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Membership: It’s More than a Card in Your Wallet

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By Dan Amos

Membership—Costco, a gym, AARP. We have memberships in lots of places, but we don’t always give them a lot of thought. Yet when we are members, we do say “we belong.” It’s a way of identifying what is important to us, and it links us to others. Membership at Elim is vitally important to our future. The decisions we make over the course of selecting a new pastor will shape who we are and what we do, and members will make those decisions.

It’s been so long now that I don’t really remember the process Fran and I went through to become members. We would have read through and agreed to the statement of faith and received a copy of the constitution. Most importantly, we would have told our stories to an elder or two. How did we come to faith in Jesus? Where are we on our journey with Him?

Telling our story is about being known by others. It welcomes other believers into our lives. We become part of a community that is mutually supportive and accountable. Sometimes that means confronting sin, which is very uncomfortable, easy to avoid, but totally necessary.

We don’t require membership to attend or go to Bible study or community group or to take communion. Community and accountability are not dependent on membership. So, why bother?

Membership is a formal declaration, a covenant with a group of believers to support one another, build each other up, and worship Christ together. At Elim, our statement of faith is a declaration of what we believe God’s Word tells us. We will use the Bible as the measuring stick for all that we do, and if we deviate from that, the membership is responsible to hold the elders and pastors accountable.

With that agreement in mind, the membership entrusts the management of resources to the staff and elders to be used for building God’s kingdom. We have been focused on discipleship. As we go through the current transition, we will put a finer point on how we will accomplish this. We’ll restate our mission, the vision of where we believe God is taking Elim and what He wants us to do.

So, when it comes to picking a pastor, managing resources, and setting a course, the members not only need to be in agreement, but also need to have a common foundation. If we did not insist on members who are believers and agree to the statement of faith, we could go the way of many churches before us. We could deviate from the Word of God; we could compromise our faith and lose the saltiness God has given us.

Membership has a lot of work before it, but it is profitable work. Each meeting and vote we take sets us on a path. We need each member to actively participate. The elders are reviewing the membership roll to identify those who are no longer an active part of the body and encouraging them to return or relinquish their membership if they have moved away. If you are not a member and you call Elim your home, let us know if you want to become a member, and we’ll start the process. Your church family needs you.

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What Am I Pursuing?

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By Bill Naron

It’s that time of year again: time for graduation! From Sunday school to public school, from high school to college, it is the time for pivotal moments of transition. In his sermon on Sunday, Pastor Brian Sharpe spoke out of the book of Ecclesiastes. If you have not had the chance, you can check it out here.

                Ecclesiastes is a great book. It was written by King Solomon, who was not only the wealthiest king of his time, but also the wisest. Ecclesiastes was Solomon’s reflection on the whole of his life, somewhat of an evaluation and a warning. Solomon, in a broad and general sense, sets the stage for us in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, where he states, “I have seen the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.”

                Solomon sought after wisdom and pleasure but found all these pursuits to be meaningless. At this point, I began to think to myself, What made Solomon’s pursuits meaningless? Solomon sought these things instead of God; he hoped to find meaning and identity in these things.

Many of us today do the same thing. We search after knowledge, or we try to climb higher in position at work, thinking = these things we are pursuing will give us meaning, purpose, and identity. This is what is wrong with Solomon’s pursuits and what is wrong with our pursuits. Our purpose, meaning, and identity should be rooted in the person and work of Jesus, not in vain temporal pursuits.

                The book of Ecclesiastes is like advice from an old man with a lot of life experience. He tells us of the mistakes that he made and then, at the end of the book, tells us what we should do. In Ecclesiastes 12 Solomon writes, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Solomon brings it back to what matters the most; the things that we pursue are meaningless when we pursue them outside of relationship with God.

                I love this John Piper quote: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” When we are satisfied in God, when our identity is rooted in what our Father says of us, when we find our purpose in walking with the Lord, and when we find meaning in chasing after Jesus, it shapes the way we live life. The things that we pursue in life begin to have meaning, because we are not pursuing them in order that we would be made greater but in order that Jesus would be made known.

