A Pastor's Public Confession

But what made their situation truly remarkable is what Andrew did the Sunday after Susan and Elaine came to talk with him.

With Susan’s permission, he described their conversation to the entire congregation, commending Susan for her graciousness and courage as well as Elaine for her wisdom and advice.

And then he said this:

“As I’ve reflected on what Susan told me about my behavior toward her, I realized I’ve probably treated other people in our church with the same kind of pride, thoughtlessness and impatience. So I’m asking for your forgiveness today as well. If you need to talk with me about how I’ve treated you, my door is open. Please pray that God would help me to become more sensitive to how I’m treating others, and if you see me stumble, please do me the favor of pointing it out so I can continue to grow.”

Source: Ken Sande - "Public Confession is Counterintuitive", Relational Wisdom 360 eNewsletter, 7 August 2016, https://rw360.org/2016/08/07/public-confession-counterintuitive/

HK & Såo Poaolo

I see social activists from the urban centers of Hong Kong joining with Pentecostal preachers from the barrios of Såo Poaolo and together weeping over the spiritually lost and the plight of the poor.

Source: Emmanuel Katongole & Chris Rice - Reconciling All Things, p. 275

Timothy George on Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was clearly charmed by the place, but as a Protestant pastor he was not completely at ease with everything he saw and experienced. “The Catholic Advent seems somewhat strange to me,” he wrote to Bethge. At Finkenwalde, the Lord’s Supper had been celebrated once each week. At Ettal, Bonhoeffer could go to Mass and share in the prayers and readings, but, as he was not a member of the Catholic Church, he could not partake of the bread and wine at communion. “I am longing for the Lord’s Supper,” he said. Still, Bonhoeffer’s presence at what he called “quite a wonderful Mass” did bear witness to a kind of broken unity, a sanctorum communio not yet fully realized in the visible church of the undivided Christ here and now. Several weeks before Bonhoeffer arrived in Ettal, as war raged across Europe, Pope Pius XII had issued a Motu Proprio calling for a “crusade of prayer,” inviting Catholics around the globe to join in a prayer for world peace. In a letter to Bethge, Bonhoeffer referred to the Pope’s decree: “Today the pope has ordered a prayer for peace in the whole church. Could we not also have prayed along with them? I did.”

Source: Timothy George - "Bonhoeffer at Ettal: Advent", First Things, 12 Dec 2016, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/12/bonhoeffer-at-ettal-advent-1940

Catholics in France

In writing to a knowledgeable observer of the French Catholic scene that the emphasis on personal conversion through simple faith in Jesus was at least an “allowable minority position” within Catholicism, he responded: “I would go even farther than you do in one respect. My conversations with priests and Catholic theologians in France bring me to believe that the necessity for a personal faith commitment on the part of the baptized is the overwhelming majority position for French Catholic clergy! This is what is continually being taught to the faithful by their parish priests in the homilies that are being presented during the baptisms of infants. Hence, you might want to add to your arguments that on a pastoral level, the teaching of the Catholic Church (at least in France, an overwhelmingly Catholic country) also favors an evangelical view. Again, I have yet in my encounters with Catholic priests and theologians for the past 20+ years in France, to find someone who holds to or teaches a pure (in the sense of excluding the necessity of a personal faith commitment to Christ) ‘baptismal regeneration’ doctrine. I would say that on the ‘ground level’ Roman Catholicism in France is very friendly to the evangelical emphasis on the necessity of a personal acceptance of Jesus-Christ as Lord and Savior to enter into the fullness of life in Christ that their baptism experience anticipated.” (Bjork 2004)

Source: David E. Bjork, Ph.D. - BJORK, D., in a 2004 personal email Re: Your chapters and my paper, to Paul Miller, as quoted in footnote 45 of "Evangelicals Cooperatively Evangelising & Discipling with Catholics in Faithfulness to Evangelical Distinctives", by Paul Miller

In Jail Together

I heard a story — I'm not sure whether this is literally true or not, but some people say it is — in the early days of the prolife movement, about a dozen Southern Baptists and a dozen Roman Catholics were marching together outside an abortion clinic and they got thrown in jail together (for not observing the bubble zone or something), so they shared a common jail cell, about twenty-four people in the same great big cell. And that night, they didn't sleep; they just prayed and sang hymns together all night. In the morning, the Baptists went home and asked their family, "Why don't we love Mary like the Catholics do?" And the Catholics went home and asked their family, "Do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?" Now that's evangelism of the trenches. I love it.

