Category: Hear From the President

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those recovering from hurricane Harvey and now from hurricane Irma. For information concerning the impact of Irma on our members in the Caribbean and the U.S., click here.

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Let’s turn now to a topic that needs to be addressed from time to time. It involves two aberrant teachings that advocate esoteric religious practices for Christians. Both come with the promise that those who adopt the advocated practice will gain favor with God. The first is known as the “sacred names” doctrine, and the second teaches that Christians must observe the holy days God gave Israel through Moses.

The sacred names doctrine

Though the Bible does not teach that the Hebrew language (or any language, for that matter) is sacred, the sacred names doctrine asserts that God must be addressed using the Hebrew name Yahweh and Jesus must be addressed using the Hebrew name Yahshua. The falsity of this assertion is seen by noting that by inspiring the New Testament to be written in Greek, God has clearly shown that the Hebrew language is not required to hear an authoritative and life-giving word from him. Understanding this to be true, the Jews translated the Old Testament into Greek, producing what is known as the Septuagint. Many of the quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Septuagint.

Human languages, being created things, are not sacred, nor are they magical—they have no special power in and of themselves. Human languages do not operate as mediators controlling access to God or his blessings. Treating created things as if they had such powers is idolatry. While Scripture is God’s inspired Word, its words (in any language) have no power apart from the action of the living God by his Spirit. Though the language used in writing Scripture is God’s gift, it is not one that should control (in either a legal or a magical way) our relationship to God.

Israel’s holy days

Most of us are familiar with the annual cycle of festivals set out for Israel by God in the Law of Moses (see the chart below). As a focus of this worship, Israel was required to perform various ceremonial duties—kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts at Passover, remove leaven from their property for the week of Unleavened Bread, blow shofars to announce the arrival of the New Year on Trumpets, fast on Atonement, and live in temporary dwellings throughout Tabernacles.

Some well-meaning Christians try to observe Israel’s holy days to varying degrees, thinking that God is more pleased with the Christians who do so. These folks seem unable to grasp the biblical teaching that the purpose of the worship practices given to Israel was to point them to Jesus and his atoning ministry—a ministry that has already been accomplished, and thus fulfilled. It is Jesus’ shed blood that secures our forgiveness—not killing and eating a ritual lamb. It is Jesus who cleanses us from sin, not deleavening our homes. It is Jesus who trumpets our salvation, not the blowing of shofars. Because Jesus is our eternal dwelling place, there is no need to dwell in temporary booths. Now that Jesus has come and completed his work of salvation, observance of these holy days can actually point people away from Jesus to their own works.

As an example, consider the observance of the Day of Atonement (known to the Jews as Yom Kippur). It begins this year at sundown on Friday, Sept. 29. This day of fasting was considered the most holy of all of Israel’s festivals, and so was a principal focus of Israel’s annual worship cycle. Unfortunately, some Christians think God commands them to observe this day so that they might receive God’s forgiveness and so be cleansed from sin. In doing so, they overlook the New Testament’s teaching that we in no way contribute to our salvation, nor do we maintain it through works of the Law of Moses (including observing Israel’s holy days).

Believing that we must fast on Yom Kippur in order to be atoned for, negates the all-sufficient atonement that Jesus already has provided for the sins of the world. To observe the Day of Atonement as if it were required for Christians would be to say that Jesus’ completed, atoning work is somehow not enough—that we must somehow atone for ourselves. But note what is said to the contrary in the book of Hebrews:

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Heb. 9:24-26)

God gave Yom Kippur to Israel as a map pointing them forward towards the relationship that God, through Christ, would have with all humanity. By fasting, Israel acted out the reality of our need for the never-ending eternal life that is ours in and through Christ who, alone, is our atonement. If one discontinues eating for a lengthy time, death results. Fasting thus symbolizes passing from life to death. The symbolism then comes full-circle when eating (picturing the return to life) commences at the close of the Day of Atonement. Those who have fasted for 24 hours know how good food tastes after a fast!

