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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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Weird Art and the Glory of God

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By Jason Comerford

This year at the men’s retreat, we all watched a film called Lars and the Real Girl. It’s an indie film from 2007 starring Ryan Gosling; IMDb summarizes it like this: “A delusional young man strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.”

Suffice it to say, it’s one of the most awkward films I’ve ever watched, and it wasn’t initially high on my list of must-see movies. Despite that, it’s quickly rocketed to the top of my favorites. While sometimes painful to watch, the story told an uncomfortable tale of one man’s loneliness and how the grace and lovingkindness of one small town saved him from his delusions. Really, what makes this movie so wonderful is the tale of grace and redemption at the heart of it.

But more than that, I’m thrilled that instead of the typical relaxing movie we might have chosen to watch, nearly every single man at the retreat chose to stay and watch this weird, very awkward art house flick.

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God’s people have a long history of uncomfortable art being used to honor God and speak to His people.

Take for example the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 20. The Lord commands him to walk around naked and barefoot as a warning to Israel not to trust in the military might of their neighbors.

For another example, look at Ezekiel and his various one-man plays that he acted out in public. In Ezekiel 4, he built a tiny model of the city of Jerusalem and acted out various aspects of a tiny war against it.

We could also look to the ministry of Jeremiah, who was told time and again to speak to the people of Israel regarding their rebellion, sometimes using prophetic actions such as smashing pots.

All over the Bible, our invisible God seems really interested in attention-grabbing displays. Activities and images that just can’t be ignored—that defy easy categorization or flippant response. Things that demand answer and attention from us.

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I think it’s important to recognize that God sometimes uses strange and uncomfortable means to make sure His message is heard. In our culture, I think we’ve given ourselves over to a belief that movies and stories are here mainly to entertain us. Paintings, photographs, essays, and songs, all these get pushed aside when they offer anything other than a beautiful vista, an optimistic thought, or an entertaining laugh.

Instead, I think we should embrace something different. Art is here not mainly to entertain or inform, but to pierce our hearts. To take up the glories and horrors we’ve forgotten and with them stab us broad awake once more.

As a Christian, that’s the kind of artwork I need. What about you?

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