Source: Peter Kreeft - Conversion to Catholicism, Catholic Education Resource Center, http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/dr-peter-kreeft-s-conversion-to-catholicism-part-2.html

John 17 Movement

Our J17 leadership has decided that our only mission is to bring Christians together in worship and prayer, believing that our unity efforts will be a significant factor in building kingdom collaborations for the good of our city and state. Direct and indirect outcomes of our J17 Movement include:

  • AZ127 (www.az127.com), based on James 1:27, is a local church and parish movement to reduce significantly the number of foster children in our state system by getting kids into Christian homes. In the last couple years, AZ127 has place more children in foster care homes than all the other agencies of the state combined. The movement was initially formed and led by three evangelical megachurches, but in the last year, Paul Mulligan, President of Phoenix Catholic Charities, “translated” the AZ127 content into Catholic language, and the diocese has adopted AZ127 as a model for families in their parishes to open their homes to foster kids.

  • For the last eighteen months I’ve been serving as the Phoenix Mobilizer for American Bible Society’s 6-city scripture engagement campaign. Bishop Olmstead has given me his full blessing to spearhead a decade-long Bible engagement movement for the Diocese of Phoenix. Key Catholic priests and parish leaders have come together to develop and implement a plan.

  • The Arizona director of Alpha (http://alphausa.org/), Jad Levi, who also serves on our John 17 Movement advisory team, has had remarkable favor with the diocese. In the next six months, about two dozen of the 93 parishes in the diocese will be launching Alpha as a part of the the New Evangelization to bring Catholics and their friends into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. The website of the USCCB states, “The focus of the New Evangelization calls all Catholics to be evangelized and then go forth to evangelize” (http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teac…/…/new-evangelization/).

    Source: Gary Kinnaman - Presented during Movement Day NYC, representing the John 17 movement and Greater Phoenix and Arizona Catholic/Evangelical Bridges, as posted on the John 17 FB page on 1 November 2016.

"This, folks, is important"

For most of my Christian life I didn’t take unity seriously. Not at all.

Heck, I didn’t even think about Christian unity. It didn’t even cross my mind. And if I did, by some complete fluke, I’d shrug. Meh, someone else’s problem. Above my pay grade.

Not it!

But I was wrong.
...
I’ve come to the conclusion that we, my Christian brothers and sisters, need to take our unity seriously, right now, or face the devastating consequences. This, folks, is important.

Source: K. Albert Little - The Cordial Catholic on Patheos, 1 May 2015, "Dear Christians: Take Our Unity Seriously, Because Everyone is Watching", http://www.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/dear-christians-take-our-unity-seriously-because-everyone-is-watching/

YWAM Kerygma

Mrs. Harris was raised in Mount Pleasant, the daughter of a holiness Pentecostal pastor.
...
The next 20 years were filled with marriage, kids and ministry. The newlyweds had moved to southern California, where Harris was from and he joined a business Mrs. Harris’ family had started. Mrs. Harris home-schooled their children and the couple eventually worked in a book business and ministry.

They continued their involvement with missions, pro-life endeavors, their local church and Youth With A Mission. At the time, they also attended a nondenominational church. But an experience after communion one day prompted Mrs. Harris to look deeper into the practice and the significance of Christ’s body and blood.

Through that, she began to look more closely into Roman Catholicism and particularly the teachings about marriage, because she said she hated her husband at the time.

Harris’ husband joined her in the study of the Catholic Church, even though he hadn’t necessarily initiated it. Harris said he always was looking for something different in a church and didn’t exactly know what he was looking for.

