Covenant Weekly

This fall, we're combining the blog/email and podcast formats. The form will be shorter than it was with the previous podcasts and will be sent as an email with a link to a podcast - a recorded version of the email. You can choose which format you prefer to receive it in!
If you subscribe to the podcast through Google podcasts, it should show up in your feed so you won't need to go find it. Our social media sites will link to our podcast page, which also offers a PDF of the text. Hopefully, this will help reach as many people as possible!

Click here if you would prefer to listen to the podcast audio of this message!

I don’t know what Christian tradition you have been formed in. You may have very little tradition in your background at all. But I know many of us have been formed in a version of Christianity that had a radical emphasis on the individual and personal. Within that context, there was an emphasis on what God was saying to the individual in their alone time with God. Time in the community was largely centred around sharing what God said to individuals. The sermon was all about what God said to the pastor. Testimonies were about what God said to the person sharing them.

Very little time was spent asking, “What might God be saying to me through the community of Jesus' followers.” And even less time was spent considering, “What is God saying to us through those of us who are gathered here?” One of the historical features of Anabaptism, the stream of the church that Covenant is a part of, is believing that God speaks not just to the community of people, but through the community of people. We’re going to talk about that today.

Go back far enough in our tradition and there wasn’t professional clergy. Some settings would put a piece of paper in the hymnbooks (if you don’t know what those are, ask someone who grew up in church who is over 40) and when the men got to church whoever happened to pick up the one with the paper in it would become the pastor for the next year. They’d do that work while they also continued their primary job, which was usually farming. They believed that God could use that process to guide them to whoever was to be their primary leader. It was at least as good as having a vote, which they perceived could just become a popularity contest.

But part of the reason this worked was that they took seriously that God didn’t just speak through the pastor. They believed that God spoke through the community as they interpreted the Bible together. A sermon was never meant to be the end of a journey of study and wrestling. It was an introduction to, or a part of, an ongoing conversation, not the end of one.

And when the church needed to make a big decision, it wasn’t a small group of people who made the call. It was taken to the community where they trusted that God would speak through the gathering. It wasn’t a democracy where they debated a topic and then took a vote with one side winning and one side losing. They were all on the same side seeking to discern God’s will together.

Certainly, this doesn’t mean that everyone was happy with the decisions that were made. There is a reason, after all, that there are many anabaptist denominations! There were big enough disagreements that church communities split over them.

But they were still marked by an overall focus on listening to God in the community by listening to each other. They recognized that when Jesus said “The Spirit of Truth…will guide you into all truth,” this message was given to the group of believers, not individual believers. The example of the church wrestling together in Acts 15 and coming to a conclusion that “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” set a precedent for them in listening for God’s guidance.

While we may not do it perfectly, this is how we seek to listen to God together. To help us do this, we’ve started holding regular congregational conversations where we can talk about decisions that we face. We’ll have one of these conversations in February as we prepare for our annual meeting in March. Even our annual meeting, while there is voting that takes place, is meant to be a place in which we can listen to God lead us by listening to each other.

Another way we aim to listen to God through his people is when we consider ministry opportunities. There are many things that might be good ideas to do, but if people in the church aren’t ready or able to lead them, we trust that it is God saying that now isn’t the time for it.

For example, we currently have an opportunity to put together a float for the Winterama Parade. I found out on Sunday that there are people willing to donate the truck and bed for the float. We’d just need some point people to plan and lead us in the decorating…and maybe work with Brent to get youth and kids to join us on the float. If that is something you would be interested in helping with, let Brent or me know! But if no one is ready or able to take this on, we’ll trust that this isn’t for us this year.

Whether wrestling with big issues or considering relatively small opportunities, I’m glad that we’re in this together. We are a family trying to follow Jesus together. To do that well we need to listen to God’s leading together. One essential way we do that is by listening well to each other.

Reminders for this week:

• Our board is meeting tonight, Tuesday, January 17 and we would appreciate your prayers. We’re focusing on getting ready for our annual meeting coming up in March.
• Our Men's Connection meets at 10 am on Tuesdays. Our Women's Bible Study meets at 10 am on Wednesdays. Both of those gatherings are at the church building at 95 Robert St. E., Penetang.
• Our youth is resuming for 2023 tomorrow evening. They are having a bonfire offsite (weather permitting). Because it is offsite, students need to register in advance if they want to participate. The registration link is on our website.

As we sign off for today, I want to say that I’m grateful for being a part of this family along with you. May we each, and may we all, have ears to hear what God has to say to us - as individuals and as a community - through each other.