By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

I started writing this before the tragedies of last week.  Stick with me.

One of the wonderful benefits of online services is my ability to be with multiple churches on Sundays.  I love that I could be in Spokane, in Portland and at our home church all in one morning.  I’m guessing that you yourself have visited more churches in the last three months than you’ve visited in the past 20 years!

We certainly miss seeing body language, feeling volume, negotiating space, shaking hands, hugging – all the physicality of togetherness.  We’re not all touchy people, “not a hugger,” but I think we all realize as we’ve distanced, how much we miss physical contact.  Creator’s imprint hardwires us to be physically connected with each other.  It is the nature of the Trinity and is the image that we are created in. 

I’m sure you heard the story about the 10-year old girl who created a clear plastic “hug curtain” because she missed her grandparent’s touch so much.  We ache for touch.  I’m taken back to Psych 1 where I first learned about Harry Harlow’s classic study with baby monkeys.  They developed abnormally when they were in isolation from their siblings. They also were healthier with a furry wire-framed surrogate mother providing no milk than a bare wire frame that did provide milk.  Monkeys need warm, furry, touch more than food! 

Bonding and intimacy needs tactile interaction.  It needs human exchange.  It certainly explains why social distancing has been so life-sucking – even for introverts!  It is our divine design to feel each other.

There are two Greek verbs for “knowing.” One describes cognitive knowledge, like knowing the names of colors. The other describes intimacy and experiential knowledge.  It is used to describe the physical joining together of husband and wife in procreation.  We can only intimately know somebody when we draw close and touch.  Experiencing others only occurs when there is life to life connectedness. 

Enter these last three weeks – a micro-sample of hundreds of years of the same.  George Floyd in Minnesota, Ahmaud Arbery in Atlanta, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville are merely recent examples.  We cannot act like this is somehow different and now we’re shocked.  We’ve heard and read about these things so many times in the past, but chose to not draw closer.  Don’t get it twisted, we are not just seeing this new because we have video-capable cell phones.  In 1991, 7 years prior to the first iPhone, we had very clear video of Rodney King being beaten by multiple peace officers who were later not found guilty- but no.  We saw LA burn and looted.  What did we do?  What has changed in our hearts and in our actions?  We see black and brown bodies mistreated and murdered over and over again…injustices being justified and we move on…and away…

The neighborhood I grew up in Oakland, CA was developed in the 1930’s.  On the plat of this exciting new community, it declared that no Orientals or Africans were allowed to live there.  Fast forward through WWII, and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, my parents were able to purchase a home there.  Seven years separate my oldest brother and me.  It is very telling to look at our 5th grade pictures.  He is the only Asian in an all Caucasian class.  I am the only Asian in an all African American class.  We have a long history of moving away.  

We grow “out of touch.” 

We lack proximity.  We aren’t feeling each other’s breath…or lack there of.  It makes us too uncomfortable.  We categorize it away as “political.”  “Oh that’s those backward folks in the South or Midwest”  We hide behind religious platitudes that excuses us from the work.  It costs me too much…

We need to “get in touch.”  It is the way of Jesus. 

Incarnation/presence

Other’s interests before ours

Willingness to die

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!

Read that again.

I also must add that the pain is heavy for other peoples: Native Peoples, Latino/as, and Asian Americans. There are similar strains of feeling unsafe, unfairly targeted, stolen from, limited, used, and kicked out.  The term the Covenant uses is correct.  Our ministry and commitment is for racial righteousness.  The races are from God and help reflect the beauty and immensity of his image. We long for wholeness and rightness in our agonizingly racialized society.  This work of the gospel can only happen when we draw closer.  This pandemic has taught us to not touch anything and to stay far apart.  But this racial pandemic calls us to walk closer and touch each other more than ever.  It is the close and experiential knowing we need.  We are not safe and right just in our own worlds.  We are incomplete and will absolutely languish without each other’s touch. 

Therefore, my beloved family, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.  

1 Cor 15:58

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

It was fun to blaze a new trail as we held the first ever online conference annual meeting in the Covenant.  When talking with Pastor Daron Jagodzinske (Alive, Poulsbo) a couple of weeks ago, he joked and declared that he thought it would be our largest ever.  It wasn’t quite that, but certainly a much larger meeting than normal with over 150 delegates from 50 churches that were seated and 160 individuals that came into the “general conferee” stream over YouTube Live.  Of course that included viewers like my mom though!

