In Transition

I write this as I am airborne somewhere between Seattle and Garden Grove, California. I am also in between a rather delightful and positive annual meeting of our congregation this past Sunday, complete with approval of one new budget, four new members, and many signs of life and growth within our church family and our ministries, and the annual meetings of our Covenant’s Ministerium and Denomination. As I reported at our annual meeting, there are some questions hanging over both of those meetings, and as I am still getting to know the denomination we have become in the past few decades, I am keeping my eyes and ears open. By the time that you read this, many of those meetings will have already transpired. I am hopeful things will have gone well.

The Life Rhythms of a Church

We use the word “church” many in ways implying many meanings. In “I am going to church,” church would usually refer to a building. In “I will meet you after church,” church would usually refer to worship. While “First Covenant is my church,” would mostly be understood as referring to the people. The words “church” and “synagogue” both have their roots in the word “to gather.” The word “church” at its core refers to the action of a community, and community’s actions have rhythms. This weekend we will see our church’s rhythms on obvious display.

Covenant Considerations in a New Year

This article first appeared in the January 13th issue of this newsletter. We are reprising it here now as Pastor Todd will give an update at our church's semi-annual meeting on Sunday, June 25, which is prior to our denomination's annual meeting.

From the January 13th e-newsletter:

As we begin a new calendar year, I would like to look back on the past year, specifically in terms of our denomination, our Covenant Church. In two weeks, I will be in Jacksonville, Florida for our Ministerial Midwinter Conference. One of the topics of discussion among my ministerial colleagues will be the decision announced by the Covenant’s Executive Board in October to involuntarily remove two churches from our denomination. Those churches are Awaken Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and Quest Church in our hometown, Seattle. This will come before our Annual Meeting in Garden Grove, California in late June.

Stewardship: Of First Covenant Church’s Heritage

By Bryce Nelson and Bonnie Nelson

“Stewardship: Of First Covenant Church’s Heritage” means identifying those few attributes from the past that positively define our present identity. What are those attributes, how did they come to be, and how might we be good stewards of (and use) this heritage?

Stewardship: Of Money

I am not sure if Jesus was having a bad day or was just being incredibly candid. For whatever reason, at the end of Luke chapter 14 (vv25-35), Jesus offers a fairly stark portrait of what it means to be his disciple. ‘You must make great sacrifices to follow me,’ Jesus asserts. You should hold all your familial ties loosely. Following Jesus may mean saying goodbye to your family. It will require much of you, so much that if you don’t give up all your possessions you cannot follow Jesus.

Stewardship: Of Faith

The apostle Paul wrote, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). When introducing the concept of salvation by grace through faith to our confirmands, we revised this statement to say, “You are saved by Faith through faith”; which at first blush seems to be a bit nonsensical. The distinction between “Faith” and “faith” is vitally important, however. 

“Faith” is the Christian Faith, the teachings and beliefs of Christian Church, as interpreted by the many churches within the Church universal. This is distinct from “faith,” an individual’s subjective assent to belief in the Christian Faith. Believing isn’t enough; whatone believes is crucial. Paul was a faithful Jew, but he had come to realize that his belief was based on earning God’s favor by obedience. His encounter with Christ and subsequent conversion and baptism redirected his faith to a new Faith in God’s grace through Christ.

Stewardship: Of Church

There is a most interesting story in Luke’s gospel (7:1-10). Here we find Jesus in the town of Capernaum. There, a Roman centurion had a highly regarded slave who was near death. When the centurion heard Jesus was in town, he sent some of the leaders of the synagogue to ask Jesus to come and heal the slave. When they spoke to Jesus, they lobbied Jesus saying that this centurion loved their faith community so much that he built them their synagogue. If you don’t know how the story ends, I encourage you to read this most surprising text. 

Stewardship: Of Tradition

We do not inherit “tradition” like one inherits a piece of jewelry. Traditions are not static. Traditions are more like a piece of property, they require upkeep and changes—some necessary maintenance, some personal preference. When the time comes for you pass it along, it will be the same piece of property, but it will not be the same. The traditions we inherit are the traditions the previous generation received, as they reinterpreted them, and transmitted them to us.

Rethinking Eastertide

“Tide” as a suffix is an old English word that means “time.” Eastertide, Christmastide refer to the time or season that follows a feast, in this case Christmas and Easter. Tide is more commonly understood as a stand-alone word whose more familiar definition is the ebbing and flowing of things, in particular water, like an ocean's tide. The “turning of a tide” can refer to a shift from winning to losing, illness to wellness. It seems both of these definitions of tide, a season of time and the ebbs and flows of life, apply to the season we find ourselves in now, Eastertide.

From Petering Out to Confident Hope

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By God’s great mercy God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

So begins the first epistle that bears Peter’s name. It is a rousing and assertive statement of faith and confidence. As I mentioned in this past Sunday’s sermon, many believe this introductory passage is part of what was once a sermon preached to the newly baptized. This introduction sets the tone for people to be confident in their faith even in difficult times, as difficult times both test and strengthen one’s faith.

White Weeks and Lights in the World

The week after Easter, or Easter Week, has traditionally been called White Week. In the early centuries, Christians in the Western churches would be baptized primarily on Easter in the service that lasted from sunset Saturday until sunrise Easter Sunday. This vigil was the central worship service of the year telling the entire biblical story of God’s salvation, beginning with creation and moving through the scriptures to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, God’s Christ, to the promise of God’s victory in Christ for us. Those baptized would be baptized into that story, grafting their personal story into the ongoing story of God’s salvation. They would also be baptized in the nude, men by deacons, women and children by deaconesses. Afterwards, they would be given a white robe (for their sins have been washed white as snow), salt placed on their tongue and given a lit candle (for they are now light of the world and salt of the earth). The newly baptized would wear their baptismal gown for that entire week (maybe not so white by the end of the week!) as a witness to their baptism and new life in Christ. Clergy would wear white robes throughout the year as a reminder to all Christians of their baptismal identify in Christ: new creatures in Christ, birthed by water and Spirit.