                In times of pivotal transition, it is important for us to take time to self-reflect, the way that Solomon does in the book of Ecclesiastes. It is important for us to analyze our purpose and what we are doing with it. We need to ask ourselves if we have fully surrendered and committed to living the life that Jesus calls us to. For the body of Elim Evangelical Free Church, I think that we should be asking ourselves how we are fulfilling our mission of being Jesus to our community. How are we helping create an oasis where people can renew relationship with Jesus and others?

I wish all of those who are graduating this year the best of luck in all their pursuits. I would encourage everyone, from the graduates to those of you in the congregation at Elim, to ask yourselves what you’re pursuing and why you are pursuing it. As I found myself asking upon reflection on the sermon from Sunday, am I looking for purpose, identity, and meaning in vain pursuits that are temporal, or is my relationship with Jesus what influences the things that I pursue?

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Desire Family

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By Isaac McKenzie

“And He said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.’”
(Luke 22:15 ESV)

We want many things. We should first know that it’s important to divide want and need. Just as important, we must define for ourselves the role that want plays in our lives. The want I refer to is this desire Jesus speaks of in this passage of Luke. In the Greek, it’s epithumia: “desire, passionate longing, lust.” In the verse, Christ earnestly desires to eat with His closest counterparts. He conveys a genuine and passionate tone. He is eager. His is more than merely sincere. He communicates a desire to experience His friends’ presence in a limited window of time. Can we relate to such a desire?

Do we desire such things as Christ did?

Our Christ desired a genuine relationship with those He loved, with those that loved Him. Jesus didn’t take for granted the small moments that are meals and the presence of good friends. He experienced life as He lived it. All the while Jesus maintained His mission.

Christ was to suffer. He was acutely aware that His time with the loved ones who followed Him was drawing to a close. He wasn’t motivated by legacy as we might be. His motivation was much greater. He was savoring moments such as the Passover meal.

We so often forget that we have such a great influence on the moments that we are given the opportunity to live. We have a chance to make moments to be something meaningful. We can see our fellow believers as our family, just as Christ did. Matthew says about Jesus, “Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’” (Matthew 12:49-50).

I imagine Christ looking around the rooms He would enter with a great deal of intention, absorbing the view of people and ambient conversation and taking to heart every meaningful word exchanged. He knew what was to come and He genuinely loved them just as He loves us and wants us to love others as He does. I’d like to be like Christ in this way in particular. It’s my number one priority when being with others. Christ would walk into rooms and be present, as I would like to do. Do I desire to be present?

We only have such a short time. But the experiences on our bucket list of life, those desires—are they worthwhile? Am we intentional in having conversation? Are we engaging others? Do we find ourselves desiring to be present with our brothers and sisters, as he has made all of us to be? Do you desire for those you see at Elim to be family?

I would like to eat with you. I would love to do life with all of you, as Christ would want us to as well. Life has so many hurts and sufferings. We have such little time. We must strive to see each other as family. We must believe that this concept is possible—to find belonging, acceptance, trust, and family in others who follow the will of God. Your Father supports you in this goal. He remains with us, so we remain in Him as well as with each other (John 15:15). After all, don’t they say, “To never have loved others like Christ, is to have never loved at all” (or something like that)?

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A Season of Change

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By Jeff Foerster

Each year brings predictable cycles. Spring follows winter, which follows fall, which follows summer, which follows the previous spring. Our lives are made of rhythms as well—cycles of sleeping and waking, eating and fasting. However, it’s easy for those things to go unnoticed unless we stop to consider them, reflecting upon their importance.

We are in such a place at Elim, a place of reflection. We have been served and loved for the past 25 years by Martin and Kim. And now the season is changing. We, as the body of Christ, have responsibility to discern and move with intentionality further into the mission Christ Jesus has for His Church. In order to do so, we want to move with deliberate action, formed from godly discernment, born of willing reflection.

