commercials that dominate television and the media. The main program was prepared by Daniel and Märt and it turned into their show which was just awesome. They put together some crazy skits and even did some rhythm gymnastics with one of Estonias top teams. Our band played a couple of songs and Jordan, our intern from Ohio, stared in a couple of extreme videos done inthe style of a famous MTV show featuring stupid human tricks. The program really connected with guys. Risto Tamm a friend of our ministry from Pärnu came and shared a challenging message from his life and the Bible about drugs and alchohol. After the event we had an after party to connect people to our weekly youth gathering. The turn out was fantastic, about 200 people attended the After Party and we hope to see many of them again this week. Now we are taking some time to reevaluate this ministry to figure out what we should do next season by taking a large survey of the youth of Tartu.

Also, this weekend we started a new series called, The Will of God at Risttee. This past Sunday we all blessed our first deacons of the church, Märt Saar and Tarmo Sirkel are the first deacons at Risttee and now dedicated to the service for the church. We are looking forward to June 8, when we will have a big baptism service. Not sure of the exact number but we hope to have 10-15 different people.

On my way home!

I am writing this from the bus on the last leg of my journey that started in Tacoma, Washington and will finish at home in Tartu. The week at Soma School finally ended and was really great. I had a great time there learning and being challenged in my theology. One of the great things about Soma is they are big on theology and desire that we all are theologians commited to learning as much about God as possible. I got to spend the last 1.5 days with the internationals that were at the conference, which was primarily a bunch of Romanian pastors and church planters. We retreated to a house in Tacoma and had some time to pray and thing and some additional time with the leadership team at Soma. I will be writing more about this week after the weekend. Saturday we have Going UP which is going to be a blast. The team has been working hard for the last few days to fill in for my abscence, but its great to see that all things have gotten done which is a testament to the type of people we have in Tartu.

One other highlight of my trip was a few hours in Seattle. What an amazingly beautiful city. Then we got to visit the man simple known as "The Dude" Mark Driscol. We visited there to see it as one new church plant that was started a little while ago and is an example of a multi-site church with video as the primary teaching medium. His sermon was good as he taught on the Doctrine of incarnation, something we all need to revisit often keep undertanding what it has done and continues to do in our life.

I will be positng again soon some info about Going UP.

Blogging from Tacoma

I am this week in Tacoma at an event called Soma School. Its kinda like a conference for planting churches. I am here with Peep and we are checking things out, and seeing if this model or way of doing church would translate well in Estonia.

The conference started last night and is running for 1 week. All of the sessions so far have been the telling of the Story of God. This is a pretty interesting concept. We have made it through the old Testament. The purpose is to start at the beginning, not creation, but rather with the fall of Satan and then tell the story of God and his pursuit of man. It has been good to take a zoomed out look and then also see how the story of the old testament connects together. I would say most Christians know the information, but they are unable to connect all the dots and see the bigger picture and thats what this does. We will get through the NT this afternoon and then move on to other topics.

I am staying with a couple of guys who are renting a house. Its always interesting to revisit the single life again, It wasn't so long ago that I was there, but it now feels very very far away. They have been great hosts stocking the fridge with Coke and making some great coffee. One of the guy words in Quality Control at a Starbucks roasting factory, so we stopped at a cafe yesterday morning, and took 10 bags of coffee off the shelf and I learned a lot about coffee. I can't believe there is so much info about Coffee, but when you stay with a guy from Starbucks, you get a lot of interesting info.

Reena is back home with the boys, so pray for her, she needs it. Drop her an encouraging email, reena.hamer@mail.ee

Check back for some more info on my first Northwest experience.