Considering "Easter," "Sunday," and what is the Lord's

The history of Christian calendar, though a great deal of fun to study and research, can be a bit confusing, if not frustrating. There is a great deal that we do not know because we have very few early records. Further, the early records we have reflect local practices which varied widely across Christian churches in the first two centuries. The calendar we (Protestants and Catholics) have now reflects a collection of practices across western churches over the ages. Yet even now there are some variations between Catholics and Protestants, and between Protestant denominations and groups.

The Unexpected

Life is unpredictable. Sometimes in delightful ways, sometimes not; sometimes in inconsequential ways, other times with profound consequences. This year’s women’s and men’s college basketball playoffs were surprising and unexpected in many ways. But that is not the same as the unexpected abundance of precipitation that has deluged drought ridden California, the consequences of which are still to be determined.

This is a week of unexpected events. Confusion over the division of labor in leading our recent Palm Sunday service was only compounded by an unreliable organ—certainly that was not the plan. Of course, the expectations of Jesus’ followers of his visit to Jerusalem for the Passover were far different than what unfolded.

A Holy Week, a conclusion to a Holy Lent

Five weeks ago, I began a series of reflections on our worship services and elements of them. I started by considering how each season of the church year invites us to reflect on our life with God, ourselves, and our world as a spiritual discipline. The next week I reflected on how the worship service is led by your pastors on your behalf, enabling you to be the primary worshippers. The week after that, I explored the Lord’s Prayer and how it serves as a resource for our worship each Sunday and a source for defining the “why” and “how” of worship and prayer. Two weeks ago I reflected on the place of non-verbals in our worship. How signs, sounds, and actions—alone and with words—comprise an essential part of our worship of the God of creation and creativity. And last week I suggested that our participation in the narrative of a season, participation through its re-membering, becomes a reminder of the astounding promise of God in Christ: that we, redeemed by Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, participate in the very life of God, as former North Park Seminary professor, Klyne Snodgrass, would say. 

Worship Words

The Christian traditions, like the Jewish traditions before them, are rooted in the understanding that you tell God’s story by becoming God’s story. The story of God’s activity in human history is not just a recounting of past events, but an ongoing event of which we are a part. The Christian churches since the earliest centuries have used the voices of biblical characters as part of their prayers, connecting our voices to their voices, our story with their story, as a way of identifying our common human nature and common relationship with God.

The Spiritual Discipline of Communicating

St. Augustine was puzzled. How can I get a thought in my mind into the mind of another person? He concluded the only way to do so was through signs, words, and gestures. This may seem obvious, but its implications are tremendous. Especially because people groups differ on what signs, words, and gestures they use and how they interpret them. In some ways, a culture is defined by agreed upon signs, words, and gestures and their agreed upon meanings. A subculture is defined by a people group with agreed upon signs, words, and gestures but hold distinct meanings. For example, in our “American culture” we have a sign known as the Confederate Flag. This is a contested symbol, defining subcultures within our country according to its various meanings.

Teach us to pray…

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples ask their teacher, with a bit of jealousy, “John the Baptist gave his disciples a prayer, why can’t we have our own prayer?” (Luke 11:1-4) Obviously disciples of various teachers were comparing notes, and Jesus’ disciples felt under-resourced.

Regardless of their intent or attitude, Jesus consented with what we now call the “Lord’s Prayer,” or the “Our Father.” Or at least a form of it. Matthew records Jesus giving a different form of this prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. Some manuscripts of Matthew include a conclusion, “For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever. Amen.” It is conjectured that a scribe in the early centuries of the Christian church added this because this is what was said in their church at the end of that prayer. We know this was used in churches very early, as a document written about the same time as the New Testament directs people to “Pray the ‘Our Father’ three times a day.” This appears to replace the three times of prayer required in Judaism at the time, morning, noon, and night.

The Art of Worship

As I continue to offer reflections on the practices of our faith for our considerations this Lenten season, I am reminded of the musings of Danish Lutheran philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was living in the in the early decades of the Enlightenment, where anything “supernatural” was to be rejected because it was not rational. At the same time, he experienced the worship of his Lutheran church, to which he felt called to ministry, as being pristine in its content and execution. It was filled with the music of Bach and performed by the finest vocalists and instrumentalists. But he found it lifeless. Not because it was performed unenthusiastically, but primarily because it was performed by the wrong people. Kierkegaard claimed that the people went to worship to passively receive. The scriptures are clear, we are to come to worship prepared to offer our gifts in concert with others as a corporate act of worship to God (1 Corinthians 14:26).

A Lenten Journey

I mentioned last week how seasons of faith are connected to the story of salvation in the scriptures, primarily the story of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, the ascension of the Son, and the descent of the Holy Spirit. I also suggested that an image for Lent is a journey with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, as he taught his followers more clearly what it means to follow as a disciple.

Time and Season

What time is it? If you are asking for the time of day, it depends on your time zone. If you are asking what day or season it is, it depends on what calendar you are referencing. If you are using the “typical” calendar, you will be reading this on Friday, February 17. But if you were using the sports calendar this would be the Friday after the Super Bowl and the end of the first week of spring training for pitchers and catchers. If you are using the church calendar, this would be the last Friday in Epiphany, two days before Transfiguration Sunday, and four days before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. All of these answers are correct, each in their own frame of reference.