We ran much longer than we thought (so sorry delegates!), but we were so pleased with everything going smoothly, essential business accomplished, lessons learned (fill out your evaluation please!), watching all those behind the scenes serve Jesus, and you all, so diligently and excellently (go team!), and sensing God’s overall favor.  We give Him all the glory and honor.

The one regret I did have is that I ended up cutting out part of what I was going to share at the end of my report that I was able to share with our ministers during the Ministerial Association Annual Meeting an hour earlier.  I reflected on Ephesians 4:11-13.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  

This passage is often referred to as the APEST or the “five-fold gifts of the Spirit” passage: apostle, evangelist, prophet, shepherd, teacher.  It is seen as an essentials list for the church to grow, mature, and flourish.  Don’t we all want “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ”!  If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you read Alan Hirsch’s works on the five-fold gifts and the mission of the church overall.  Check out Forgotten Ways, The Permanent Revolution, The Shaping of things to Come, 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ, and his most recent Reframation: Seeing God, people, and Mission Through Reenchanted Frames.  I am inspired by Hirsch’s convictions.  If you are less familiar with the five-fold gifts, here’s his primer.

I challenged our ministers and will do so here to look at these gifts as areas of focus in your church as well.  Let’s get through each. 

Apostles – This gift have become front and center with Stay at Home.  This is our expansion impulse.  In this area we are thinking about bridging to new opportunities, going to new places, exploring new ideas, and starting new things.  Being forced out of our normal rhythms and into online spaces demanded us to let this often dormant gift – because we don’t like change – to flex its muscles.  There has been such a beautiful and inspiring explosion of creativity and intentionality these days.  We’ve seen greater intentionality to connect with neighbors and serve our communities.  We’ve moved out of our buildings to make connections outside.  We’ve become more sensitive to the vulnerable and the under-resourced.  How do we not muzzle this gift when things begin to shift out of quarantine?  How do we keep exploring and experimenting?  How do we keep stepping out in boldness and faith? 

Prophets – This is the gift that points us to what needs to change.  It’s the gift that calls out what needs to stop and calls us to better understand what fidelity to God should look like.  We are learning important lessons about what is truly necessary and what isn’t in these days.  As we move ahead, it is an opportune time to shed practices and programs that have kept us from our true identity as the Church.  Let’s not be like God’s people that didn’t listen to the prophets and kept following their own ways, preferences, and comforts.  What needs to change?  What do we need to let go of? 

Evangelists –  We’ve seen larger numbers logging into Sunday services.  With our new rhythms, we’re having more conversations with people in our spheres.  We’ve become even more aware of our human fragility and more sensitive to eternal realities that weigh in the balance.  As God opens up new opportunities for people to hear and experience him, how do we fan this always-too-small flame?  We are missionaries.  We are practicing expert disciple-makers.  We are carriers of God’s shalom in our towns and cities.  We are ambassadors of reconciliation.  We are friends on mission together.  You will absolutely need to put a concerted effort and commit extra energy into this.  Don’t lose this mission moment as you relaunch, essentially like church plants.  You will need to pour specific attention into this because it always gets diminished because we are selfish beings.  Let us not be reluctant givers of God’s gifts.  Let our generous hearts lead us in evangelism. 

Shepherd – Generally speaking, Covenant pastors and churches are more focused around this and the next gift.  This gift and area of ministry is vitally need to help minister amidst the trauma that’s been experienced during this time with economic and relational stresses, losses of milestones (funerals, weddings, graduations, etc), moral injury medical staff and first responders have been experiencing, fear of disease/death especially for our older folks, separation from loved ones,… shepherds and shepherding ministries are some of what we’ve done so well and I know we’ll continue to do well.  Shepherds will also need to help guide us into next steps as we traverse new and treacherous terrain.  Shepherds will keep us together while we keep moving ahead. 

Teachers – We’ve learned a lot about new methods and found new opportunities to teach and learn.  We’ve learned a lot about our the place of our preaching ministries, closed-end online class opportunities, and creative discipling.  We must capture these good lessons and see what we carry forward with us.  We also must make sure we foster a culture of being life-long learners.  We must avoid being full of too much knowledge.  We cannot get stuck living in a world of ideas in a way that doesn’t result into transformed lives and kingdom action.  What we’ve done in the past is a foundation for us, but it is not the roadmap into the future.  What are we learning about our complex mission field?  May our growing knowledge be inseparably wedded with our evolving, expanding missional work. 

