Category: Superindendent

By Dawn Taloyo, Associate Superintendent, PacNWC

Why, my soul, are you downcast?

…Oh, let me count the ways!  Those were my first thoughts when Grace Shim, Covenant missionary and counselor, invited pastors and leaders to meditate on Psalm 42 today.  Dr. Shim was a keynote speaker in the ECC’s “Covenant Connect: a day of hope and healing” – a virtual conference for pastors and ministry leaders in lieu of the annual ECC Midwinter pastors’ conference.

As I read through the familiar Psalm 42, I felt drawn to the words like never before.  I entered Lent with no power or internet thanks to an epic storm that brought 1.5 inches of ice to Salem Oregon over the Valentine’s/President’s Day weekend.  The cold, the inconvenience of no power, the throwing away of a refrigerator and freezer worth of food, the trying-to-keep-everyone’s-spirits-up really felt like a last straw in what has been the endless onslaught of 2020-21.  Really God?

I won’t bore you with my counting, because I know we all have our lists. Nevertheless, that was the invitation from Dr. Shim: count them!  Name them. When the Psalmist asks “Why, my soul, are you downcast?” she offered this as very real question that deserves answering.  For, in the naming we can truly grieve. Putting words to our pain is lament, an authentic form of prayer.  And, if we don’t lament and grieve, we run the risk of the pain releasing (or “oozing out”, as my husband and I like to say) in other, potentially unhealthy, ways.

The Psalmist names many grievances, some of which sound eerily familiar today:

• When can I go meet with God?
• I remember…how I used to go to the house of God
• All your waves and breakers have swept over me
• Why have you forgotten me?
• My bones suffer mortal agony
• Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?

Due to the storm, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I missed receiving the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday.  Honestly, this is one of my favorite days in the Christian calendar. This year, I missed that important marker and passage into this season of acknowledging limits, brokenness and lament.  So, I’ve been doing some catch up these past few days. Tears have come. As have words of exhaustion and prayers of forgottenness. I’m still sitting in the sacred chasm between the first part of Psalm 42 verse 5 and the second half: Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.  Not that I don’t believe it. I just don’t want to shut down or shut out the honest, real, hard-to-admit feelings that have finally crept to the surface of my consciousness and are finding articulation.  

Are you feeling that same need? The season of Lent gives us permission, if you need it like I do sometimes, to wallow in the dust and dirt of our humanity and even our inhumanity.  From dust you have come and to dust you will return. But, the wallowing is not where we stay. Maybe think of it as “purposeful wallowing.” Our lament is active and directed to our primary Source of help. We wallow in the mud bath (see the dictionary definition of “wallow”) long enough to discover and put words to the pain, hurt, anger, frustration, grief. Then, while covered in the dirt and muck, we also discover our thirst, our need, and our longing: My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. I’m appreciating that desire rising up in a renewed way too.

I’m tempted now to try and turn this reflection to the hopeful, promise-filled ending.  Hmm.  That wouldn’t be true to where I am, nor the spirit of the season of Lent. But, I will offer this thought, one that I am finding helpful: as you find those words, share your lament with others. Know that you are not alone. So many of us are feeling the weight, the emotional exhaustion of this past year. It’s easy to compare mine and yours. Don’t compare, just share. Just as the Psalmist did when this prayer became public record and part of corporate worship for the ages. No shame; just honest and purposeful wallowing.  

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Happy Chinese New Year PacNWC Family!  As we usher in the year of the ox, I write to you with a heavy heart in this season that is usually filled with great joy.  Let me start with how I have held this season in the past. 

Chinese New Year is the greatest day of celebration for Chinese around the world and many other cultures that follow the lunar calendar.  Even as a 5th-generation Chinese American, I have vivid memories of extended family gatherings, lavish spreads of food, and of course, those cash-stuffed red envelopes with which our elders would bless us kids.

I cherish the memories of all of us grandchildren stopping what we were doing at a later point in our special evening together.  We’d put the bumper pool cues down, turn off the Atari 2600, or walk away from our board games.  We all gathered in the dining room and all the kids would individually serve a cup of tea to my paw-paw (grandmother). The entire family would look on as we bowed and said in our best Cantonese, “gung hay fat choy!”  We were rewarded with a lai-see (red envelope) .

