Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 11 March 16, 1976

This cover is nice vintage AbbaGraphics. The motive of the vine and the grapes was used many times throughout the life of Our Life Together and AbbaGraphics.

The Charismatic Leaders meetings were very important. It is out of these meetings that the great conference at Kansas City in 1977 took place. As is discussed in this article they also dealt with "problems" within the movement. The specific problem that was addressed at this meeting was the "Shepherding Movement." From this article, it would seem that they really didn't go too far in dealing with the issue. The Shepherding movement was addressed earlier this week on Facebook in relation to a later issue of OLT. Cheri Ford made the following comment:

The Shepherding Movement destroyed a great move of God because the Holy Spirit is a liberator and not a prison warden. It drastically quenched Him, and I think we saw the results. The Roman Centurion is a false model of our submission. We do not submit to church leaders as did the Centurion to the Roman Empire. We are ALL to submit to Christ (who is not an absentee Lord who delegates his Lordship to human lords) as Christ did to the Father and as the Centurion did to Rome. The false promise was that we would find freedom as we submitted to elders. It led to extreme bondage, and it became a curse for the elders, too, since they were taking a place in people's lives that they never should have taken. The notion of "humbling ourselves" dished to us under this system, was erroneous.

Of course she was not only commenting on the movement itself, we weren't involved at First Baptist, but she was commenting on how we fell into the same trap as the movement by our insistence on submission to the eldership. I will discuss that issue when we come to Ken's article that led to Cheri's comment. She did give us a link to information on the Shepherding Movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherding_Movement  

This is just the beginning of an article by Clay which will be completed on the next page.

It is interesting to me that McFoone weighs in on the authority and submission issue and recognizes its validity. It is a scriptural truth. We are to obey our leaders. The problem is that this is something that is easily abused and was to some extent at FBCCV.

Clay's article is really an exposition out of Acts 8. He uses it to exhort us to go farther in our evangelism. I might quibble a bit -- sometimes all we can do is sow seeds. His point is well taken however; we do need to bring people to a point of decision -- if possible.

Linda Coale was a young woman in the church. I confess that I have no idea where she is at this time. What she presents here is a report on the work of William Tyndale. It is completed in a couple of pages.

Once again we have the motif of the vine.

This is largely the conclusion of Linda's report on Tyndale. It is also the start of an article by Larry Clark.

Larry presents a rationale for work; it is not a curse, it can be a means of worship -- of serving -- God. I would have liked it if he would have gone back farther in Genesis; in both chapters one and two, man was created for work -- he was to tend the garden.

I think the article on women is somewhat dated. Trinity Lutheran was the home church of Larry Christenson, one of the other leaders of the Charismatic Movement.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 10 March 9, 1976

This is an interesting cover in that it is only art -- no captions. This is somewhat unusual in the covers of OLT.

Feelings were very important in these days. We dealt with a lot of people with emotional and mental problems. This made us not only sensitive to them, but to our own feelings. Helen Fast deals with the problem of how we differentiate Conviction (a notification by the Holy Spirit that something isn't right) and Condemnation (Satan's lie that we are "no good.") Mike Sandez writes about the subjective nature of feelings.

Over the years, the Charismatic Fellowship (now Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries) has tried to assist in the placement of "charismatic pastors," with varying degree of success. This was a real problem in the early days of the movement because there was so much suspicion of those within the movement as well as a fear that the pastor would cause division in the church. Much of these fears have dissipated in recent times.

 

McFoone gives us a judgement on aggressive sports. Regardless of how one sees this today, this was an issue in the 70s. We needed to learn to play in a way that there was no competition. I don't think that the NFL agreed -- of course they still don't.

This is another of our children's artwork pages. As I have discussed before, children were very important to us in the community and in the church.

Budgets tell a lot about priorities. We spent a significant amount on international missions. This priority went beyond our own involvement in places like Bogota, Colombia, but extended to American Baptist Missions (International Ministries.) 