So, in all of these considerations, my prayer coming out of our Annual Meeting Celebration is that you will be built up, as you grow in unity and unify in mission.  I pray that you continue to grow into the fullness of Christ and overflow with hope.  May the five-fold gifts be present in your church.  May these areas of ministry be ever growing in your church.  As you continue to follow Jesus in these days, I pray that life and ministry would clarify as you are filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

I hope you’ve read my January article “Togetherness is Our Superpower” and February’s “Leveraging The Conflict Debt Snowball Approach.”  I’m sticking with our Annual Meeting Celebration theme “TOGETHER” for my articles leading up to our time as a Conference family in Gig Harbor, at Harbor Cov, April 24-25. 

This is a foundational theme for us.  Our founding mothers and fathers believed we could do more together than we could ever do as independent churches.  It reminds us that today we are a family of mission partners, leveraging our growing diversity, for greater ministry – TOGETHER.

It is a timely theme.  I recognize that we’re not all necessarily feeling a sense of togetherness. Too often this together feels distantly aspirational.  Currently it may feel too complicated or painful.  But we can agree that God is a God of unity and clarity and not confusion and separation.  Even when it’s difficult we must draw together.  I am convinced that we must push and encourage each other in this shared mission because too much is on the line.  We can’t just be on our own.  More than ever, we must move forward TOGETHER. 

This month, I want to share a few togetherness sightings.  I know there are so many more stories out there. I would love to hear them, so please share them with me.

Iglesia Esperanza Viva has been hosted by Kent Cov since its beginnings five years ago when Esperanza launched.  Now, Esperanza has been led to start a new service over in Sumner at Faith Cov.  Very exciting!  Earlier this month, leadership from bother churches shared dinner and walked through a facilitated meeting getting to know each other through “walk with Jesus” testimonies, vision sharing, and prayer.  They are positioning themselves to be able to reach even more of Sumner now by intentionally working together.  It inspires me to see them join together, learn from each other, be changed by each other, and now be on mission TOGETHER!

I was exited when Ian Cheng first cold-called me.  I’ve been praying for a Chinese-language planter for years.  And so many of our Eastside Seattle churches have prayed for opportunities to reach their growing population of Chinese neighbors.  It’s taken a village to help get Seattle Chinese Cov going this past year leading to its grand opening this past month.  Newport, Evergreen, Highland, and Pine Lake have contributed free use of their facilities, prayer, and financial support.  Newport prayed over Ian and his leaders during Newport’s service just before SCCC’s grand opening that afternoon. That morning I also attended Disciple Community who rents Newport’s gym.  It was good to sit down with Pastor Derek Hwang there and Newport Chair Barbara Moffat and dream together after their service.  On the Newport campus that Sunday, there was a whole lot of TOGETHER!

We have been praying for Pastor Grant Christensen as he’s been working through cancer treatment but more recently his hip replacement surgery.  I loved seeing how Grace Bremerton and Harbor Cov connected during this challenging season this past month and how Harbor has come alongside to help support Sunday services while Grant has been out.  They are also working together to start a dinner church in Bremerton.  Harbor has already started a dinner church in the New Tacoma/lower Dome area.  There’s something beautiful about churches working TOGETHER!

Trinity Cov (Salem) invited Dawn Taloyo, director of pastoral and congregational health, and her husband Carlos to lead a marriage retreat. In the planning stages Trinity decided to reach out to McMinnville Cov to see if they would be willing to host the retreat in their facilities and invited MCC to participate as well. In the end 10 couples, a mix from both churches joined together for a Friday evening and all day Saturday marriage intensive this past month. Dawn reported,”This felt like a win– win. One church took on the planning and the other provided the space and it was a reminder of how we are ‘in it TOGETHER’.”

This past month 325 students and youth leaders were at MUD.  This big production ministry only happens through careful planning by a team of youth ministers serving on our Youth Commission along with Cascade’s Camp and Conference staff.  This team further partnered with additional churches to recruit leaders and students to share their stories. Over 30 PacNWC churches were able to participate along with some non-Covenant friends such as Mending Wings from the Yakama Nation. Our shared mission giving also goes towards scholarships to make sure every student can attend.  We know that 64% of Christians began following Jesus before they were 18.  MUD and Thunder continue to be some of the most fruitful and exciting things we do TOGETHER! 

As we lean into our lenten journey let’s lean into each other as we share God’s mission here in this place and at this time.   I pray that these togetherness-sightings might inspire you; that it might spur holy creativity.  I pray that it would encourage you to have a conversation that just might lead to surprising doors of opportunity opening up.  I love that we’re doing this TOGETHER.