That’s a part of my family memories.  But greater than my family, there is always a palpable buzz that is felt throughout the Chinese community this time of year.  It’s usually a very busy time of cleaning, preparing, and shopping. Like so many, Mary and I ourselves ordered new money (unwrinkled, unblemished, fresh bills) from our bank to stuff into lai-sees  In a normal year large gatherings are planned and we travel far and wide to be with each other.  Chinatown gets even more crowded building this New Year energy.

In our current covid year that has changed so much, what has come with our lunar holiday preparation has been the shocking surge of violence and terror against Asians.  We’ve seen the recent horrific videos from San Francisco and Oakland of elderly Asians being randomly attacked, pushed to the ground resulting in some actually dying.  In fact the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce tallied over 20 assaults in the past two weeks alone.

Mary and I were born and raised in these two cities, respectively.  The attack in Oakland was across the street from my home church where my 89-year-old father and 87-year-old mother and all my elderly church uncles and aunties still attend.   One of the victims was as young as 55, my age this year.  My family and spiritual roots are deeply embedded in Chinatown.  To see this kind of violence was absolutely horrific. And it has profoundly added to the trauma and fear the Asian community has been experiencing most notably this year. 

We’ve also heard about the windows of 9 Asian-owned businesses being smashed in Portland’s Jade District last week.  As 64 Asian Covenant pastors gathered to process and support each other this past Thursday we heard of one Covenant pastor’s family’s store in the greater Seattle area who also had their business vandalized.  We hear stories from all over the country of attacks on subways and buses, in stores, on trails, in one’s own neighborhood, in parking lots…

Covenanter Dr. Russell Jeung (New Hope Cov, Oakland, Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University) created www.stopaapihate.org to begin tracking assaults on Asians Americans at the beginning of the pandemic.  He shared testimony accounts with the Asian American Covenant pastors last week that was heart-wrenching and left many of us in tears. 

There has been trauma upon trauma and these latest attacks on our elders as we headed into New Years has been just too much. 

Covenant pastor Rev Brian Hui who serves in the Bay Area and as one of the Covenant Asian Pastors Association (CAPA) officers put it this way, “When I try to explain why these incidents hit people like me so hard, I say it’s not just because our elders are so vulnerable, but because they are our most honorable. They are the best of us. They are the people we bow to. Even in death, we bow to them and offer them food before we eat ourselves. And at least for me, when I think of Chinatown…it was the only place my grandparents could be themselves, other than at home. And so to see our venerable elders, people who are our grandparents, having their honorable faces knocked down onto the very streets where they’re supposed to feel most free to be themselves, that really hurt.”

Pew Research found that during our current pandemic that 31% of Asian Americans report that they have been victims of slurs or racist jokes.  They also found that 26% of AsAm’s feared that someone might actually physically attack them. 

It’s just too much. 

I offer this illustration I heard from a Midwinter Conference speaker a few years ago to close:

A rabbi once discovered the true meaning of love and humility from a pair of drunken friends in a country tavern. While chatting with the owner of the tavern, the rabbi saw the men embracing and declaring their love for one another.

Suddenly Ivan said to his companion, “Peter, tell me what hurts me!” Sobered by such a startling remark, Peter replied, “How do I know what hurts you?” Ivan’s answer was immediate, “If you don’t know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?”

Through their interchange, the two companions underscored the fact that the true humility which issues forth in love is not fostered by navel-gazing but by bending down to look up into the eyes of another.  From that humble position, the hopes and needs, the hurts and fears of the other are readily perceived; from that position of humility, love can be offered and service can be rendered, not with an air of condescension but with the warmth of compassion.

I’m not able to offer answers or solutions here right now.  I only offer you a prompt from the Asian American portion of our beautiful-Covenant-family mosaic.  We are in pain. 

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Any growing relationship involves healthy and regular communication.  We all know both the pain of relationships plagued by broken communication and the joys of ones where communication is effortlessly life-giving.  From stories around the conference this month I want to prompt us around communication, or more specifically, engagement: first with each other and secondly with God. 

One of the most heart-wrenching things to witness in these days of intense national polarization, is to see the world’s relational impulses and ways living in the church.  It is tragic to see how communication has broken down not just in society but with followers of Christ.

