I used to make spaghetti two to three times a week for dinner.It was my go-to meal.When I worked as a 7th grade English teacher prior to staying home with my kids, I barely had enough energy to boil noodles after being in the classroom all day.After becoming a stay at home mom, I began to find life in areas that meant little to me while working full time.I became a Food Network online recipe junkie.Now, we have spaghetti once every few weeks, and I try to tackle interesting, more complicated recipes.
I’ve learned that cooking is really an art.I rarely follow recipes exactly, but I do use measuring spoons, cups, etc.While I can tackle most tough gourmet recipes, I am not a great Korean food cook.I am a Korean adoptee.My parents are Caucasian, and they do not cook by taste.My husband and mother-in-law rarely use measuring devices.They add a little of this and a little of that and create something wonderful.I’m not comfortable cooking like that, and more importantly, even if I do make an excellent Korean dish, I often can’t replicate the same result the next time I try.
Serving on the Sanctuary pastoral search team has reminded me a bit of cooking.Each person is bringing his/her gifts, experiences, and passion to the group.We are all trying to work together to identify our next pastor.All of us are aware of the importance of this task and are praying hard to make sure we do our best and follow God’s will.After all, He knows the identity of our next pastor.
The search team has continued to meet monthly, and we are making good progress.The Elder Board has been working hard to create the job description, church profile, etc.The position will officially be posted online and through many other channels by the end of August.
This past month, the Elder Board and search team came to an important decision.We have hired Sima International, a professional search company and will be partnering with several consultants that specialize in ministry job placements.Here are some of the benefits of working with Sima:
Using their specialized applicant gifting mapping process, Sima will evaluate how closely applicant qualities match the senior pastor job description.
Sima will use its vast ministry network to contact possible senior pastor leads.
Sima will also investigate potential candidates that would be an excellent fit but are not currently seeking a new position.
Sima will provide administrative support, responding to applicant questions and helping them navigate the application process.
Collaborating with Sima does not undercut the purpose and mission of the congregationally selected search team.The search team is still charged with identifying and calling Sanctuary’s next senior pastor.We lead.Sima follows and plays a supporting role. We are still the chefs, but now we have a set of measuring tools at our disposal.These tools can help us evaluate applicants in a consistent manner.They can help us find the one that God has identified as Sanctuary’s next senior pastor.
Please continue to pray for the search process.Join us for weekly pre-service prayer at 8:25 and 10:25 in the gymnasium.Watch for our 411 updates and bulletin announcements.Read our web FAQ page; http://sanctuarycov.org/about/senior-pastor-search-faqs Stop by our Fellowship Café bulletin board.And, if you have questions, feel free to contact us via email: search@sanctuarycov.org.We want to hear from you!
We recently moved to North Minneapolis. We’re learning how small acts make a difference. One of our next door neighbors keeps schooling us on living in the “hood.“ She’s probably trying to be helpful, but the way she talks spread fear rather than help.
The family that lives on the other side of her is a Hmong family. The parents speak little English, but our kids like to play together. They’ve expressed thankfulness that we’re in the neighborhood. They’ve been very generous, sharing food with us (from watermelon to chicken feet).
Our neighbor right behind us is Ecuadorian. He’s lived here for over a decade, but his accent is still thick and hard to understand at times. But he was one of the first people to welcome us to the neighborhood. He’s offered to help us if we have vehicle problems again (we’ve had way too many for our budget in the last couple months).
Even when someone walks by and says “hello” or makes a comment on how the yard or house looks, it has a bigger impact on my day than someone who walks by without saying a word. (Of course, I have the choice on how I react to others, but my point is that even small acts of kind words have an impact on others.)
And this is my reminder as well. I can choose to say a small, kind word to someone, or I can just walk by silently. I can choose to help someone, or I can choose to ignore them. I can choose to speak fear or hate to someone, or I can choose to speak love to them. I can choose to just live in my neighborhood, or I can choose to love those around me and in doing so become an agent of transformation.
A few years ago I was the program director at a Bible Camp that served the Covenant churches in Iowa. I saw many lives changed by transformational love there. Often a kid would come for the week who had some “rough edges”—they didn’t want to open up, enjoy camp or participate in activities. By little, by little, through patient loving acts, their counselor (or sometimes the other campers) got through to them. And so did Christ. By the end of the week their lives were changed, transformed. It was through the power of the Holy Spirit of course, but it also happened because someone kept doing small acts of love and not giving up when it wasn’t returned.
Oddly enough, it seems that transformational love can truly only happen in community (or in building community). Which makes sense, because God doesn’t just love individuals (“For God so loved theworld“), and He doesn’t just transform individuals. Yes, when we love others they can become transformed, but so can our whole community (and so can we).
David Wenell is a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at www.wandering-in-the-wilderness.blogspot.com and is currently a stay-at-home dad.
In this first Message Series from Pastor in the Interim, Henry Greenidge, we’re exploring Phillipians 1:9-11.
Philippians 1:9 And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment;10 so that ye may approve the things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ;11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
Pastor Henry is talking about moments, single moments in our lives that can have life-changing, direction-alterning, transformational impact.
