Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary (BMTS), our mission partner, is the largest United Methodist seminary in Europe, and serves students from eight countries who study in three languages: Estonian, Russian and English. Their newsletter is titled Prayerchain, it begins with a message from Külli Tõniste, Rector. Here’s an excerpt:
Focus
Dear friends,
The new academic year at Baltic Methodist Theological Seminary has started with hard work. This devotional, that our faculty Hindrek Taavet Taimla shared during a prayer time, captures our feelings and helps to focus on what is most important.
“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” -John 4:23,24
As we come to face some very technical and heavily academic (and administrative) work, we should not see it apart from a life of worship. We don´t divide our theological studies or research as secular and our church life as spiritual. At the Seminary, we learn how to love God with our whole mind. There also does not have to be a divide between the heart and the mind. In fact, the BMTS motto in Latin is Mente et Corde (‘with mind and heart’). Therefore, let us make our work desk an altar and every paper – be it as void of life as the accreditation report that our staff has to prepare the for ministry of education – let us make it an act of worship, because just as at the altar, God is seeking to meet us there!