Tuesday, March 17, 2015

"Common Roots", part VI : Freedom

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!

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Part VI: “We affirm the reality of freedom in Christ.” 
The Apostle Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). This freedom is a gift of God in Christ, and it manifests itself in a right relationship with God and others… We in the Covenant Church seek to focus on what unites us as followers of Christ, rather than on what divides us.” 

As a reformation movement birthed out of historic dissent, having faced strong legal and institutional forces of resistance at the hands of state Lutheranism - of pietistic heritage and birthed upon the soil of the newly-launched “American experiment” in democratic freedom -  it ought not surprise that the Evangelical Covenant Church has from the very beginning held freedom of reasonable dissent as a central value. While it is never helpful to be simply defined by what we are not, the struggles of our past indelibly shape the values of our present.

I have deeply appreciated the historic ability of the ECC to keep the “main thing” the main thing; pressing back against the natural tendency of secondary and tertiary issues to become ultimate and defining issues. Rather than crafting a rigidly and microscopically defined “bounded set” paradigm to govern corporate life and collegiality, “Covenant Freedom” allows us to fix our working convictions upon our shared center in Christ, guided by common affirmations, and then set one another free to navigate the intricacies, nuances and inevitable conflicts of our shared journey in and towards Christ in a spirit of grace and apart from fear.

Of course, the challenge of genuine freedom is that definition will always remain, in some respects, elusive. Elusive because our freedom is always understood contextually and relationally; the boundaries of freedom defined in and by each conflict or tension which emerges along the way. In a very basic sense, the trouble is that we cannot escape the sheer subjectivity of conviction, shared or otherwise. As a people “of the Book”, we want to hold the centrality of Scripture as a key border-marker of our freedom, and rightly so. Any journey towards “freedom” which involves the jettisoning or downplaying of scriptural authority over our corporate life must be rejected out-of-hand. But the objective authority of scripture is an authority delivered to us through the subjective lens of interpretation. And what are we to do when well-meaning interpreters arrive at different convictions in such a manner and to such a degree that the bonds of unity suffer tension to the point of breaking? It is here that we are faced with the reality that we cannot escape the ongoing, prayerful - and at times agonizing - task of defining what we mean by “Covenant Freedom” in light of these new tensions and challenges. May the Lord have mercy upon us, burdened as we are with freedom!

"Common Roots", part V : The Holy Spirit

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!

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Part V: “We affirm a conscious dependence on the Holy Spirit.” 
We believe it is the Holy Spirit who instills in our hearts a desire to turn to Christ, and who assures us that Christ dwells within us. It is the Holy Spirit who enables our obedience to Christ and conforms us to his image, and it is the Spirit in us that enables us to continue Christ’s mission in the world. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to us as individuals and binds us together as Christ’s body.” 

Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” Never has the truth of this verse been driven home for me than it has on this journey of church planting, and it is a truth that our Covenant forebears understood deeply, as well. This understanding is well articulated, here:

The Covenant understanding of the Holy Spirit, rooted in the New Testament, is further informed by the Reformation idea that word and Spirit are inseparable. It is the Spirit of God that enlivens the preaching of the gospel within the community of faith and grants efficacy to the sacraments participated in by the community of faith. The Covenant also draws upon its Pietist heritage for understanding the Holy Spirit. We believe it is the work of the Holy Spirit to instill in the human heart a desire to turn to Christ. We believe it is the work of the Holy Spirit to assure believers that Christ dwells within them. We believe that the Holy Spirit, in concert with our obedience, conforms us to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-29). 

The early Covenanters in Sweden were linked by a common awareness of the grace of God in their lives. They spoke of the Holy Spirit communicating this warm sense of God’s grace to each one individually and directing them to a common devotion to God in Christ through the reading of the Bible and frequent meetings for the purpose of mutual encouragement and edification. They perceived the Holy Spirit leading them corporately to common mission and purpose. 
The early Covenanters in North America were conscious of the presence and purpose of God through the activity of the Holy Spirit among them. They were certain the Holy Spirit was at work in their churches and particularly in leading them to form the Swedish Evangelical Mission Covenant denomination. At the organizational meeting of the Covenant, C.A. Björk spoke to the effect that an organizational meeting can never produce unity; God’s people become one, he said, through the leading of the Holy Spirit.” ( Covenant Affirmations Booklet )