In ancient Israel, Yom Kippur was the only day of the year when the High Priest was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies (sometimes called the Most Holy Place)—the inner chamber of the Temple pictured above. Because of this, Jewish Midrash (commentaries on Scripture) associate Yom Kippur with the ancient Jewish idiom, face-to-face. Not surprisingly, the apostle Paul, who knew these commentaries well, spoke this way of our relationship with God through Christ:

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Cor. 13: 12)

Jews view Yom Kippur as the day on which people are closest to God. The Jewish website www.chabad.org says, “[it is] the day on which we are the closest to G-d and to the quintessence of our own souls.” Leviticus 16:30 says, “On this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.” These are precisely what are ours through Jesus’ atoning work on our behalf. Through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and continuing high priestly ministry in heaven, we are cleansed from sin and reconciled to God. Note Paul’s comment:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them…. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor. 5:18-19, 21)

In Jesus, through his once-for-all atonement, we have come face-to-face with the Living God. We trust in him to be God’s presence to us and with us. He is our great High Priest and God’s own atonement, who mediates to us our fellowship and communion with the living God.

Celebrating that Jesus’ work is both abundant and more than adequate for us all,
Joseph Tkach

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I know we’re praying for the thousands of people who continue to suffer as a result of Hurricane Harvey, and now there is great concern about Hurricane Irma’s impact in the Caribbean and on Florida. For an update on how our members in Texas fared, and how you can join in assisting them, click here. In times of tragedy, I’m comforted knowing that Jesus is Lord of all, and that includes his lordship over storms. As I’ll now explain, it also includes his lordship over time itself.

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Back in 1970, the music group Chicago had a hit titled Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Perhaps you remember its chorus:

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
If so, I can’t imagine why,
we’ve all got time enough to cry.

Time fascinates us—some are captivated by the past, others by the future, and time travel is the theme of many popular books and movies. Enter a room filled with people and you might hear one group lamenting their lack of time and another lamenting their struggle to fill it. Personally, I often wish I had more time. Better still, would be to share in Jesus’ ability to exist both within and outside of time. His resurrection, post-resurrection appearances, ascension and promise of a new creation, all point to the reality that the incarnate Son of God truly is “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (Rev. 22:13).

Sovereign over the past, the present and the future, Jesus is Lord of time.

Explaining exactly how Jesus exists both within and outside of time (a concept with cosmological and philosophical implications) is certainly beyond the scope of this letter (and beyond the powers of any time-bound creature!). However, I do want to address what Scripture tells us concerning Jesus’ relationship to time. Let’s begin with this important passage:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:1-2)

The Word (Logos) of God, “for whom and through whom everything exists” (Heb. 2:10) was present when time (and all created “things”) came into being. The Word is thus Lord over time. As Karl Barth notes, defining what this created thing we call “time” is, including how it could have a point of beginning within God’s eternity, is no small undertaking:

The nature of time and eternity is not something we can fathom for ourselves. We grasp it only when, against the background of God’s intervention in human time, we understand what time really is.

We cannot explain how Jesus, the incarnate Word, exists both within and outside time. Whereas the BBC’s Dr. Who needed his spaceship TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) to travel through time and space, Jesus is “the Alpha and the Omega”—the “Almighty” one, “who is, and who was, and who is to come” (Rev. 1:8). Jesus exists simultaneously within time (temporality) and outside time (eternity). His “eternal presence” encompasses that which was, now is, and is yet to come. In love and for love, the triune God gave his creation a “triadic temporality” in which there is a past, a present and a future.

Karl Barth helps us think of time as existing in two ways: chronological (temporal) time and uncreated (eternal) time. Scripture tells us that God transcends temporal time—Psalm 90:2 declares that God is “from everlasting to everlasting” (with no beginning or end), an idea we cannot fathom from our perspective within the confines of temporal time. Psalm 90:4 then contrasts God’s eternity with human temporality: “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by.” The apostle Peter put it this way: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Pet. 3:8). In making this statement, Peter is not providing a secret code for calculating the date of Jesus’ return (the Bible warns us against trying to do that). Instead, Peter, like the Psalmist, is using a metaphor to explain that God, who is beyond time, sees and inhabits the past, present and future simultaneously.

This metaphor helps us understand something of God’s relationship to time. Knowing “the beginning from the end” (Isa. 46:10), God takes in the full panorama of human existence while also focusing his attention on particular moments within temporal time. Note, however, that this does not mean that the cosmos operates in accordance with some sort of “fatalistic determinism.” Instead, God interacts with created time from outside time, all the while giving time and space as a gift, within which his creatures may interact with him.

The virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Jesus give powerful witness to how God interfaces with the time of the created world. When God created the universe in and through the eternal Son of God (the Word), he created it in such a way that he could interact with it. Then, via the Incarnation, the Word stepped into created time while remaining what he was, the eternal Son of God. He did so to bring to completion his plan for fellowship and communion with his human creatures and all creation.

With these thoughts in mind, Barth instructs us to view eternity as fulfilled time rather than as timelessness. Our Triune God has his own kind of time. The Father, Son and Spirit have always had divine time for one another, for relating or interacting with one another in loving, knowing and glorifying ways. God’s kind of time we call eternity. It has no beginning or end, and needs no perfecting. God exists in the fullness of time, all the time, in his own kind of divine time. More than this, we cannot say. But our time, the time created through the Word of God (the Logos), apparently has some created similarity to God’s time, though our time must be perfected—liberated from its passing away into nothing as we now experience it.

Because Jesus is Lord of time, he is present in terms of who and what he was in the past, who and what he is in the present, and who and what he will be in the future (made clear when he returns and all time is redeemed). As Lord of time, only Jesus can redeem the past. He has not allowed anything to happen in his good creation that he cannot, in the end, redeem. The crucifixion of the Lord of created and uncreated time was turned into eternal life and immortality for us in him by the astounding grace of his resurrection (1 Cor. 15:53-54).

In this reality, we take comfort. As we live in the here and now—the already, but not yet—with its challenges and even threats, we look forward to eternity when fallen, unfulfilled time will be no more, and our Triune God will have all the time for us, and we’ll have all the time for him and for one another. It will be a glorious time—one with no pain, no regrets, no evil, for the past will have been completely redeemed. Let us have hope, relying on Jesus, the Lord of time, and on his words of promise:

Behold, I am making all things new. (Rev. 21:5, ESV)

Happy knowing that God, who transcends time, dwells in time with us,
Joseph Tkach

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Rockport, Texas, on August 25, devastating many coastal communities. Now a tropical storm, Harvey continues dumping huge amounts of rain (over 50 inches in some areas), with much of Houston under water and other parts of southeastern Texas along with southwestern Louisiana still in harm’s way (click here for an update).

I was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and property in Texas. Thankfully, as reported by GCI Regional Pastor Mike Rasmussen, all our members survived, though some sustained property damage as noted in the reports below from two of our pastors in the affected areas.

Some pastors have asked how their congregations can help. As a denomination, we stand ready to assist our affected members through the GCI Disaster Relief Fund. At the end of this letter is an explanation of how congregations can help replenish the fund. There are, of course, thousands of people in the affected communities who are in dire need. I encourage you to help in any way you can. In the days ahead, I’m sure our members in those areas will be looking at ways to help, and we’ll let you know if others can join with them. In the meantime, I know we’ll join together in praying for all who are overwhelmed and especially for those who remain in harm’s way, including emergency workers and volunteers.

—Joseph Tkach

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From Pastor Rodney Schuler

Rodney, who pastors GCI’s congregation in San Antonio, TX, reports that Mary Bell, a 90 year-old GCI member who lives in Rockport, TX, is safe. Though Rockport is where Harvey made landfall, Mary is thanking God that her home suffered only minor damage (some shingles and siding torn off). Mentioning the damage to other homes in her neighborhood, Mary said, “I would never think of complaining!” Though still without power and water, her friends and family are taking care of her.

Rodney also reports that the city of Victoria, TX, was also in Harvey’s path. One GCI member there, Aaron Migl, was awakened around 4 am with a sound “like the roof being taken off with a jack hammer.” The roar lasted almost all day, with branches and shingles flying everywhere. Victoria was badly damaged and is without water, electricity and sewer. Thankfully, our members there are safe and already starting to repair the damage to their homes.

From Pastor Mark Mounts

Mark, who pastors GCI’s congregation in Houston, TX, reports that, so far as he has been able to learn, only one GCI member family in Houston had to evacuate their home due to the terrible flooding. He also reports that one of our elders is in an area hotel, unable to return home for several days. Thankfully she has food and shelter. Such stories are numerous with thousands of people stranded due to the flooding.

