Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 6 February 10, 1976

This is another nice example of the artwork by Abba Graphics.

David Bishop was (and still is) a very interesting person. He is still alive and well, living in England. At the time of his visit with us he was the rector of the Anglican Church in Oxford England. He was a very "proper" Englishman. He discusses some of the difficulty that he had while he and his wife, Elizabeth, were with us, but there was also a lot of joy. I really appreciated his friendship. I also appreciated his defense of our community. He appeared at the City Council meetings letting the authorities know who much our community had impacted people internationally. I would love to see David again.

I will just say a word about the prophecy; they appear in several issues. We did not then, nor do we now give them the same weight as scripture, but they were important words which we believed came from the Lord. We wanted to write them up so that people could see them and think about them.

This is just a note from Tim regarding the posting of McFoone. The idea of a "comic strip" was very new to our church newsletter.

Of course this is McFoone. Tim introduces the character who will provide authoritative teaching, Ebenezer Elder.

This is another of our examples of the artwork of our children. We had many children. AbbaGraphics was very good in working with the children and helping them with art. We liked to celebrate our children in the church, the community and Our Life Together.

I found the article on Martin Luther written by Randy Hasper to be interesting. Randy was a very bright young man in our community. He did a lot of teaching and writing. He left the church in the early 80's and became a co-pastor the Evangelical Free church in town (now Paseo Del Rey church). He has since come full circle; he is the current pastor of FBCCV. He is doing a great job in leading the church in renewal and growth.

I do not remember Frances Roberts; was she/he a member at FBCCV or someone outside our fellowship? I do remember that "Come Away My Beloved" was widely read in the church.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 4 January 27, 1976

This is a nice piece of artwork illustrating the scripture from Isaiah 40. Personally this is a meaningful verse for me. I remember times that I have just hung on quoting that promise that those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. This was also a meaningful scripture for those struggling to live in community.

Ken discusses a pattern written about by Dave Wilkerson; multiplication, murmuring followed by structure. Ken wisely stays away from the argument put forth by some that any structure kills. He writes, correctly I believe, that structure frees the movement for further multiplication.

Larry writes about the difference between the values of the Christian and the values set forth by many in the business community of 1976. He affirms Peter's admonition to "save yourselves from this crooked generation." Of course the question must be asked, "Has secular life in the business community in America become better, worse or is it the same over the last 34 years?"

McFoone finishes his temptations as he finds his trust in God.

I loved this little reviews and papers that came out our School of the Prophets. We really had quite a few young people who were very serious about learning more about the Bible, Theology and Church History. Here, Dawn Schmid writes an article about John Calvin. Dawn was very active in the Hospital Ministry. I believe that she still lives in Chula Vista.

This is a page with several small things; a book review of "Peace Child" -- really a book recommendation. Their is a poem by A.B. Simpson and a report on the ministry of Herman Riffel. I remember very little about him. The only time I really remember hearing him was in 1977 at the large Charismatic Conference in Kansas City. At the workshop where Ruth Carter Stapleton was the main speaker, our singing group "Hallelujah Chorus" was leading in worship. Herman spoke before Ruth Carter Stapleton came on.

I was interested in the "In the Family" section. It mentions Ron and Linda Luck. They were (and still are) two of our closest friends (speaking as Dick and Linda Hensgen). They currently live in Wisconsin. 

Baptisms were always great. Here we have Clay Ford and Bud Miller performing the baptisms. I remember all of those being baptized, but I only know the current status of two of them. Connie is still in CV and attends FBCCV. She was married to Scott Copeland and has two children who are active with the Lord. Pat Escalante had a hard life. She was a neat person -- I certainly appreciated her a lot. She passed away a few years ago.

We were always blessed with lots of babies and young children. I guess that goes along with having a lot of young adults!

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 3, January 20, 1976

Many times when I write about these days in community I discuss the mechanics of our life together, or who was saying (or doing) what to whom, but this misses the heart of what we were about. Ken touches on the heart of community in this article. God was the center of everything. It was all about him. Everything else, the mechanics, the healings and even the relationships were really secondary to our relationship with God. I find this a touching article because it not only exposes this truth, but it exposes Ken's heart. Ken was a kind man who loved the Lord -- but he did not often reveal himself; this article does just that.