To walk well in this new season, we have chosen to seek an independent voice to speak into our community. Interim Pastor Ministries (IPM) has decades of experience helping churches move with intentionality through transitions. We have located and thoroughly vetted a well-qualified candidate to help us in this time: Pastor Steve McCoy.

We asked him to join us in our transition process, and he accepted our offer. Steve and Andrea McCoy will be visiting with us this Sunday, June 2. We are then planning toward June 23 as the first Sunday Steve will be here as interim pastor. Pastor McCoy has served as a senior pastor for approximately 35 years in New Mexico and California churches. Following this service, he joined IPM, and he now comes to us with four prior experiences leading churches in transition, including an EFCA church in our district at Canby, Oregon.

Steve also knows the Northwest, having been born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Yet his experiences have taken him across the country as well. He and Andrea met while at Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham, Alabama. Eighteen months later, they were wed while he attended Dallas Theological Seminary. Their family grew over the years with four children and then the additional blessing of four grandchildren.

His decades of experience as a senior pastor and his training and experience at IPM have prepared him well to assist us at Elim to thoughtfully and deliberately navigate our transition process. Pastor McCoy’s preaching is seasoned and, as we have listened to many hours of it, conforms to the EFCA statement of faith and the Scriptures from which it came.

One of the essential requirements of IPM is the agreement that anyone serving in the role of interim pastor will not seek, be considered, or be eligible in any way for the permanent senior pastor position at the church he serves. This prevents any conflict of interest now or in the future. This policy also enables the interim pastor to speak with clarity, conviction, and courage that which must be spoken. We believe Steve McCoy is extremely capable and will fulfill his role with dedication.

While Steve is joining the staff at Elim, Andrea’s role will be one of support to her husband. She will not be taking a leadership position at Elim, but she will engage at a participatory level at her discretion.

After having spoken with both Steve and Andrea via videoconference, we are excited to welcome them both to Elim this Sunday as our next step in the adventure God has planned for us. Please continue to pray for Elim, for discernment and wisdom, and that our faith and love would grow daily by the renewing of our hearts and minds!

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A Different Perspective

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by Brian Waple

Many of you know I work from home. I have a small office that looks out into the backyard and a little bit beyond into our development. It’s a pleasant, unchanging view, but it’s a small perspective, and I’m limited in what I can see. For the next couple of days, we are in Newberg, Oregon. My “office” is an upstairs dining room with large picture windows. My view is the vast expanse of sky and the land that makes up a good portion of the Willamette Valley. I can see for miles in all directions. It provides a much larger perspective than what I normally have, and it makes me aware of how God sees things. Big . . . unfathomably big, and much larger than mine.

Our transition at Elim is an opportunity for all of us to see from a different perspective. I really appreciated what Pastor Martin shared last Sunday about “us being the final message.” To me, that means we can continue to maintain a perspective of what Elim has been and try to keep it that way—or, we can choose to embrace God’s perspective and see what He may be calling us into as a church.

Our natural bent (certainly my natural bent) is to go with the former, keeping things the way they are and resisting change as best we can. That perspective is safe, but it can be limiting, and it may keep us from seeing where God is moving. In Matthew, Jesus speaks to the multitude and provides them with a different perspective for how God sees things:

One day as he saw the crowds gathering, Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down. His disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them.

“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.

God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.

God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.

God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad!” (Matthew 5:1-12, NLT)

Because of the transition, things will be changing around Elim. And we all will have questions. In seeking answers, rather than holding onto a safe, limiting perspective, how can we all be open to embracing a perspective that helps us see how God sees things? How can we all seek to find where God may be leading Elim today and in the years to come?

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Everyday Faith

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By Jeff Foerster

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14–17)

Faith will present itself. It happens simply by living. If we sit in a chair, we have demonstrated faith in the power of the chair to lend its support. If we swallow pills from the pharmacy, we demonstrate faith in the pharmacist and the manufacturer. Just the opposite is true as well. If we refuse to sit in a four-legged chair that only has three stable legs, our faith is revealed as lacking. Likewise, if we notice packaging that’s been tampered with, we may refuse the medication, thereby also revealing a lack of faith.