According to Mark, during the worst of the storm, it rained in Houston at the rate of 5-9 inches an hour. He commented that in his 20 years living close to the Gulf coast, he has never experienced anything like that. He is thanking God that his own home remains dry, though a levee 15 miles from his home has been breached. According to Mark, though thousands of people in the Houston area are still waiting to be rescued from the flood waters, neighbors are helping neighbors and people all over the country are praying for the people of Houston. As Mark says, “we worship a powerful and loving God, and he is ultimately in charge, no matter what.” Mark thanks everyone for their prayers and says he will keep us updated.

GCI Disaster Relief Fund

The GCI Disaster Relief Fund was established to help provide members in disaster areas with emergency needs such as food, water, medicine, clothing, temporary housing, home and/or church hall repairs, temporary local pastoral salary expenses and other emergency needs. Monies received into the Fund that are not immediately needed will remain in the Fund to be allocated in future disasters. In previous years, money from the Fund was used to help members recover from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, storms and flooding in Bangladesh, an earthquake and tsunami in the Solomon Islands, typhoons in the Philippines and an earthquake in Haiti.

If your congregation would like to donate to the Fund, your treasurer can set up a one-time or monthly donation through the GCI-Online system (http://online.gci.org) by logging in and clicking on Donate under the Manage tab.

If your congregation prefers to send a check, make it out to Grace Communion International, indicating on the memo line that the donation is for the GCI Disaster Relief Fund. The donation should be sent to:

GCI Disaster Relief Fund
Grace Communion International
P.O Box 5005
Glendora, California 91740

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Have you noticed how Jesus makes a party even better? John 2:1-10 tells of the time Jesus saved a wedding party from embarrassment by turning water into the highest quality wine. I’d love to have a taste, agreeing with Martin Luther that “beer is made by men,” but “wine by God.”

Though Scripture doesn’t say which grape Jesus had in mind when turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, perhaps it was the one that comes from the Vitis vinifera vine, which is the source of most of the grapes used to make wine in our day. That vine produces grapes that have thicker skins, larger seeds and typically are sweeter than the table grapes we’re familiar with.

I find it interesting that Jesus’ first public miracle (John 2:11a) was essentially private—accomplished without the knowledge of its main beneficiaries, the wedding party. Nevertheless it was of great importance in that it provided evidence to Jesus’ disciples (John 2:11b) that Jesus truly was the incarnate Son of God sent to save the world. Perhaps that’s why one theologian quipped that “wine is like the incarnation—both divine and human.”

Though Jesus’ miracle saved the wedding party in Cana from a major social faux pas, it did not address human suffering in the way his many healings and exorcisms did. Nevertheless, turning water into wine strikes me as a good first miracle for Jesus, not because wine is the most healthful and hygienic of beverages (as claimed by Louis Pasteur), but because by turning water into wine, Jesus demonstrated his power over nature. He didn’t just change the water’s flavor, he changed its molecular structure! By doing so he showed both the power and goodness of God.

That the setting for Jesus’ first public miracle was a wedding seems to me to carry great meaning. Perhaps that’s because I’m thinking a lot about my daughter’s upcoming wedding, but most of all it’s because Scripture tells us that those who receive Jesus in faith (the church as one body) enjoy an intimate, eternal relationship with Jesus as his “bride” (Eph. 5:25-27; Rev. 19:7-9). In Scripture, wedding celebrations often serve as metaphors of the messianic age and the fullness of the kingdom. Jesus desires that we not only anticipate that fullness, but that we pursue it. He makes this point in several of his kingdom parables, including this one:

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. (Matt. 13:45-46)

In this parable Jesus shows that the kingdom (and particularly the king of the kingdom) is the most valuable thing we’ll ever possess. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia states that parables are “almost always formulated to reveal and illustrate the kingdom of God” (vol. 3, p. 656). In Parables of the Kingdom, C.H. Dodd adds that a parable is “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought” (p. 16). Though not parables per se, many of Jesus’ miracles were kingdom-focused. In turning water into wine, he made a point similar to the one he was making in some of his kingdom parables, likening entrance into the kingdom to attending a great banquet.

