pokes: Getting Acquainted with Our Fellow Churches

Getting Acquainted with Our Fellow Churches

The crowd in our fellowship hall Sunday night.

Last night at church we did something intensely cool. We held a joint get-together with four other churches in our neighborhood: Grace Presbyterian, Trinity United Methodist, First Mennonite, and North Highlands Church of Christ. To make a difference in our neighborhood, it makes great sense, from a strategic standpoint, to join forces with other churches which want to make a difference. This is a baby step in that direction.

Actually, the first baby step came last spring, when Pastor Tim sent a letter to these pastors inquiring about working together. We held a joint Vacation Bible School last summer. And now, we're going further during Lent.

For five Sunday nights, starting last night, we are holding a joint service at a different church. Anchor got things started last night. With the icy weather, the Oscars, and the big Chris Tomlin-Matt Redmon concert at Blackhawk Baptist Church, we didn't have high hopes. We figured 50 would be a good number. But we ended up pretty much filling our basement fellowship hall with 75-80 people.

Grace Presbyterian, led by the delightful Pastor Barb (that's her on the right, taking photos, beside Pastor Tim), sent a big contingent. I spent a lot of time with them, and thoroughly enjoyed them. One young man, Steve, is a former atheist who became a Christian and, this summer, is headed for seminary. He hopes to eventually work in campus ministry, perhaps with Campus Crusade or InterVarsity.

Honestly, I don't know much about Presbyterians. Haven't had much contact with them during my 50 years, and have heard labels like "mainline" and "liberal" thrown their way (as if all Presbyterian groups are alike). We conservative evangelicals are adept at creating labels to separate us from other groups (though fundamentalists can be downright diabolical at it). We want to avoid contaminating our pure theology, I guess. I don't think Jesus is too crazy about separatist attitudes.

The pastors agreed on a format for each evening. So last night, we started with a soup and dessert meal. Then we sang three songs which come out of our church's tradition--in our case, "Take My Life and Let it Be" (though we Anchorized it with the Chris Tomlin version), "I'll Fly Away," and "This Little Light of Mine." For the latter, when we got to the verse which says, "Shine all over Third Street" (where Anchor is located), we had each church insert their own church's street. That was neat. Tim and Terry played guitars and sang, I played the piano, and Marsha sang.

After those three songs, Tim spoke informally and with lots of humor about Anchor and our denomination--theology, ministries, history, etc. It set a great tone.

Next week we're at North Highlands Church of Christ. I can hardly wait. In reaching our neighborhood, the most strategic relationships we can develop are not with other United Brethren churches in Fort Wayne, but with other churches, regardless of affiliation, located in our neighborhood. We'll discover which ones share our heart for really making an impact. This can only lead to good things.

The United Brethren church began when a Mennonite minister and a German Reformed minister, discovering that they shared the same spiritual passions, declared, "We are brethren." I think they'd be pleased with what happened last night at Anchor.

Posted on February 26, 2007 09:59 AM| Permalink

Comments

Hey Steve, I think you meant to say the United Brethren church began with a Mennonite and a German Reformed.

Posted by: Randy Neuman | February 26, 2007 02:10 PM

Good catch, Randy. Yes, I meant German Reformed. Seems like I made this mistake before. I just always picture Otterbein as a Lutheran, for some reason. I changed it in the post.

Posted by: Steve Dennie | February 26, 2007 08:53 PM

A very nice piece, Steve. The pictures gives it added demension.

Posted by: Pat | February 27, 2007 09:57 AM

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