Author: Erik Cave

By Tim Anderson, Associate Pastor of Worship & Youth, Creekside Covenant Church

MUD 2022 was all about one thing: reconnecting. After two years over 150 youth and their leaders gathered at Cascades Camp in Yelm once again. We worshiped, played games, talked, prayed, and ate together. Kids jumped around, talked together, and reminded us all what it means to spur one another on in love.

We spent the weekend diving into our theme, The Blueprint, where Tim Ciccone, Director of Youth Ministry for Make and Deepen Disciples in the ECC, challenged students to ask themselves important questions: Who Is God? Who Am I? Where Do I Belong?

We were reminded that our lives are built on Jesus; that the adventure we are living is worth pursuing even in the midst of great challenges. Students engaged in interactive prayer stations, sang out and lifted hands in worship, and shared in small groups about what God had been doing over the weekend.

We had a ton of fun, too: Jeneeth Pathula from Kent Cov led our session games and our big game outside in the ball field. Erik Cave and I ran Family Feud on Saturday night peppered in with some fun youth group games. Cascades Camp staff and volunteers were so hospitable, as always, and made sure the camp was ready for our kids to, ‘just be kids,’ at camp again.

What stood out the most was seeing youth groups from around the PacNWC gathered again: laughing, eating, playing 9-square, chasing each other around camp. God shows up anytime we meet up and it was clear at MUD 2022, as well. While we all took precautions and Covid tests before meeting at Cascades, we were reminded again of how important it is to be close together again. Even just seeing youth pastors and leaders reconnect, talking with Cascades staff and their families, sharing stories of life together – all of this was so deeply encouraging.

As you continue to support and pray for the PacNWC, please remember all that youth pastors, camp ministries, volunteers and leaders are sharing with our next generation. God reminded us at MUD that together we are the Body of Christ, those given the Holy Spirit to enrich and encourage one another and share God’s strength through times of healing and reconnecting. God is good!

By Dawn Taloyo, Associate Superintendent, PacNWC

I wonder when the time will come when every article I read doesn’t begin with some reference to our current experience with this pandemic? I look forward to that. Maybe you do too.  I’m sorry to say this is not one of those times, for we continue to linger in that liminal Covid space. Is this the beginning of the end? Is there light at the end of the proverbial tunnel? Dare we hope?

As I’ve sat with pastors and church leaders in various contexts the past couple of weeks, I’m starting to see glimmers of light.  I’ve heard a variety of stories of churches experiencing a steady stream of new faces and holding large new member classes. There have been surprise financial gifts allowing churches to meet budgets, and leadership teams finding the time and mental space to begin discerning vision and new mission.

However, it’s not universal. There are also many churches still experiencing the disorientation of the last couple of years. They are having to make hard decisions, including my own congregation which recently voted to conclude our ministry. As a result, I now find myself in transition and discerning our family’s next church home. It raises many questions.

Last weekend I attended my cousin’s wedding. Rather, I should say, I attended the post-wedding reception. In stark contrast to every other family wedding experience, my cousin and his bride chose to only invite immediate family for a very small, in-home ceremony, which was officiated by his older sister. In addition, the reception was bereft of previous family traditions. There was no receiving line or first dance. Instead of a wedding cake, there were donuts.  And, alongside the charcuterie were sliders and French fries. My aunt, the mother of the groom, noted: the pandemic changed all the rules around weddings. I thought to myself, maybe churches too.

What is church? That is the question I’ve been pondering with my spiritual director.  The pandemic has been a huge disruptor to allegiances and certainly church attendance. I call it the great sorting, as many brothers and sisters have either opted to change faith communities or opted out of the institution of church altogether.

What is church? The pandemic has raised this important question for me personally, and perhaps for all of us as followers of Christ. What is essential? What do I believe is the purpose and value of church? Who is my faith community and what role do they play in my life?

How would you answer these questions? Read on if you’d like to hear my current and personal musings as I prayerfully discern what is next.

There are many New Testament passages that I could turn to for pictures and imperatives regarding the gathering of the people of God.  Acts 2:42 and Hebrews 10:19-25 come immediately to mind as personal favorites and are hopefully familiar to you. I will not use this space to offer an exegetical exploration, as that would take too much time and space.  However, I offer the themes that are emerging in my recent readings and reflections, not as a conclusive list, but as a starting place that might confirm or inspire your own reflection on the question: What is Church? Not a surprise, I have three points.

• Church is the context in which I am reminded of who I am and Whose I am. It is the place that confirms my identity as a beloved child of God, adopted into an incredible Trinitarian Family with an amazing inheritance of grace, hope and fullness of life. As well, it is the place that confronts me with the Truth and Otherness of the Triune God and offers the comfort of a greater narrative and purpose in this world.
• Church is a place of belonging and transformation. We hear it often – we are not solo disciples; we are made for community. It is part of being created in the image of our Triune God. Today there is no shortage of ways we can fill that basic human need. Digital spaces have opened avenues for connectedness around any hobby or shared interest one can imagine. There is nothing wrong with that. I merely ask, does the community to which I belong remind me of the first point, that I am a beloved child of God? Is there a mutual belonging to one another that spurs me on to love and good works? (Hebrews 10:24) Does the community call me to Christ-like living and teach me about grace and forgiveness when I have fallen short, or when we disagree? Church is both the protective cocoon and catalyst for incubating a maturing life of faith and practice.
• Church is the community in which the Holy Spirit gifts and calls us outward. It is the refining and discerning context that challenges me to not be selfish or complacent with the grace and love received, but to generously offer it to others. In church I am invited to step out in faith and sacrifice, to serve and care for that which God cares about.

