Over the last several months, we have been publishing in Sightings some sections from Glad Hearts: the Joys of Believing and Challenges of Belonging (Covenant Publications, 2003), an anthology of Voices from the Literature of the Covenant Church with over 700 readings from the mid-19th century to the present. We are doing so for the sake of increasing numbers among us who are largely unaware of their inheritance as Covenanters in both life and thought.The complete Glad Hearts volume is available for purchase under the Resources Link on the Home Page of the rootedwings.com website. Comments or questions regarding any of the readings here are always welcome.Biblical Moorings▪ The inspiration that moved the Mission Friends was...not new in history. To be sure, they appeared on the stage of life as a slowly gathering people in America from 1868-1885, when they became a denomination. Their inspiration was old, shared by people in all generations and churches. They have been, and are, a people found outside of and within ecclesiastical organizations, a people who are deeply concerned about their personal relationship to God, a people who seek to honor God in their thoughts and their activity. They are a part of that Beloved Community which has always been world-wide, whatever other names identify them in the annals of faith.
Denominational pride and fixation does not plumb their real existence, before God and before men. It was undoubtedly this larger vision and understanding that inspired Reverend F. M. Johnson before the founding of the Covenant in 1885. He chose as his text Psalm 199:63: “I am a companion of all who fear thee, of those who keep thy precepts.” In this Word of God he saw the meaning of the past, and thus he desired to identify the future spirit of the Covenant....
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 18,19.
▪ [Life] points unerringly to the greatest heritage of all--the heritage of faith. No one, whether parent or preacher, reproduces children of God. This is the work of the Holy Spirit: past, present and always. Since the beginning of time, it is a legacy of faith. It is the parenthood of God in which "we have been born anew to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:3,4). It is this heritage which God, by grace through his Holy Spirit, endowed our parents, their children, and such future generations as will accept his gift--thus becoming part of his eternal family.
Oscar Backlund (1902-1987), The Children's Heritage: a Family Chronicle by Oscar T. Backlund (Self Published, 1986), p.330.
▪ Koinonia refers to a sharing of something held in common. The church is a community of which all members are sons [and daughters] of one Father and share in an undivided Christ and an undivided Holy Spirit. They are members of one another because they participate in a common life in Christ and the Spirit. Koinonia can never be equated with superficial or transient associations or with those based on ethnic, cultural, or family bonds. It cannot be “worked up” or produced in accordance with a prearranged plan. It emerges as Christ is made real among his people through the Holy Spirit and they share with one another their common life in him. Nowhere is this common sharing more clearly seen that about the Lord’s table in holy communion.
It should be apparent that real Koinonia is never achieved in the abstract; it arises only in real sharing by real flesh-and-blood people in a particular place and situation. This is part of the reason for the historic emphasis of the Covenant Church on the primacy of the local congregation. Our [forebears] held that in open discussion and sharing of their mutual concerns the Holy Spirit would give direction and relevance to the work of the congregation. Today also we need the creation of a genuine Christian fellowship where it matters most–in the local congregation. For it is here, primarily, that sharing in Christ takes place. Here the Word of God is proclaimed and discussed; here [brothers and sisters] intercede for one another in prayer; here they feel free to admonish and encourage one another as the Spirit gives guidance.
Love comes to sharpest focus in the congregation, where we meet not humanity in general but human beings in all the concreteness of their personal existence. In the give and take of the fellowship we learn the richness of Christ’s love and mercy as well as the severity of his judgment. Where there is this kind of open relationship the community can be the agent through which the Holy Spirit moves and works.
Donald C. Frisk (1911- ), The New Life in Christ (1969), p. 73.
▪ Headlines today blare the tragic story of family neglect and abandonment. Many of the problems that face our nation can be traced to that neglect by relatives who are more preoccupied with their own advancement and entertainment than the welfare of their family.
...Sometimes Christians have the same attitude of neglect when it comes to the members of their church family. We have all heard--and maybe even said ourselves–“My faith is something only between God and me. It is no one's affair but mine!” If you have ever felt that way you are in for a surprise.
...The Bible teaches that when you commit yourself to Jesus Christ in personal faith, you get a family in the bargain. When the New Testament talks about your local church it commonly compares it to a family. Jesus taught his disciples to pray by saying, “Our Father... “ (Matthew 6:9). When we receive Christ as our Savior, we become the “children of God” (John 1:12). By faith in Christ we “belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:10, NIV). We are called “members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19). If God is our Father and we are his children, then all other believers are our brothers and sisters. Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matthew 12:50).
...Your church family, then, is no optional extra for those who might like that kind of thing. Your “faith family” is absolutely essential (Hebrews 10:25). To neglect our spiritual relatives is to neglect our heavenly Father (1 John 4:7-12)....
Wesley C. Swanson (1938- ), “Are You Neglecting Your Church Family?” (Covenant Tract, 1987).
Early Mission Meetings
▪ The institution of the Mission Meeting [usually an extended weekend of believers gathered in one place from several fellowships in the surrounding area] was borrowed from Sweden. This dependence is reflected in almost all of the early activity. Even so, it would be hard to exaggerate the influence and meaning of these meetings in the gathering and deepening life of the Mission Friends. In a day when they had real reservations against a trained clergy, these meetings provided theological and ministerial training of no small value. All ministers who were present preached, not only the more prominent. The mission meetings were also schools of adult education for the people. The gospel net was always cast out, and not without results. In connection with tyhe meetings there were often auctions of goods which the women of the local church had prepared. These provided relaxation, and entertainment, and needed funds. Nor were these meetings less exciting for the children, even though the many sermons seemed painfully long. There were the rewards of fellowship with friends, and abundance of delicious food, and not infrequently spiritual impressions and commitments that lasted through a lifetime–or memories of rejection that kept haunting the soul.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 90.
▪ The mission meetings, first held in Chicago and Princeton, Illinois, were the means of drawing the Mission Friends from various places together for Christian fellowship. Thus many of the scattered Mission Friends learned to know each other and became acquainted with the religious conditions among their fellow countrymen in other places. These mission meetings then became the first bond of union between the Mission Friends in America. They would not neglect to visit each other when such meetings were held. Some of the friends in Chicago would be sure to visit Princeton when a mission meeting was held in that city, and if such a meeting was to be held in Chicago, a number of friends from Princeton would be sure to be there. Time, distance, and expense did not hold them back.
The ministers of this early period also made it a point to attend such meetings, not waiting for a special invitation from the church. Thus the mission meetings became real religious festivals
for the people and a source of blessing and inspiration to the ministers and to the Christians
who attended. As a rule many unconverted people also attended such meetings, some of whom were brought under conviction of sin and sought salvation in Christ Jesus.
C. V. Bowman (1868-1937), The Mission Covenant of America (1925), pp. 76,77.
▪ We conducted six meetings from Friday until Sunday evening [August, 1899], and found a hunger after God's Word so intense seldom found elsewhere. They had a great appetite for the Gospel. A good and powerful Spirit was among us, tears followed laughter, hand in hand. An 80-year old läsaregubbe (old Reader) was so moved with blessedness after one meeting that be stood up and sang a solo to honor God. This strengthens the faith of the young in Jesus that they can see their elders rejoice in God. Another aged man who had been a Christian for 50 years said, "I wonder that God has so much patience with me so that now I believe he will never let me go before I an landed safely on the heavenly shore.” Yes, dear uncle, God will keep his promises to you.