Too often, we have engaged in one-way relationships on social media starving ourselves with these deceitful crumbs.  We’ve repelled from face-to-face or even voice-to-voice connections.  We’ve pulled away from the intimacy and strength of sitting down together.  We’ve lost the ability to dialogue and have settled for shallow posts.  We think we are diving into deep waters but actually are only running in mere puddles.  We’re quick to judge and put each other in social boxes.  We’re quick to walk away from each other.  In this unnatural space as Christ followers and ambassadors of reconciliation, we’ve allowed the enemy to devour us.¹

In these polarized and divisive days, we need to do better.  We need to not settle for the cheap stuff.  We need to stop living on fast food.  Friends, I implore you to invest in healthy and regular communication; to engage each other.  Take a moment to reflect on where relationships are challenging and consider what you can initiate and be responsible for. 

What’s the valuable stickier stuff you can invest in that moves past ineffective electronic communication and face each other as God intends?  How can we enter those conversations in a spirit of humility and teachability (good moment to read aloud the Fruit of the Spirit and 1 Cor 13!)?  What relationships are showing some tension where, like Christ, you can initiate engagement?  Take a moment to reflect on who the Spirit is guiding you to reach out to.

How’s communication with God going for you? 

I’m encouraged by how so many of you chose to start 2021 around a concerted prayer focus.  I’m inspired by how some of you have prayer gatherings, some daily, online.  My heart warms hearing about the prayer walks you’ve done in your neighborhoods and the drive through prayer opportunities you’ve provided.  I love when my staff prays together and I love that each of us separately calendar prayer into the team calendar every week.  We want to take seriously the work of prayer. 

It was centering for me during the Covenant’s week of prayer last month as they sent out breath prayers and provided THIS wonderful guide.  Here’s one sample that helped me one day when peace and hope was scarce:

• CENTER your body and mind to be with Jesus.
• THINK where you have a need for the hope of new life.
• SLOWLY INHALE, “Jesus, resurrection and life.”
• SLOWLY EXHALE, “Resurrect hope today.”
• REPEAT the breath prayer until you feel Jesus’s peace.
• LOOK AND LISTEN for ways Jesus is resurrecting hope and new life.

Next quarter we’ll focus on prayer.  But even this quarter as we focus on evangelism and specifically BLESS, we Begin With Prayer as we step into our ministry with/to those around us. 

Prayer is God’s work too.  Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father and praying for us right now.  And the Holy Spirit is joining with us in prayer, especially when we are overwhelmed and without words.²  Yes, there have been so many moments this year that we’ve struggled for words.  Lord, help us pray; pray for us!

My burden is to push us toward more prayer.  I urge you to literally pray more: longer prayers, in more settings, program and schedule more, with more people in more places…more prayer! 

So, I’m tying engagement with each other and with God together because I’m landing on this challenging verse in James. 

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.³

After a year of learning to be separate from each other, I feel the deep need we have to move closer.  In all of our societal fragmentation, I cry out for our healing.  And in my moments of  desperation and despair I pray for God’s supernatural intervention.   

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.⁴

1.   1 Peter 5:8; John 10:10
2.   Romans 8:26-27, 34
3.   James 5:16
4.   Ephesians 1:18

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

We are saying farewell to Keith Tungseth as our PacNWC Mission Advancement Coach after five years of faithful and fruitful service. We are deeply indebted to Keith for his leadership in helping move us forward with Spanish-language ministries and steadily move into our vision to become a mosaic of churches working interdependently together. 

We began with only Iglesia Lationoamericana in Bellevue eight years ago, then along with Keith’s leadership went onto plant two more churches and work with another adoption. More recently Keith’s vision has been instrumental for developing partnerships with host churches like Bethany, Creekside, Grace Olympia and Faith along with exploratory conversations with several others. Leadership also organically developed during the pandemic at Renew for a Spanish language outreach. The conference goal was to commit ourselves to making sure all of our Spanish-speaking pastors become permanently credentialed and that all of their ministries would become member churches. Keith was uniquely gifted and qualified to help with this and be the effective bridge-person that was needed. He also became a significant liaison to Centro Hispano de Estudios Teologicos, the Covenant’s Spanish-language Bible school.

