Written Oct 20th: BREAKTHROUGHS!!

(I'm posting some missives John has sent out the past couple of months, titling them according to when they were written.)

BREAKTHROUGHS!! When Does God Really Show Up????

Greetings to all of you on the front lines of kingdom work -- whether in South Africa or here in Chicago or wherever,

Sometimes I am wondering if I am reading your mind or not. I have just come off my Monday morning walk. While in Chicago I live near the NPU campus and one of our Covenant's mother-churches, North Park Covenant. It is one of the few churches left that has no parking lot--many of its current members are living within walking distance, its immediate community is its parish, its mission field. And that represents its huge challenge!! It feels to me so limiting!!

I am walking by all the three-flats and bungalows and wonder to myself, how does one connect with these folks living behind these walls? They are all within walking distance! What are the stories hidden behind these locked doors? How many are there whom Jesus would love to touch with his transformational care? Do they really know why that church is there within a few blocks? How does the invitation to "come and see" reach them? An advertisement tugged under the windshield wipers of their cars (silly thought!!). Perhaps a regular mailer with a thoughtful invitation? A neighborly conversation? Yes, the availability of a food bank perhaps? An after school program for children on the short school days? Etc.

What if I was pastor here, what would happen to me? Would I be at risk of defining my ministry as that of the care-giver of the faithful, of resigning myself to taking care of the flock that God has entrusted to me and who show up each Sunday. In my own helplessness of what to do that would really be transformational in these blocks and blocks of city dwellers, all of whom are marching to their own drummers, would I be at risk of being apathetic??

I recall in my first ministry taking a car load of leaders to a training event. The men started to talk about "apathy in the church", of folks not stepping up to the plate and being involved! I shall never forget what one of them said to me. "Pastor", he said, "I have sat through a lot of sermons in my lifetime. You pastors are good at inspiration and throwing out the challenges. But if you never show us "how" to do it, you only frustrate us. And when we get frustrated enough, it is easy to take one more step back and say, 'let someone else worry about it'. And then you have apathy'."

What if I as a thoughtful pastor living into the 21st century honesty do not know the "how to", am I at risk of stepping back and saying to myself, 'let someone else worry about it' ????

*****

I thought about that! and more!! What about the BREAKTHROUGHS? WHEN DOES GOD REALLY SHOW UP? -- Whether this be in South Africa, the Congo, or here in the US?

And I remembered what I had just sent to David Dwight, who has been entrusted with our benevolent ministries, including Swedish Covenant Hospital and Emmanuel Hospital. It was a mediation by Wm Barclay -- He entitled the devotional, "The Light of the Cross".

"The light which shines from the Cross has always brought wonders in the dark. It shone in the dark for the sick and the suffering and the weak. Dr. A. Rendle Short wrote in The Bible and Modern Medicine: "We know from Jerome's writings that the first hospital of which we have any record...was founded by a Christian lady, Fabiola." He goes on to tell how the plague smote Carthage in AD 252. The heathen flung out their dead and fled. But Cyprian, the Christian bishop, assembled the Christian congregation to care for the sick and to bury the dead, and so saved the city from desolation. The love, the care, the tenderness that the sick and the ailing and the weakly and the deformed received was quite absent from heathen civilization; it shines from the Cross." - Wm. Barclay

Whether in the Congo, or in South Africa, or here the BREAKTHROUGHS seem to come-- and God shows up in a transformational way-- when everyone else in the society is running, but it is the Christian community that guts it out - hangs in there through the thick and thin to truly love and care in the midst of shared suffering.

HELPLESS, yes!! HOPELESS, no!! APATHETIC, never!!

Prayerfully, John N

Written Oct 12th: God's Amazing Rescue Operation

(I'm posting some missives John has sent out the past couple of months, titling them according to when they were written.)

Greetings to all of you who are there on the front lines as our Lord's "Ambassadors" --

I am watching the sun rise in Santa Barbara on this clear Sunday morning. I could not sleep any longer, mulling over in my mind the meaningfulness of those words in Ephesians 2:8-10 about "being saved by grace, not of works......".

I guess I was revisiting that empowering declaration of Paul's in the light of an essay that fell into my hands this week. It was written by a friend and colleague of mine - some of you may know him. Dr. Lloyd Ahlem taught at the Social Science Department (Psychology), Stanislaus State University in Turlock, California. He also served as the President of NPU for a season. He is a layman, but could have pastored any one of our churches.

