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/

By Dawn Taloyo, Associate Superintendent, PacNWC

Q4 Focus on Scripture

In this final post of our Q4 Focus on Scripture, I interview Sheri Engstrom from Eastridge Church in Clackamas, Oregon.  Sheri led a 5-week group through the Love Mercy Do Justice Bible study resource called “Life Together Series [101].” You can find it here: https://covchurch.org/justice/racial-righteousness/

The introduction to this series states, “Our congregations are hungry for Bible studies that help us understand God’s heart for justice and God’s plan for diversity. Our churches are seeking biblical resources that empower us to function as everyday peacemakers, ambassadors of reconciliation, and co-labors with Christ in a divided and hostile world. This study will begin to address these requests.”

Hear how Sheri and her group experienced the study. 

by Greg Asimakoupoulos, Chaplain, Covenant Living at the Shores

Long before “The Lion King” was released as an animated movie or a Broadway musical, another lion reigned in the hearts of children in the English-speaking world. His name was Aslan, a Christ-like figure who ruled an imaginary kingdom in the Chronicles of Narnia.

Seventy-one years ago, a British novelist by the name of C.S. Lewis first introduced the world to a lion that was good but not always safe. On October 16, 1950 Lewis published “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” in which Aslan was the ever-present guardian and provider. It was the first of eight books in which the kingly lion pointed the reader to a benevolent Creator.

My introduction to Aslan was in the form of a play performed by a drama troupe from Seattle Pacific University in the fall of 1974. I had just graduated from this outstanding Christian liberal arts institution and accepted a position in the university relations office. My job found me arranging tours for various performing groups on campus. When the Chancel Players were presented the opportunity to perform “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis at Expo ’74 in Spokane, I traveled with them.

Never having read any of The Chronicles of Narnia in my youth, I was intrigued by the character known as Aslan as presented in the Lewis’ story.
Thirty-five years later I found myself depositing two of my daughters on the campus of Wheaton College in suburban Chicago. Having helped them unload their belongings, I went about exploring the campus.

I was delighted to discover the Wade Center named for the founder of ServiceMaster Company. Within this attractive brick building is contained archived materials and memorabilia related to C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers and G. K. Chesterton. The writing desks of Tolkien and Lewis are displayed along with the wardrobe from Lewis’ childhood home after which his most famous of all the Narnia chronicles is named. I was thrilled by what I saw.

I looked beyond Lewis’ wardrobe to see a beautiful framed painting of Aslan hanging on a wall. It reminded me of the lion sculpture that graces my desk in my office. By now I had come to an informed understanding of Lewis’ symbol. The lion is a powerful reminder of an ever-present God who was committed to my wellbeing. I loved the fact that Aslan was capable of making appearances without fanfare. It seemed as though he was always present even when not visible. He was a means of salvation when all seemed lost.

A dozen years after that self-guided tour of the Wade Center on the campus of Wheaton College, COVID threatened our world. During this time of lockdown and restrictions as well as fear and anxiety, I noted a number of coincidences that focused my perspective in a heavenly direction. These happenstances reminded me that in spite of being socially distanced, I was not on my own.

My friend SQuire Rushnell refers to such serendipities as Godwinks. In fact, SQuire is the one who coined the term. And during the difficult months of COVID, God, like Aslan, made His presence known at just the right time in unanticipated ways. I began observing Godwinks all around me. I started to sense the hot breath of an uncaged lion on my neck. I knew Aslan was near.

During lockdown, I resorted to my favorite pastime. Sitting at my laptop, I painted word pictures while dusting for divine fingerprints. The result is a collection of poetry in which I celebrate the presence of God in our everyday lives. I’ve called this volume “When God Speaks: Listening for Aslan in Everyday Life.” It’s an interactive workbook in which each poem is paired with a prompt or question and the space for the reader to reflect and respond.

Copies of “When God Speaks” can be ordered from Lulu.com

“Pastor and poet-laureate Greg Asimakoupoulos’ latest collection of poems sets its creative scope on the voice of God in daily life. Threaded throughout by images of C.S. Lewis’ beloved Aslan, Asimakoupoulos guides us on a safari of Godwinks, pointing out His quiet breath in the rustling of the ordinary, bowing before the divine roars in the disguised majesty of the everyday. Playful, earnest, observant, the poems lead the willing reader toward devotion, a slow prowl toward prayer, stalking elusive glory in the middle of our most elusive routines.”

