Ulf Ekman

Ulf Ekman (born 8 December 1950) is a former charismatic pastor and the founder of the Livets Ord (Word of Life) organization in Sweden, which brought the Word of Faith movement to that country. Ekman is now a Catholic. Ekman is married to Birgitta Ekman and has four sons: Aron, Jonathan Ekman, Samuel, and Benjamin.

Ministry

In his youth, Ekman was a left-leaning atheist and sympathiser of Swedish Communist party KFML(r) before becoming a Christian before graduating from high school in 1970. He studied ethnography, history and theology at Uppsala University and in January 1979 was ordained in the Church of Sweden, returning to Uppsala University to work as the chaplain for several years. He studied for a year at Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States and upon his return to Uppsala in 1983 founded the Charismatic Evangelist church Livets Ord. He remained pastor of the church until passing on the pastorship to Robert Ekh in 2002 to focus on international work, though he later took up the position again. He also founded Livets Ord University and Word of Life Bible School.

Through his church he has sent missionaries to Bangladesh, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Albania, Israel and India. Word of Life is also the host for the annual Christian event "Europe Conference." In the former USSR he started to preach in Pentecostal churches and in stadiums. In Riga, Latvia he worked closely with Aleksey Ledyayev and the "New Generation Church" where he is a pastor. In almost every big city of the former USSR a Word of Life Church and a New Generation Church was established. The number of people reached with the Gospel can be estimated to be between 250,000 and 500,000 people. Cooperation with New Generation Church ended in March 2004 in doctrinal disagreement.