I find this little article about the ministry at Beale AFB quite interesting. Of course, part of that is a reiteration about the wideness of Ken Pagaard's ministry. On the other hand, I appreciate the fact that Ken was free to minister everywhere. He could minister to missionaries, to the people of the mission field, to seminaries, hospitals, pastors, laymen and women and to Mennonites and to the Military. In this sense he was a man for all seasons.

Clay Ford gives us a beautiful article about the faithfulness of God. It actually begins on the previous page. He begins by quoting the end of the third chapter of the prophet Habbakuk. This is sort of an obscure passage, but it was often quoted in these days. It was a favorite of Ken. I heard it so much that it is still one of my favorite passages even to this day. I have also heard Clay preach from this passage in recent years. Certainly each of us believe the truth of the passage -- but it spoke to those of us in community in a special way. In our life together things really didn't always go well -- but we could look to this promise and say with conviction that we really trusted in the Lord -- no matter what.

Tim Pagaard continues the temptations of McFoone.

Larry gives a defense for knowing "nothing" but Christ. He discusses how our curiosity can lead us away from the centrality of a life dedicated to Jesus. He differentiates those things that are forbidden and those that may be permissible -- yet not helpful for this life. I think that this was always a struggle of those of us in community. In many ways we had really withdrawn from the world. Yet, we lived in and around it every day. We were not really isolated. We just tried to isolate ourselves to some extent. In the context of community in the 70s this was an interesting article.

The article by Richard Hensgen is very early in the days of his writing. I think that I wrote a lot of truth here. I know that there was a secondary purpose to my writing this article; I had a very difficult time with people who refused to do things; "I'm waiting on the Lord," "He hasn't revealed his will to me yet," "I haven't been trained in that." I believed in doing, in taking our responsibility seriously. All of these excuses could have been true, but they were still excuses to do nothing.

Obviously there was a sub-theme in this issue of temptation. Here Larry gives a book review of Mumford's book on temptation. There is nothing earth shaking in "In the Family", but this is where one can find out what was happening with individuals in the community.

This article on Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage is important. It stands alone and is well worth reading. In my opinion, it is as valid today as it was at the time. I have generally adhered to the principles set forth here throughout my ministry with only minor changes. An example of minor change; the waiting period of five years is not understood to be a legalistic time frame by me. I do want people to spend some time on their individual life healing after divorce. 

The Musical "If My People" was a major ministry of several of the local churches.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 2, January 13, 1976

Ken Pagaard tackles the issue of worthiness in this issue. What he said is true; we had a lot of people who were depressed (some clinically) or had been involved with drug use and/or sexual promiscuity who felt unworthy to enter the presence of the living God. Of course, Ken makes it sound easy; just realize that God loves you. He is right, but we don't always work that way. Actually my kitten has been re-teaching me this lesson in my current life. I call it Theology Taught by a Kitten. He doesn't seem to worry about his status in the house. He just trusts me to feed him -- food will be there when he's hungry. He doesn't worry about whether it will bother me or not -- he just jumps on the computer table and lays down on the keyboard -- and I don't mind! He is my kitten and I love him. How much more does God love us. Anyway, enough kitten theology; I think that Ken was right.

Ken really valued the young men who were involved in the Ministering Community. We were blessed with so many talented and gifted men. They were eager to learn and serve. Several of them are still involved in ministry. Many are still serving God. But Ken even had a wider reach than that. I personally regret that some are not following God, yet Ken impressed upon all of our young people the need for education; it is all right to ask questions. Even these that are not with God at this time are serving our society in some impressive ways. This was a great group of young people and I was privileged to know them even though I was an old man in his 30s back then.

Clay finishes his article on this page. This is good reading. As I have stated before, love was the glue that held community together. The tragedy in the church (still) is that people can seem to grow in every way spiritually but it doesn't translate into love for other people. 