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor…As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another…And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching

Ecclesiastes 4:9, Proverbs 27:17, Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV. 

TOGETHER

[Click Here] to visit the 2020 PacNWC Annual Celebration Event Page

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Happy Lunar New Years!  How many Rats do we have out there?!  I was recently in Chicago for meetings and smiled at the fact that with Angela Yee, there are two “Yee’s” around the denominational leadership table and not two of any others!  It seemed significant that no Scandinavian surname was repeated.  Hear Yee, Hear Yee! 

I was also reminded as this same group worked with the Ethnic Commission Presidents on the Six-Fold Test that the vast majority of current denominational leadership is relatively new to the denomination and/or new in their role.  In our own conference we are no strangers to the generational shift that has and continues to happen.  We have experienced ourselves what it means to have significant organizational memory transition on: Mark Novak, Krisann Jarvis Foss, Kurt Carlson, and most recently Don Robinson.  At the church level, my list of pastors looking to transition in the near future is longer than it’s ever been.  There is a notable sense of change in the air. 

As I often say – all change brings a sense of chaos, and the bigger the change, the greater the sense of chaos.  I think it can sometimes feel very chaotic.  And nobody likes chaos, right?

I think we’re living in chaotic times.  Our nation is in chaos.  There has been increased persecution around the global church.  And here in the States, Christianity has seemingly lost its credibility, Holy Spirit power, and place.  We had a denominationally disrupting Annual Meeting, and I know that some of you are continuing to have challenging conversations still, not to mention difficult conversations about other matters.

At that same leadership meeting, the other Yee mentioned a book she was currently reading, The Good Fight – Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organization Back on Track, by Liane Davey.  In it Davey introduces her concept of “conflict debt.” 

“…the sum of all the contentious issues that need to be addressed to be able to move forward instead remain undiscussed and unresolved.  Conflict debt can be as simple as withholding the feedback that would allow your colleague to do a better job and as profound as continually deferring a strategic decision while getting further and further behind…”  (p.10)

She develops this with the analogy of financial debt.  The more and more we allow conflict to persist, the more in debt we become.  She says, “When your conflict debt gets too high, it becomes overwhelming.  You’re exhausted by the thought of trying to pay it off.  You’ve destroyed your credit rating…by letting these issues go unresolved for so long.  Maybe it’s so bad that you’re tempted to declare bankruptcy and move [on]…”. (p. 25)

She bullets out:

• “Conflict debt builds up when you avoid the discussions and decisions that are required…
• With conflict debt, the principal costs are compounded by the interest that accumulates in the form of frustration disengagement, and eroded trust.
• Conflict debt is costly to organizations.  The unwillingness to work through organizational conflicts prevents effective prioritization, creates innovation silos, and allows risks to go unnoticed.
• Avoiding interpersonal conflicts hampers teamwork…” (p. 26)

There is no relationship or group that we belong to that is without conflict.  Conflict is natural and normal for all healthy and growing relationships/groups.  It’s not “if” we have conflict, but “how” we have conflict.  Davey makes a distinction between being conflict averse and conflict avoidant.  She says that we all are conflict averse.  But she admonishes that we mustn’t be conflict avoidant.  That’s the road to greater debt. 

In the spirit of Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil (Eph 4:26-27), and If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Rom 12:18), and finally, All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18), we need to pay off our conflict debt. 

It’s not easy, or fast, or natural, but we can’t allow our conflict debt to accrue so much that we bankruptcy is forced.  I think of the great relief when Bellingham Cov recently celebrated paying off their mortgage.  Amazing relief!  There is Holy Spirit relief that happens and room again to grow and flourish. 

Last month I wrote about togetherness being our superpower as an introduction to this year’s Annual Celebration theme TOGETHER.  I’ve chosen to stay with this over the next three months for my Catch articles before we’re in Gig Harbor in April.  TOGETHER is taken from Jesus’ forward-looking prayer captured in John 17:

“I pray that they will all be one…so that they world will believe [in me]”

Jesus prays that as he, the Father and Spirit are in community sharing perfect oneness, he prays for us to know the same.  He prays this because he believes that this togetherness is the key that will be our ultimate witness to the world.

Famous debt-management program, Dave Ramsey, talks about the Debt Snowball Method:

• List your debts from smallest to largest, regardless of interest rate.
• Attack the smallest debt with a vengeance, while making minimum payments on the rest of your debts.
• Repeat this method as you plow your way through debt.

