Dear Canadians,
When asked which commandment was the most important, Jesus replied: The First Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Quoting Deuteronomy 6:5) The Second Commandment: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Quoting Leviticus 19:18) Jesus concluded by stating, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Love God, love your neighbour. Not only do the law and the prophets hang on these, but also all the work done yesterday at the retreat. Starting with praise, prayer and a reflection on 1 John 4:7-12, our day focussed on how we can show love to God and neighbour through this association of churches. Policies, frameworks, conversations about stewardship, covenant, listening … the point was: how can we best manifest our love so God is glorified and neighbours served.
Each group again spent a large part of the day digging down even farther, working to develop structures, policies and behaviours, and then final recommendations based on the value that had been assigned to them. Throughout the retreat, the emphasis has been on making sure that whatever policies (etc.) the organization adopts, must be based on its values, which in turn, must be based on Scripture.
That process was concluded yesterday. After wrestling prayerfully with this step throughout the day, each group presented their recommendations in the evening to the whole assembly. The folks there then made comments on those recommendations, which were then turned over to the facilitators. These two guys spent much of the night (thanks, guys!) combing the recommendations, putting them in order, merging the commonalities, looking for gaps, formatting them. The plan as of this morning is to give this collated report to the Board today.
Honestly, this is another major step in the iterative process of building a servant-association. The recommendations not only respond to needs experienced by churches in our growing community, but also lay foundations for partnering and networking among churches so that each can be (even) more intentional in their love and service as they move forward. Many questions have been asked of this association in the past several years: what are your foundations? What will the organization look like? Who can join? What will membership look like? Needless to say, answers to these huge questions have taken time to articulate. And few of the answers can nor should be given quickly and easily. We want to do it right, and ensure that we are loving, honest, helpful and transparent.
The collated report that will be given to the Board today will be the “bare-bones skeleton” of a “constitution”. In the next few months, we will be able to say: “Such and such will look like this; we will have so and so completed in 2-3 months”. This is not dodging questions; this is saying that we either have the key answers in place, or we are just a few months away from having them. That collated report will go to an appointed “Group of Seven” that will refine the recommendations even further, and present them at the Summit 2.0 in St. Albert, Alberta in September.
So what kinds of questions did we answer yesterday?
- What kinds of covenant commitments shall we enter into?
- How often will the association leadership meet?
- What will the major meetings look like?
- What kinds of resources will there be for member churches? When will they be ready? Who will produce them (spoiler alert: best practices came up a lot!)
- What will the organization look like? Will it be an umbrella-type association?
- What does hospitality mean for the association?
- What will stewardship look like for the association?
- What will be our approach to the creeds and confessions?
Those are big. Those are important. The answers to each of them are grounded in Jesus’s words in Matthew 22. Love God above all and your neighbour as yourself. Our growing fellowship takes these words very much to heart, and desires to implement them in radical hospitality.
Stay tuned!
As we seek to love God and live into hospitality, may he continue to bless us.
It’s a new day.
Blessings,
Peter Bulthuis
(Slight revision concerning yesterday morning’s newsletter: the folks who will be appointed will actually not be delegated to augment the existing board, but will be a “Group of Seven” to read and integrate the reports coming out of this weekend’s meetings. Dreadfully sorry; my mistake)