Some of our brothers in the faith living here are poor but they are happy in Jesus and satisfied with their lot. The great majority live in sod houses but that does not mean that poverty and ignorance are their house guests; but, they do not aim to fly higher than their wings will bear them. They have endured many severe trials, many dragons have despoiled their expectations, but this has given them power to soar above it, Many saintly characters develop between these high sand hills and mysterious resources are evident among these sunburned children.
G. D. Hall (1870-1927), G. D. Hall, Pastor-Journalist: Reports Mission Meetings, 1895-1911, George F. Hall tr. (Typed Script, 1991), p. 49.
▪ To say to our children when they have sinned or when they have indulged in things that we know they cannot keep from doing, “If you do that you cannot be a child of God; to be a child of God you must be good,” perhaps there is a truth in this, but we need to differentiate between the child and sin. ...It is evil to portray God in that way to the little ones. Soon they will note that they cannot stand the test. Soon there arises in them a shyness and doubt about God and his grace. Thus, when they have sinned, instead of turning to God to ask for grace and forgiveness and power to be more obedient, they go away in unbelief, thinking about future restoration, or give up hope and sin without restraint. Many, even among God’s children, without being aware or meaning to do so, drive their little ones away from the Lord in that way. It is, therefore, important that they who care for children inform them seriously that God is displeased with sin and how dangerous it is to remain in sin. [But] they should also be told that God will forgive sin, that they should not forget to confess sin, and that in full trust in God they should pray for grace and power to flee all evil and believe in the grace of God.
Mission Meeting Discussion in Lockport, Illinois, July 3-6, 1879
From Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 61.
▪ ...The old fashioned mission meetings were memorable not only because they brought state and national dignitaries to the church, but because there was a festive air about them giving one the sense of going up to Jerusalem in the biblical tradition. Sunday school imparted to us the pietistic tradition and knowledge.... We were undoubtedly not graded properly and we had only the International Lessons but a spirit was imparted to us, a spirit of devotion and commitment to Jesus Christ. There was a beautiful simplicity about it all, made relevant by the persons who taught us.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), “The Hilmar Years”
Quoted in Grace and Glory: a festschrift on preaching in honor of Eric G. Hawkinson, The Covenant Quarterly, 1981-82, p. 11.
Our Union Is in Christ
▪ The Mission Friends rejected the idea that knowledge alone was sufficient for the Christian life. It required also a living experience of commitment to Christ, continuation and growth in the school of Christ. They were not unaware of doctrinal purity. This did not agitate their minds as it came to do in later generations. They had their doctrinal purity in Christ and the practice of discipleship. They felt free to become learners without being ruled out of the fellowship. In such a community, where the intellectual dimensions of faith had not become a matter of pride, it was not too difficult to have fellowship with a person whose heart was right even though his head left something to be desired.
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), p. 55.
▪ I would like to say a few words, beloved friends, regarding the strife which at present persists among us: about the right conception of the gospel on the one hand and the common church life on the other, or rather about our own attitudes toward each other when we are unable to think alike in these matters. Oh, how important it is to heed the Lord’s admonition and see to it “that we are not mutually devoured!
Beloved friends, you who have had your eyes opened to the dear gospel somewhat more than others, remember that even those who do not see things exactly as you do may yet live the life in Christ. Watch out that you do not judge as slaves of the law those whom God counts as his children. It would not be a truly evangelical conduct and it fits in poorly with your confession. If you have a reasonable doubt about a person’s life in grace, do not, at least, talk about it behind his back. It is certainly a precarious thing to judge the spiritual condition of others, unless one would conclude as did Paul: “God is able to make them steadfast.” I have actually observed among three evangelical and intimate friends that one considered the third an evangelical brother while the second though of him as a slave of the law.
No, my dear friends, the life of grace in others is a condition which we cannot always evaluate, partly because of our own inadequacy and partly because of varying circumstances among the children of grace. This ought to make us not only cautious but actually thankful to the Lord that he has not set us as judges over others. May we instead judge ourselves, test ourselves, and see if we ourselves are in the faith. Many are able to utter evangelical speech with their tongues while their minds are governed by pharisaical pride. Others can be quite zealous against the use of exaggerated and un-biblical expressions and at the same time in their hearts be enemies of the gospel. That which is good is manifest in these people but that which is not good is not discerned even by themselves. What if I am such a man–or you? If we do not fear for ourselves and beseech the Lord to test our lives, we are guilty of serious neglect. However, I do not mean by this that God’s children in general do not recognize each other (cf. 1 John 5:1). And I do not mean either that we shall be able to have peace with false brethren. But we are least exposed to that danger the more we walk in fear for our own selves, and that, at the same time, is also the sure way by which the falseness in others is discerned.
Therefore the real children of God have peace among themselves, something that is so highly necessary that without it everything is but sham, and we, with all our zeal for the kingdom of God, disgrace the gospel of peace and bring condemnation upon ourselves. ...Peace within the group does not mean that all think alike and interpret all things alike, each wishing to see, as it were, his own self in another, but it does mean that each one recognizes his brother in Christ, whatever else the condition may be. It is not the identity in thought and comprehension of all possible particulars that constitutes that perfect bond by which we love one another; that bond, rather, is the mutual filial condition to which we are born from above.
May the Lord open our eyes to this blessedness on the one hand and to the deceit of the devil on the other so that we be not caught in the snare. Cease to bear arms against brethren and thank God for the dear gospel which he in great mercy and faithfulness has committed to us, and use your war energy to the end that many more may become partakers of the same gospel and be blessed.
C. J. Nyvall (1829-1904), Travel Memories from America, 1876, E. Gustav Johnson, tr. (1959), pp. 19,20,21.
▪ In the Covenant I think we have a chance to offer to the world a grown-up faith, a faith that can handle ambiguity, a faith that can handle hard questions, a faith that can accept people even when they are wrong, a faith that permits disagreements and encourages discussion, a faith that is able to say “I'm sorry” and “I love you,” a faith that looks out for the suffering and marginalized and shares with them the love of Jesus. A faith that is mature because the word and will of God are internalized. We have a chance, I say. We could also fall back into the safety of the old nanny or engage in adolescent “acting out,” and refuse to leave either childhood or adolescence.
There are all kinds of people in families. There's conservative Uncle Bob, who lives in the suburbs and votes Republican. There's liberal cousin Lisa, who lives in a city co-op and works with the homeless. One brother is an Army officer, another a devoted pacifist. One brother-in-law is a law officer in favor of capital punishment. His wife pickets at the prison whenever a life is to be taken. These opinions are real, profoundly different, and in some senses not compatible. But you stay together because you are a family and have a common ancestry and common commitment. You stay together because you are grown-up people and not adolescents. Jesus, as you know, called his disciples from all sorts of backgrounds and persuasions. He expected them to stay together, whatever their differences; because, however serious those differences, they had him in common, And they had his mission in common: a mission of God's generosity, grace, and longing. God does want lost people found, and lonely people, and broken people, and confused people, and angry people, and frustrated people. God wants all people found and restored to the family. The Covenant Church has a chance to help find such people, if we can avoid insularity, squabbling, and childishness, of which we are all capable.
