I’m in Denver right now for my denomination’s annual pastors’ conference.  I love our denomination, and this conference is a great reminder of it.  This year’s speaker is John Ortberg.  After I have coffee with a friend, James Kim, I’m going to go into the opening session with Ortberg this morning.  I look forward to hear what he has to say.  They also have a lot of really great break-out sessions that happen throughout the days, and free lunches and dessert times that happen as well.  But the best part of the week is connecting with other pastors.  After being  in the denomination for a while, I’ve been able to make some good friends.  These are friendships with people who are going through similar struggles.  They are trying to plant churches, preach the Bible, start new ministries, and engage in justice ministries.  It’s hard work and this is a great time to connect and share stories.

I also had my ordination interview yesterday.  I passed!  It was by and large a warm and supportive process that left me feeling affirmed more than questioned.  There wasn’t rigid doctrinal probing or hard-nose interpretation of my paper.  In fact the in the one area where I gave an answer that was doctrinally sub-par my interviewer simply suggested, “you might want to brush up on that.”  I’m not sure too many other denominations would be as gracious.

I’m in Denver enjoying my time with the Evangelical Covenant Church.  I’m meeting with friends, and I look forward to hearing Ortberg speak.  This weekend is another great reminder of why I’m glad we are a part of this denomination!

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This is a book about becoming water.  It is a call for churches and ministries to become adaptable, flexible, and fluid with their cultural surroundings.  Gibbons points to the increasing globalization occurring as the primary reason driving the need for churches to become this way.  Neighborhoods are becoming more diverse, and the amount of cultural information that is available to us because of new media has created a sort of global village.

The essence of Gibbons’ challenge to the church lays in his definition of neighbor.  For him, neighbor isn’t someone just like you who lives across the street, it is the person who is culturally or socio-economically different from you–the person who lives on the other side of the tracks.  If churches want to thrive in the emerging world, they must be all about meeting the needs of their ‘neighbor’.  

Dave’s church, Newsong in Irvine, CA, has done a lot to reach out to their neighbors, and this book is chalked full of motivating stories.  They’ve planted churches in community centers in Crenshaw, in pubs in London, and in nightclubs in Bangkok.  He shares what being liquid looks like with real stories of gospel fluidity in places where the church has often times failed to exist.  

This book was a of rah-rah-rah sort of motivating book.  I had this feeling of, I want to go out and conquer the world while I was reading it.  He paints a picture that puts the church at a crossroads.  We stand with incredible opportunity to embrace our changing world and have significant impact, or we can retreat from the changes all around us and fail to make a lasting mark.  He shows us what the path forward that embraces the changing world looks like, and it is very hopeful and exciting.

Here is an interview Dave Gibbons did for Christianity Today.  In it, you get a good sense of what this book is about.

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For this course I had to read a number of short position type books of about 100 pages each, subsections of a few other books like the hymnal and the book of worship, and a very long reader that included a collection of articles, essays and sermons from ECC history.  I’m counting these readings as one of my books read.

My thoughts on the class

I really enjoyed it.  In fact, I loved it.  I was reminded why I enjoy being a part of the ECC so much.  What I loved:

1. Our Professors: They love Jesus.  It came across loud and clear throughout their teachings.  One professor started weeping when he taught about the different theories of atonement.  He did the same when he talked about the freedom we all have in Christ.  Also, all of the professors did an excellent job presenting the material in a relevant and engaging way.  
2. My Classmates:  The pastors and lay leaders who comprised the students in the class were thoughtful and seasoned minsters.  They shared relevant and interesting stories appropriate to the doctrinal issues we discussed.  On a number of topics regarding sensitive issues, some of the classmates shared vulnerably in front of the entire class of 50+ students.
3. ECC Theology: I find myself theologically at home in the ECC.  The ECC defines itself through a series of affirmations and resolutions.  There is not strict doctrinal stances mandated for any topic.  There are core affirmations around which we congregate.  I find myself agreeing very much with the heart of the ECC affirmations, and I so appreciate the gracious spirit of engagement with those who see things differently.  

It was a good class, but I’m glad it’s over.  I missed my family very much.  I was also getting tired of spending 7-8 hours in class every day, and eating every meal in a restaurant.  I’m glad for the experience, but more glad to finally be home.

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The denomination I’m a part of was originally called Mission Friends.  The idea was that they were united by their friendship on a common mission from God.  What a wonderful name, Mission Friends.  At the heart of the friendship nomenclature is the foundational verse in John 15:12-15.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made know to you.

Christians are really just friends on a mission together.  We are invited into a friendship relationship with God, and then we can go out to the world and declare, “God wants to be your friend!”  He wants to have a friendship with you.  

I’ve been reading some material in preparation for a denominational class, and I’ve come across some great friendship quotes that I’ll share with you here.  All quotes are from Lambert’s Befriending in God’s Name, and seek to explicate a shift in language and mission that emphasize the relational metaphor of Friend.

• “The friends who join together in common vision…can be not only numerous, but also different…friendship bonds are not exclusive to ‘equals’ any more than to ‘like minds.’  Neither equality nor gender-identity pertain nor do the elitist result”
• “Relationship is the substance of the gospel, not merely the context for its communication…The primary purpose for Christian mission is to introduce others to the Friend and help them experience God’s friendship calling them into loyalty…”
• “Conversion ceases to be an accurate label for the still essential process of having one’s life ‘turned around.’ Instead it might be better to think of ‘finding and being found’.”
• “Instead of responding to a commandment to ‘go and do unto,’ the missionary responds to, and offers, an invitation to come along and be with.”

Throughout the article, Lambert doesn’t attempt to turn theologies on their head.  She is simply “calling attention to the mode of his (Jesus) presence and ministry among people.”  Jesus had friends, and he ministered as a friend.  He was not domineering or coercive.  He didn’t bait and switch.  He didn’t manipulate or guilt.   He was a friend to sinners–a model I strive to follow.

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I have completed some of the required reading for the course, and I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed it. They have us reading articles and sermons from pastors and scholars who served in the ECC over the last 150 years. What I’ve found surprising is how relevant the content is. I’m shocked to find 120-year-old sermons in which these pastors masterfully articulate issues that I assumed where new to our cultural milieu.

This highlighted the issue of what I’ll call era-ism. It’s a sort of prejudice against older eras that have gone before us–a form of bigotry that discriminates against those not found in our own generation or era. We (or at least I) at times have assumed that our technological advancements and wealth of historical resources guarantees we are constantly progressing in the ideological conversation. This means the books written this year on Jesus must be of greater erudition and therefore greater value to me than books written 100 years ago on Jesus. Or, so the reasoning would go.

But it’s been refreshing to see that this is not the case. These devoted Christians writing many years ago have provided wonderfully relevant insights into my present day spiritual walk. I’m glad to have been challenged by something old.

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