Wow, look at the salaries. I only worked at the church for part of the year -- but still, $1300? Salaries were quite a lot lower in general in those days, but to give an example, in my last year in the Navy, I was making in excess of $35,000. It was community that made these salaries possible. It was also a group of people who were more interested in seeing the community succeed than they were in being a financial success themselves. Bravo Ken and company.

There is really no reason for me to comment here. This is a commentary on the giving of the church. I think we did pretty well.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 9 March 2, 1976

Ken begins this article about the Easy Yoke, which is an exposition of Matthew 11:28-30. This scripture is a promise by Jesus that the Christian life is easy. The problem we were experiencing in community is that we experienced much of the life as difficult and wearisome. I suppose that many Christians today would say the same thing about their Christian walk, so perhaps this is still a timely article.

Essentially Ken describes two kinds of difficulty; that of healing which brings pain, and a refusal to cooperate with God. He states that the first difficulty, healing, is unavoidable. God wants us to be whole and sometimes the process hurts. The second, Ken describes as an insubmissive spirit. Of course those of us who were a part of community find our ears perking up as we suspect a lecture on submission and authority. Yet Ken doesn't really go there. But the themes of God's "inner healing" and the reality of submission and authority were understood as basic within the church and community.

The article on Elder's Authority actually begins on the previous page and ends on the next page. Ken describes this authority so nicely; the elders were meant to help people hear from God -- not to make decisions for the people. The people were also free to listen or not to listen. The problem was that the people -- and the elders themselves -- didn't always operate that way. Sometimes the people really gave the elders to much authority, and sometimes the elders assumed too much authority. When this happened, people felt used and abused.

McFoone shows his agreement with Ken's exposition on the Authority of Elders. Tim Pagaard has since changed his opinion, as have many in the community at that time. As one of the elders, I can say that I struggled with this issue at the time. Currently, I think that this authority as Ken described it was OK, but in practice it can really cause problems. I know that we really moved away from this after I became pastor.

Clay in this article on Evangelism which ends on the next page, puts his finger on another issue that faced the community in the mid to latter 70s; was our focus on winning people to Jesus or moving into the deeper things of the Christian life. Of course in looking back, there is room for both, but this wasn't really happening. When community started, evangelism was front and center. There seemed to be always room for one more in the household. Then we began to deal with the deep emotional, mental problems with people and we couldn't upset them by bringing new people in. Evangelism began to suffer. New people bring life. I believe that this was one of the issues that started us on the downward spiral.

This was a nice little letter from Dale Funkhouser. Dale was the son of Charles Funkhouser who was a leader in the church until just recently. Charles was a finance person. He kept the church financially solvent for many years. He like all of us is getting old -- and he suffers from Parkinson's disease and is no longer in charge of the finances of the church. Like all financial people, he didn't make us happy all the time, but he did a great job.

This is one of the songs  by the most prolific Brian Gire. He was very active in the music ministry for several years. My understanding is that he is still active in music and living in northern California. Of course the illustration is by Abbagraphics.

Larry as usual brings an affirming word. I think that many of us in the 70s felt that we were never able to live up to expectations. Larry (and God's word) tells us that we don't have to.

This is another example of the activity of FBCCV throughout the country and even elsewhere. A lot of people went to a lot of places. At that time, I was one of the stay at homes. I thought I would never be asked to go anywhere. How wrong I was.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 8 February 24, 1976

This issue starts with a piece of artwork by Abbagraphics. Ken starts his article within the picture of Jesus.

 Ken starts off his article stating that he is "reformed Fundamentalist." In his article he discusses his discomfort with Jesus' title of Savior, but his preference of the title "Lord."

In this article, Ken really gives a nice exposition of the good news that Jesus Christ is our Savior. This is not just as a once for all event; it is a continuous salvation from the vicissitudes of life that we all experience. Therefore Jesus is our Lord and our Savior. Both of these are more than mere titles; they are descriptions of the way that we experience him as we live the Christian life.