In John 2:11 we’re told that the miracle of turning water into wine was a “sign” by which Jesus “revealed his glory.” But in what way? In healing people, Jesus revealed his authority to forgive sin. In cursing the fig tree, he showed that judgment was coming upon the temple. In healing on the Sabbath, Jesus revealed his authority over the Sabbath. In raising people from the dead, he revealed that he is the resurrection and the life. By feeding thousands, he revealed that he is the bread of life. And by miraculously providing abundant blessings for a wedding banquet in Cana, Jesus seems to have been revealing that he is the one who provides the abundant kingdom blessings of God that contribute to joy and life, both now and in the fullness of the kingdom. The miracle at Cana thus fills out for us a little more of Jesus’ true purpose and character. When I contemplate that miracle, I can’t help but consider how Jesus is transforming us into something far more glorious than what we would be apart from his miraculous work in our lives.

Jesus’ miracle at Cana often comes to mind when I’m enjoying a glass of fine wine. By saying that, I’m not advocating the abuse of alcohol in any way. As Paul would say, “God forbid!” The Bible frequently warns against such abuse (Gal. 5:21) and Jesus forbids drunkenness (Luke 21:34). That being said, reading of Jesus’ miracle at Cana helps me live and work in a way that points toward the coming fullness of the kingdom of God when Jesus will have removed all the residue of sin and we will sit down with him at the greatest family reunion banquet of all time. Perhaps Jesus will provide some of that wine from Cana! It will surely “gladden” our hearts (Ps. 104:14-15).

Raising my glass in a toast to the kingdom,
Joseph Tkach

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Tammy and I returned home a few days ago from GCI’s joy-filled Denominational Conference in Orlando. Over 1,000 members and friends attended, coming from 29 countries. Together we celebrated the theme, We Are GCI. In the “selfie” picture below, Pastor Doug Johannsen and I stand on stage at one of the sessions. For more about the conference, click here.

Leadership changes

During the conference, I announced that on January 1, 2019 I will be retiring—stepping aside as President of Grace Communion International. On that date, GCI Vice President Greg Williams will become GCI President. After retiring from GCI employment I will continue serving as Chairman of GCI’s Board of Directors and Russell Duke will continue serving as Vice Chairman.

These changes in our leadership, recently approved by our Board of Directors, will be accompanied by the move in April 2018 of our Home Office from Glendora, CA, to Charlotte, NC. We’re thankful to God for the way he has provided our next generation of denominational leadership, both in our Home Office and in our other GCI offices around the globe. Thanks for your prayers about these transitions!

Humans in relationship

As I near retirement, I often find myself rejoicing that God in his goodness has created us to be humans in relationship. The topic of the nature of humanity has fascinated people down through the ages (and has sometimes led to fanciful speculation). Often, the focus has been on what is called the human “soul.” Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 BC) thought the soul was a bodily agent composed of an unusually pure or rare form of matter such as air or fire. Thales of Miletus attributed the soul to magnets because seeing magnets move iron, he assumed they were alive. Plato reasoned that the soul has three parts: “reason” (λογιστικὸν), “spirit” (θυμοειδές) and “appetite” (ἐπιθυμητικόν). In today’s modern (scientific) era, many view the soul as nothing more than the result of electro-chemical activity in the body’s neural networks.

In Genesis 2:7 (KJV), a person is said to become a “living soul” when God breathes into them the “breath of life.” The Hebrew word translated “soul” is nephesh (נֶ֫פֶשׁ‎), sometimes translated “living being,” “creature” or “life.” The Old Testament uses nephesh in reference to both humans and animals (e.g. Gen. 1:20-30; Ezek. 47:9) and describes death as the cessation of breathing (Gen. 35:18). The Old Testament thus sees the “soul” as the life-possessing quality of humans and animals with God being the source of that life. Indeed, it is God who gives life to all living things.

The Old Testament then differentiates between animals and humans by declaring that humanity has, uniquely, been created “in” or “according to” the image of God. This is further explained in the New Testament where Jesus is shown to be the original image of God—the archetype of the first Adam (Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15). We are told that all persons were created in, through and for Jesus Christ (Col. 1:15-16). Thus we learn that we were created to be images of The Image, Jesus, the eternal Son of God incarnate.

The New Testament also shows that the Son of God upholds the universe and all that is in it (Heb. 1:1-3). Were he to forget about the universe for even a nanosecond, it would cease to exist. Thus we understand that existence itself involves a real (though impersonal) relationship of the Creator God with his creation through the Son. But that’s not where the story ends. As we know, from the beginning humans cut themselves off from God out of distrust and pride, which bore the fruit of disobedience and alienation. God himself would have to personally intervene to reconcile humanity and redeem us back into personal communion and communication with him so that his original purpose would be realized.