Without the working of the Holy Spirit, the pietist revivals of the 17th-18th centuries could have never succeeded in so transforming the very landscape of Christendom - as well as the outside world - in the manner that they did. WITH the working of the Holy Spirit in their midst and over those many years, there was simply no hope in stopping it, no matter how much resistance those winds of change and mission may have faced! This is the truth and hope that we cling to: that, inasmuch as the struggles we face as a church remain profoundly beyond our ability to overcome, so too the power of God at work in, around and through us remains eternally greater than we have the ability to comprehend. Thanks be to God!

"Common Roots", part IV : The Church

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!

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Part IV: “We affirm the Church as a fellowship of believers.” 
The church is not an institution, organization, or building. It is a grace-filled fellowship of believers who participate in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. It is a family of equals: as the New Testament teaches that within Christian community there is to be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).”

Much has been said in the preceding articles to make sufficiently clear how this Covenant affirmation comes to us by way of our pietist heritage. Pressing back against the crippling institutionalism of 17th and 18th century state-governed Lutheranism, the Pietist reformers - from Ardnt, Spener, Franke, Zinzendorf, to all those who would follow them - labored to reclaim the identity of the Church as a living fellowship of people transformed by and following after Jesus; the whole Church called into the whole mission of Christ. The defining structural elements of the pietist revival can be summed up by the following: Conversion, Colporteurs, and Conventicles.

Regarding conversion, I refer you to Parts II and III of this series, which speak to the centrality of “new birth” to both pietist and Covenant convictions. The other two elements are also closely related to much of what has come before, but warrant further clarification.

As we have seen, it was Spener who introduced the “innovation” of household-based gatherings for devotional reading of scripture and mutual edification to the fabric of what would become 17th century pietism. What he initially referred to as his “assemblies of piety” (“small group ministry” would be a close equivalent in the modern parlance), became popularly known and replicated as “conventicles” ( meaning, roughly, “assemblies”; from the latin “conventiculum”). This was, in fact, the Pietist’s most formative - and, by the state church, most strongly resisted - development within the life of the Church. An expression of a movement of the Spirit whereby common people grow hungry for active engagement with the scriptures, for intimacy in worship and depth of Christian fellowship, the purpose of the conventicle was not to separate from the institutional church, but to bring additive value to the life of discipleship between, and as distinct from, Sunday worship. As these gatherings increased in number and influence throughout Sweden, it was the through the ministry of “Colporteurs” that the flames of revival were spread and stoked.

Colporteurs (adapted from the French, “comporteur”; lit. “to bear or peddle”) initially were simply a practical solution for the resourcing of the conventicle movement. These were voluntary lay ministers who would travel from town to town distributing Bibles and tracts of various kinds. With the gradual increase of literacy in Sweden - and among the colporteurs themselves - their influence began to increase; soon serving as lay preachers, teachers, and recognized leaders of conventicles. As time went on and the conventicle movement grew more established, in spite of significant legal resistance from the state Church of Sweden, many colporteurs would go so far as to serve communion in the context of a household fellowship; viewed as a radical and dangerous move in the eyes of the establishment.

But this remains the conviction of the Covenant church as part of the legacy of our pietist forebears: the Church is not a building, an institution, or an organization of professional, ordained clergy. The Church is the living fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ, seeking the Lord and living in light of His Kingdom purposes. We must always expect and leave room for the movement of the Holy Spirit among “ordinary” people, or else we have simply crafted a well-managed religious institution rather than witnessing the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The Commons holds a uniquely significant bond with the “conventicle” movement within our own structures of community life. While we continue to love and value “large format” corporate gatherings for preaching, worship, and the Lord’s Supper, the trouble with ONLY getting together in large groups is that it is hard to really get to know one another – and see genuine community develop – if we’re only seeing each other in a big room, full of activity and 100+ other folks, once a week. In the Bible - as well as in our pietist heritage - we see that the early Christian church was built upon house fellowships. They didn’t just run into one another for an hour once a week; they did life together! “Church” was spending time, sharing meals, sharing joys and struggles, studying scripture together and lifting one another up in prayer. “Church” was a space where friends in Christ could sit, learn and grow face to face, and not just side by side.