John E. Phelan, Jr. (1950- ), “The Future of the Covenant in the Postmodern World,” from The Covenant Church in the Postmodern World (The Covenant Ministerium, 1998), p. 27.
▪ While change is inevitable, despite the eagerness to recover an earlier fervor, the vision born in the mission house on Jefferson Street continues to inform and inspire our search for identity in this time and place. Karl Olsson called it “the Covenant mystique,” which he sees as both our strength and our weakness: “The loyalty is not to a structure but to a mystique which flows from its understanding of itself as a non-creedal life movement, a family in the faith. The life-movement is centered in the living Christ and the faith and theology of the Covenant are nourished and directed by its devotion to the Bible.”
The strength of who we are lies in the profound sense of family, of being connected, so that wherever Covenanters meet there is an immediate sense of identity and belonging. Its weakness lies in what Olsson refers to as “a fierce and sometimes uncritical family loyalty, a sort of parochialism,” which can also exclude.
Glen V. Wiberg (1925- ), This Side of the River (Published by Salem Covenant Church, New Brighton, Minnesota, 1995), p.117.
▪ Grace and maturity, multiplied over one's years, is embellished over generations. Christian maturity takes more than one lifetime to produce fully. Individuals seeking instant maturity through a single emotional or spiritual upheaval are kidding themselves. God, in the Old Testament, promised his blessing to faithful men and women and to their children's children. Being a fourth-generation believer with children who are fifth-generation Christians--I can see the evidences of God's promise in my own family. We need the continuing growth and modeling of faith by older generations to develop and secure the living, growing faith of the young.
Lloyd H. Ahlem (1929- ), Living and Growing in Later Years (Covenant Benevolent Institutions, 1992), p. 85.
▪ The Covenant Church stresses the church as a fellowship of believers. The best translation of the Swedish word for “Covenant” would be “fellowship.” The history of the Covenant began in small group meetings in homes, where ordinary people read Scripture, sang songs with guitar accompaniment, and shared testimonies. While corporate worship as a whole church is always important for the believer's life, the fellowship of believers is also critical. This is not just a social and relational matter; it is a theological statement. The church is not a hierarchy in which members have lesser or greater importance. It is a fellowship, a family of equally loved persons. In the church all people are important--from little children to the aged, from new believers to lifelong saints, from wealthy persons to marginal people. Shared faith in Christ unites the church. The Covenant Church is, in a phrase attributed to Martin Luther, a “hospital for sinners rather than a museum for saints.”
A Family Matter: An Exploration in Believing and Belonging (Inquirer’s Class Manual of the Evangelical Covenant Church, 1994), p. 32.
Bound and Free
▪ Our Bible makes it evident that God does not find pleasure in ill will of any kind or character, whether it is in the family or the community or among the nations of the world. But there is one realm where God especially desires that love and good will shall prevail. That is in the fellowship of his people. Your attitude toward your fellow Christian is of great concern to God. You may be upright and honest in all your affairs. You may be generous with your time and strength and money. You may sincerely desire the conversion of the heathen and the salvation of the lost. But if your attitude toward your brother in Christ is not right, you do not please God.
The right attitude toward our fellow Christians is clearly stated many times in Scripture. On the night of his betrayal and arrest the Lord said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34,35). It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of such a statement.
...Apart from such love we may have an organization of a religious nature but we do not have a Christian fellowship. God is not in it. Thus, love for our fellow Christians is imperative. The very foundations of our Christian fellowship rest on this attitude and affection.
Gilbert E. Swensen (1904-1987), Studies in Romans, Volume II (1958), pp. 60,61.
▪ The Swedish Mission Friends had experienced the marvelous freedom of the Holy Spirit, releasing them from bondage to sin. The fresh winds of the Spirit also led them away from the cold formalism of the church into the warm and exciting life of the conventicle and mission society. In the atmosphere of religious liberty and pluralism in the United States they felt a tremendous exhilaration. It is easy to understand, then, their reluctance to create new, more formal structures of faith. A large number of Mission Friend groups met together for several years before organizing churches, and even when that step had been taken they then waited longer yet before affiliating with any wider church body.
However, freedom was not the only impulse from the Holy Spirit--the Holy Spirit also called people into the unifying fellowship of Jesus Christ. The phenomenon has been described in this way: “Despite its emphasis upon the conversion of the individual, the Rosenian revival was not individualistic. . . . The essence of the togetherness must be understood. The various societies which were formed did not create the togetherness of the converts. The revived were bound together by the convertive experience itself” [Karl A. Olsson, By One Spirit, p. 213].
Paul A. Day (1952- ), Unity and Freedom: One Hundred Years of the East Coast Conference, (Published by the East Coast Conference, 1990), pp. 27,28.
▪ For me, it is a family matter to belong to the Covenant. This must happen both “in joy and in sorrow.” I do not know if the Covenant's school will succeed or fail. But I do not need to know this in order to find my place of service. I belong to the Covenant not merely to harvest, but to sow; not merely to be victorious, but to struggle; not merely to be joyful, but to suffer.
David Nyvall (1863-1946), Letter to B. Finnström, July 12, 1892
Quoted in Scott E. Erickson, David Nyvall and the Shape of an Immigrant Church (Acta Universitatis Upsallensis, Uppsala, 1996), p. 320.
▪ The New Testament makes it clear that [recognizing] our immaturity is highly significant to our personal relationships within the Christian fellowship. For instance, it is among those who “see in a mirror darkly” that Christian love prevails (I Corinthians 13); it is the one who deals with the “log” in his own eye who can see clearly to remove the “speck” from his brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5); and it is among those who recognize and confess their sins that fellowship exists (1 John 1). Paul admonishes us to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21), and he himself longs to “be encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine” (Romans 1:11-12). As the New Testament indicates, it is when we recognize our own immaturity that we also recognize that our brother can contribute something to us.
When Christian freedom as thus defined is applied to our personal relationships, superficial barriers become unimportant and each person has the right to be himself as an individual in Christ, and each person makes his contribution to the freedom of the entire Christian fellowship. This means, for instance, that we show each believer the courtesy of hearing and of seeking to understand both their words and their meaning and that we do not judge them without allowing the opportunity of stating their case. It also means that we exercise care in our use of words with possible emotional overtones and that we never use any disagreement with another believer as an opportunity for personal advancement at their expense. On the one hand, it means that we recognize that others have the freedom to differ with us according to their understanding of the will of God, and, on the other hand, it means that we have the freedom to change our own position as we understand the will of God more clearly. Thus we are free in our personal relationships, and we are becoming free as we help one another to conform more closely to the will of God as it is revealed in the Bible.
Such freedom in our personal relationships will also lead to a consideration for the contribution of minorities. Christian vitality has not always been maintained by the majority. It has, in fact, often been found only in small minorities. Such minorities have no voice where conformity to “official” interpretations is required. Unless we wish to stifle all emergent spiritual vitality, we must be sure that people within our fellowship will be free to express themselves in ways which are different from the majority position without the fear of being labeled as disloyal.