He entitled his reflection, A CHRISTIAN MANIFESTO FOR PEOPLE ....WHO DO NOT LIKE BIG WORDS. Find your self in quiet corner sometime today with your Bible open to Ephesians 2:8-10 and then read the attachment - retelling to yourself God's amazing rescue operation in the words of Lloyd. It's all about grace!!!

Prayerfully, John N

Written Sept 6th: Being a Spirit-filled Leader

(I'm posting some missives John has sent out the past couple of months, titling them according to when they were written.)

Greetings to all of you on the front lines of kingdom work -

I woke up 3:30 in the morning, not able to sleep - praying for Gary Walter, our newly elected ECC President (and the events of Sunday/Monday) and pondering what it meant when the early church picked leaders "full of the Holy Spirit". And I thought of word-pictures that had come to my attention along the way.

Jesus (John 7:37-39) --

If any one is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this Jesus meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive...

Oswald Chambers --

If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours thru us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all [too spontaneous!?]

Paul, writing to Philemon (Phil. 4-7) --

I always thank God when I think of you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, my brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.

BOTTOM LINE -- Have you notice when a Spirit-filled person leaves our presence, our own spirits have been lifted -- the visit has left "a good (sweet) taste in our mouths". What was it that Paul said will impact strangers who have witnessed true, Spirit-filled worship -- "they will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, "God is really among you". (I Corinthians 14:25)

When the early church looked for leaders (Acts 6) they picked those who were "full of faith", "full of the Spirit", and "full of wisdom". By the grace of God that is who we are--and are becoming as we are faithful, available, teachable!!!

Keep blessing others! Prayerfully, John N

The Spiritual Roots of the ECC - as "Mission Friends"

“Living as MISSION FRIENDS embodies:
(1) a commitment to the biblical narrative,
(2) the new life in Christ,
(3) missionary fervor, and
(4) covenantal relationships;
these have been the key values of the Covenant from its earliest days to the present.

This way of life also calls for a continuing missional imagination from which new denominational practices and structures might emerge.”

(from The Covenant Quarterly, May 2008, “The Evangelical Covenant Church as Mission Friends: Missional Imaginations for a Denominational Future” by Kurt Fredrickson – pg 18)

*****

I am intrigued by Kurt’s use of the words, “missional imagination”. I have come to perceive the United States, and certainly the western states, as a vast mission field.

Young parents who are now raising their children have themselves no memory of being in church or knowing/valuing Christian spiritual roots. Pastors and lay people need to think of themselves as missionaries and learn to use the creative imaginations that are the working tools of anyone who works cross culturally to reach others with the good news of salvation.

Can we learn from congregations led by pastors with missional imagination? Their stories need to be told.

- John C. Notehelfer

God's thinking about our Preoccupation with the "Priorities"

Greeting around the world --

There is a book that is making the rounds in our circles that is reaching a "tipping point" - people are saying, "have you read THE SHACK by William Young (Windblown Media). Eugene Peterson writes, "This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!"

It is a book of fiction but introduces us to "experiencing the Trinity" in ways that both surprises and empowers us as we find ourselves embracing our triune God and taste first hand the beautiful intimacy between the three persons -- and their healing ministry in a human being trapped in our tragically broken world. As my son said to me, "Dad, you must read this book, it is transformational!!!!!"

I will not give it away. But on my flight back from Chicago I finished the book and marked out for myself one of the many, many biblical insights that is transformational --

"Mack (the main character in the story who has gone through terrible human tragedy) is in the process of being healed from all his pain/anger and finds himself asking the Godhead about the new life, "But don't you want us to set priorities. You know: God first, then whatever, followed by whatever?"

"The trouble of living by priorities," Sarayu (the third member of the Trinity -H.S) spoke, is that it sees everything as a hierarchy, a pyramid, and you and I have already had that discussion. If you put God at the top, what does that really mean and how much is enough? How much time do you give me before you can go on about the rest of the day, the part that interests you so much more?"

Papa again interrupted. "You see, Mackenzie, I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day."

Jesus now spoke again. "Mack, I don't want to be the first among a list of values; I want to be the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life--your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities--is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being."

"And I", concludes Sarayu, "I am the wind". She smiled hugely and bowed.

There was silence while Mack collected himself. He had been gripping the edge of the table with both hands as if to hold on to something tangible in the face of such an onslaught of ideas and images........"

*****

Think about it -- Our Lord (the head of the body) wants you/me privately/collectively to think of his indwelling presence/ministry as "the center of a mobile where everything in our lives is connected to him.....and moves with the wind!!!! May it be so.......
Prayerfully,

John N