Additionally, good preaching and teaching is vital to the life and thriving of the local church. But perhaps even more important to our own growth toward Christian maturity is to be given the opportunity, experience and tools to open, read, interpret and apply the scriptures well for ourselves and in the context of our own lives. Our “Table” groups are neighborhood-centric communities of 15-20 folks, focused on shared meals, in-depth interaction with scripture, prayer, and on the daily, street-level expressions of church life. We’re so committed to the value of getting our whole community involved at this level that we give two whole Sundays a month to “Table” groups.

"Common Roots", part III : Mission

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!

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Part III: “We affirm a commitment to the whole mission of the Church.” 
The early Covenanters were known as “Mission Friends”— people of shared faith who came together to carry out God’s mission both far and near. Mission for them and for us includes evangelism, Christian formation, and ministries of compassion, mercy, and justice. We follow Christ’s two central calls. The Great Commission sends us out into all the world to make disciples. The Great Commandment calls us to love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves.” 

In the light of historical pietism, we would well read this affirmation as a commitment to the whole mission of the WHOLE Church. That is to say, as we understand it, no disciple of Jesus is exempt from the call of his commission and commandment.

Looking back to 1675, we remember that Philip Jacob Spener’s second reformation proposal was the establishment and exercise of the “spiritual priesthood” of ALL believers. In a religious context defined by a highly professionalized, state-managed clerical system, designed as a reliable distributor of religious goods and services to an otherwise uninvolved laity, this was a call to spiritual awakening. Spener was convinced that the the work of the Church was a work that belonged to EVERY follower of Jesus, not just professional, ordained clergy.

With this conviction in view, we can appreciate appreciate how intimately related it is to the previous affirmation regarding the “necessity of new birth”. If the Kingdom mission of Christ belongs not to the select, professionalized few, but in fact to the whole Church, then it becomes all the more important that we understand the “Church” properly. Namely, that the Church is not a mere function of shared nationality, but a living community of people being actively transformed by the saving grace of Christ and thus made ABLE to embrace this work. Which presses us still further back, to appreciate both of these affirmations as the natural outflow of the first: a commitment to the central importance of the Word of God to the life of the Christian. Spener’s “assemblies of piety” (setting the mold for the “conventicles” of the Swedish “mission friends" that would follow him) were an expression of this movement towards transforming devotion to Christ among the general populace. It should not surprise us, then, that as the undercurrents of devotional study, worship and fellowship began to gain strength, that an increase in missional energy and activity resulted. 

It was very much the concern of the pietists that they embody and apply the love of Christ to the brokenness and ills of the society around them, concerning themselves with resourcing education, care for the disadvantaged, and other endeavors of mission and mercy. This missional impetus also quickly moved towards global expressions, as well. It was the Herrnhut Moravians, led by pietist Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (who studied with Franke at the University of Halle), who as a community of only 300 people inspired with evangelistic zeal, sent out their first international missionaries. These pietistic Moravian missionaries would go on to establish the first large-scale Protestant missions movement.

We here at The Commons stand in this commitment to the whole mission of the whole church. Our values - to be a “Woven”, “Neighboring” and “Hopeful” people, actively concerned with the health and flourishing of our city - are a direct expression of this. As part of the broader family that is the Evangelical Covenant, we also participate in the worldwide mission of Christ, as small as we may be. And, in fact, as a newly established church plant of the ECC, our very existence is an expression and proof of the Covenant’s commitment to the continuing Kingdom mission of the Church!

"Common Roots", part II : New Birth

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!

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Part II: “We affirm the necessity of the new birth.” 
The Apostle Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ). New birth in Christ means committing ourselves to him and receiving forgiveness, acceptance, and eternal life. It means being alive in Christ, and this life has the qualities of love and righteousness, joy and peace. New birth is only the beginning. Growing to maturity in Christ is a lifelong process for both individuals and communities of believers. God forms and transforms us—and it is through people transformed by Christ that God transforms the world.