Tim Pagaard continues to teach us through McFoones adventures.

This is another one of our children's pages. I am always impressed with the way the young people of the community nurtured the younger children. Using there attempts at artwork was one of the ways that they accomplished this.

Larry's review of the book on creation was interesting. Most of us at the church didn't fit into a real fundamentalist mode when looking at scientific evidence (I am sure that an unbelieving scientist would disagree with me -- but there are varieties of belief even among believers.) Larry was trying to distance himself from rigid "recent earth creation" theories. I have always had trouble with these -- my major in college (UCLA) was Zoology.

Of more interest was Eleanor Burger's discussion of New Life Bookstore and its ministry. We had a number of businesses started within the community. These were bonafide businesses started to help support the community, but also to minister God's love and grace to those who were customers of the businesses; a construction company and a used appliance story come rapidly to mind.

The discussion about the scripture leading to "if my people", was a big item in this bicentennial year. On the previous page I noted the information on Otis Skilling's recording of the musical. I was reminded that earlier in the 70s I along with Ray Johnson and (I think Wallie Gray and Lehnis Lyons) recorded a couple of albums with a small group under the direction of Otis. He was music minister at Skyline Wesleyan church at the time. His music was youth oriented and he had a number of youth singing groups -- but he liked to use "mature" voices in his recordings.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 1, January 6, 1976

This is a great article about the practical outcomes of prayer. Our worship services in the 70s were a wonderful combination of planned activities and spontaneity, contemporary music and classic music, solemnity and joy; there was drama, prophetic utterances a sermon by the leader (usually Ken Pagaard) but there could also be a teaching by someone else. I have never been a part of such alive worship since then -- and I have been in many good times of worship; these times were special. Ken speaks the truth that it wasn't because of our spectacular leadership. This was a sovereign move of God. Prayer was not a substitute for doing. Prayer was the doing that seemed to unleash the power of God in our midst.

On the next page, Ken mentions the musical "If My People." The theme was from 2 Chronicles 7:14 where the people of Israel were enjoined to pray. If this was done, then God would hear and heal the land. This was a musical performed by a number of the churches in Chula Vista -- including ours. It was a good musical, a good performance and also an indication that we weren't separatists; we wanted to work with others.

Clay continues his article on love. As I mentioned in my previous posting, there is really no community without love. I especially enjoyed his section discussing how "professional" ministers are pushed into molds through the expectations of the congregation. This certainly can become "death" to the person hood of the pastor.

This is the conclusion of Clay's article. I will only mention the memory verse here. Memorization of Scripture was a big item throughout the 70s. This is a discipline that is recommended throughout evangelical churches, but we really put this into practice. This was a great help to me in my spiritual growth and in my ministry in later years.

McFoone illustrates shallow evangelism. We really believed that when we evangelized, we needed to "lay down our lives" for the person. We couldn't say that we really loved someone without helping them, spending time with them or even taking them home to live with us.

Jerry Jamison was one of the other major talented young men in the church. He and Gary Bell were the heads of Abbacraft. Jerry is still active in advertising and has recently written a book. We were very blessed with these young men.

The letter from Dr. Dan Fountain which concludes on this page was a real blessing. Of course, the first reason is that it was a letter of encouragement and it did just that. Secondly, Dr. Dan was a leading American Baptist Missionary in Zaire. Later he would become a major consultant dealing with health problems throughout Africa -- especially HIV. This is another example of our world wide outreach. I might also mention that Dr. Dan's brother Dave (a Navy Chaplain) was a member of FBCCV.

Larry Clark's article on the genealogies sounds much like my New Testament Professor's lecture on the genealogies. As usual, Larry's article is quite insightful.

This is a wonderful poem by T.S. Eliot. I can say no more but that our wonderful team of editors was always reading and bringing interesting items into OLT.

I don't think that we ever really came to terms about what OLT was; a magazine for subscription or a ministry of FBCCV. We really believed it to be a ministry, yet the expense was a real problem to our church. We really needed the help that subscriptions gave us. Yet, we would have liked to dispense with it and just send the magazine to those who wanted it.