Home Sweet Home

As I type this, I am starting my second week of vacation in San Antonio, TX. I am having the time of my life, the kids are enjoying endless play time with their cousins, and the food down here is authentic and amazing! While we’ve been here, we’ve had the opportunity to go to our family’s church- which happens to be the 16th largest church in the country. Now as I acknowledge that there are different churches, sizes, styles, etc to connect with different people, I sat during the service wishing I was home. I looked around and was overwhelmed with thankfulness for Fellowship Covenant. Yes, we are small. Yes, we may struggle financially. But we have so much more that I am thankful for…

I am thankful that I don’t have to get to church an hour early to get a seat.

That we don’t have to hold hands and form a “Bowyer chain” just to get in and out of church without losing one of our kids.

That I have enough of a hard time just getting my husband and kids to church, I don’t have to remember my Bible every week. That we have wonderful men and women who make sure we can follow along in the Word and follow in song.

That we don’t have to dim and brighten the lights throughout the service to make it more dramatic. We ask the Holy Spirit to come and be in everything we do.

That I can see Pastor John, Jeremy, or Jay while they preach. I don’t have to squint to see a big screen. I can see their emotions and feel their passion and love for God as they preach.

That I don’t have to put my children in a separate building for church, assigned a number that flashes on a screen if they cry so you can come and get them. Our children are welcomed, comfortable, and loved BY NAME in our church.

That we don’t clap after every song we sing. That our service is not a production, but truly an offering to God.

That it is not possible to go to a service at our church without someone calling you by name, asking how you are doing, and giving you a hug. We can not hide in our church. We are held accountable, supported, encouraged, and LOVED!

So in closing, I am very happy our family down here has found a church that they like. That is important to me. And their church ministers to many people in many different ways. But for me and my family, I am so grateful for our small, intimate, loving church. Each one of you holds a special place in my heart, and I am so blessed to be able to call you family! I am so thankful for you and can’t wait to be home!

Thank You.

The central structural idea of the book is Donald working with 2 friends to write a movie script of Donald’s ordinary life as presented in Blue Like Jazz. We journey through the process and learn the elements of a good story and we are privy to the reservations Donald has about his life being either compelling or movie worthy.

What I perceive (and if it is intentional, it is sheer genius) is that Donald Miller offers us a new perspective on the term “good news” (gospel).  As followers of Jesus, we not only have a gospel, we are a gospel. As Donald works to make his life into a good story, we learn ways that Donald is expressing a life-for-the-sake-of-others. In this sense, the book becomes a challenge to the readers.

What I found personally surprising was Donald’s reunion with his father after a thirty year absence. Those of you who have read my story in Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ know the similarities between Donald’s father issues and reunion and my own.

I think you’ll enjoy Donald Miller’s new book.

Donald's New Book

One good Ukrainian friend told me, “If your government is big enough to give you all that you need, it is then big enough to take all that you have.” Think about that.

“Are you still there?” Ray asked suddenly and quietly.

“Yes, I am still here,” I said. There was a pause.

“I love you,” he said.

God’s grace and unseen angels kept me from falling to the floor in tears. Ray is my friend, my brother in the Jesus family. We’ve shared some moments together over the last two and a half years. A bond has been forged.

“I love you, too, Ray,” I finally responded.

How do I explain this knitting of hearts? Why do I care for Ray and others in my parish who can’t hear so well, or can’t see without surgery or don’t, even can’t, rush in and out of their homes and get in and out of their cars quickly like “we” do?

Why do I believe that the holiest part of my day today was not teaching a seminary class, or preparing for Palm Sunday and Good Friday, or reading my Bible, or finishing up Shelby’s confirmation process, but sitting silently next to Ray as he waited his turn for a synthetic lens for his eye?

Why, after his surgery, did I feel proud when the intercom announced, “Would the family of Ray M. please come to recovery”? Family? Yes, family.

Jesus said, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Anyone who does the will of my Father is my mother, my sister, my brother.” New family.

What if silent waiting in love is more a pastor’s calling than giftedly extolling to whoever will listen what the Bible says? I think many USAmerican pastors love a book, yes, even a holy one, more than they love their people. I could be wrong. And I’ll tell you one thing: when a person out of the sky blue says from his or her heart, “I love you,” it is worth more than 10,000 obligatory “nice sermon, pastor.”

compelling read

very compelling read

I wrote an endorsement of the RED letters: the sayings and teachings of JESUS, edited by Tim Beals. Tim is my friend who helped me get my second book Out of Print: A Novel published.

I wrote for the RED letters:  “In reading the RED letters I was struck again by the brevity, wit, creativity, and courage of Jesus. Jesus’ words strip away all false reality and confront us with the greatest reality of all–the Person and Kingdom of his Father. Tim Beals, in this collection and arrangement of Jesus’ sayings and teachings, makes it possible for us to sit quietly with Jesus and listen to, reflect on, and be transformed by his words.” 