After a year of attending classes to convert, the couple converted to Catholicism.

“We didn’t see Catholic as (the) only thing, but for us personally, it kind of was the answer to some other things,” Harris said. “We retained all that we were before as a Christian. We just added being a Catholic.”

Some of their friends in ministry questioned their decision, but Harris didn’t mind.

“We knew it was what God called us to do,” he said.
...
Upon entering the Catholic Church though, the couple noticed a ministry opportunity of which they were previously unaware.

Youth With A Mission, more commonly known as YWAM, had a Catholic-oriented ministry called Kerygma. Kerygma is Greek for “proclamation” and, in this case, refers to the proclamation of the Gospel. It emphasizes building unity between Catholics and other Christians.

The Harrises sensed a calling to this ministry, so after an introduction to it and some additional training, they became the co-directors of Kerygma USA. Mrs. Harris had ties to YWAM from her previous training as a young adult so because the ministry new them already, it was a natural fit.

Though Kerygma existed internationally, it had not flourished nationally and the Harrises wanted to change that.

They became full-time staff members, and serve as directors of the Texas and U.S. ministry, living on the financial support of people who believe in their work.

Kerygma’s focus has been to work in evangelization and discipleship of young Catholics so they don’t leave the church. In addition, they focus on learning to walk hand-in-hand with the Protestant community.

It isn’t about being Protestant or Catholic, Mrs. Harris said. It’s about being believers and living in harmony.
...
In all of the ministry opportunities, the Harrises encourage participants to fully exercise their Catholic faith.

Harris said he wants the people who participate in their ministry to find the fullness of a relationship with Jesus that he and his wife have found.

He also wants them to know God as the ever present being that He is and be able to communicate His truth with others.

“I want them to go back to their parish and say, ‘Father, how can I help you in the church?’” he said of the youth.

Harris said he and his wife still retain the “fire of youth” in their heart and soul and want to share that with the people they work with. To Mrs. Harris, the work is fulfilling.

“The joy is watching God’s heart be blessed and having satisfaction knowing when God said (in) John 17:21, that they be one, that he didn’t mean that we all have to look alike and believe the same thing,” she said. “He meant that we have to love one another and they will know we are Christians by our love.”

Source: Source Unknown

1st Experience of the Greek Orthodox Church

… She and I went to the first day of ecumenical prayer week for Christian Unity together. It was my first experience of a Greek Orthodox service. It was such a joy to be invited into another expression of the church. The week continues and I hope to get to one more service. ...

Source: As quoted in a ministry eNewsletter from the Middle East in 2017 (name withheld due to sensitivity)

Representing Evangelicals to the Catholic Diocese

2010. Our new Phoenix Bishop Olmstead asked me and another friend to present him with a list of a dozen or so key evangelical pastors and leaders, which the Bishop invited to a luncheon at the Diocesan Center. He told us that mainline churches have a point person, as do the Mormons. (We have three Mormon temples in Phoenix.) But no one person speaks for Evangelicals. The meeting was a first for many, maybe most of the people in room. The bishop’s purpose was to call us together around our shared concerns about religious liberty, life, and family and he shared his remarkable faith journey.

2013-Present. I’ve been told that, at the time or our lunch meeting with Bishop Olmstead, he was more interested in shared activism than in deep and personal fellowship. That changed dramatically three years ago. A dear friend and colleague, Joe Tosini, who has residences in Phoenix and Long Island, reconnected with his Italian friends Giovanni Traettino, a Pentecostal pastor, and Mateo Calisi, appointed by St. John Paul II to lead the Charismatic Movement in the Catholic Church. (It’s estimated that there are 150 million Catholics who have had a deep personal experience with the Holy Spirit.)

Source: Gary Kinnaman - Presented during Movement Day NYC, representing the John 17 movement and Greater Phoenix and Arizona Catholic/Evangelical Bridges, as posted on the John 17 FB page on 1 November 2016.