Nov. 15th: Including the Outsiders

Hey everybody —

This Sunday, November 15, 10:00 a.m., at the Foster Theater. Josh Chen is preaching, picking up where Joel left off last week with a word on inclusive theology.

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About Last Sunday

Thank you. However you came in the door — relieved, nervous, curious, unsure — you came, you stayed, and you let it be a real morning together. Thanks to Josh, Sabrina, and Erin for holding space for prayer afterward, and to everybody who took them up on it.

If you missed it, or you want to sit with it again, the whole service is up on our YouTube channel. Here's one piece of what Joel said:

“As Christians, we read the Bible in order to know and follow Jesus. And regurgitating scripture to win an argument doesn't help you follow Jesus, but meditating on his life does.”

— Pastor Joel Sommer, November 8

That's about as good a description of how we're trying to do this as anything.

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This Sunday: A Vision of Inclusion

Josh Chen is preaching, and he's calling it “A Vision of Inclusion.” His big idea, in his own words: exploring a theological framework for affirming theology.

He'll be moving through a number of passages rather than camping in one, so our Scripture reading picks up exactly where Joel left off last week — the verses that come right after the man with the withered hand.

“Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon.”

— Mark 3:7–8 (NRSVUE)

Look at that list of places. Judea and Jerusalem, sure. But also Idumea, and the far side of the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon — Gentile country, outsiders, people a respectable religious person of the day would not have expected to turn up.

Nobody organized that crowd. It just kept arriving, from further out than anyone had planned for. Trying to make sense of why a crowd like that would arrive, and what to do with them once gathered together – that’s the heart of what multiethnic church ministry aims to do. Take a diverse group of people and point them toward the life of Jesus.

Speaking of diverse groups…

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Consider serving at Access

We've seen awesome things this fall, and it will take all of us to keep nurturing this momentum that we’ve been building at the Foster Theater.

We're asking everyone who calls Access home to prayerfully consider donating one Sunday a month to serve in worship. Whatever your gifting, temperament, or skill level, there's an opportunity.

There's something for people who'd rather work behind the scenes, something for people who are good with people, and something for people who are comfortable up front. You don't need experience and you don't need to figure out where you fit on your own — just tell us where you're feeling stirred and we'll take it from there.

**Click here to find out where you can serve.**

Avery Rosnick is the point of contact as our Interim Ministry Coordinator, so questions go to her at avery@accesscov.com.

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A few other things

• November has five Sundays this year, which means the rhythm is a little different: the 15th, the 22nd, and the 29th are all at the Foster Theater, 10:00 a.m. No community meal detour until Sunday December 6th, which is also the afternoon of Gospel Christmas (see this forum post). It’s also worth circling the 29th — that's the first Sunday of Advent, and the start of a new church year.
• Pray for our students. Julie, Kaya, and Lucy are at the MUD Retreat at Cascades Camp this weekend with our partner churches First Cov and Milwaukie Cov, which is why you won't see them Sunday. (Fun fact: MUD is an acronym for Making United Disciples.)
• The forum keeps going. **Groups forming, plans getting made, conversations continuing midweek. Have a look at accesscov.com/forum — and the how-to page is there if you still can't get in.

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One final thought

Read one verse further into Sunday's passage and you find this: the crowd got so big that Jesus asked his disciples to have a boat ready, “so that they would not crush him.”

That's the whole logic of what we're asking. Growth is good, but growth without structure crushes people. When the lead team sat down this week, that was the question on the table — what needs to change so that people don't get crushed?

It also ties into our theme of inclusive theology. As we come to the table of fellowship, we want to examine the life of Jesus as recorded in Scripture to ask, “how can we partner with Jesus to protect the vulnerable?”

Bear in mind, sometimes the vulnerable is someone else... and sometimes it’s us.

See you Sunday.

*Onward in the love and grace of Jesus, who as always, gives us Access to God.*