What the staff team loved most about Keith was his contagious passion for the gospel and church. He inspired us all and we remain ever grateful for his service. Though Keith is concluding his role officially, we will continue to contract some work with him going forward.  Please be sure to thank our dear brother.  On behalf of a grateful conference, thank you Keith!

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

New Years blessings conference family! I pray that this very unusual and quieter Advent/Christmastide has centered you in the unchanging and lavish love of our Savior. As we experience the insufficiency of the world’s systems and means, we are reminded of our inherent need for the Christ Child. We are broken people in a broken world panting for God’s touch. 

I love this from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.”

I pray that as you step into this new year that despite what might be happening in or outside you that you are finding your way to the Lord. I earnestly hope that despite…you find yourself being led by the Holy Spirit along that path, perhaps an unexpected path, to experiencing God like never before: intimacy with God during the exhausting and most painful of times; intimacy with God in the mundane and in the ecstatic. 

This is the treasure [we have] in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.¹

This treasure is the most valuable of gifts ever given that points to God himself declaring from his throne, Look, I am making everything new!²

Amidst times of such great uncertainty and need, we have Good News to share, Mission Friends. The baby we are still celebrating, grew up to call us to go make disciples. He told us to love with the most radical of loves that seeks God’s intended shalom for all. This life of disciple-making and people-loving points to specific individuals and our specific ways we experience each other in our communities and in society. Momentum develops as we make choices to enter the flow of Christ’s life for us. 

As we start to vaccinate and begin to realize what this “new normal” will actually look like, the conference staff has decided that we will have quarterly foci for 2021. We will load our communication channels with stories and resources to bring a higher level of concentration on four areas of our life together.  Starting this month we are focusing on EVANGELISM/DISCIPLESHIP. More about this later. 

As we go into and come out of our Annual Meeting Celebration April 24th – whether it’s completely online or a hybrid with some in-person – the second quarter we will focus on PRAYER. We remember that the prayer of the righteous person is powerful and effective.³  And Jesus explained that sometimes spiritual forces are so strong that they can only be overcome with prayer and fasting.⁴ 

As we move into the summer we will focus on COMMUNITY. In this third quarter with our summer window of good weather, we hope to be moving closer to each other in various ways.  One way of course is gathering at Cascades Camp.  We will also focus on moving more intentionally into our wider communities including our Youth Journey to Mosaic in August. 

Lastly, the fourth quarter will focus on SCRIPTURE. As we all look at our fall launches, what better foundation could we have than to do it with an eye on God’s living and breathing word, inspired by the Holy Spirit for us? Many churches have engaged or continue to engage Immerse, our Covenant’s community Bible reading experience. There have been many beautiful stories of how blessed people have been. 

We will share more specifics as we develop each theme, but let me come back to our first focus for this quarter. To do this, here is Associate Superintendent Dawn Taloyo’s invitation to us:

As we move into 2021, we encourage you to engage in the mission that God has called us to with renewed energy, passion, and delight.

How is the Holy Spirit calling your church to love your neighbor? To whom is God calling you to share the Gospel message of hope, forgiveness and freedom?  Will you be evangelists, bearers and communicators of the Good News that you have experienced and want to share with others?

This first quarter of 2021, as a conference, we are renewing our focus on our shared mission of being bearers of this Good News.  We will highlight resources and stories through our social media and newsletters, and hosting a webinar in later February.

As we begin, we want to encourage you to consider utilizing and engaging in the Covenant’s resource called BLESS, which you can find on the Covenant website here.

BLESS is an evangelism initiative created by the Covenant for churches. BLESS is an acronym for: begin with prayer; listen with care; eat together; serve in love; share your story.  It’s a suggested pathway for engaging intentionally in blessing others with the Good News we ourselves have experienced.

The BLESS resources are not meant to be a one-time study or sermon experience. Our hope is that BLESS will become second-nature, embedded in your church life and culture.

Every April, during our conference Annual Meeting, we invite churches to submit their “BLESS” cards with the names of those you are praying for. We look forward to receiving those and joining you in prayer.