I think two kinds of readers will be drawn to this little red book. The first will be the curious seeker who wonders what Jesus Christ, a first century Jew and Son of God, really said. The RED letters present first of all a chronological arrangement of Jesus’ sayings from the beginning of his ministry to the end. The second section of the RED letters offers the teachings of Jesus arranged according to some broad topics. Anyone who wants to know what Jesus said/taught will find the little red book a handy, ready resource.

The second kind of reader is someone who is familiar with the Gospels and who is acquainted with the life and ministry of Jesus as presented in the New Testament. These readers appreciate the context, culture, language and revolutionary genius of Jesus in which his sayings and teachings were first spoken and recorded. For example, as I read through section of the RED letters–the sayings of Jesus–I was challenged in my thinking to put Jesus’ words in context.  I think this must be done by all readers at some point. Can you imagine just having the dialogue of a movie like The Mission without the profound context, history and culture presented in that gripping film?

Tim writes, “I hope the red letters become the read letters.” This is an important hope. When we immerse ourselves in the Gospels, the sayings and teachings of Jesus are placed with a huge, panoramic sweep of God’s gracious actions in this world. Jesus himself was born into a huge Story already in swift motion. The genealogies of Matthew and Luke tell us as much. And the grand Story into which Jesus was born propels us into a glorious future where some mysteries will be cleared up and other mysteries just begun.

I’d encourage you to get a copy of the RED letters. You can read it devotionally, you can read it curiously, you can read it challenged by the words of the One Who said, “My words are spirit and they are life.”

Recently I’ve been invited back into what I generally term “the academy,” that is, formal education. I did a two year stint in 1979 to 1981 on the Moody Bible Institute faculty. Teaching in the Bible and Theology department was a tremendous experience. I am glad I did it because it was in that environment I concluded that I was made to teach the Scriptures in a whole life environment–the local church–rather than in the artificial environment of the school. When a young couple grieves at the graveside of their still-born child, you find yourself in the pastoral environment where you don’t have to bicker with self-absorbed students arguing over why you gave them a B rather than an A on their Romans exam.

But I’ve been invited to adjunct teach at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary and at Aquinas College here in Grand Rapids, MI. At GRTS I teach on the “missional church: church and culture” and at Aquinas I will teach on “faith and meaning: Christian spirituality from a Protestant perspective.” Aquinas as you can guess is a Catholic college.

I hope I will be able to teach as one who practices what I believe and not teach just as a conduit of ideas. We no longer can afford to transfer knowledge without life; principles without praxis. I am challenged by these opportunities, of course, but I hope I am wiser and calmer and less dogmatic than in 1979-1981. Not less convinced of what I believe, but more loving in how I believe it and how I teach it.

I appreciate your prayers.

John

I like the two controlling questions of the Covenant: 1) Where is it written? This question emphasizes the centrality of the Bible in all discussion and/or debate. And not the Bible as some systematized book of answers, but the Bible as God’s grand Story of redemption and salvation of the cosmos. Some things biblical are worth dying over; a lot are not. The Covenant tries not to make doctrinal mountains out of humanly created molehills no matter how theological. 2) How is your walk with Jesus today? The pietistic movement informs Covenant spirituality. Both heart and head are invited into the transforming work of the Spirit. Covenanters live in a fresh, immediate relationship to Christ with intimacy with God being a grounding reality. Professing correct, precise doctrine means little if it is not expressed in a passionate life with God for the sake of others. That, too, is a mark of the Covenant; it is a missional movement.

In the current discussions of the missional church, the Covenant has a history of defining the faith in terms of praxis. It is never good enough to just profess correct doctrine. The devil can do that. What matters is behavior. All behavior is an incarnation of belief. The Covenant is after a warm, Christ-like life lived under the authority of the Word as discerned and applied in community with others.

Covenant in the Evangelical Covenant Church name means the commitment of a community to a way of life centered in Christ. It is not a theological term (as in ‘covenant theology’), but a relational term of a band of believers connected to a vision of the faith that is vibrant with life as well as defined by doctrine.

So, how is your walk with Jesus today?

Because he is the father of daughters, I have an immediate affinity with Volodya. We have spent this day discussing the church, Bible teachings, politics, economy and a myriad of other things. His girls, as you can see, are beautiful and the oldest, Ilonka, serves as interpreter for the family and me. She hopes to come to the U.S. and spend 6 months learning English in a special school in New York. She is a talented and sweet girl. Susan was born in Poland and is 14 and Danka is 11.

I have “adopted” them as my Ukrainian daughters

Danka                     Susan                  Ilonka

 

              MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

 May the Presence of God in Jesus be your greatest hope!

               (snowman created by Julie)