With the greater complexity of modern life it becomes increasingly important to keep the lines of communication as simple as possible. It is helpful for differing parties to come face to face in order to consider their differences. Where personal grievances exist, they may be most effectively dealt with in personal contacts as directed in Matthew 18:15-17 and in Galatians 6:1-5. By such applications of Christian freedom we maintain the basic principle of freedom within the authority of the Bible even in our more complex personal relationships of today.
Covenant Committee on Freedom and Theology, Biblical Authority and Christian Freedom (1963), p. 13.
▪ The Apostle Paul does not teach that every purpose and function of members within the congregation is of equal value. One member of the body can be vastly more important than other members of the body. Who would not prefer losing a finger rather than an eye? Yet the finger is a precious member carefully guarded. The emphasis is given that one member can serve in its appointed place as no other can, and that each participates in the intended usefulness of the body. All serve in lofty purpose to exalt the head.
No member of a body serves only its own self; each serves the other members. The eye guides the hand or the foot. The hand works for the entire body, and the foot bears it, providing mobility. Each member is employed for the best interests of other members, and for its own best interests. Luther wrote, "One can find no better example of love and good works than in the members of our bodies, typifying how Christians serve one another as well as themselves. If all did this there would be no partiality in our midst."
All members, different as they are, belong to the body. Their differences in appearance and function are necessary for the best interests of themselves and the entire body. How important it is to remain in love and humility, one toward another. What soul-killing devastations occur when Christians do not live together in meekness and humility by the grace of God, knowing the fallibility of one's own opinions, seeking always God's will and guidance by his Spirit.
The most insignificant believer stands in the sacred fellowship and union with the apostles and all the saints, even as with Christ the head of the body, the true Church. This ought to bind us together in love. It should destroy all contempt for those of low degree belonging to the Body; it should also root out selfishness and dissension. We ought to love all who are members, even as we love ourselves, people of every kind who cling to Christ, though many differences and shortcomings may characterize them.
There may be differences in understanding, and in interpretations of the Word. Therefore, it may be impossible to work closely with some. But as they believe and cling to Christ, claiming him as their life, we shall love them for the sake of our common Lord.
C. O. Rosenius (1816-1868), Romans: A Devotional Commentary, J. Elmer Dahlgren and Royal F. Peterson, translators (1978), p. 169.
▪ We have no special doctrine nor any accepted common creed in any form which binds us together. And yet there is to be found in faith as well as preaching an essential agreement in all the great questions. And I would want to dare the assertion that we are an orthodox people in an evangelical sense, which we also want to express in the word “evangelical" and include in our name. This does not exclude different views on many questions and even on important questions. But it simplifies our position very much over against these differences that we have only one pledge over them all, namely, the New Testament. And in such cases as this or that doctrine is evidently held in a true Christian life and faith in Jesus unto salvation, their different interpretations are tolerated as an unavoidable result of the imperfections and want which according to the word of the apostle lets us see in part and prophesy in part.
David Nyvall (1863-1946), “Characterization of the Swedish Mission Covenants in Sweden and America,” from Covenant Roots: Sources and Affirmations, Glenn P. Anderson, ed. (1980), p. 167.
Church Attendance
▪ The absence of specific religious training, preoccupation with other things, or unhappy experiences in the past have had the effect of separating many people from the church. Some ask quite honestly: What does the church have for me? Why should I go to church?
The church does have something of vital importance for everyone. It gives an awareness of God which is of particular moment for the growing child. It satisfies the hunger of the human heart for forgiveness and inner health. It teaches us how to pray and to avail ourselves of the acknowledged sources of spiritual strength. In the hours of desolation which come upon all...it provides the strengthening fellowship of Christian people. It makes life meaningful in the opportunities it grants for serving others. It is a bulwark of righteousness and freedom. Its message of faith and hope and love offers the only basis for a liveable world today and a better world tomorrow.
Herbert E. Palmquist (1896-1981), The Covenant Church at a Glance (1952), p. 12.
▪ The man or woman who is trying to be a Christian without coming into the fellowship of the church is not only robbing him- or herself of much of the joy of Christian living, but is also endangering [their] spiritual life as well. The truly converted and radiantly happy believer will love the fellowship of other believers, and in this fellowship [their] Christian character will be deepened and matured to its greatest loveliness. The ideals it teaches and stands for will warn in times of temptation, will give strength in the fight against wrong, and will point...to a higher and nobler way of life. It helps to lighten the burdens and trials and sorrows of life. It [also] gives the believer an opportunity to let [his or her] Christian influence and joy reach out to comfort, help, and cheer others.
Leonard J. Larson (1894-1973), “Christian Youth and Church Membership”
From Covenant Graded Lessons, 1943, p. 13.
▪ Suppose a church has excellent attendance. Visitors and friends of the church swell the attendance until it is larger than the membership. The sanctuary is well filled, and everyone seems enthusiastic. Perhaps a dozen members do not attend. They may be missed occasionally, but very few get greatly concerned about them because everyone is so enthusiastic about the crowds that do come. Even among the many who come, some people are caught up and carried along even though they have deep needs that should have attention. No one inquires about their deeper needs because they are seen regularly at church. Perhaps they themselves feel so uncertain about their own situation when others seem so enthusiastic that they suppress their needs until they hardly know they have them. Therefore, deep wounds can exist in the midst of apparent health. Everyone is so enthusiastic about the success of the program that little attention is given to the inward sickness.
...Programs certainly are legitimate, as well as elation over their success. Programming, however, must be supplemented with a parallel approach in which we deal with people as people, regardless of their participation or non-participation in programs. Programs, by themselves, tend to assume the priority and to make us complacent about people. When this happens, the church will be unhealthy, even though its programs may appear to be highly successful.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), A Plan for Letting the Church Become the Family of God (1973), pp. 9,10.
▪ Our churches are not being weakened and thinned out by the people who would like to be present and can’t but by people who could be present but aren’t. I quite agree with someone who said, “What the church needs is:
More action and less faction,
More workers and fewer shirkers,
More burden-bearers and fewer tale-bearers,
More backers and fewer slackers.”
For all the signs of increased attendance at our places of Christian assembly, let us be thankful. But let us not be “taken in.” The Christian cause in America is still a humiliation to itself when on the average Sunday the seating capacity of our churches is less than one-half in use. On that same average Sunday literally millions of church members are putting ahead of hymns, prayers, and sermons everything you can think of–from comics to coffee, from gardening to golf. If the facts sting us, all I can say is: they should!
Paul S. Rees (1900-1991), Christian, Commit Yourself! (1957), pp. 105,106.
▪ The church loses when you stay away. More important to you, maybe, is the fact that you lose. The church exists for the worship of God. You miss more than you know when you do not praise God, and talk to God, and listen to God and make your offering to God; because if God is God, how can we be less than his worshipers?
We do not believe that church attendance is all there is to Christianity, Nor do we believe that church attenders are anything but sinners like the rest of us; but we do believe that no Christian stands alone. We are each part of the body of Christ. And if one of us fails, the whole body suffers.