May we continue to use a similar Conflict Debt Snowball approach.  List those we know we need to make amends, attack these debts with intensity and consistency, and keep pushing until we plow our way through. 

Francis Assisi’s famous prayer is fitting for us here:

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

Happy New Years – a new decade begins!  My prayers were for a safe, beautiful, and enlightening Christmas and start to 2020. I hope it’s been. 

This year’s annual meeting theme is TOGETHER.  It is taken from one of Jesus’ most forward-looking prayers as the entire chapter of John 17 captures.  Jesus prays a farewell prayer that beautifully points to what is most true and important to him as he faces his physical demise. Betrayal, ridicule, torture, and slow death are all before him.  What is core to Jesus in this clarifying last moment?

Jesus prays that as he, the Father and Spirit are in community sharing perfect oneness, he prays for us to know the same.  That’s what he wanted.  There were many things he could have prayed, but more than anything else, he prayed for our togetherness.

“I pray that they will all be one…so that they world will believe [in me]”

See that’s the key.  It’s our oneness, our unity, that will be the ultimate witness to the world.  Togetherness is our superpower for the mission God gives us.  It is when we are working together that mission will be most effective. 

We were drawn to this theme because Jesus’ prayer seems especially pointed for us today.  It seems particularly important and bold in our current polarized climate globally, nationally, locally, denominationally, and even in our churches.  We will always have conflict and disagree about matters. This is natural and normal.  I believe this is why Jesus prayed for us – he knew this.  But a spirit of disunity is poisonous.  I’ve seen it devastate churches and consume leaders and pastors. I’ve seen it distract us and pull us away from each other taking us off mission. 

Our early impulses as a denomination were to be friends joining in mission.  We called ourselves Mission Friends.  Our passionate commitment was that we could do abundantly more together than we could ever do as independent churches.  But what is different today is that we are a much more diverse church living in more diverse realities.  We are no longer the mono-cultural denomination we were when these commitments were first made.  Being friends and joining arm in arm in mission is more complex and challenging today.  It demands more from us: more time, more conversations, more learning, more patience… Together is a lot of work. 

But Jesus continues to pray for us as he sits at the right hand of the Father right now interceding.  I am certain he prays for our togetherness. 

Our strong and sure witness is our diversity. Within the realities of our growing mosaic of churches and in a region where Jesus is not very well known, I believe that we need each other more than ever.  We must remember this is our superpower.  We reflect the Trinity.  We are an answer to Jesus’ prayers.  We move forward in mission best when we are TOGETHER as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-class multi-lingual church. 

We look toward to being together at Harbor Covenant Church (Gig Harbor, WA) April 24-25.  Please plan now to attend our Leadership Matrix workshops on Friday afternoon.  We’ll be sending more information out shortly.  We also look forward to hearing from my colleague the Reverend Superintendent Catherine Gilliard from the Southeast Conference at our opening worship service.  Please send delegates to the annual meeting on Saturday. We look forward to having more times of discussion and prayer together. 

Your love for one another will prove to the word that you are my disciples (John 13:35). Let’s do it!

[Click Here] to visit the PacNWC 2020 Annual Celebration Event Page

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.

Mister Rogers

There is nothing more beautiful than a life well lived; one marked by refinement and purposefulness.  You’ve met these people.  I hope you’re one yourself.  They have the aroma of life that penetrates the thickest of stale, sickly air. They embody the kingdom.  Like deep breaths of our fresh crisp Northwest air, these people fill our soul’s lungs with calm.  Dimmers brighten.  Lights come on.  Darkness is chased away. 

Saturday, November 23rd, Newport Covenant Church hosted a celebration of life and worship service for their dear Pastor David Beck after an almost two year battle with pancreatic cancer.  Keep praying for Susan and the family and for the church.  David was one of these aromatic people.  He embodied the beautiful life well lived marked by refinement and purposefulness.  In one of my last extended times with him, he earnestly shared how much he wanted to be back at Newport.  Even when he was weak and tired, he wanted to give God glory and continue to serve him.  At his memorial, there were so many stories about David’s love for God, for the church, and for people.  He knew who he was.  A sweet aroma of life and hope remains. 

