A Glimpse Into the Dynamic Tapestry of Covenant Life
We love in-depth storytelling, but for brief stories that we want to share with our Covenant family, we’re bringing back a familiar format from the blogging age: the roundup post. What follows is a brief compilation of activities, events, or ideas of interest from various points around the Covenant.
Chicago Legal Clinic
On Saturday, April 27, six attorneys from the Delaware-based law firm Sanabria & Associates gathered at Iglesia del Pacto Evangélico of Albany Park in Chicago to offer an all-day legal clinic to immigrants hoping to resolve their residency status. And if the name Sanabria sounds familiar, it’s because the church is led by Rev. Tomas Sanabria (no relation).
“They found me and our church because we happened to have the same last name,” said Rev. Sanabria. Attorneys Gunther Sanabria, Eric Suarez, and four others led a series of seminars on immigration law and procedures, job permits, etc. They also gave brief, five- to seven-minute legal consultations to anyone in attendance who wanted one. The event drew well over four hundred people, a logistical challenge given that their sanctuary normally seats about two hundred.
Rev. Sanabria had anticipated the high turnout, and the church did its best to minister to the crowds. The Albany Park church offered a worship service in the morning to complement the legal affairs in the afternoon, which stretched well into the evening. The church opened its doors early that morning and didn’t close up shop until 8 pm. “There were a lot of people seeking asylum, a lot of political refugees from Venezuela and other places,” said Sanabria, who noted that in the church’s 53-year history, it has served people from 14 different nationalities across Central and Latin America. “We turned it into an evangelistic event,” he said. Twenty people responded to the early altar call Saturday morning, several returned to church the following Sunday morning, and six received the gift of salvation. “For me, that was the major victory,” said Sanabria.
Sanabria said they also made a point to bless the attorneys, not only thanking them for their time and service to the community but praying blessings over them and presenting them with Bibles—an act of faith, since some of them were not practicing Christians. All in all, he felt the event was a success.
“They worked with us, we worked with them, and hopefully in the future, they’ll come back.”
Salem Covenant Walking and Talking
Members of Salem Evangelical Covenant Church in Oakland, Nebraska, made local headlines for their shift in plans concerning their local “World Day of Prayer” tradition. Rather than hosting the event in their own church as they had done for years, the women of Salem Covenant decided to turn it into a walking event, to engage other women and girls in their broader ecumenical community.
The theme was “Big and Little,” as a way of encouraging adults to partner with youngsters in a concerted effort to pray for their community. As local Anna Anderson put it, they wanted to “focus on both the big and little things the Lord wants us to do together to love and encourage others.”
Covenant Artist Featured on Star Wars Day
Fans across the world observe May 4 as Star Wars Day (“May the fourth be with you”), and this year, employees of the Disney franchise were treated to the work of a Covenant artist. Nathan Stromberg, art teacher at Minnehaha Academy and husband of Northwest Conference superintendent Kara Stromberg, was tapped by Lucasfilm, the subsidiary that created Star Wars, to produce an original collage for their film studios in San Francisco, California.
Let’s just say he didn’t need much convincing. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’m 100% in,’” said Stromberg in a local news interview. “When you’re working on something like Star Wars, it’s so much fun. I felt like a little kid again.” The studio first made contact just prior to Christmas, and he needed that long to fit the work in between his full-time teaching load and other responsibilities. “It was three and half months of work, 211 total hours.”
To produce the image, Stromberg cut out and glued sections of paper from old Star Wars magazines and promotional materials furnished by the studio. “R2D2 and C-3PO, they’re like friends to me,” he said, of the two beloved droids depicted in his life-size collage. “They’re characters that have lived in our lives for decades and have enormous meaning.”
Stromberg has been doing collages for more than 14 years and says he is grateful to have his work featured in such a high-profile location. “Some incredibly generous people saw my art and decided to take a chance on me. This is something I’ll remember forever.”
Bibles for Urban Engagement
Finally, for anyone looking for more biblical tools and resources to engage people in the urban marketplace of ideas and culture, here are two new interpretations of biblical content.
First, those who favor hip-hop culture might enjoy Streetlights, an audio Bible app presented by Christian rap artists with hip-hop-flavored audio design. In addition to the Bible passages, the app offers original music content, and a standout feature called “Corner Talk,” featuring brief videos on biblical characters, with the tagline, “learning from real-life people meeting God.” There are profiles for The Woman at the Well, Philip the Evangelist, Ananias, and many others.
And for those looking for a new challenging translation, see the new open-source translation by theologian and counselor Brandon Johnson called the Liberation & Inclusion Translation, a.k.a. “The LIT Bible.” This translation started as a project in 2020 as a way to help people heal from harmful messages stemming from incomplete or distorted biblical translations. Johnson publishes a blog about his findings called “An Old Song with a New Dance.”
Check out the thoughts on Mark 12, from a post called “Jesus Says Tear It Down” on how we’ve misread the story of the widow who gave everything she had.
What if I told you Jesus doesn’t hold up the widow who gave everything she had as a shining example of spiritual devotion?
I’m sure she was lovely, but it’s really hugely missing the point of that story. But it’s not our fault we’ve been missing it. This section is a great example of how the verse and chapter divisions we have inherited (they were added centuries after it was written, by the way) can do a lot to impact how we read and sometimes completely make us miss the point of what’s going on.