So out of love, the Father sent the Son to grab hold of us down to the roots of our nature so as to free us from bondage to guilt and the power of sin and thus restore us to communion with himself. Because of what Jesus Christ did for us, we now can personally and individually grow in relationship to him and become conformed to his image. This is possible only because of the ministry of the Holy Spirit who enables us to share in the human nature that the Son of God assumed then reconciled, renewed and regenerated through the whole of his incarnate life—from conception through life, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. The Son of God is not only our Creator and Sustainer—he is our Redeemer!

Through Jesus, we learn that the triune God (Father, Son and Spirit) have existed in a relationship of loving, knowing and glorifying one another before there ever was a creation. Knowing that God is relational, and that Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father, in the Spirit, we understand that we have our being and freedom in that image of being-in-relationship, which starts with Jesus, the Lamb who was slain on our behalf from the foundation of the world. The Bible shows us that from the moment the Triune God spoke everything into existence, we were created by him, for him and in his image to be relational beings—relating to ourselves, to others, and to God. It is no wonder then that Jesus points out that the greatest commandment is to love God and that the second, following that, is to love others.

Whole, complete persons

Noting that the apostle Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, uses the words spirit, soul and body in describing our humanity, some have mistakenly concluded that these are three separable components. While these terms do refer to distinct aspects of our human selves, they refer to the whole person in different relationships as noted by theologian N.T. Wright:

Just as, for Paul, soma [body] is the whole person seen in terms of public, space-time presence and sarx [flesh] is the whole person seen in terms of corruptibility and perhaps rebellion, so psyche [soul] is the whole person seen in terms of, and from the perspective of what we loosely call the “inner” life…. Paul can use the word pneuma [spirit] to refer to the human “spirit,” by which he seems to mean…the very centre of the personality and the point where one stands on the threshold of encounter with the true god. (The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 283)

Spirit, soul and body are thus to be understood as descriptions of the various relationships we have with God and one another as persons in relationship. Our spirit involves our relationship to God, our soul is our inner life (relationship to or within ourselves) and our body stands in relationship with the world at large. Theologian Tom Smail explains it this way:

The word psyche plays a different part in Paul’s tripartite description of our humanity than it does in the bipartite approach implied in [Matthew’s] quotation from Jesus [Matt. 10:28], where body stands for our relationships with the world and this present age and soul for our relationship with God and the age to come, and the point is that we can lose the former without losing the latter…. In other words, the terms body, soul and spirit are meaningless apart from the relationships to the world, other people, and God in which the self stands. We are body, soul and spirit as persons and not as individuals, because…we image the God whose own being is not that of a solitary individual, still less of three such individuals, but of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in inextricable relationships with one another, three persons, and one God. (Like Father, Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in Our Humanity, p. 152)

Becoming like Jesus

Understanding our humanity in these holistic ways, I take great delight in Paul’s statement:

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess. 5:23, ESV)

Paul understood that God orchestrates our sanctification as whole, complete persons, in spirit, soul and body. We are children of God by nature as well as by adoption who, by the Holy Spirit, are becoming like Jesus, the true image of God. Our Triune God is loving us to perfection so that one day, when glorified, we will receive fully and share completely in all that Christ has accomplished for us, and so become “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4 ESV). We thus embrace and rejoice in God’s loving work of sanctification by his Word and Spirit.

Forever thankful that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith,

Joseph Tkach

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I’m sure you’ve noticed that the messages dominating the media are often opposed to what Scripture teaches. It’s rare to see a commercial on television encouraging us to reach out in self-sacrifice to serve others. Instead, the media constantly repeat materialistic, self-focused messages that say Me first! My wants! What I can have! That is one of the reasons I don’t like watching TV commercials. Tammy and I dislike them so much we record everything we watch on TV so we can fast-forward through the commercials.

Scripture teaches us to minister to others in self-sacrificial ways—giving away our time, talents, energy, finances and commitment. But the biblical message of self-sacrifice often is drowned out by the “noise” of a consumeristic culture. I can hear the self-indulgent jingle now: You deserve a break today!—a message often heard as “abandon responsibility and think only about yourself.” It is the opposite of the self-sacrifice lived and taught by Jesus: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25, ESV).