Scientists tell us that our sense of smell is closely linked with memory, probably more so than any of our other senses. We are able to think of smells that evoke particular memories. Fresh buttered popcorn will always remind me of my childhood walking around Sears.  The smells of Chinatowns always take me back to an entire childhood of family and church very distinct from  my suburban-raised kids.  The smell of old classic Mennen Speed Stick will always evoke tender memories of my dad.

curiosity.com explains, “Scents bypass the thalamus and go straight to the brain’s  smell center, known as the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulb is directly connected to the amygdala and hippocampus, which might explain why the smell of something can so immediately trigger a detailed memory or even intense emotion.”  What memories are connected to specific aromas for you?

But more importantly, how do you smell?  What memories do people have of you?  Your church? 

I smell you, fellow Jesus followers.  As burning incense in Yahweh’s tabernacle/temple wafted upward as fragrant worship, may your life’s aroma spread to all around you this Advent season.  God with us.  He dwell in us.  And he calls us to be salt, light, and yes, perfume – expensive perfume that anoints our Savior’s feet; expensive perfume that penetrates the thickest of stale, sickly air. 

Smell up your family.  Leave your sent everywhere.  Boldly live the redemptive life of Christ in your communities and in your towns.  Our smell is not merely Febreeze.  The work of Christ is complete.  He removes the smell of death and brokenness.  This is what and who we are.   

You are the aroma of Christ.  Your church is the aroma of life in your neighborhood.  I pray that all you do, all your choices, comes “from a deep sense of who you are.” 

For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.

2 Corinthians 2:15-17 (NIV)

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

Luke 9:25

One would think that after two major moves that my family would have successfully purged so much of what we’ve accumulated over the years.  There’s something deep that happens when you are forced to completely pack up all of what you have to put into a truck and then unpack it again to find new places for everything.  From the Bay Area came14 years in Chicagoland, 11 years in Sacro-tomato, and now 7 years in Renton, home of the second-place Seahawks and the plant that normally cranks out 52 737 MAX’s/month.   

You would think that we would have been an easy early adopter to Marie Kondo before she became a thing.  Instead, prompted by our second of three birdies leaving the nest, we more recently began instituting the Kondo-way on our house minus the thanking of everything.  FYI, you might find some really good stuff at the Goodwill on Sunset in Renton!  We’ve committed to purge and scale down. 

I just watched the Netflix documentary Minimalism.  In the film it speaks of the correlation of physical/mental/emotional health and the accumulation of stuff.  Earlier this year the NY Times article “The Unbearable Heaviness of Clutter” points to a growing body of studies that show that clutter significantly contributes to negative health affects.  Is this why Swedes are some of the healthiest people on the planet?  After you visit IKEA and get yourself more organized, read other studies like the one by Tim Kasser from Knox College who states in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that there is a clear “link between materialism – or valuing money and possessions – and poor physical health.”  Our accumulations are making us sick; on multiple levels.

As Mary and I have purged like we’ve never purged before, the truth of the matter is that we continue to get a flow of boxes Amazon Primed, stuff I probably don’t really need from AliExpress (but it’s so cheap!), and other mail order packages that gives that adrenaline shot when we see them waiting for us like an eager pup on our porch.

There was something about the film that resonated so deeply with me.  It felt inspired. As I’ve reflected on that, I know it touched deeply, because it’s how we are hardwired to be – what God intends for us.  His commands and guidelines in scripture help us to understand what is best for us.  And it seems clear that God wants us to be more like minimalists rather than grand accumulators.  We continue to ignore and break a few commandments too frequently don’t we? …not keeping the sabbath…envying stuff…having other gods before God…and showing too much worth to inanimate objects. 

As we go into the seasons of Thanksgiving and Advent, I encourage you to take some time to stop, reflect, and premeditate the holidays.  How can you deliberately slow down, simplify, not be caught up in more stuff, connect with loved ones and strangers, share the good news of Jesus in word and deed…?  Premeditate a deliberateness to not feed the greed or chase the pace that’s shrinking your soul. 

So many verses encouraging the simplicity that comes with following Jesus.  Don’t skip them!

Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.  Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’  Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. 

Proverbs 30:7-9

And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind…Better one handful with tranquility, than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:4, 6

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. 

Luke 12:15

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 

Colossians 3:1-2

Stay warm, Friends.  Follow Jesus.  I pray that you have a wonderful beginning to the holiday season.  And as Jesus said, What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? I pray that you will find and own your very self, your true self, as a follower of Him. 