So by coming to church you will do somebody good–and by staying away you will do nobody good. Think about these things, and we'll see you in church.
Everett L. Wilson (1936- ), “Does Church Attendance Really Matter?” (Covenant Tract, 1988).
Organizing for Ministry
▪ The issue at stake for church leaders is not whether the church is an organization or a fellowship; it is rather how the church can responsibly be both. How can the local congregation manifest responsible stewardship in its organizational life and model the character of a spirit-filled community at the same time? The local church is an organization and thus should be able to benefit from models for organizational leadership, as long as they are not destructive of the community character of the church.
Walter C. Wright, Jr. (1942- ), “The Covenant Church and Contemporary Leadership Paradigms.” From Servant Leadership, Volume Two: Contemporary Models and the Emerging Challenge, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), p. 20.
▪ One of the difficulties in sustaining an experience of “family,” in church or society, is our mutual irritation with each other in the face of our refusal to recognize that some are in a managing role, while others are singing freely down the road like vagabonds in the stage of uprooting, carrying guitars and not bothering about bank accounts. While the vagabonds of the open road feel the freedom, the managers sit at home keeping careful accounts and have contempt poured on them as mere accountants, mere bookkeepers, mere maintainers of the institution. That is unfair, because presumably all the planting and all the fencing, and presumably all the dreams of the pilgrim on the road, were in anticipation of the day when there would be something to manage. It is ironic, then, to get there and discover that one did not want to be there at all. On the other hand, the manager, suffering from the persistent difficulties that go with managing (the ache in the shoulders at trying to hold things together, and the sense of panic and fatigue that go with uncompleted labor), longs with a sense of unrealistic nostalgia for the joys of the open road. It is remembered as a place and time of abandon and freedom, with no external responsibilities.
Those who plant often express contempt for those who fence. Building fences is frequently a thankless job, especially out in the high plains where there are not enough rails to cut for fences, and before somebody has invented barbed wire. To divide territories from each other is, of course, fundamentally to protect the plant. Likewise, if those who fence (because it is a necessity), have nothing but a kind of good-natured contempt for those who have planted, then something of the totality of the human experience is missed, which needs more to be understood than to be criticized. These are realities found in every period of history, not only among groups but with individuals as well. All of us experience, for a host of reasons, the inclination to uproot, even as we feel keenly the responsibilities of sensible management, careful fencing, and even occasionally the act of faith that goes with planting. This is not a simple, linear development.
Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “Uprooting” (1978)
From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by Philip J. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), pp. 3,4.
▪ ...Leadership arises and is effectual in direct relationship to the diversity of persons and needs within an organization. It is encouraging to note in the church, given its communal and covenantal nature, leadership is seen more and more in multiple categories. Leadership is most helpful when it is responsive.
For churches or individuals who wish to explore the use of the MBTI [Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator] as an aid to self-awareness and mutual understanding and growth, trained leaders are available in most communities....
Arthur A. R. Nelson (1934- ), “Personality Differences and Leadership Styles”
From Servant Leadership, Volume Two: Contemporary Models and the Emerging Challenge, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), pp. 33,43.
▪ The Christian church glorifies Christ because of his servanthood, and therefore the serving nature of God in Christ points directly to the serving nature of the Christian community. If ecclesiology is grounded in this reality, it will always be known more by its spirit than by the particular structure adopted or the nomenclature used to describe it.
For the Evangelical Covenant Church, from the standpoint of history, this means being a Christian community at all levels characterized by democratic relations based on the parity and priesthood of all believers. On all levels, not least that of the local church, the congregation--the people--must have more than the mere right of a negative voice in the response given to leadership. They must be involved in the democratic process, sometimes slow and frustrating, of creating agendas and calling out those who lead. Leadership in the church is elected democratically and is removed in the same manner. For practical as well as biblical reasons, officers, deacons, elders, and others are elected periodically to represent the whole, not to claim some special authority to themselves. To the degree that different constitutional models for local churches achieve and ensure this essential congregational theory, the more they represent both the spirit and the structure of Covenant polity. The Covenant church, however, increasingly confronts in the present a cultural shift that promotes in many churches patterns of eldership and restricted elitist authority that are contrary to the broad principles of Covenant polity. As John Milton, the great seventeenth-century English poet and Congregationalist, once said, in terms of abusive power, “new presbyter can be but old priest writ large.”
Philip J. Anderson (1949- ), “The Community of Friends in Christ: Order and the Evangelical Covenant Church,” from Servant Leadership, Volume One: Authority and Governance in the Church, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnson, editors (1993), p. 111.
▪ [One] issue in these questions [addressed in a survey distributed to the Covenant Ministerium in June, 1991, 141 of 390 later returned (36.1%)] is to identify the degree to which congregations set themselves apart by isolation or competition, thus thwarting both the spirit and substance of connectionalism that lies at the heart of a denomination's unified mission (and budget). Again, results reveal that correlation with size has no significance. What is significant is the high degree of response to the terms “cooperative,” “collegial,” and “ecumenical.” For 128 of the 141 churches in the survey, at least one--and for two-thirds of the churches, two--of the terms apply. Thus there are only 9 whose self-perception (as viewed by ministerial leadership) is exclusively “independent” (6) or “competitive” (3).
Whether such connectional self-perceptions by the local congregations are perceived and received by denominational leadership in the same manner is a matter of differential expectation regarding what it means to cooperate. The fact that one's actions resulting from one's sense of cooperation are seen otherwise by a connected entity neither invalidates the former nor denigrates the latter. It does beg for clarification on what are realistic expectations and sound self-understandings of cooperation on both sides.
In short, the congregations represented in the survey overwhelmingly see themselves as open and cooperatively interactive with the denomination and the larger church. Continuing issues concern what that means, how it's played out, and the degree of its long-term fruitfulness.
Richard W. Carlson (1940- ), “Models of Ministry and Patterns of Governance in Covenant Churches,” from Servant Leadership, Volume Two: Contemporary Models and the Emerging Challenge, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), pp. 4,12.
Faults and Potential Faults
▪ As so frequently happens in movements like ours, the first generation which had experienced the new life in Christ as freedom and joy was followed by the second and third generations removed from the sources of the revival. Attempts to preserve the authenticity of that “first fine careless rapture” have often put frames of ethnicity and conformity around the experience. Caretaking became concerned less with love of God and one's neighbor than with trivia like wearing makeup or bobbed hair (if one sang in the choir) and going to movies. The notion of grace and unlimited forgiveness became muted and secondary. What this part of Salem's story has taught the present generation is that, in seeking our identity as people of God, we cannot legislate new life in Christ nor ask conformity to someone else's experience. Respect for where a person is on the spiritual journey is a necessary component of real caretaking--as real as a ton of coal in winter to a family shivering in the cold!
Glen V. Wiberg (1925- ), This Side of the River (Published by Salem Covenant Church, New Brighton, Minnesota, 1995), p. 43.
