Please pray for tomorrow that the weather gets better and we can make the pancake stand work.... it has been really great for meeting people and helping us serve the students. Unfortunately, I don't think that we have an indoor Plan B yet.
Yesterday, as part of our activities, we invited students that we connected with and students at the church to hang out with us at Sauna last night... no strings attached. For anyone that hasn't experienced the Estonian Sauna, there is really no good way to really explain it, and to do so may cause needless prayer requests so I won't. I really enjoyed the experience both times we were invited to sauna and this "floating sauna" (sauna boat) thing was pretty cool (minus the skeeters, of course). We were on this "Huck Finn" raft about 50 feet from shore which had a sauna inside and a grill outside we BBQ'd on... it was cool. One of the students I met at pancakes came out, a really cool Physics PhD student who's going to see Michael Jackson play in London in the fall. He had a good time hanging out.
The Estonians say that Sauna is 10% about "sauna" and 90% social, that a lot of deep conversations happen here. In fact, and probably not joking, sauna would represent the next step environment beyond the "kitchen" (if you're following the Northpoint "Foyer - Living Room - Kitchen" house analogy) where accountability, authenticity, and that brother to brother connection happens. I could see that... I'm not sure what the equivalent "room" would be in American culture that would represent the level of one-on-one, transparent accountable relationship that goes deeper than small group, but the Estonians definitely have a good one.
At the beginning of this week, Peep mentioned during our initial meeting about (in their cultural context) rethinking the concept of "church" (Sunday mornings) as the "foyer," and I had an opportunity to ask him more about that during sauna last night. I can talk to you more about this later (it would be too deep to put in a blog post), but essentially it is difficult to make the church a "foyer" because for an Estonian the act of even going to church itself represents a much higher wall that it does in the United States. In fact, I myself found out in conversations with students that the connotation of "the church" represents the building, control, bureaucracy, etc... things that are very unattractive to Estonians (and I can imagine for us as well). All of these things not what Jesus called his Ekklesia (the Greek word translated "Church" in the New Testament that is literally translated "Called out ones.") to be. So, the question exists in a country and city where people need to see the love of Jesus acted out, how will anyone see the Ekklesia if they won't visit the church? The answer is that the Ekklesia has to go outside of the church walls and show them in their apartments, malls, workplaces, classes... serve them, love them, and shine as the lights we are in the midst of the darkness.
This is essentially the challenge... one I am earnestly praying for them on, and praying about how I can help through encouragement, support, and (of course) prayer. And it's also convicting me too, because I am also called to "be the Ekklesia (church)" in my world, and sometimes I admit that I don't represent so well all of the time. I can guarantee now, that this thought will be on my mind a lot in the coming weeks/months. I know it's been on the minds of those in our singles ministry at Buckhead Church with starting events like Giving Up Christmas and do.justice to spur this movement, so perhaps there are some ideas we can share and perhaps some things that may translate (after all, Gen Y and Millennial generation Americans have a fairly skeptical outlook on Church too).
Anyways - I've gotta run. I hope your day is great and thanks for your prayers!! :-)