How can we change lives moment by moment, with simple acts of love?
Last Sunday, June 20, outgoing Senior Pastor Efrem Smith and Wiley Scott, chair of the Elder Board, announced the hiring of Pastor Henry Greenidge to serve as Interim Pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church until a new, permanent Senior Pastor is voted on by the Covenant Members of the Sanctuary.
Pastor Greenidge is uniquely qualified to serve in our setting. He planted one the first multi-ethnic churches in the Evangelical Covenant Church more than 20 years ago. He won the Irving C. Lambert Award, which honors excellence in urban ministry, for his work as pastor of Irvington Covenant Church in Portland, Oregon.
Greenidge guided the founding of Irvington Village, a Portland retirement community in which 70 percent of the 104 units were reserved for Medicaid recipients. When it opened in 2002, ECC President Glenn Palmberg said, “When God called Henry into Covenant ministry, he called him for more than local ministry. Henry has made an impact on the entire Portland community. He has emerged as a real leader. The Covenant Church is proud to have someone so beloved and respected in Portland.“
Covenanters also have been blessed through his participation in worship teams that ministered at pastors’ conferences, denominational annual meetings, and the Feast. Paul Lessard, who played alongside Greenidge, referred to him as the “pastor emeritus” of the worship teams.
Greenidge also served on the Book of Worship Commission and has served on the executive board of the North Pacific Conference.
Greenidge’s passion for community ministry formed as he watched his father, who was a pastor, minister to the residents throughout South Bronx, New York. Greenidge earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Nyack Missionary College in Nyack, New York. He studied youth ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and became an ordained minister in 1975, receiving a ministerial license from the Covenant in 1988.
He began his professional career as a music teacher in Rockland County New York, teaching elementary and then Junior High school, and then became Music director for Tom Skinner associates for seven years. He then founded and produced the music group Soul Liberation. Soul Liberation was the inspiration for the Soul Lib festival that happened every year for several years At Park Ave. United Methodist church in South Minneapolis.
Pastor Greenidge has served as an inspiration and model for multi-ethnic church planting to our own founding Pastor Efrem Smith. When he became available for this position, he came highly recommended from within and outside our church.
Pastor Greenidge currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Kathy. He will be coming to the Twin Cities for the Worship Together event at River Centre on July 27th, and will be publicly introduced to Sanctuary on Sunday, July 4, 2010. He will begin serving in his role as Interim Pastor at Sanctuary immediately.
Please join us in welcoming him to the Twin Cities and the Sanctuary.
I do not really enjoy meetings.I’m the type of person that likes to be active and do things.Let me loose on a task list, or better yet, give me a computer project, and I’ll be happy and productive.I think it is my background as a former seventh grade teacher.Staff meetings were a chore, but alone in my classroom with my kids, I came alive.My husband, Phil, on the other hand, loves meetings and is excellent at working with others to accomplish various tasks.He sometimes has 5 or more meetings a day and thrives under those conditions.I love how God gives each of us special gifts.
However, serving on the pastoral search team has been a blessing.In a way, I feel like I joined a Sanctuary Community Group when I became part of the pastoral search process.We meet monthly, have a devotional together, work on accomplishing certain tasks, and pray for one another.Our search team is comprised of the following members: Neeraj Mehta (chair), Wiley Scott (Elder Board), Calvin Allen (Elder Board), Amy Long (Elder Board), Michelle Perkins (Secretary), Jocelyn Broyles, and Gary Shackleford.I serve as the communications person.
The search team is acutely aware of the trust and responsibility that the congregation has poured into us.We have been working hard at getting congregational input through avenues such as our online survey, the demographic census, our two open, informal gatherings at Brookdale Covenant, and our pre-service gym prayer times.This blog and our information board in the Fellowship Café are two more ways we are trying to connect with the congregation during this process.We have our own email address too: searchteam@sanctuarycov.org.
During our last meeting, the devotional centered around how we can worship God through our service to Him, how serving on the pastoral search team is not just a task but a form of worship.Usually, we think that only praise, prayer, Sunday service, or our quiet times qualify as worship, but even the act of using our gifts in ministry can be another way for us to show God how much we love Him.Service can be a part of our worship.
Much like a community group, the search team has a covenant of how we will walk through the pastoral search process.We have six covenants: Trust (Proverbs 3:5-6), Commitment (Romans 12:10), Communication (Ephesians 4:15), Confidentiality (I Corinthians 4:2), Diligence (Hebrews 10:25), and Unity (Ephesians 4:3).Walking out one’s purpose and using one’s gifts together in unison with others is a source of spiritual renewal for me.It is easy to get burned out by being over-involved, but finding a calling, and narrowing your service to fit His kingdom purpose refreshes rather than exhausts.