The trouble with ministering within the context of European Christendom in the 18th century, where being German - or Swedish - and being Lutheran were categorically indistinguishable was that there was no established precedent, motivation or means to differentiate between those people who showed up on Sunday because they were genuine disciples of Jesus, and those who were simply legally obligated to do so. Toward whom does the Great Commission compel us, when literally everyone we know is a baptized “Christian”?

August Hermann Franke (1663-1727) was a German Lutheran clergyman and scholar, deeply influenced by the teaching and ministry of Philip Jacob Spener, and whose own dramatic conversion experience shaped his convictions on what entrance into the “new creation” life of Christ entailed. “In great trouble and doubt I had bent my knees” he recounted, “but with unspeakable joy and in great certainty I stood up again. When I knelt, I didn’t believe that there was a God; when I arose, I could without doubt or fear have sealed the truth with my blood.” This personal, converting encounter with the Spirit of God led Franke to the conviction regarding the necessity of conversion for those preparing for or engaging in Christian ministry. For those of us some distance further “downstream” from pietism’s influence, this may seem absurdly self-evident. However, within a state church context, where every citizen was presumed Christian and where clergy were employees and agents of the state, this was a dangerously disruptive notion to advance.

Long before Franke and Spener began establishing the framework for what would become the pietist revivals with Germany and Scandinavia, it was Johann Arndt (1555-1621) who had prepared the soil. Thirty years before the birth of Philip Spener, Johann Arndt published his call for reformation within the Lutheran church. The volume was titled “True Christianity” and it would remain a “best seller” for hundreds of years. Indeed, it became increasingly popular throughout the 1800’s, as the winds of revival continued to blow: 

It is not enough only to write against sects and heretics, to preach and dispute, to maintain pure doctrine and true religion... These activities have fallen into great misuse in our time so that beside the many, heavy disputations, polemical sermons, writings and tracts, Christian life, true repentance, godliness, and Christian love are almost forgotten. It is as if Christianity consisted only in disputations and the production of polemical books, and not far more in seeing to it that the Holy Gospel and the teaching of Christ is practiced in a holy life.” (Arndt, “True Christianity”)

He who is not for me is against me” (Mt. 12:30). If one compares the life of the present world with Christ’s teaching and life, one discovers immediately that the greater part of the world is completely opposed to Christ. What is the life of man now other than covetousness, concern over food, search for wealth, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life... 
In a word, the whole life of the children of this world at this time is nothing other than worldly love, self-love, self-honor and the desire for self-gain.” (Arndt, “True Christianity”)

One can appreciate the challenge that sentiments such as these might cause for an institutional state church that was more or less happy to ‘baptize' standing cultural norms in order to champion political stability and general calm. A Christ who called for those who would follow him to be “birthed” out of that culture into a new manner of existence altogether was a threatening, destabilizing prospect. However, as the pietists turned anew to the teachings of Jesus, the conviction became more and more unavoidable: One was just simply not born “Christian” in the same manner that one was born German or Swedish or otherwise. Life in Christ followed after a birth of a different order: a new, spiritual birth; a work of the Holy Spirit that more and more common people were growing hungry to experience for themselves.

Living and working as we do in a thoroughly post-Christian context, here in New England, this truth is perhaps more readily accessible to us, though no less important to understand: our life in Christ is not a “default” setting or cultural/national heritage, it is a conscious decision and act of surrender to Christ made possible by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. As such we stand, as ever, a people of invitation to a world in need of the rebirth and renewal that only Christ can bring.

"Common Roots", Part I : the Word of God

This newly-born church community that we call “The Commons”, here in Rochester, NH is blessed to be the adopted child of a global family of faith known as the Evangelical Covenant Church. For the reason that, for most of our launch team partners this journey of church planting has constituted a running introduction to the mere existence of the ECC - never mind vision, values and so on - my hope is to offer this short series of articles as a primer on the essential history and distinctives of the Covenant as our denominational and spiritual “home”. These articles will be framed around the six central “Covenant Affirmations” of the ECC, with a focus upon the historical forces that led to their articulation. May God bless and establish this new work, that as we grow in our awareness of where and how the Spirit of God has moved in and through our past, we might also grow in clarity and conviction regarding our future!