▪ One of the most dangerous periods in the history of a church, or of a Christian family, is the time when the life which once was refreshing and stimulating tends to confine itself to a pattern of living which is more agreeable to one's social and aesthetic tastes. We like to surround ourselves with an agreeable congregation of people who have the same likes and prejudices as we do and among whom the easier customs are not challenged. Our Lord was tempted in this realm too when Satan offered him the easier alternative of jumping down into the courtyard of the Temple and being more acceptable rather than taking the way of rejection, suffering, and death.
Culturally defined devotion has merit in our civilization, but it lacks the thrust which has made the church grow. Reproduction in any realm of nature requires vitality. In some areas of nature it requires the giving of life itself. The vitality of being alive and alert in the Christian experience certainly is essential to effective Christian witnessing. There is a yearning in the soul which drives one to prayer and the alert and unrelenting wooing to Christ of those friends and loved ones who know him not.
C. Milton Strom (1911-1972), Holy Curiosity (Board of Publications of the California Conference,1966), p. 50.
▪ Perhaps something...else is at work here that needs our thoughtful attention. I have the impression that congregations, and the needs of congregations, are increasingly becoming our priority unit of account at the expense of our comprehensive sense of the church. Some of this is due, no doubt, to the recent push for church growth. There are now local congregations in which there has been no time for assimilation to the Covenant family, in which neither pastor nor laity see any compelling reason to look beyond purely local concerns. That there are purely local concerns, I do not doubt. We must not...neglect our own orderly housekeeping. But there is a kind of congregational narcissism that denies the larger fellowship in the name of local concern, and ends by impoverishing itself by reason of limited vision, as all self-preoccupation does.
Coming as they did to a vast landscape, themselves so few, the pioneers did quite naturally what we perhaps must learn again to do. They traveled to each other and to each other's people, preaching and discussing, praying and singing, sleeping on the parlor room floor if necessary. The mission meetings (David Nyvall called them folk-universities on wheels) were instruments of the larger fellowship where non-stop preaching and discussion united pastors and laity, a vital and jovial experience garnished with mountains of food and baptized with gallons of coffee.
My brothers and sisters, we must travel to each other. We are, in ourselves, in our own flesh, the best and most reliable information about the fellowship. I know from my own experience, often repeated, that I return from meeting you inspired and refreshed, because, as Hopkins sings, “The Holy Ghost broods o'er the bent earth with warm breath, and, ah! bright wings.” Trust the Word!
Second, trust the Word, which is the whole Word of God. We take food daily. It is the raw material from which the Word in us fashions our daily renewal. The laws of the flesh are reliable and insistent about this. We must eat, or else we die. For this fellowship, the need for Bible is equally insistent. The Bible is our food, our nourishment, the meat and drink of our identity. Listen to a part of David Nyvall's hymn to the New Testament in his essay on “Covenant Ideals”:
“The value of the New Testament, considered as our constitution, is pastoral. It is the voice of the Shepherd. We claim to possess in the New Testament a constitution that is unparalleled, if what we desire is not only a condition for living in peace with our neighbors in the manner of comity and federation, but the only tested and approved condition for organized unity, including all the followers of Christ on local, national and international lines.... Creeds speak dialects, often archaic beyond the possibility of translation. Faith speaks the universal language of want, the original tongue in which the human heart and Christ converse.”
Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “The Covenant: Being” (1985)
From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by Philip J. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), pp. 92,93.
▪ Like the great faith tradition within Judaism, the core of the Covenant has been content to be defined by its story, its particular history. This story has ultimate meaning insofar as it is also the story of God’s ongoing action in history. “This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
There are some risks and perils (however]. One of these is to over-identify our own actions with God’s and to refuse to see that much of our history needs to be repented of rather than glorified.. Another corollary danger is that we become so preoccupied with the ritualization of our past history that we refuse critically to examine our present and our future. But if our form is free, creative obedience to God’s design, however it emerges, we can rely on the Holy Spirit to illumine and energize.
Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume Two (1986), p. 409.
▪ We are in danger, we Christians, to collide with one another in our work in the vineyard of the Lord. From the greatest to the smallest, we want our own way. When the work is not carried out in conformity with my ideas, I find it difficult to support it in line with God’s Word and the opinion of others. When my conviction is not accepted with appreciation but is opposed, I feel the temptation to work for myself, or to try to convince other brethren to share my conviction with me; in the measure that they do this, a new little project is started. Old friends who have been faithful in distress can be rejected even though we do not know what is gained by the new.
J. M. Sanngren (1837-1878), “The Brotherly Admonition”
Quoted by Karl A. Olsson, Into One Body...by the Cross: Volume One (1985), p. 134.
▪ The true church as a community of people called out by God for a special purpose is not always discernible in the local congregation. African churches are no exception. The Holy Spirit’s creation of a body of saints living on principles of justice, love, and equality seems academic amid the missionary’s work of balancing budgets, cleaning kitchens, killing cockroaches, and arbitrating disputes. The structure of our work chokes the very breath of life that transported us to a new continent in the first place.
...The fault is not entirely with the structure. Perhaps it sounds platitudinous to say, “Put people first,” but there it is. My own bilan [balance sheet] shows that I have invested too much time in machinery to the detriment of people. I have built buildings that will someday squeak their hollow songs. I have written treatises that will crumble into dust. I have been too busy to deal with a personal problem, too occupied to exercise a pastoral role.
Such a bilan is sobering. The past is gone.
Such a bilan is renewing. The future beckons.
Brad Hill (1950- ), Soul Graft (1988), p 16.
Church Discipline
▪ Query: When there are members of a congregation who do not by their Christian life and behavior contribute to the inner or outer edification of the fellowship but only criticize, bind burdens, and cause disorder–can such people with any good reason consider themselves members of he congregation?
Answer: One cannot ask of people who lack spiritual sense, balance, and ability that they properly judge themselves or anything within the kingdom of Christ. Therefore such people should be informed that in their present condition, they are not members of the Church of Christ. The state and behavior of such people are described in the Scriptures in many places among which are Romans 16:17-18: “Dear brethren, I exhort you that you take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties in opposition to the doctrine you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words deceive the hearts of the ‘simple minded.’”
And again, these are grumblers. Malcontents, following their own passions, loud-mouth boasters, flattering people to gain an advantage.
Mission Synod Board Meeting at Moingona, Iowa, December, 1878
From Karl A. Olsson, Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume One (1985), pp. 138,139.
▪ I KNOW WHO I AM
I know who I am
I am a reflection of my Father
I am his daughter
One of the princesses of the Kingdom
I reflect my Father’s wealth and happiness
Gifts that I have inherited from Him
And I feel secure in His love
But sometimes I forget
I walk on the wrong paths
I forget to return His love to others
But I have caring brothers who understand
They are princes of the Kingdom
Jesus is one of them, heir to the throne
They show me the way back to my Father
Robin Ahern (1964- ), 16, South Woodstock, Connecticut
From Poems and Prayers from the Ark, Priscilla Johnson, ed. (1984), p. 150.
Consider the Lonely
▪ (One widow speaks for all widows among us–and widowers)
LIFE IS LIVED IN ODDS AND EVENS
The round table is eight, I counted
one man, one woman, one man, one woman, etc., etc.