Faith for the believer in Jesus engages salvation, and salvation works itself out with fear and trembling. In other words, saving faith will continue to produce good fruit, or works, in the believer’s life; actions will tell the tale of faith. These actions are like the bloom of a flower: the bloom does not create a flower, but its existence signals that it came from one.

Flicks and Faith

Faith exhibits itself when I choose entertainment. Take movies for example. If I take care when choosing, by using information on a site such as Plugged In or even considering the MPAA rating system, then my concern shows faith that God has set limits on me and, by extension, the entertainment I enjoy. If, on the other hand, my attitude is, “I’m adult enough to see a movie without being negatively affected by it,” then I likely am unaware of, or do not have faith in, God’s Word, which says I can be deceived by my own heart, my own desires. Faith is grounded in truth, and truth is found in the person and character of God revealed in the Bible.

Trying Traffic

So what happens when driving down the road and some “jerk” cuts in front of me and slows down, almost causing an accident? (I’m not saying that’s ever happened to me.) What does faith have to do with it? Well, faith remembers that Jesus suffered unjustly at the hands of sinners. Faith remembers that I am to be like Him, suffering wrong and not seeking vengeance for myself in the form of aggressive driving or gestures not-quite loving. No, I am not equating crucifixion with rush-hour traffic; my attitude is symbolic, a representation of the attitude of Christ, forgiving others apart from their deservedness. When we remember Jesus and seek His ways, that’s acting in faith.

Money Matters

Confronted by a stack of bills or maybe just thoughts of them, I am facing a faith issue. Will I let worry over due dates and available funds plague my mind and keep me from praising the God who saved me? Or will I recall the words that tell me I am worth much more to God than many sparrows, whom He provides for consistently? What shall I choose? Will I place faith in my Provider or in the provision of my own hands? Where will my faith be revealed?

Identity Instigator

There is nothing more precious than the lilting voice of a child . . . until that child says, “I hate you!” And what takes place next? Do I react out of my woundedness? Does my faith in my identity, founded on being liked, being valued by others, form my reaction? However, if I am saved from my sins, I am a new creation. Can I tell myself the truth that God has told me and choose to live out of and love from the identity I have from being a son or daughter of Christ? Do I really have faith that I have been adopted into His family and that adoption is reality?

What to Do?

Unforeseen events. Long lines. Complicated circumstances. Have you ever had one phone call turn into two more, resulting in waiting on a return call that won’t seem to come? And that was only one of the dozen items on the must-do section of your to-do list—today? When my plans don’t produce fruit, does anxiety or anger become the next item on the list? What does that tell me about my faith and whom—or what—it’s placed in? Can I recall that God’s Word tells me that He is working all things in my life to produce good fruit? Will I let this truth be where my faith is found?

“Nice Ride”

Installing a new battery in my nearing “vintage” car, my neighbor rolls by in a beautiful 2019 Envy (made by Ford, I think). Again with the choices. Do I recount how I work harder, attend church more, pray harder, give more, blah, blah, blah, than my neighbor, so why can’t I have pretty things too? Or, I could recall the truth spoken through the apostle and savor the eternal glory I’ll share with the Father: “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

I could go on . . . and on . . . and on . . . until your eyeballs bleed. For where we are, I am convinced, is a land of faith. It can be faith based in what we experience, what we feel, and what we see and think, or we can look beyond—to a world that transcends our five senses, to things unseen. Faith ultimately comes back to and begins in a person: Jesus Christ. He is our Lord and our Master, our Savior and our Teacher. Faith in Him means valuing Him above all else, seeking Him above all else, and listening to Him above all else. We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith acts as a reset, a recalibration of reality to conform to the truth. And knowing the Truth will set you free!

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