Last year we were praying for and connecting with over 2600 people on our BLESS cards. Exciting!  We know that God longs to come close to everyone, everywhere. He is patient and waiting not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.^5. I urge you to individually and as a church to commit to BLESS and download a card or fill out a virtual one.  Schedule a BLESS Sunday sometime before our Annual Meeting Celebration so you can add all of your names to all the others from around the conference. Look for more in the coming days. 

The staff individually schedules weekly at least an hour to pray for your health, wellness, wisdom, unity, zeal, and faith.  New Years blessings to you! And don’t forget that Chinese New Years is February 12th, year of the ox!  Remember, “God does not give us everything we want, but He does fulfill His promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to Himself.” As you walk closer to the Lord, may you know the fullness of his blessings on you and may you generously share with others.

¹ 1 Cor. 4:7

² Rev. 21:5

³ James 5:16

⁴ Mark 9:29

⁵ 2 Peter 3:9

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

I trust that your Thanksgiving was special in ways that only 2020 could bring. I hope that it opened up new opportunities; perhaps gave you good moments of reflection, prayer or reminded you in encouraging ways of God’s steady presence. 

As we’ve seen the fall-colors explode and now as I stare at my rake for the work ahead, my heart is filled with gratitude for this beautiful place we call home. The Pacific Northwest is flat out gorgeous. This land, these mountains, all of the waters, the weather, and our now-darkening skies that gives us peeks of so many stars above us, all sing the praises of Creator. We are so blessed. Take a walk off of the concrete. Get in and join with creation as its praises the great provider and sustainer of birds, lilies and yes, you. 

Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So [we] are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

I am also filled with thanks for deepening connections and sense of family that has grown during the pandemic. I am meeting weekly with my childhood friends. I’ve gotten much closer to my neighbors.  The conference staff has felt like we’ve had more opportunities to connect with our ministers than ever before. It’s also been beautiful to see us live into being a mosaic of churches working interdependently together to transform lives and communities particularly around so much of the unrest and pain. Our national soul has been pierced and we’ve been challenged to better see each other and understand and respond to the differences in our life experiences. 

I know it hasn’t been easy. I implore you to continue to lean in. Continue to learn, converse, explore, and embody Christ’s work in your community. What does the Lord require of us? In all of our kingdom diversity, love how God is shaping and forming us in these days. We are living out God’s call to love unconditionally, be faithful, hold out hope, do justice, love mercy, and position our hearts with humility.   

We are Mission Friends. We are a family of 74 churches, a team, doing God’s work together.  We are churches in very different settings, but we are tied together by our vital need for each other, and our common mission. 

OK, I’m going to tie my two seemingly random thoughts together now.  I am grateful for the beautiful land we call home in the PacNWC.  We recognize that we are guests on the lands of very familiar tribes such as the Swinomish, Nisqually, Yakama, Spokane, Chinook, Tillamook, and Blackfeet.  As our sense of family and togetherness grows, I want to introduce part of the work that is coming to Gather 21. Sharing it now is also fitting as we conclude Indigenous Peoples Month. 

We will have an opportunity to vote on a new resolution that will be an official declaration by the Covenant Church to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery (DOD). It is something that we have been working on for several years but now have the opportunity to make official. This work has been done by several other denominations and have had a profound affect on their indigenous members and their communities as a whole. We are stewards of the good news of Christ. We believe that this kind of work is right at the center of gospel that heals, renews, and transforms.  Our years of work on this resolution are serendipitously concluding during a year that we are understanding the importance of understanding history and the affects of how we’ve seen and treated each other in this country.  

I know the DOD is not familiar to most of us. This is a good time to introduce it as a primer to learn more as you send delegates to the ECC’s annual meeting. 

In short, the Doctrine of Discovery is a set of legal and theological principles derived from a series of papal bulls issued by the church in the 15th Century. These official church documents permitted explorers to go to new lands and “capture, vanquish, and subdue, put into perpetual slavery” and “take all their possessions and property” indigenous people.  A pattern of dehumanization and genocidal conquest was launched in the name of Christ through the church. As we know this has had overwhelming affects on Native peoples, we, as the church are now led to do this redemptive work as a denominational family to repudiate it.    

