From August 15-18, the Tallinn church hosted the fourth annual Teaching Ministry Conference. This year’s theme was “Growing in Unity”: how to create unity in the church, how to maintain unity and what unity is in general. Participants at conference actively tried to find answers to these questions, sharing their ideas, knowledge and experience.
The conference opened on Thursday evening with a warm welcome from Mati Simm and Triin Leesmann (Tallinn). The opening speech by Andy Fleming (East London) on “Having the Mind of the Christ” was thoughtful and thought-provoking. Andy explained how it is necessary not only to behave like Christ but also to think like Christ. He also gave good insight on the topic of anxiety and how important it is to be a non-anxious presence to be able to help others.
Friday began energetically with a presentation by Pradeep and Jesse Kutty (Kuwait City), who shared their experience in building and maintaining a Christian church in the Middle East. Their experience of victories and overcoming difficulties definitely gave a positive energy. The morning session also included a presentation by Alex Hunter (Roswell, USA) and Valdur Koha (Boston), who gave a short overview of the new Chord Leadership Center.
Carlos Santos (Madrid) and Otto Kenga (Riga) taught a class on “The Role of Church Culture in Building Unity.” Both speakers had a good sense of humor, and their colorful examples made the speech more memorable. Main takeaways from the speech were the ideas that Christ has to be in the middle of the building process and there are always hard topics that may divide members of the church, but then we have to remind ourselves who and what unites us.
Micha Brück (Amsterdam) and Stephan Kallus (Munich) shared a concrete example of unity through the merger of the mainline and ICOC churches of Christ in Munich. The process took 10 years. This story was an inspiring example of how difficulties may be overcome and compromises found even on very difficult issues.
After lunch all attendees participated in the workshop “Principles and Practicals for Unity.” In small groups we shared our ideas on the main principles for building unity. Humility and active listening were frequently mentioned. One group proposed “Q time,” that is, both quantity and quality time with others. The workshop was facilitated by Walter and Roberta Siegwart (Birmingham).
The day ended with a class by Andrew Boakye (Manchester) on the topic “Unity, Diversity and Conflict Resolution in Acts 15.” Andy’s speech explored issues of unity and conflict in the early church and how much discussion and understanding was needed to practice unity. The conclusion was that diversity is good and differences should not divide us because all members are one in Christ.
Saturday opened with mission news from Tammy Fleming (East London) and Deanne DeVries (Amsterdam). Then there were separate sessions for men and women on “Humility and Authenticity – Two Keys of Unity.” The women’s session was taught by Irene Koha (Boston) and Dani Brück (Amsterdam). The men’s session was taught by Valdur Koha (Boston) and Micha Brück (Amsterdam). This was a very important topic since we need to be humble and be ourselves to have deep, meaningful and trust-filled relationships with disciples. Trust and good relationships are in turn a strong part of unity and feeling unified.
Brad and Ann King (Paris) shared the story of the Paris church. The numbers and facts they shared definitely left the audience in awe. In essence the church went from being strong to rubble to strong again: how it went from 600 members to 60 members and rebuilt from there. If this can be achieved, then many similar challenges can be overcome as well. Brad and Ann explained how disunity was overcome to build the eldership.
As is the tradition, the conference also had a panel discussion. This year’s panelists were James Thomas (London), Magdalena Höijer (Helsinki), Deanne DeVries (Amsterdam) and Carlos Santos (Madrid). The topic was “Building Unity Through the Teaching Ministry.”
The day ended with Valdur Koha (Boston), who gave a speech on the “Theology of Gracious Disagreement.” As some of the previous speeches also pointed out, there will always be some topics that members strongly disagree on, and therefore it is important to learn how to handle these disagreements. Valdur`s speech certainly gave some insight into that.
This conference would have not succeeded without the help of many people who put a great deal of effort and heart into it. Many thanks for the excellent work and service of the Tallinn organization team, the Tallinn campus ministry students, who handled the registration table, and the technical team who made all the video feed and translation possible. The worship team of disciples from Sofia, Riga and the UK also greatly inspired and encouraged everyone.
