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Grand Rapids Celebrates 125 Years - Mission Focus
GRAND RAPIDS, MI (October 28, 2005) - First Covenant Church always has been
known for its commitment to missions. At times, 50 percent of its budget
has been dedicated to missionary support.
"It is such a strong sense of the church's identity," Pastor Craig
Swanson (accompanying photo) said Sunday following the service in which
the church continued to celebrate its 125th anniversary. "It's been at
the heart of the church."
In his sermon to the congregation, Evangelical Covenant Church President
Glenn Palmberg said, "The challenges of today may be different as are
the methods, but still the goal is the same - to live with Christ at the
center."
Living from that center will enable the church to avoid temptations, he
suggested. There is the temptation to lose the passion for worldwide
mission and concentrate only on local concerns. The heart of Jesus is to
go into all the world - and not just in word, but also in deed, Palmberg
stressed. He painted a vivid picture of the scope of the challenge,
observing that the number of children who die each day from poverty
related disease, starvation and other problems is the equivalent of 200
fully loaded jumbo jets crashing each and every day.
Many people in today's world have become "consumers" of faith and church
programs, and the temptation for churches is to develop a mentality in
which they just deliver goods, Palmberg noted. "The call of the church
is to give people what they need," he said, and not just what they want.
"As the church spreads the promise of eternal life, it will help the
world to begin living the heavenly promise today by living by Christ's
ways," he continued. "The church must be prepared to say and do things
that shock the world because He (Christ) is shocking."
Swanson honored the congregation's commitment to those shared ministries
to which the denomination gives leadership, saying it was vital to the
past and the future of ministry. "We do not stand by ourselves," he
said. "We don't know Christ individually. In the same way, we are part
of a larger family of churches."
Following Sunday's service, Swanson said the church will "fully and
creatively" meet the challenges of the future, even if all the
challenges are not yet clearly defined.
The church has set up a history room with a rotating display of items to
honor the congregation's past. Featured Sunday were pictures of all of
the church's former pastors along with musical instruments that have
been used over the years and copies of all the hymnals First Covenant
has used.
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