My colleague in Alaska Superintendent Curtis Ivanoff, was recently featured here on this topic.  He also put me onto this page that helps us understand the DOD better and our response as the Church. I encourage you to also explore the following as we begin this journey together:

• President of the Covenant’s Indigenous Ministers Association (IMA), T.J. Smith introducing Indigenous People’s Month. 
• Beautiful March/April Covenant Companion featuring our very own Lenore Three Stars (Immanuel, Spokane) and Jim Sequeira (Cascade View, Vancouver, WA).
• Cov Sparks discussion guide for the Covenant Companion issue above.
• Unsettling Truths by North Park’s Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism Dr. Soong Chan Rah.

More resources produced by the denomination are forthcoming to help us prepare for this year’s vote and additionally in how we can realize this work together. The final version of the resolution itself will also be released soon.  I’m excited that we can be part of this important and beautiful work of bringing light instead to chase away darkness, trust to replace broken promises, and respect instead of alienation and silence.  This is the way – right? 

May the Lord bless us as we continue to share the good news of Christ with all that he might bring across our paths.  May the Lord bless us as we continue say yes to his invitation to join him in establishing his kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. 

Advent blessings, Family.  May the hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ sink deeply into your soul as you walk these days.  Make wise choices these holidays to keep yourself and others healthy and safe.  Stay fervent in prayer.  Stay watchful.  We cover you in prayer. 

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Election Day – May we earnestly be in prayer and fasting over our nation for God’s shalom, Christ’s ongoing redemptive work, and the power of the Holy Spirit to fill Jesus’ church. Following God’s design and command to be known by our selfless love and our radical unity, we enter a significant moment of opportunity to vividly express who we are. 

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come (Rev 4:8). The truth that God is “holy, holy, holy” speaks to his eternality, divine perfection in the Trinity, and absolute otherness. He alone is worthy of our worship.

Salvation belongs to God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb (7:10). Trite but true – we do not worship or put our hope in an elephant or a donkey.  Our trust is in the Lamb of God.  For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be [our] shepherd; he will lead [us] to springs of living water.  And God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes. (7:17)

My eyes are fixed on Jesus, but I hear my mom’s wisdom, “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthy good!” 

Despite whomever is our next public lands commissioner or president, our work remains the same.  What does the Lord require of [us]? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [our] God. (Micah 6:8).  We remain people of justice, mercy and humility.  What is the greatest commandment?  We remain people who love our God with our whole beings and love people like ourselves; in fact counting other’s interests more important than our own (Phil 2:1-5).  My heart and hopes are here. 

And with that I want to be clear.  I am more concerned that the church actually be the church rather than the U.S. be any one of our ideas of a Christian nation.  It is the church that Jesus promised to build while nations rise and fall. 

My prayer for us at this election turning point for the country –  Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor 15:58). 

Yes, vote in the most biblically informed way as a Christ follower.  Policies do matter.  And just as importantly, get involved in people’s lives and in your wider community.  Put your best energies and attention into doubling down on being close to people and to pain.  Get granular.  Get personal.  Invest locally.  Take walks to see what you can’t from the car.  Have conversations to see where the Spirit leads.  Mentor somebody.  Definitely disciple somebody.  Go to a city council or school board meeting.  Volunteer.  Be radically generous.  Share your story.  Be the church, Mission Friends.  Be the church.  We hold onto our hope in Christ as the church has always during the most perilous of times.  Stand firm.  Be strong and courageous.  Continue to fight the good fight. 

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

We are half way through Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15).  It’s a month that invites us to join in celebrating Latin American cultures and contributions to our country.  It reminds us of the immensity of God’s image that can only begin to be captured in any one of us, but more completely through the mosaic of different cultures and ethnicities.  These are moments for us to continue the vital posture of a learner and grow as a mission movement. 

Within the conference we particularly celebrate this month with our Mission Friends at Iglesia Lationoamericana (Bellevue), Iglesia Esperanza Viva (Sumner), Pacto de Gracia (Olympia), Iglesia Creekside (Redmond), Bethany Español (Mount Vernon), Renew’s Spanish language outreach (Lynnwood), other church partnerships we’re connected to, and so many others throughout the PacNWC.  We are a beautiful family!

In my personal journey, though I had a Puerto Rican neighbor growing up, I didn’t have significant connections to Latino/as until my work in the Pacific Southwest Conference.  Those were precious years, that deeply shaped me, and became part of what I wanted to bring to the PacNWC. 