The square table of two
I counted them, one man, one woman.
The small round table, I counted
One woman, me.
One man, one woman, that's not always happiness, is it Lord?
One woman, that's not always unhappiness either, Lord.
Either way, odds or evens, it could be happiness.
Urging myself to get up in the morning for only me. What a drudge. I feel less than a full person. I'm half a couple. Tere are two or three couples with whom I feel at home, feel included. We can share a dinner, a movie, a concert, a church pew, the three of us. Couple events, get-togethers for old friends, I'm becoming less a part of that. Am I less than a full person now? (p. 79).
■ I believe the difficult part of living alone, especially in the dark hours of the night or in the early, early hours of morning, is that I have only myself to talk to. “But you have God.” “Yes, but it's that human, responding voice and touch I want to hear and feel.” To whom can I say, “I'm not sure I feel O.K. I'm feeling this or that....” The darkness at 1:00 a.m. is so very thick. At 4:00 a.m. I see the first gray wisps of dawn, so longed for, so reassuring. They bring me back to a world of people.
There are friends who say, “You can call me any time, any hour.” I want to believe that. My hand reaching for the phone in the dark ...stopped. I can't bother them at this ungodly hour (p. 103).
Adaline Bjorkman (1916- ), While It Was Still Dark: One Person’s Pilgrimage Through Grief (1978,1993), pp. 79, 103.
▪ There is something about grief which profoundly affects the sufferer. Many times a person is more spiritually open at the moment of personal loss than ever before. For those who have known the grief of childlessness, there is the side benefit that it is not an experience bound to a person and moment in the past. It serves as a springboard for compassion because its
immediacy and freshness can be drawn upon whenever ministering to someone who is hurting....
The world and the church are crying out for someone who has the right kind of ears to hear. You do if you have heard Him speak to you. The work that sorrow and grief does is not finished, however, if it stops with you. It will equip you, in turn, to minister in matters of the spirit. Do not be afraid to care about people enough to cry with them in their agony. Spanish speakers express it marvelously when they say, “We, the beautiful people, weep.” You may be one of the beautiful people to someone.
Vicky Love (1944- ), Childless Is Not Less (Bethany House Publishers, 1984), pp. 61,62.
Repentance Heals
▪ A strike at the Wasolo [in Congo] station illustrated both failure and faithfulness. It began when I dismissed five student nurses. Quickly the solidarity of the African community manifested itself. The workers quit working and all construction ceased. The school children left their classes, and work at the hospital come to a standstill.
It was my fault. I had injured the Africans’ keen sense of justice in a burst of public anger. I could easily rationalize my deed. Four of the five nurses had stolen medications, accepted bribes for services, or been delinquent on duty. But I had been unfair to the fifth, whom everyone believed to be innocent. I talked it over with the senior missionary on the post, who smiled awkwardly and said, “It’s your problem. You’ll have to handle it.” Returning to our house on the hill, I prayed with my wife. Then, humbled, I took a can of powdered coffee and some sugar and walked down to the workers’ village, where the strikers, in a sullen mood, were sitting in front of their small huts.
To their surprise, I told them I was sorry and asked them to forgive me. They were not accustomed to having a white person apologize to them. I invited them to add hot water from their pots to the symbols of reconciliation in my hands, so that we might share a cup of coffee together and talk things over. They responded with joy. We drank together and shook hands all around, and the matter was quickly settled. I agreed to review my hasty decision, and they agreed to go back to work and recall the school children to classes. There were murmurs of surprise and shouts of joy mingled with tears and laughter.
I walked back to my hilltop house, full of the joy of reconciliation, with goose bumps erupting on my skin. My process of growing into African life was so exciting that even the goose bumps seemed an image of identification, a fleshly microcosm of the familiar savannah, its surface dotted with termite hillocks.
L. Arden Almquist (1921- ), Debtor Unashamed (1993), p. 12.
▪ PROGRESS REPORT
I turned away a friend from my door last evening.
I was too busy: wanted to clean the house,
Watch my favorite show, and go to bed betimes.
Besides, she was obnoxious; her speech was awkward
And her breath was bad–unpardonable sin.
I know of course that what I did was wrong.
My Master would have touched her as I refused to do.
I should have helped her, Lord, but I was weak.
So I’ll make a new resolve:
I’ll be your instrument of healing.
Postscript: It’s done, Lord,
Or perhaps only just begun.
Your humor and Your justice and Your kindness
Are divine.
You sent my friend back to my door again.
Self-righteously I showed her in,
Offered her tea and cake,
And asked in a concerned voice how I could be of help.
It was then I learned my lesson,
Not earlier when I resolved to be Your healer.
For she had not come to have her own faith ministered to.
She’d come to share
The Living Word of Christ with me.
She halted and she stumbled
But the words she spoke were clear.
And she began the transformation
Of this hypocrite
Into a hopeful, joyful Christian.
Thank you, Lord, I appreciate your sense of humor!
Pauline Lenore Larson (1951-1977), Broken Arcs (1979), p. 41.
▪ Concerning the question of union between God’s children, the resource is God’s Word. Where differences are before us, these are not nullified by statutes, rules, and commands; nor can these dividing walls, according to my experienced judgment, be rolled away by great demands and requirements. It is best that I, for my own part, prove with deeds that I mean what I say with words. He who brings forth a requirement, perhaps based on the foundation of the Word, ought to consider how he himself practices what he requires of others.
...If each one would confess his fault and take correction from God’s Word, the problem would be solved....
C. A. Björk (1837-1916), Missions-Vännen, 1880
Quoted in Eric G. Hawkinson, Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 94,95.
▪ Oh, that Christians both at home and in America would not be ashamed to confess their faults and their sins, and with respect to doctrinal controversies lay hold of the one main thing, namely that of being found in Christ and being guided by what is written in the Scriptures. For if we do not let the Lord make it clear to us that party strife is a fleshly abomination, something to be shunned, we cannot expect peace among God’s children, for we shall always surely find that our understanding is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect. May the Lord help us to make amends and diligently to cultivate brotherly love!
C. J. Nyvall (1829-1904), Travel Memories from America, 1876, E. Gustav Johnson, tr. (1959), p. 125.
Back to the Future
▪ Their new-found freedom in Christ, resting on the authority of Scripture, must of necessity express itself in the life of the Christian community. As they understood the Scriptures, this community of the Spirit ought to be comprised of believers only. Hence one of the questions they frequently asked of others was: “Are you a believer?” By this they did not only mean, do you adhere to certain intellectual formulations of the Christian faith, but do you believe and trust in Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
The nature of the church for them was a group of fellow-believers who were trusting Jesus Christ for their salvation, who were growing in the Spirit, and who were sharing their faith. However, such a believing community is never to exist for itself alone. The mission of the church is to share this new-found freedom in Christ. Christians are to live out their lives in the world. We are to grow in the Spirit so that the world will “take knowledge of us, that we have been with Jesus.” This requires real concern for our brothers and sisters; we would “bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ,” which law is love. We are to be joined and knit together in a common concern for life, which is then to be shared.