By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC

As I began a ZOOM connection with a few pastors as a follow up to our reading Francis Chan’s book Letters to the Church, I presented these statistics.  Behind the Northeast as a whole and specific cities there, Seattle and Portland always rank among the most unchurched in the U.S.  Barna takes it a step further and finds that 39% of Portland and 50% of Seattle are post-Christian, meaning that many people marked at least 9 of 16 criteria which identified a lack of Christian identity, belief and practice. Leaders in British Columbia speak of church work in parts of Canada being “pre-Christian“ now; meaning there is such an absence of familiarity with Christianity that it’s like a new mission field of unreached people.

We also looked at a Barna chart showing that generationally we are trending toward higher and higher percentages of people disconnected from church/Jesus the younger you look: 28% of Elders (1945+), 35% of Boomers (1946-64), 40% of Busters (1965-83) and 48% of Mosaics (1984-2002).

In addition we also reflected on PacNWC statistics that show seemingly encouraging trends year over year since the 2008 bust.  We have seen increasingly higher per-attender giving as well as increasingly higher local church income. In contrast to these overall upward financial trends, our aggregate attendance has been declining during that same period.  We noted that our relative financial strength may be in fact giving us a false sense of security. 

As we sit with these often overwhelming realities, we sober up and remember that it is not a mistake that we are here at this time and in the Pacific Northwest for God’s Kingdom purposes. It is not a neutral placement or random coincidence.  It is most certainly not a mistake that we are here.  God sees us, empowers us, and calls us here.  We are missionaries to the Pacific Northwest.  

These are our sure convictions, but we receive Henry Ford’s pearl again, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” I think that’s a good word when we’re faced with different levels of decline or a sense of diminishing momentum and spirit. Is it time to stop the assembly line and take a more intense look at what’s going on and what might need to change? Is there a sense that we are still making Model-T’s during an age of Tesla’s and autonomous cars?

In Paul’s earnest plea to the Jesus-followers in 1 Corinthians 10:33, he urges, I, too, try to please everyone in everything I do.  I don’t just do what’s best for me; I do what’s best for others so that many may be saved.  This is Paul’s lead into saying at the beginning of chapter 11, Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. Jesus was willing to give it all up so that you and I would know salvation.  Likewise, Paul himself gave up everything in order for others, especially non-Jews to know the good news of Jesus. 

My prayer is this – as you walked through your fall launch or as you anticipate it soon, that you have spent good “balcony” time to evaluate and do a check-up of how you are stewarding what God gives you.  Evaluation should be a regular and natural flow of leadership and life/ministry together.  Without evaluation, activity, structures, culture, processes, and expenditures that are mis-focused push us further away from being who we are supposed to be and the work we’re supposed to do. We continue to get what we always got.

As you do good prayerful evaluative work, here are some of my musings from my conversations around the conference:

1. With all of our advances, people long to be connected to other people.  Create new spaces and clear pathways for people to relate, explore, and learn. Nothing replaces intentional life-on-life work.
2. Despite all our technology, we are hard-wired as the created, to know and touch the Creator.  I think we need to focus less on worship style and more on creating worshipful environments where people can experience the supernatural; something bigger than themselves. 
3. Pray, pray, pray.  Pray together.  Pray together regularly.  Build a culture of prayerfulness.  If you’re not praying you’re clearly doing everything in your own power and in your own wisdom.  Seek God and pray together.
4. Whatever time, leadership, and effort you are putting into evangelism/discipleship, double, even triple it.  Keep investing in and maturing the family business. In our humanness it’s natural to not prioritize this because of the high cost it demands.  Quadruple it…!
5. Call people to their Holy Spirit infused giftedness.  We are a training and development organization.  Be more like a trade school rather than a university.  Don’t leave gifts on the bench.  Have clear pathways of developing people. Call out your gifted women.  Call out your gifted young people.  Debunk the concept of retirement.  Create a culture and clear pathways of leadership/gift exploration and development. 
6. Keep the expectation bar high for your people to engage the community, address societal good, protect life, and uphold God’s fullness for your neighbors.  Keep learning/reading and exploring.  Keep talking and stretching.  Be a beacon.  Be salty.  Serve your community/town/area. 
7. Feed back, assess, dream, analyze, discern, evaluate… keep up the good work that is yours.  May God bless you richly as you launch into this new school year. 

By Greg Yee, Superindendent, PacNWC

I recently heard this quote from English novelist Arnold Bennett,

“There can be no knowledge without emotion.  We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours.  To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.”

Love this. I’ll come back to it later.