I have so many fond memories of journeying with our Latino/a pastors, people, and churches.  I will always hold dear the deep sense of family I was invited into.  My heart quickens when I think of worshipping in Spanish (I only took 4 years of German).  I remember with joy the generational discipleship, baptisms, evangelism passion, and community outreaches.  It was an honor to join the 2006 clergy-led march in Los Angeles with a million participants as we prayed for President Bush’s immigration reform to pass (it didn’t). 

I also remember being with Pastor Kurt Notehelfer (now at Faith, Sumner) and 40 other Covenant leaders on Capitol Hill around the same season as the march.  How beautiful it was for African Americans, Caucasians, Latino/as, and Asian Americans to join together to visit Congresspeople and advocate for sensible reform.  It was an incredible picture of working in solidarity that will always stick with me. 

Being Chinese American compels me to steward well my own story rooted in our country’s Chinese Exclusion Act fueled by Yellow Peril.  We have not learned well from our past, and we are repeating it now with another group.  Our Latino/a colleagues in the conference disciple me as my frustration with current immigration policies is checked by their abiding prayerful faith and hope.  We are truly better together. 

There is also much to celebrate in the successes and contributions of Latino/as in our country.  They are also a rapidly growing population representing 18% of the U.S. population with over 60 million people.  As we look at the ethnic minorities in WA, OR, and ID, Latino/as make up the largest numbers 13.0%, 13.4%, and 12.8% respectively.  They are second largest in MT (4.1%) behind Native Peoples.  This is part of our mission.  These are our neighbors.

You remember Mark Twain’s famous quote that reminds us to get out of our own bubbles?

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

Mark Twain

And you remember Paul’s quote too, from Colossians 3:11:

In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

Colossians 3:11

Many of our clergy have joined a cohort to learn more about racial righteousness and are interacting around these resources.

• The film Delores
• Olivia Graziano’s short film about our southern border (6 min)
• Interview with Rev. Dr. Robert Chao Romero author of Brown Church with our Dir. of Racial Righteousness Dominique Gilliard
• Other verses about immigrants/refugees
• The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Read it imaginatively and engage your senses. Identify who you are in the story. What is God saying to you?

Let’s celebrate.  Let’s love our neighbors.  Let’s keep learning. 

Dios les bendiga!  God bless you, dear friends. 

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

I am beginning the official process of my 360-review this fall that comes at the end of each 4-year term for superintendents.  I’m just starting to write my personal reflection portion now.  As I’ve been looking back on the last 41 months, I am filled with joy and gratitude for the journey God has had us on.  In a world full of so much brokenness, I stand with enduring hope.  I see your faces.  I know your stories.  We struggle together.  It truly has been a beautiful journey. 

When people ask me what the most difficult thing about conference ministry is, I usually answer quickly.  It’s hardest when leaders are in conflict or when factions grow in churches.  Though as The Reconciled we should be professional reconcilers, the church can’t escape the human condition. Conflict is natural and normal and we shouldn’t be surprised by it. For those of you who have gone through church vitality work and have a relational covenant, you are familiar with this.  Yet, the work continues to be challenging, especially so it seems, in these days.

I love the maxim “there is no insight until you are onsite.”  I’ve shared this often but I feel like I need to say it again and look at in in the light of conflict’s ongoing presence. 

Our warm days and cool nights have been epic.  Yet, they have been a disconnecting backdrop when so much is stirring around us.  Amidst all of the unexpected that has been contained in this year, what I have been praying for the most has been an anti-divisive heart-set for us.

It is shocking how ignorant and misdirected we can all be because we make judgements from so far away.  We have the dangerous habit of creating whole realities before we invest time in understanding.

We don’t acknowledge our own filters or biases and quickly write people off.  We are conditioned to listen for key phrases or telling behaviors and immediately turn and walk away.  Too often we invest in listening only to those that share our same beliefs and we settle for a spiritual laziness in understanding others.  That’s the “other” and “I am not them!”

I believe we do this interpersonally as well.  We too often use expedient and non-personal ways like text or email to attempt important conversations when we should be talking face to face – or at least voice to voice.  Like Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden, deeply rooted in the very beginnings of the birth of our sin nature, we have been avoiding each other. 