Such was the faith of our [forebears]. The questions we must ask after ninety years are these: Is it our faith today? Have we been true to that heritage? Have we unwittingly forgotten or neglected the essence of this life movement? Are these basics still valid for us?
Glenn P. Anderson (1923-1985), “To Grow in the Spirit”
From Bound To Be Free: essays on being a Christian and a Covenanter, James R. Hawkinson, ed. (1975), pp. 26,27.
▪ What we find in our future, even within the cozily constructed walls of the Covenant, may be not continuity at all but mutations, new creations, and novel, though biblical, models for change. In the face of this perhaps there are reasons for “stripping down” and confronting the future more youthfully and more athletically. The language may seem frivolous, but there are good biblical examples in 1 Corinthians 9:19-27 and Hebrews 12:1-13, as well as in Luke 12:35,36.
In the face of this I hear projections, given with the best of motives I am sure, of essential numbers for the Covenant. I hear an estimate that the denomination must achieve a total membership of 150, 000 to 200, 000 if we are to survive fiscally. I ask on what assumptions such projections are based. May they not be built on the premise that as things have been they (must) remain, or on the assumption that we are to draw our criteria of adequacy from the surrounding cultures. But in the Spirit of the Lord can we not free the serfs, sell off the cherry orchard, and believe that even in us God may do a new thing (Isaiah 43:18-20)?
If the writing of this book [the Centennial History of the Covenant] has brought me a single focused insight, it is that the unity of the body, that is, its life, is dependent not only on the application of some common sense worldly standards--these have their good, gray legitimacy, of course--but on the application of a heavenly strategy--the luminous, paradoxical method of the cross. The body is to grow into living oneness through the saving death of its Creator/ Redeemer. He who is Lord by virtue of his emptying (Philippians 2:5-11)--that is, his kenosis--is to be the life and fullness of the body through the crucifixion and resurrection of believers. The Church is to live in that discipline and by that discipline--in constant dedication to readiness. “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master” (Luke 12:35). The stance is that of the fully involved athlete: strenuous and stretching, taut and eager, panting and sweating with exertion, but essentially joyous. What is asked is flexibility, mobility, commitment, delight.
Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996), Into One Body...by the Cross, Volume Two (1986), p. 436.
▪ Although I am not a Swede and I came into the Covenant Church as an adult in the mid-1970s, Covenant history is for me a literature of power. It gives me an identity as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus Christ. The ethnic aspect, though important, is clearly secondary. I do not want to be locked out of the cemetery of my Covenant forebears. I want to hear and tell their stories. I want to build for the future, but build on a foundation of memory and love.
When a young man falls in love he wants to know all about the object of his affection. He asks about her childhood, about her schooldays. He asks her friends what she was like in high school or college. He enjoys the stories her parents tell (even if she doesn’t!). The more of a future he sees with her, the more of her past he longs to know. And so it is with the Covenant Church. The grace and power of our future is founded, whether we know it or not, on our past, on our memories. If we lose or disdain our memory, our identity, we will lose not only our past but also our future. This unique commitment to history is important in a culture and people characterized by spiritual and cultural amnesia. It helps us understand both the importance of history and culture for the people we evangelize and the tragic loss of identity in those who rootlessly wander through our North American landscape.
John E. Phelan, Jr. (1950- ), “The Future of the Covenant in the Postmodern World,” from The Covenant Church in the Postmodern World (The Covenant Ministerium, 1998), p. 20.
▪ When we consider the plethora of small group movements in the contemporary church, we find a pattern of ministry which in its wide strokes resembles [Philipp Jakob] Spener's vision for the church of his day. In the simplicity of the small group, either in Spener's day (1635-1705) or in ours, each member can perform his or her function of spiritual priesthood. At first one might not recognize how this pattern of ministry is an expression of the emphasis on the new birth. But the connection becomes apparent when one acknowledges that the seed of regeneration carries within it the potential for the blossoming of the gifts of ministry in the body of Christ. The new birth produces the capacity in each reborn person for the development of spiritual gifts for ministry. Every Christian has the potential to become a minister. As 1 Corinthians 12:7 says, “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” Every member of the Christian community, therefore, has a ministry of some kind. For this reason 1 Peter 4:10 says, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.”
Eric N. Newberg (1948- ), “Spener’s Vision for Church Reform”
From Servant Leadership, Volume One: Authority and Governance in the Church, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), pp. 80,81.
▪ Who are we? How do we finally grow up? It is part of the mythology of American life that the adolescent can only find herself, can only discover himself away from the traditional family, community, and cultural setting that produced her, that nurtured him. To find yourself you have to leave, to “light out for the territory.” Self discovery is a lonely, individualistic quest. This is questionable culturally and certainly biblically. For Paul, in fact, the only way one can find oneself is in community. In Galatians he uses extremely powerful and intimate communal language. We find our identity “in Christ.” We know who we are when we have “clothed ourselves with Christ.” Together, “in” and “clothed with Christ” we are “one in Christ Jesus,” we “belong to Christ.”
To be a grown-up Christian, a grown-up human being, is to be in intimate union with Jesus Christ. And to be in intimate union with Jesus Christ is to be in intimate union with each other. We cannot, we will not, have one without the other. A mature church is made possible by mature disciples who seek together a growing intimacy with Jesus Christ leading in turn to a growing intimacy with each other. And this Jesus Christ is not just an abstraction, a cipher, but the real Jesus of Nazareth who lived, taught, died, and was raised to life in Galilee and Judaea, the real Jesus who shocked the adolescents of his generation with the radical outlandishness of his teachings. It is in union with this real Jesus that we grow up, Paul argues, that we finally leave our nanny behind, that we finally accept the responsibilities of adult women and adult men. Paul really believed that such a thing was possible. Paul really believed that one could be taken into Jesus Christ, by faith, and be empowered for a mature and loving adulthood by the Holy Spirit. Many Christians still believe this too. But as Chesterton put it, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.” Adopting the mind of Christ, carrying the cross, dying to oneself, all of those things the real Jesus calls us to, have been known and preached for centuries. But we are still nowhere close to being a people in whom there is "no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female." We are, particularly in this country, desperately, painfully, stuck in our adolescence.
Because I am a Christian I believe we can find out who we are only “in Christ.” I believe that such knowledge will only come through an intimate union with Jesus Christ and an unwavering commitment to the community he has formed. I will only grow up, I will only escape my adolescence, when I stay in community and accept the responsibilities of being one in Jesus Christ with all sorts of annoying people. I will only grow up, I will only escape my adolescence when I am a true cross-carrying disciple of Jesus Christ, on the same glorious and difficult road with other cross-carrying disciples of Jesus Christ. Neither a return to the lethal legalisms of the past or a flight into the lonely and inviting “territories” of the present will get us to the future of mature adulthood. Many, I fear, have given up on the idea of such a union with Christ. I have enough faith and hope and, I trust, love to believe in Paul's confident words and in the Spirit's power. I believe the potential for the new creation is still there, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. And for that I thank God. Amen.
John E. Phelan, Jr. (1950- ), ”Lighting Out for the Territories”
From “What Is a Human?”, Ex Auditu, Volume 13, 1997 (Pickwick Publications, 1998), pp. 148,149.
How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17).
