And all the people said "Amen"

“...I believe in the Holy Spirit,
      the holy Christian church,
      the communion of saints,...”

The Apostles' Creed as found in the "Red Book" (Evangelical Lutheran Worship)

This past Sunday Refuge “shut-down” at our locale at the corner of 8^th & Leonard and traveled two miles out of town to gather at Luther Park Bible Camp to worship with Chetek/Dovre Lutheran Churches (ELCA). Luther Park was the site of this year's edition of Chetek's Multi-Church Vacation Bible School and since this two-point parish had already planned a combined service out there we decided to “crash” the party (of course, we let them know we were coming.)

For several years now, Refuge has made a habit of doing just this sort of thing. In fact, to date we have preempted our own weekly gathering on Sunday morning and joined the folks at Prairie Lake Evangelical Covenant (ECC), Northside Christian Fellowship (CMA), Advent Christian (ACGC) and Chetek United Methodist (UMC) one or more times for various celebratory reasons. And now for the very first time we've joined the Lutherans (at least, the ELCA ones) in our community.

Love this man

Sunday's gathering was memorable in that it was held in the “sanctuary of the pines” on a beautiful summer morning in northwest Chetek. There was worship, a baptism, there was a selection of songs from VBS, a children's message delivered by myself and then Pastor Guy shared the Word and led in the prayer for the saints. For people like ourselves who generally go until “it's over” I was personally wowed by the fact that as scheduled the service concluded at the 11-bell. Following the gathering, we strolled on over to the dining hall for a pot-blessing meal together. It really was a wonderful gathering from opening song to the last lick of the ice cream cones served in the dining hall after lunch.

Territorial as humans tend to be, whenever we do this sort of thing we never get full participation from our membership. Some people just can't abide stepping out of their comfort zone and entering another fellowship's worship area. As every pastor knows, it's hard enough to try and challenge people to sit in another row in their own sanctuary let alone entering the domain of another. But, we probably had two-thirds present which, I think, is pretty good as those things go.

Refuge belongs to a non-denominational network of Christian fellowships in the Pentecostal tradition (the Fellowship of Christian Assemblies or FOCA) that while sharing a common statement of faith leaves all the other particulars to the local fellowship. We encourage expression in our worship gatherings (although as a group we're a pretty laid back bunch). The Lutherans are maybe slightly more reserved than we are. We welcome a bit of spontaneity. The Lutherans pretty much stick to the script. As a rule we don't baptize infants. We dedicate them. And while save for the basin of water the two acts look very similar, they have very different meanings to their constituents. More broadly, the ELCA took a stand in August 2009 recognizing same-sex marriages as well as choosing to ordain ministers of homosexual orientation. By comparison, the FOCA has no such document. That being said while not a betting man, I would put money on it that you would be hard-pressed to find any of the 300 participating congregations of the FOCA who would support the ELCA's position on these matters. In fact, I know that some of us would be dead-set against them at least in principle. Under what terms can groups as different as ours come together in a meaningful way?

For me, it comes down to our mutual confession of the Apostles Creed which we recited together under the tall pines above Prairie Lake on Sunday morning.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried.
He descended into hell.
On the third day He rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Christian Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen

Admittedly, we disagree on a lot of things none of which I will say are minor or trivial to either group (i.e., us or them). But we do confess our mutual love and devotion to the Lord Jesus, his suffering, death and resurrection and for four days in late June 2016 we – along with our local Methodist, Advent Christian and Alliance brothers and sisters – pooled our resources and joined hands to share the gospel with nearly 90 kids from our community. It's an act that I think God is pleased with and all his people, regardless of their differing opinions and convictions, can say amen to.