It, unfortunately,  is a predictable pattern – yes in our churches (where the the Holy Spirit-empowered, God-infused expert ambassadors of reconciliation can be found) – that we too often make assumptions and react too quickly to people, without first having direct conversations. 

I believe there are too many ideological and financially motivated forces that are stirring an increasingly dominating spirit of division, impatience, and intolerance. It is the spirit of this world and we must not give it power. 

What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

1 Cor. 2:12 NIV

We swim in waters that diminish true expressions of the Fruit of the Spirt.  We breathe air that fights against our work of reconciliation interpersonally and corporately. We need commit ourselves to the vital work of sitting down and having clarifying conversations and civil dialogue.  We must relearn how to slow down and open up vital connectional space to talk.  Too often we hurry, hurry, hurry.  We move on and away from each other. 

Communication comes from the Latin root communicare which means “to hold in common.”  Too often, we avoid the longer and more difficult work to sit down and talk enough to get to the point of understanding each other.  Notice I did not say “completely agreeing with each other.”  We have grown too used to staying distant when relationships are difficult.  And worse, we’ve grown too used to not working on them and walking away.  That is not the way of our Savior.  With the incarnation, the root of our new life in Christ is the impulse to draw closer.  It is the anti-hiding behavior that the Cross creates in us. 

Biblical maxims from the wisdom literature of the OT and NT:

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing their opinion.

Proverbs 18:2

If one gives an answer before they hear, it is their folly and shame.

Proverbs 18:13

Be slow to speak and quick to listen

James 1:19

Who do you need to draw closer to?  How can we better submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21)?

As God continues to abundantly fill us with his grace and mercy, may we exude anti-divisiveness.  As we embody Christ’s hope to the world, may it be ever present in our relationships with each other.  As Jesus came to us in flesh and blood, may we draw closer to each other especially with the hard stuff.  May we find divine insight as we are onsite with each other. 

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Rom. 12:2 MSG

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Psalm 51:12

Our human stuff is exhausting: virulent diseases, corruption, destruction of decency, our racialized society, greed… We are overwhelmed with 24/7 news cycles, endless commentary, social media saturation… There are so many voices, so many perspectives, so many agendas.  Lord, help us to hear your voice and yours alone. Like King David, we know that we will not be able to hear you until we surrender ourselves and ask for your forgiveness. 

Lord, restore to [us] the joy of your salvation, and make [us] willing to obey you.

The joy of your salvation does not come from everything being stable, safe, or bountiful.  Help us to not confuse discomfort or disruption as not from you.  The Spirit shines the bright light of Creator on hidden and disregarded places.  This is often disconcerting and disorienting.  Lord, create in us clean hearts; teachable spirits that desire to live in your revealing light.  Forgive us for our judgmental hearts and our dependence upon human voices rather than yours.  Help us to be avid students of your scripture and good listeners in our prayers.  Come Holy Spirit, come.  Shine your light on us. 

Lord, restore to [us] the joy of your salvation, and make [us] willing to obey you.

We see your salvation in Revelation.  It gives us hope.  There will no longer be any sorrow, suffering, or death. You are making all things new. Every language, ethnicity, and nation will be recognized and honored as you intended.  We hold onto images of the river of life flowing down from your throne, and by this river will be trees whose leaves will be for the healing of the nations.  We need those leaves, Lord.  We join creation in groaning for your return, Lord Jesus.  Come Jesus, come! 

Lord, restore to [us] the joy of your salvation, and make [us] willing to obey you.

But right now with all of the exhausting human stuff, we need you desperately, Lord.  There’s still so much to learn.  And with that, we recognize the gift you bless us with; each other to enter holy spaces of mutual learning and listening.  Help us to draw nearer and not push away.  You ask us to lay our lives down for each other.  Save us from our indifference and help us to love our neighbors.  You ask us to join you in your work of the gospel that flows out of the power of the resurrection and the church birthed by nothing less than your Holy Spirit.  Help us to not reduce your work to stuff that just makes us feel comfortable. May we find holy resolve to wholly dedicate ourselves to the renewing and restorative work you are doing in lives and in this world.  Create in us clean hearts, O God.  Renew in us a steadfast spirit. 

Lord, restore to [us] the joy of your salvation, and make [us] willing to obey you.