Text: Rune Borgsö
Photos: Jonatan Strömgren

We sit in Pastor Ulf’s bright study and enjoys coffee served by Birgitta. Pastor Ulf himself sits in the brown leather chair which he brought from Israel. Two of the walls in the room are covered with well-filled bookshelves with titles that attest to the path Pastor Ulf and Birgitta have journeyed on the last few years. Here are books that reveal the keys to faith and victory, but also many about church history and theology. Books with themes that perhaps would not have been the focus of the “faith movement” a few years ago.

In the late 90’s Ulf experienced a calling to place Word of Life in the centre of Christendom, and since the millennium shift, Christian unity has become increasingly important to him. This has been a new and exciting journey for the Ekman pair, indeed for the whole of Word of Life Church.
“The Word concerning unity has in some way reached full bloom,” says Ulf, comfortably reclined in his chair.
“I am slightly surprised how things have fallen into place. The autumn of 2007, after a conference that celebrated the 100th anniversary of Pentecostals in Norway, I feel that the task of placing Word of Life in the centre of Christendom has started to become a reality.”
“In fact, things actually started rolling when we had a discussion evening with Bishop Aborelius,” he says, referring to a Wednesday evening meeting last autumn when he and the Catholic Bishop of Sweden, Anders Aborelius, had a discussion at Word of Life. A discussion which sparked substantial positive response.
“Since we dared to stretch that far, the rest shouldn’t be too daunting,” he says with a smile.
“And then things have rolled along, with openings within the Pentecostal movement, the Oasis movement, and into the High Church as well as to other free churches.”

“We have a great deal to learn from one another, but I believe we have a lot to give as well,” explains Pastor Ulf.
“I have participated in aKF’s seminars for several years and I appreciate them a great deal. So it was wonderful to be invited as a speaker this year. After my presentation, a brother approached me and said, ´This gives me hope.` I really believe we can encourage and inspire others with the spirit of faith the Lord has given us.”

For Pastor Ulf, meeting Christians from other denominations has been like meeting himself and his own attitudes. He explains that, in the early years, Word of Life was so intensely focused on what God was saying to just this church and this overemphasis caused a sort of tunnel vision.
“We were young and inexperienced and we made our mistakes. But in admitting that, we in no way reject what God did back then nor the teaching on faith - on the contrary, we are incredibly grateful for all that we have been a part of- but we need to have a humble attitude concerning it all.”
“One sees his own place in the larger picture. In order to see it, one needs to be prepared to change and alter one’s attitude towards other Christians.”

Pastor Ulf takes a slurp of coffee, gets up and looks at the landscape outside his window. The sun dances on his greying beard.
“When we judge other Christians, we must be careful not to do so with prejudices and simplified notions,” he points out.
“The farther we are from one another, the more simplified the perception we might have of the other.”
An example of this, which is typical of Protestants, is in relationship to Catholics.
“We want to relate to all the historical denominations, and therefore we cannot simply hop over Catholics. They form an enormous church with tremendous variation. I don’t agree with the blanket statement that these people are not saved. That is just a sign of embarrassing ignorance.”
Even though there are a number of points over which Protestants find it difficult to unite with Catholics, Pastor Ulf emphasizes that there is much more that we do agree upon and which represents our common Christian heritage.
“We would not have had the Trinitarian and Christological formulations, our biblical Canon, the Apostle’s Creed and the whole foundation for the Christian faith, if not for the Catholic Church. It is theological ignorance and prejudice to fail to acknowledge this,” he says.
A typical prejudice Protestants have, which Pastor Ulf feels it is high time to abandon, is the notion that the Catholic Church is obviously the harlot in the Book of Revelation.

