TCMI Worship Class

Here are the pictures I promised yesterday

1.Our guide Neeme showing us the big Russian bells in the bell tower of the church. This one happened to be the BIG one. Neeme was a former student of mine. It was really good to see him again. As I mentioned yesterday, the church here lets people come in and look around. To look at the church it's free, but they do charge a small fee to go up the bell tower. Not everyone that goes up gets to see the bells. This was kind of a private tour just for the students in the class.

2. A view from the bell tower platform 60 meters up. This is a picture of the Russian Orthodox church.

3. The Baltic Sea

4. As you can see the tower still goes higher, 63 meters more!

5. These are some of the towers along the old city wall.

There is one thing I noticed here in Estonia about their church and more specifically their worship services. They don't seem to as diverse in their styles of worship as other countries I have taught in. That could be because of the ratio of Christian to non-christian in the country. 80% of the country is Protestant. In most other Eastern European countries it's more the other way around. Yes, some churches just use hymns in a very traditional style service and others use a more contemporary style, but there is not much difference between them. And there is not much variety in those styles.

I did notice that when I attended the Russian Baptise church on Sunday that all the married women had their heads covered. That was what reminded me of the diversity or lack there-of here in Estonia. Your teaching tends to take on a little slant when you see things like this.

The students are great. I have young adults to ....well let's just say adults older young adults. :)

They do seem to be a little reserved. But someone told me that, that is the culture here. But we are learning from each other about worship and what God really wants from us in our worship to Him.

Today we are half was through the class. We started contemporary issues at the end of the day yesterday, so today and tomorrow should really be fun! Just throwing new ideas at them and seeing how they use them within the context of their culture or if they even can use them. Or even how to use them or change them to fit what they want to do.

Better close now, my ride (Heldur) will be here soon to take me to the church.

John