As Evangelicals, we believe that the Bible is God-breathed and that it is the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine and conduct.  This Creator-inspired holy script wholly instructs, inspires, and corrects us.  It sits in our lives and our life together as our foundation and our life-lamp.  It is world-view shaping and counter-cultural.  The words we read are not just English translations of ancient manuscripts. The Hebrew author tells us that the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The Covenant’s first and foundational affirmation is the centrality of the Word of God and states that the dynamic, transforming power of the word of God directs the church and the life of each Christian. We boldly confess and live out the fact that, today, God continues to reveal Himself to us through the Old and New Testaments.

I start there because my heart is heavy about the challenges of our life together as a mosaic of 77 churches.  I’m concerned because I perceive that we like the idea of being a diverse conference, but I’m not sure if we’ve counted that cost and given ourselves completely to it.  I’m afraid that what we are called to do and be too quickly gets labeled as non-biblical or not about the gospel.  I want us to do thorough biblical work and understand what scripture challenges us to do and be.  I believe that this is what we are called to in this season.

It’s our conference vision. We are a mission movement that believes that God calls us to be a mosaic of churches working interdependently together to transform lives and communities.  We follow God’s word and together commit to each other to reach as much of the Pacific Northwest as we can.  By “to reach” I mean more people giving their lives to Jesus, and “to reach” I also mean communities/cities/regions/countries/the planet being transformed as God’s kingdom ways are established here and now; personal wholeness and societal wholeness; God’s shalom.

I love the growing, beautiful mosaic God is building in us.  We are seeing more and more of the image of God through our diversity.  We have six different ministries for Spanish speakers from Aloha, OR to Burlington, WA.  We are planting our first Chinese language church in Bellevue.  And don’t forget our Nepali-speaking congregation in Kent, four Korean-speaking churches in OR and WA, and a Liberian, Pan-African, and other Latino churches we’re currently talking to.  The PacNWC is about 30% multiethnic. We are in agricultural and in our largest urban areas.  We are near universities, military bases, in all of our state capitols, and around the largest and leading companies on the planet.  We are a diverse missionary people call to this incredible slice of the world.

We are an growing, beautiful, potent mosaic.  God invites us forward…

So, together as a diverse conference, on mission together, and founded on the centrality of Scripture, how do we live and serve together?   I especially wonder how we live and serve together when difficult things happen. So often during tough times, we instinctively quote good scripture to each other like, If one part suffers, every part suffers with it… How do we suffer together and how do we see God’s Kingdom established amidst pain and difficulty?  How do we incarnate ourselves and lay our lives down for each other?  How do we see others interest as more important than ours?  How do we follow Jesus in this way (Phil 2:1-11)?

When we hear about somebody shooting up a WalMart and intently targeting Mexicans on August 3rd and then hear about the largest workplace immigration raid in a decade on August 7th, how do we respond?  Don’t read this politically.  We have immigrants in our churches that were terrified after these incidents; fellow Covenanters that continue to be profoundly affected even today.  How do we do life and ministry together amidst that?  What is our responsibility to each other?  What is the gospel work here?

Andy Larsen (Quest/MENA), Mat Hollen (St. Thomas Cov, Salem) and I joined 34 others two weeks ago on the Covenant’s Sankofa Journey.  This 4-day cross-racial immersive experience visited historical civil rights locations and followed the trajectory of life for African Americans.  Sankofa was profoundly revealing.  It was disturbing to plumb our history and even more concerning to see how much it affects life today: red-lining, implicit bias, and mass incarceration to name a couple. I’m also aware of stories from our ranks.  Recently a pastor shared about his son being unfairly treated at his school and the unprofessional responses from the administration.  Another leader saw her son detained and searched as he was walking to his car in front of their house.  Another leader was pulled over so many times while serving in his region that he had trouble renting cars.  Other Covenanters share about their elevated levels of stress and physical ailments as a result of generations of anxiety and trauma as African Americans.  How do we do life and ministry together knowing these things?  What is our responsibility to each other?  What is the gospel work here?

God’s holy and perfect Word confronts us.

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, and plead the widow’s cause, (Isaiah 1:17).

The red letters clearly tell us as Jesus said,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matt 22:37-40).

It brings me back to Bennett‘s quote, “There can be no knowledge without emotion.  We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours.  To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul.”

May we experience each other and draw closer together. May we be stirred by each other’s experiences and actually suffer when the other suffers. May we have righteous indignation and be moved to kingdom action.  As 77 churches on mission together, may we clearly answer together, how do we do life and ministry together knowing these things?  What is our responsibility to each other?  What is the gospel work?