Tallinn Charter church began in autumn of 1985. It all started with a young man’s conversion. I told him about the gospel; as a result, he decided to give his life to God. He told about this to his acquaintance, who also gave his life to God. Word began to multiply. The Spirit of God touched the people and made the apparent change in their lives. We started to meet in the living room of my home in Hiie Street 3. I taught the Word of God, and every time someone talked about what God had done in his life. Teenagers came increasingly and to the spring we had over a hundred people. There were no meetings passed without someone had not given his life to God, or being baptized in the Holy Spirit. It all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. We were set in the flow of the Holy Spirit and we just went along with it. It was a local revival and it influenced also our neighbors.
Revival is easy, if God does it. I did not have a specific clarity on what God wants to do with these people, other than that He told me that He has a plan. Hubert Jakobs and Rein Mets joined us, which brought a new dimension to our fellowship. Then things started to move in a particular direction. We started having guests from Finland, Sweden and the United States, who served us with the biblical teachings and with the gifts of the Spirit.
We announced a new congregation and called it Word of Life and named Hubert Jakobs the official pastor of it. God began to speak to us about His plans to release Estonia from the yoke of the Soviet Union and about our spiritual task in this regard. God gave us instructions to be filled. One requirement was to denounce the Soviet Union citizenship. We agreed and to this followed a legal document called Charter 87 (Harta 87), which was signed by the members of the church at that time. Part of this document was to emigrate until the situation has been resolved which resulted in the majority of the congregation travelling to Sweden and the United States. By that time we had over 360 members in our congregation. Part of the congregation remained in Estonia, and continued to operate under the guidance of new leaders. Several ministers have outgrown from the original congregation and they manage successful ministries and churches, both in and outside of Estonia.
I immigrated with my family to the United States in 1989, where we lived for 12 years. We came back to the homeland in 2001 and in the same year we continued the work of the original church. Again, the congregation gathered in my living room and now we named the church “Tallinn Charter Christian Church”. Several other members of the congregation have come back to their homeland and participate in God’s work. We have changed the meeting points as required, our Sunday services take place currently at Hiie street 3a every Sunday morning at 11 am. God is faithful and will complete which He has planned for us.