“A few years ago, the Lord told me that all the false doctrines that have existed throughout history would reappear in the end times,” he shares.
“A number of behaviours from the past are now resurfacing. Antinomism (lawlessness) and ebionism (denying Christ’s divinity) appeared at regular historical intervals, initially prior to the first century, and then in the fourth, sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In every period of revival these deviant behaviours appear. I believe it is very important to be able to identify them.”
He reminds us that unity in the body of Christ is an effective defence against these heresies. A healthy body heals itself. A divided body cannot, since the limbs of the body are unable to help one another. A lack of unity results in imbalance and unhealthy thinking, which ultimately leads to deception.
“A single truth is drawn to the extreme at the expense of all other truths,” he explains.
When Pastor Ulf preaches he often refers to places in the Bible with the “verses we never speak about.” The ones that refer to the other side of the issue, for example suffering.
“They are there, of course,” he says with a smile.
“And to continue to pretend that these verses do not exist….,” Ulf does not finish the sentence.
“It may be acceptable to highlight one side of an issue on occasion, but as a pastor and responsible preacher one cannot do that all the time. One must take into account all of God’s counsel and find balance in the message. It is in this balance that all that is unhealthy and misleading is unveiled and can, therefore, be dealt with.”
“Deception and heresy are dangerous. They damage your soul, ruin your life, and make you proud, overly-spiritual and narrow-minded. They steal the soundness in which we find needed peace,” he explains.
“If the preacher serves poison that results in worldliness, we must sound the alarm.”

“Modernists believe in some sort of objective truth, but they don’t believe that God is truth. In the post-modern society, on the other hand, this is broken down; post-modernists don’t automatically believe in an objective truth. Individuals today often have their own truth.”
“Scientific positivism easily leads to pride, while post-modernism often results in despair. We see all this in today’s society- people who are unable to discern wrong from right,” says Pastor Ulf.
“On the other hand, this makes it easier for people to receive Jesus. They long for an experience with God and we tell them that they can find it in Jesus.”
The danger that Pastor Ulf sees in this is if young people identify with the post-modern society and fail to stand up for what is right and wrong. Repentance disappears; if only one believes that Jesus is Lord, one can practice his faith any way he wants and have diverse opinions about everything.”
“People want emotional experiences and “parties”. I’m ok and you’re ok,” says Pastor Ulf.

Because of this, Pastor Ulf emphasises that his interest for unity is, in fact, an interest for the body of Christ, which he longs to see restored and set free, healthy and strong and in condition to resist the pressure of the world. The post-modern, secular society exerts great pressure and causes Christians, in some instances, to become relativists- a development which Pastor Ulf fears has gone farther than we are aware and which is a real danger for the charismatic branch of Christendom. These churches often identify too little with the body of Christ as a whole and instead are experience-oriented.
“This is the great fight today and for this reason it is important that we have a healthy understanding of the body of Christ so that these unhealthy things will cease. Then we can be healed through the efforts of the other limbs in the body of Christ,” he points out.
“Jesus is part of the church and I find him in His body. Of course there is an individual walk with Him and I have a personal relationship with Him. But this must not be at the expense of the rest of the body. We must move away from the super individualistic. We easily become like five-year-olds: “I can do it myself!” God has given us koinonia, a fellowship, where we are to live out our Christian life. Not only through meetings. He has given us one another in the body of Christ.

Pastor Ulf is not afraid that this message is too heavy and old-fashioned for the younger set. He has noticed that they appreciate radical messages that are grounded in classic Christian faith.

“Young people are deeper than we think and it is easy to misjudge them. They are not satisfied with slogans and they are not superficial. Young people want a contra-culture, they are “counter-cultural” and so is Christianity. They don’t want to simply be like the rest of society, they want to go against the flow and they long for what is true and genuine. That fits well in the church.”
But young people always need older people; they need role models. They often lack role models in the church or in the family because of absent parents and compromising pastors. Pastor Ulf believes it is important to structure the church in such a manner so as to allow for the mentorship of young people.
“If we are going to help the next generation we need to be wise. Wisdom has become as important to me as power. I like power, the Holy Spirit’s power and anointing. But if we are going to help the next generation, we also need to be wise.”
“For this reason, I believe mentorship and transfer will become more important than ever. Going through life together. Then the revelation and the help will be passed along,” he says.

“Revival does not only come from above, but through the Spirit’s awakening of the body of Christ,” explains Pastor Ulf.
“And we want revival. I am talking about the same goal as always. The life we have in the body of Christ is to be established in the world. Jesus Himself says it is important that we are one so that the world can believe.”
“Much of the focus on a deeper spiritual unity is really about understanding what the body of Christ actually is,” continues Pastor Ulf.
“When the body is united, it is ready to fight and ready to act and it can break through with God’s power and affect society. Then there will be true revival. And that is what we are striving for. We have always done so and as such we have the same goal as we have always had- to see Sweden and all our surrounding moved by Jesus.”
“To do this we need to equip God’s people with the word of faith, show them the spiritual weapons they have, teach them to use them and send them out in victorious battle,” says Pastor Ulf with conviction.