Here again, we have a report from our School of the Prophets. I think that this was probably written by Larry Clark, since he taught the Church History Class. Joy Trejo worked in the church office for several years. She later became the pastor's secretary. She was my first secretary when I started the pastoral ministry. When I started seminary, Joy volunteered to type my first paper (remember, this was before PCs). One of the women in my class asked me what grade I received. "I got an A!" "Well, I just got a B," she said. Then she looked at my paper and said, "well no wonder, this looks so good. How did you do that?" Knowing that she was well into Women's Liberation, I said, "It was easy, I just asked my secretary to type it." Shirley (the woman in question) never let me forget that. That was also the last paper I had Joy type.

McFoone continues his training as he discovers the Law and the Prophets.

After the article on John Wesley is completed, there is a letter from Virginia Nickerson, an ABC missionary to Zaire. It is really a beautiful, touching letter. She really seemed to pick up the emotions within the church. There was a lot of joy, a lot of love and happiness; but there also was a deep ache, a lot of hurt and rejection.

I was particularly touched by the word from the Lord that Virginia wrote.

Our retreats, whether for Elders, Men, Women or Youth were always very important events.

 

It was not unusual to have a poem presented with illustrations. This is a nice poem written by Dawn Schmid about temptation. The illustrations seem to bring it to life.

In a relatively short article, Larry Clark tackles a rather large subject; Does God really experience emotions; particularly those emotions that we usually see as negative? He does a pretty good job in this short space. Larry does believe that God experiences these emotions, but they are aimed at the Satanic influenced brought about by sin.

It is so hard to remember back in the days before computers. This was a big issue for us. We needed a typesetter. We finally got one that we used until we ceased publishing.

Our Life Together Vol. 4 Nr. 7 February 17, 1976

 Ken discusses the speaker, Dr. Holleyman, at our Ministers Council Meeting. I was there. This was the first meeting like this that I had the opportunity to attend. I was also impressed with this discussion of the "Hardest Three Inches." Over the years, I have come back to this many times. This was one of those pivotal teachings. Ken, as can be seen in the article, began to really apply this to low self esteem in those that he counseled. 

 Larry Clark has a nice little article about how important it is to be called by the name of the Lord.

Here Tim Pagaard and Cathy Williams (later Jamison) teamed up for McFoone. Both Tim and Cathy are still around and are friends on Facebook. I should mention that Cathy is now Catherine Skoor.

 

This message by Joe Atkinson is an important message. The church he pastored in Monroe Michigan was in the process of "splitting" over the Charismata. Joe preached (wrote) a wonderful message that, in my opinion, stands the test of time. As the church split, those involved with the move of the spirit left, including Joe. They formed a new church, Redeemer Baptist. This church has gone on to become quite a large church. It is one of the leading churches involved with Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries. It is currently pastored by John Piippo.

Joe went on the become Vice Chair of HSRM and really led the Holy Spirit Conference at Green Lake for 25 years of so. He still attends and is a member emeritus of the National Service Committee and the Executive Committee. I am pleased that he is one of my friends. He is a real dynamo for the Lord. He still travels to India a couple of times a year to minister to pastors there. I confess that he is older than I am and I don't know how he does it. He is a pastor emeritus (I don't know whether this is a real title of not -- but that is who he is) at Redeemer Baptist.

John Piippo is also a dynamo. John and his music ministry lead the worship at the conference each year, but John is much more than that. He plays a mean guitar, but he actually has a PhD in Philosophy and teaches at several seminaries and colleges. He is a wonderful teacher in spirituality. I can't say enough good about John.

 

 

Clay urges us to move past our sense of complacency and be active witnesses. The picture is of the youth choir from Pomona, CA. I remember when they came to the church.

I remember that day. Helen and I actually sang several "show tunes," love songs for that Valentine Day. I remember the Hospital Ministry with great fondness.