It’s hard to imagine that, on average, the search process will take a year to 18 months.There are seven steps to the pastoral search process: organize as a committee, gather information in order to post the position and screen applicants, contact potential candidates for phone/skype/in-person interviews, introduce the final candidate and his family to our church, hold a congregational meeting and vote on the candidate, help the new senior pastor prepare for his or her move and installation, and finally, assist in the new pastor’s transition to ministry at Sanctuary.Currently, we are in phase 2, the information gathering stage.The Elder Board is refining the job posting, church profile, and pastoral profile.After the Elder Board approves these items, the search team will open the position to applicants.The road ahead seems long, but I can only pray that Sanctuary grows deeper roots during this time of transition.As Pastor Cecilia said during her 5/2/10 sermon, “Change happens, but transitions are made.”
There are many ways congregation members can be a part of the pastoral search process.There are pre-service Sunday weekly prayer gatherings in the gym at 8:25 and 10:25 that will lift up the senior pastor search.A prayer meeting is held every Wednesday night at 7 pm at the church office.Staying informed by reading our blog or visiting our info board in the Fellowship Café will help members better understand the process of finding a new senior pastor.We have a list of search team FAQs on the website: http://sanctuarycov.org/about/senior-pastor-search-faqs but if you have further questions, ask!We want to hear from you: searchteam@sanctuarycov.org
On April, 16-17, Sanctuary’s youth took a break from eating for 30 Hours. They redirected their focus and energy on learning about and doing something about the issue of global hunger and poverty.
24 Students, raised $850, packed 4300 meals, and experienced a small taste of what kids around the world experience on daily basis.
Hunger knows no boundaries. And neither does God’s passionate desire for us to be a living sacrifice to the feed the hungry, quench the thirsty and provide hope to the hopeless.
Checkout the 30 Famine Recap Video and share in pride for these kids who are willing to be a catalyst for change in the world.
For many of us, Easter has come and gone. Any decorations are down. Unless you have really strong self-control, the Easter candy is all gone (I’m proud to say, we haven’t eaten it all).
But if you’ve spent time in a church that observes the church calendar, you know we’re still in Eastertide until Pentecost (50 days past Easter). The church calendar is a good reminder that Easter isn’t just a one day event. If we have chosen to follow Jesus, Easter is in our blood. We are resurrection people.
Each day of our lives needs to be shaped by Holy Week:
Jesus’ triumphal entry on Palm Sunday reminds us of His lordship. All areas of our life need to be given to His control.
Jesus’ teaching and actions on Maunday Thursday remind us of our calling to serve others. We are to wash other’s feet—humbling ourselves for the sake of loving our neighbor. We are also reminded of our calling to community at the table where Jesus broke the bread and poured out the wine.
Good Friday brings us into His limitless love and sacrifice for us. It is a stark reminder of our worth in God’s eyes. Nothing we can do will change His love for us.
And Resurrection Sunday provides us with hope and mission. We know that death is not the end. That God desires us to spend eternity with Him. That we are called to share that hope with others.
When we live each day in light of Jesus’ final week, we are given our purpose for each day. It reminds us of our standing before God. It reminds us of our calling: to love neighbor, self and God.
What happened on Easter caused the followers of Jesus to eventually change their day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. In the early church Easter was the day when new believers who had gone through catechism were baptized and welcomed into the Family of God. What happened on that day was important. It changed things. It changes us.
As resurrection people, may we live each day being transformed into Christ’s likeness through the Father’s power which raised His Son from death to life.
David Wenellis a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at www.wandering-in-the-wilderness.blogspot.com and is currently a stay-at-home dad.
Recently, my Kindergartner’s school newsletter posed the question for parents: “What do you think of change?” Thinking about change wasn’t a new thing. Change was the subject of a sermon series a year ago. Change has been on the forefront of my mind in the last couple of years as I’ve gone through some personal growth and recovery. And change is something we’re all thinking about now.
The school asked it because the district is in the midst of looking at restructuring their building usage to be more practical and cost-effective. This will mean some building may close. Grades may be shifted. There will be change.
My response to the school’s newsletter (if you reply you get entered into a drawing for a gift certificate—so I admit my motives weren’t without reason) was this:
Most of us fear change; a few thrive on it. Change, however, is necessary. Ask any biologist. If an organism doesn’t change, it doesn’t grow. And if it doesn’t grow, it dies. Yes, there can be harmful change (ask any patient who has just learned the news of cancer). But much change can be good—especially if we work to make it so. It takes discernment to know if change will be bad or good. But more than discernment, a positive attitude is needed: an attitude that goes into a situation of change looking for ways to make it positive, to work to make a smooth transition, to encourage and support those who need it. Our children are so much better off if we teach them to not run from change but to face it head on, prepared and with a positive, helpful attitude. What is true for the school is true for the church.
Change is hard. Change is painful. But change is good. Especially when in the will of God.
The outcome of change depends largely on our attitude to it. Do we face challenges with a positive attitude, knowing God gives us the strength to accomplish the things He puts before us? Do we face change knowing that God is the one in control, the ultimate orchestrator of history? Do we face opportunities for growth knowing that in all things God works for the good?
David Wenellis a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at www.wandering-in-the-wilderness.blogspot.com and is currently a stay-at-home dad.
David Wenell is a Covenant Member at Sanctuary. He is ordained in the Evangelical Covenant Church and has served in ministry in Iowa and British Columbia before moving to St. Loius Park. He blogs regularly at 