Jeff Reed, Pastor, Highland Covenant Church, Bellevue, WA

Q4 Emphasis on Scripture

By Kristi Smith, Director of Children, Youth & Family Ministry, Milwaukie Covenant Church

As church member Paul Granlund was finishing his term as chairperson at Milwaukie Covenant Church, he sensed God leading him to serve in new ways. Paul was disappointed with how little his young adult children seemed to know about their faith—despite having grown up in Sunday school and youth group. He decided that he wanted to provide opportunities for adolescents to explore and affirm their faith through a Confirmation program. 

“I started asking around, ‘Does the Covenant have any material for teenagers?’ and was introduced to The Journey curriculum. The material was comprehensive and well thought-out,” Granlund says. “Honestly, I was just glad I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel.” That was 17 years ago and he is still using the same material. 

The second year of the program, Paul had an idea. What if students didn’t just stand up at the end of the program Sunday and repeat the confirmation liturgy? Paul decided that he wanted students to have the opportunity to take ownership of their learning, to share their hearts with the church family, and to be a blessing to the community. And so began the legacy of Confirmation Sermons. Every confirmation student over the past 16 years (except one) spent the final months of their confirmation program developing their own short sermon which they then delivered to the congregation on Confirmation Sunday. In a culture where we often don’t expect much from young people, the students rose to the challenge. 

Confirmation was structured as a two year program that covered both the Old and New Testaments. In January of their second year, Paul would provide students with a list of Bible Characters and topics that had been covered. Students then chose a character, topic or Scripture passage that stood out to them, and developed an outline for a short 7-10 minute sermon. Granlund coached them on developing main points, engaging introductions, and compelling examples. Some students wrote their first draft on their own, and others required one-on-one help from Paul to think through their topic and structure an outline. What does this say? What does it mean? Why does it matter? Why does it matter to you?

A student interested in computer engineering and robotics delivered a sermon on Remaining in the Vine, which he compared to a machine needing to be plugged into the power source. One young woman, in preparation for her sermon on 1 Samuel 16:7, drastically altered her appearance and went to school for several days dressed in dark, gothic-style clothing and makeup. She reported how although God could see that her heart was the same as always, her friends and teachers treated her differently. So did store clerks who followed her around, suddenly suspicious that she might be shoplifting. After having spent several weeks hospitalized for mental health concerns, one young man shared candidly about his experience with hopelessness before reassuring the congregation that God’s plans for us are plans to prosper us and not to harm us.

Young adults, now in their 20s, look back with pride and admiration at their sermons, examinations of Scripture that were ingrained in them so deeply that they will never forget it. “Most of them were very nervous about it beforehand,” admits Granlund, “but we rehearsed and rehearsed—first in the classroom, then in the sanctuary.” But regardless of nerves, the congregation was delighted by the students’ messages. Many people consider Confirmation Sundays to be the best services of the year!

Paul recalls one memorable moment where a young man on the autism spectrum, who had worked particularly hard to overcome barriers in preparing his sermon on not needing to be anxious, called out the lead pastor who was seated in the first few rows. “Pastor Bill likes to say, ’Now, I’m not worried—I’m just concerned.’ But you know what, Pastor Bill, I don’t think God wants us to be concerned either!” The young man’s eyes lit up as the congregation burst into laughter and the pastor grinned and nodded his assent. 

Over the past 16 years, young people at Milwaukie Covenant Church have had the opportunity to explore the Bible and basic tenets of the Christian faith. They have bloomed under the kind and encouraging care of their passionate mentor. They have identified ways that Scripture connects to their own lives and passions, and have bravely stood before the congregation to share their hearts. In so doing, they have been welcomed, embraced and come to see how they are not simply consumers of church, but have their own gifts to share and can be used mightily by God. I can’t think of a better way one could confirm and display ownership over their faith.

Visit Milwaukie Covenant Church’s Website to learn more about the church and their ministry