Community in Action
We love in-depth storytelling, but for certain stories that we want to share with our Covenant family, we’re bringing back a format from the blogging age: the roundup post. What follows is a compilation of activities, events, or ideas of interest from various points around the Covenant.
PasCov Mobilizes in Ministry
Thanks to the many astute readers who sent us links to this Christianity Today story on Pasadena (California) Covenant Church and the work they are doing responding to the needs of immigrants in their area. CovChurch Now subscribers might remember that we covered Pasadena Covenant earlier this year when they and their surrounding neighborhoods were enduring historic wildfires. Now they are working with their longtime partner Pasadena Community Job Center to assist to people whose loved ones have been subject to arrest or detention by Immigration Customs Enforcement officers.
Lead pastor Steve Wong says that PasCov is committed to partnering with other churches and community groups as part of a network that serves the vulnerable in their community.
“A local church should never think it is the net,” Wong is quoted as saying. “It is part of the net.”
Seminaries Daring to Defy
North Park Theological Seminary is teaming up with Northern Seminary and MennoMedia to host a conference reflecting on the fruit of the Anabaptist wing of the Protestant Reformation, which took place roughly five centuries ago. The title of the event, “Dare to Defy?” is an invitation to reflect on the theological context that preceded the Reformation and consider how, when, or why Covenanters might consider making similarly radical reforms in their ministry contexts.
Rev. Dr. Dennis Edwards, dean of the seminary and vice president of church relations will be one of the featured speakers. In addition, attendees will hear from Shane Claiborne, Nancy Bedford of Garrett Seminary, and Drew Hart of Messiah College. Dare to Defy will take place on October 2-3, 2025, on the campus of North Park Theological Seminary. For more, see the official event page.
Faith in Film
After serving as worship leader for eight years at Countryside Covenant Church in McPherson, Kansas, Covenant minister Connor Gibson has launched a new resource for parents, youth groups, and people of faith called Pop Culture Redemption. Connor and his team created a set of movie guides designed to help people engage their faith and imagination through a framework of rejoicing, rejecting, and redeeming—rejoicing over the elements of good, rejecting elements that contradict God’s Word, and redeeming elements that can point us back to Jesus. They have a podcast where they discuss films and other elements of pop culture. You can subscribe to their podcast or follow PCR on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.
Sacred Space Gatherings
Like many others during the pandemic, Rev. Dr. Catherine Gilliard, superintendent of the Southeast Conference, organized Zoom conversations between pastors and other support staff for mutual support. Those conversations have continued and are now known as Sacred Space gatherings, a monthly spiritual direction group where participants get help slowing down, hearing from God, and cultivating “practices of pause.” Rev. Dr. Gilliard and the Southeast Conference remind us that the decisions we make in a crisis can bear fruit over the long haul.
Rev. Jonathan Hovey is associate pastor at New Life Covenant Church in Atlanta and a regular participant in the online gatherings. “One of the most meaningful outcomes for me is to realize that I am not alone in the stresses of life and to be reminded by others’ experiences that God is active and working. During the group meetings, I am constantly reminded that my value does not come from doing ministry for God but realizing as we abide in God’s presence that God’s love is always present for us.”
Adventures in Leadership
Last month eleven students from across the Northwest Conference (NWC) gathered for Adventures in Leadership, an intensive leadership development experience at Adventurous Christians, a ministry of Covenant Pines in McGregor, Minnesota. The students learned what it means to lead a team by examining leaders in Scripture and in history, and they explored their own leadership styles
while learning to listen and communicate with each other—all while navigating remote wilderness areas in canoes. Read more here.
Lego Ministry in the Great Lakes Conference
This story reminds us of the power of play. The Great Lakes Conference (GLC) has a dedicated Lego City ministry available to churches for vacation Bible school, after-school, or holiday programming.
The huge collection of Lego kits has its own dedicated space in the conference office. Churches can contact the office to reserve it. There’s no fee, and churches just take care of transporting the collection and following the instructions for proper setup and breakdown. According to Jani Gustafson, administrative assistant for the conference, Lego City is such a hit that even churches as far away as Kentucky (a six-hour drive!) have driven up to the conference office outside Detroit, Michigan, to take advantage.
Jody Eidnes, conference administrator, first got the idea over fifteen years ago after traveling to Germany to meet with some Free Church pastors in Germany. Afterward, she helped to create a curriculum highlighting the spiritual nature of building cities.
“There are all these good principles that show how building a city actually coincides with building the community of God. At the end, the city is never really quite done. And in the end, the body of Christ is never full. We are constantly adding people all the time.”
Staff and volunteers at the GLC inspect each kit in Lego City on an annual basis to ensure that none of the pieces is missing. Not only is that a dedicated level of quality control and customer service, but it embodies the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew 18.