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Part I: We affirm the centrality of the word of God. 
We believe the Bible is the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. The dynamic, transforming power of the word of God directs the church and the life of each Christian.”*

The Evangelical Covenant describes itself as a “Reformation Church” that continues to be shaped by pietism. This is true to the point that there can be no real discussion about the central affirmations of the ECC without at least some cursory understanding of the genesis and lasting influence of the pietistic revivals of the 17th-19th centuries. Pietism marked a move of the Spirit that would directly influence the emergence of each of these affirmations, as we shall see, but in much the same spirit as Luther’s great reformation of the 16th century, none perhaps more so than the return to scripture as the Church’s “primary source” for doctrine and praxis.

It is true of all movements that, without a periodic challenging and refreshing, even the most revolutionary of winds eventually turns stale. Such was the case with Luther’s reformation as we head into the late 16th and early 17th centuries. What had begun as a rejection of the corruptions of one form of institutionalization (namely the selling of indulgences and unbiblical doctrines and structures surrounding this practice) eventually became a formidable institution in its own right. Catalyzed, no doubt, by the ongoing conflation between religious devotion and civic/national loyalties (democratic “separation” of Church and State was as-of-yet unheard of, and clergy were agents of the State), German Lutheranism gradually succumbed to a culture of lifeless scholasticism. The plain Gospel texts were once again buried beneath layers of creeds, confessions and debates over doctrinal/theological minutiae. Some manner of Church attendance was compulsory, sermons were heady, theological oratory, and the prophetic voice of Christ’s Church was muted and coopted as a civic/political stabilizer. This was the world into which the winds of pietism began to blow.

Philip Jacob Spener (1635-1705) was a Lutheran pastor in Frankfurt, Germany. Inspired by a dissatisfaction with the lifeless formalism and rampant corruption of the German Lutheran Church of his day, he organized the first “assemblies of piety” as spaces for “organic”, heartfelt worship, spiritual conversation/fellowship, and the devotional reading of Scripture. In 1675, Spener would author his best known work, “Pia Desideria” (Pious Desires), which would lend its name to the movement that soon began to unfold. In it, he assessed the spiritual maladies of church and culture, clergy and laity, and finally proposed a series of reformations. He made (notably) six proposals for the sake of the life and witness of the Church: 1.) An intensive study of the whole Bible; 2.) A renewed commitment to the spiritual priesthood of all believers; 3.) An emphasis on the practice of Christianity, not just its doctrine; 4.) Fairness and generosity in doctrinal controversies; 5.) An emphasis on practical piety in theological education; and 6.) Simplicity and directness in preaching.

 As already alluded to, Spener’s particular interest in the renewed study - and living application - of scripture was birthed out of his experience of a culture wherein debates around creeds, confessions and theological skirmishes at the boundaries of defined orthodoxy had effectively eclipsed active, personal engagement with the text of scripture itself. Sermons were given to framing and weighing in on theological debates, rather than exposition and exhortation. Pastors were more concerned with doctrinal acuity and career advancement then the shepherding and development of their flock. Spener and the pietists that would follow after him rejected this trajectory and sought to return to a simple, direct engagement with scripture itself as the Word of God. In this regard, the first affirmation of the Evangelical Covenant flows directly from its pietist headwater. The ECC describes itself as a “non-creedal” movement; which is to say that while there may be no particular argument with the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, Ausberg Confession, and the like, the Covenant decided that the central commitment of Christian discipleship ought not be defined by affirmation of any creedal theological formula, per se, but by continual submission to the revealed Word of God itself: “…the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct.

Here at The Commons, we take heart and find strength in that great, historically Covenant question: “Where is it written?” It is a guiding light and ever-present exhortation to faithfulness in our calling in Christ. I am convinced that if we (both as individuals and as a movement) are to remain faithful to the way of Jesus and the life that he has purchased for us at such great cost, it will be because we have remembered our calling as a people “of the book”; an enduring conviction for which we remain deeply indebted to the legacy of pietism.

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*Heading quotations taken from the "What does the Covenant Church Believe?" pamphlet, published by Covenant Publications