I trust none of the above strikes you as surprising or new. They are, however, the best way I can articulate at this point the essential, orienting elements that define church. While no faith community is perfect in living all of this out, it is the road map that helps orient my discernment. They are what compels me to seek out, and remain connected, to a faith community and to not give up meeting together. (Heb 10:25) What about you? How would you answer What is Church?

By Chaplain Greg Asimakoupoulos

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of my connection with the Evangelical Covenant Church. I had never heard of the denomination until I took part in an ecumenical Lay Witness Mission that was hosted at Newport Covenant Church in Bellevue, Washington in 1971. I was in my first year at Seattle Pacific University as a Biblical Literature major.

Fast-forward five years when I entered Fuller Seminary. Unlike my roommates who were financially supported by their local Presbyterian churches back home, I was freelancing my way through school. I was not a member of a local church and so I was financing my education through savings. As part of my first year of studies, I was hoping to identify a denomination through which my gifts for ministry would be expressed.

My academic advisor recommended Pasadena Covenant Church. He said the preaching was outstanding and the creative worship was very cutting-edge. I visited one Sunday morning and liked what I heard and saw. Returning for the evening service, I arrived early. I picked up a red hymnal in the narthex and began to browse. Since I was not familiar with the history or the theology of the Covenant church, I flipped through the hymnal. Having grown up in a Pentecostal pastor’s home, there were many titles I did not recognize.

As I worked my way through the Covenant Heritage section, my ten years of piano lessons served me well. I recognized a familiar melody I began to sound out. Although the lyrics of the Scandinavian hymn had been translated into English, I recognized one of the songs my Norwegian grandparents taught me as a child.

My maternal grandfather was born in 1885 in Sauda, Norway. I would soon learn that was the same year the Evangelical Covenant Church was born in America. From the time I was a child, I viewed Gunder Birkeland as a hero. Although severely crippled by infantile polio, this hunchbacked man with gnarled feet refused to let his handicap hold him back. Struggling to prove himself as a teenager in the logging camps of rural Washington State, my grandfather eventually started a successful construction company in downtown Seattle.

Papa Birkeland also modeled for me the core values of Scandinavian piety. Without fail, Papa would open his big dog-eared Bible after supper and read aloud to my grandmother (and whoever else was seated around the kitchen table). In spite of his broken English, when Papa prayed I could tell he was talking to someone he knew well.

Papa encouraged my grandmother to pull out her acoustical guitar and sing gospel melodies from the old country while we grandkids sat on the floor in front of the couch. We didn’t understand the Norwegian lyrics she sang, but we easily made sense of the obvious praise of God those words conveyed. 

And there on that autumn Sunday night in the empty narthex of the Pasadena Covenant Church, I began to sing aloud… “I Have a Friend Who Loveth Me.” To be honest, I actually started singing the Norwegian words I’d learned twenty years before. “Jeg har en ven som elsker meg..” A warm feeling washed over me. I had never seen my Nana Birkeland’s song in print before. There was a visceral connection. Here in front of me was part of my spiritual heritage bound in a hymnbook published by a denomination I knew virtually nothing about. But that unexpected Godwink was all it took. It seemed as if I was among family. I felt like I’d come home.

Less than three years later, I was on staff at a Covenant church in Seattle writing original hymn lyrics in the style of Nils Frykman to reinforce the message of my sermons. And now after forty years as a Covenant pastor, the heritage hymns of the Mission Friends continue to connect me to my faith journey.

Looking back, my Norwegian grandparents were Mission Friends without knowing it. The warmth of Bible reading, regular prayer, and singing folk songs of the faith in my grandparents’ home shaped me. Even though they were Scandinavian Pentecostals (Assemblies of God), they unknowingly prepared the way for my adoption into a denominational family that I continue to embrace as God’s to me. I will forever be grateful.

This story was originally published in Pietisten 

By John Hanstad

“I’m sure that my Dad is looking down from heaven and smiling.” I was walking through the hall of the church with one of the Red Cross volunteers. The multi-purpose/gym next to us was lined with sleeping cots and the church kitchen was filled with food brought in for those who found this as their temporary housing until the local floods receded.

I went on to say that my Dad was a church builder; a literal builder of many churches up and down the Washington I-5 corridor, whose final project was building his own home church, Bethany Covenant, in Mount Vernon. Dad was also a church builder in that he invited people not only to attend church but also to be part of community. He was a true “inviter”. I recall when he invited a young family to our home for dinner but forgot to tell Mom. When the family arrived Dad also forgot that he had invited them for dinner and Mom made popcorn. Think Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Years later they all laughed about it and they came back for a “real” dinner.

Last November we had a chance to partner with the Red Cross to invite people into community by providing a safe, warm place to sleep, eat, and gather. Some of our guests were those who lived in tents in the woods next to the river and were displaced by the high water. Others had homes that were threatened by the flood waters. All gathered, talked, and ate and seemed to be making the most of being a part of this temporary community.

What a blessing when the church opens its doors to those in need. After all, isn’t that what community does, model its actions after the greatest Inviter of all.

“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

Matthew 25:35

Resource Corner

By Dawn Taloyo, Associate Superintendent, PacNWC

What better way to start out the year, than gathering together in prayer!

For more than 60 years the ECC has provided material during the month of January for a week of prayer – to be used at any point during the year. Continuing this Covenant practice, we invite our PacNWC churches and all mission friends to check out the resource and schedule your week of prayer. 

This year’s theme is FREE, with each day’s reflection written by a woman who has experienced freedom from sex trafficking. As Executive Minister Michelle Sanchez writes, “Through these daily prayers, let us be reminded that we can never fully plumb the depths of the riches of our freedom in Christ!”

The Week of Prayer resource can be downloaded for free or booklets can be ordered in quantity.  There is also a daily email option.

Check it out here: https://covchurch.org/2022prayer/