Some places in God’s creation get under your skin: the Faroe Islands can haunt you, with the world-class beauty of fjords knifing up from the sea and a sense of the extreme solitude that the Faroese live under. “The first thing the stranger feels struck by when he approaches the harbor, Faroe’s capital, on the ship,” wrote award-winning novelist William Heinesen, “is the inconsequence of this city and the immense isolation by which it is surrounded on all sides.”
On our flight from Copenhagen for the recent TGC Norden regional event, I sat next to one of the Danish parliamentary representatives from the Faroes, Sjúrður Skaale. He told me his grandmother was committed to a Brethren church, which represents a large portion of the Christians we’d be meeting with.
As our plane began to land, it appeared we were going to try a water landing, since the tiny islands were still not in sight. Suddenly, the wind became turbulent, and the captain told us we’d have to abandon our descent. We circled in the skies for another 15 minutes, and in our second attempt were able to pierce the clouds and land. We’d arrived in the Faroes.
We’d done our research, so we were expecting the physical beauty. What we didn’t anticipate were the people of the Faroes, especially God’s people.
Christianity in Isolation
If you Google the Faroes, you’ll see pictures of waterfalls, mountain lakes, and fjords that have been shaved clean of all natural-growing trees. This gives them the feel of a mountain desert that God flicked into the vast ocean. It’s a harsh beauty unparalleled anywhere in Europe, and as part of our Danish kingdom, it’s surprisingly seldom heralded as a destination.
These remote islands are home to only about 55,000 people, largely supported by the fishing industry. As a part of the Nordic region, the Faroes share many of the Nordic character traits of contentment and minimalism, while lacking one significant feature—atheism.
The Faroes share many of the Nordic character traits of contentment and minimalism, while lacking one significant feature—atheism.
The testimony to the Lord’s glory in nature, an early presence of Celtic monks, and a history of Brethren missions to the islands have made them one of the most Christian nations in all of Europe. The Danish Lutheran church has always been a stronger presence in the Faroes than it was in other parts of the Danish kingdom fellowship. And in the 1860s, Plymouth Brethren evangelist William Sloan came to the Faroe Islands. He preached for 13 years before seeing his first convert, but he eventually saw a significant groundswell of faith.
Christianity Continued
From the moment we arrived, we sensed the love and faithfulness of Christ pouring through the words and works of the Christians there. The Faroes have some of the nicest church buildings in the Nordics. They were recently built and often sit with the best views on the islands. The Brethren Church, whose tradition lies in the neighborhood of the Baptists, doesn’t have professional clergy. This has kept the laypeople engaged in the ministry and given them a sense of shared ownership in the buildings.
When I preached at the fjord-side church of Saloa in Fuglafjørður, the service included long periods of quiet, followed by attendees calling out spontaneous requests from the hymnbook, along with other prayers and Scriptures.
The Brethren Church has been pietist and Anabaptist in its soteriological emphasis, but in recent years, through the internet and connections to preachers like Billy Graham and John MacArthur, there has been openness to an evangelical and even broadly Reformed theology. In an area with few evangelicals, we focus on what we have in common in Christ and in the Word.
Despite the small population, there’s a surprising amount of creativity on the islands. Many of the Faroese are highly skilled musicians in addition to working their regular jobs. In an age where we see reading and art being replaced by screens, the Faroese still spend much of their free time reading or doing handicrafts like knitting and painting. The Faroe people seemed a hidden treasure.
Never Hidden from God
When we’re isolated from the highways and big cities of the world, it’s easy to feel hidden even from the eye of God. But it’s often in our solitude that God forms us into the greatest tools for his glory. Like diamonds buried under the mountains, we’re hardened and refined there.
Exodus 3:1–2 says,
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.
The Lord had humbled and isolated Moses as a shepherd in the deserts of Midian. It was only after this time that the Lord revealed himself to Moses and used him to deliver the Israelites.
It’s often in our solitude that God forms us into the greatest tools for his glory.
This period of seclusion and obscurity was exactly what Moses needed to strengthen his character, to help him forget himself, and to look to God’s power that can shine through weakness.
The people of the Faroe Islands have only just begun to be a blessing to us at TGC Norden. We believe they can be a blessing to God’s people throughout the world because they show us we’re never isolated from our omnipresent God.