 

Please don’t misunderstand. Self-sacrifice is not about abandoning all desire for good and enjoyable things. I chuckle when someone, having been asked what they have denied themselves in order to follow Christ, reply with a list of sinful behaviors they have given up. Is it really self-sacrifice to refrain from murder or adultery? No, authentic self-sacrifice is grounded in the realization that life isn’t all about the self—it’s about being in relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit. It’s about knowing who God is, and who he is in relation to us and others. It’s about acknowledging the invitation we’ve been given to participate with the Father in what he is doing through the Son and by the Spirit to fulfill his mission for the sake of the world that he loves. Self-sacrifice is about following Jesus’ New Commandment to love others just as he loves us. It’s about being willing to give up whatever is necessary in order to share God’s love and life with others.

Ultimately, self-sacrifice is more about a who than a what. It’s about God the Father sending his Son in the power of the Spirit to show us who God is and what he desires for all humanity. In that regard, we should not miss how Jesus honored small acts of self-sacrifice. Think of the boy who gave up his lunch and more than 5,000 were fed. Or consider the widow who gave her last coins as an offering. We should see these acts for what they are—sacrificing the self to serve others. Such acts reflect the heart and mind of God the Father who, in order to give us eternal life, sacrificed his only begotten Son at infinite cost to himself. The cross of Christ proves that God loves us so much he is willing to suffer loss for our sakes. In his self-sacrifice to serve us, God did not lose any of his dignity or worth. His self-sacrifice is one of the reasons we sing that he is “worthy of worship.”

British systematic theologian Colin Gunton (pictured above) was fond of saying that to properly understand Christian doctrine, we must learn to think trinitarianly:

If you want to understand how God works in our world, then you must go through the route God himself has given us: the incarnation of the eternal Son and the life-giving action of the Spirit. Let me repeat: the Trinity is about life. Irenaeus is the writer of that great sentence, often heard from him: “The glory of God is a human being truly alive.” The Trinity is about life, life before God, with one another and in the world. If we forget that God’s life is mediated to us trinitarianly, through his two hands, the Son and the Spirit, we forget the root of our lives, of what makes for life and what makes for death.

Thinking trinitarianly informs us about God, about human nature, and the nature of the church. When the Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image, it is not talking primarily about an innate human capacity. Rather it is telling us about the form of human existence corresponding to God’s relationship to us. To be authentically human, we are to image (reflect, correspond to) who God is in all that we are.

As an echo of the life of God, the church should reflect the kind of being God is—a being in relation—a communion. Jesus came to reveal what God is doing and what he has in store for us. He came as a true human being and took on human nature—our defective, fallible flesh; yet, he remained sinless. Sometimes I ponder how Jesus did that. It was not from a built-in divine programming, but because he freely and totally relied on the moment-by-moment guidance of the Holy Spirit in his human life. Even while living in human flesh on earth, Jesus’ relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit remained in unbroken communion. As the apostle Paul explained, “In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9).

Gunton wrote about what it means to be a human person:

Among the great achievements of those who have thought trinitarianly is the concept of the person as a living whole rather than as a mind encased in matter. How it came about is a complicated and difficult matter to describe, but it is one of the fruits of the trinitarian teaching that God is three persons in one being. By thinking about the Trinity, the early theologians came to realize that they had come across an entirely new conception of what it is to be personally. To be is not to be an individual; it is not to be isolated from others, cut off from them by the body that is a tomb, but in some way to be bound up with one another in relationship. Being a person is about being from, and for and with the other. I need you—and particularly those of you who are nearest to me—in order to be myself. That is the first thing to say: persons are beings who exist only in relation—in relation to God, to others and to the world from which they come.

The real truth of human nature is found in Jesus Christ and in him alone. We must see that God’s affirmation of humanity as “good” is fully realized only in Jesus. T.F. Torrance put it this way:

Jesus Christ is the Word by whom, for whom, and in whom we have been created in the image of God, so that in his Incarnation as Immanuel, God with us and for us and in us, he is the secret of our creation and redemption―in him we may now penetrate through all the distortion, depravity and degradation of humanity to the true nature of man hidden beneath it all.

As we follow Jesus, responding to God’s call in our lives, the Holy Spirit leads us in a “Christomorphic” direction—the way of self-sacrifice. Indeed, the true nature and dignity of humanity is established and disclosed in the human nature of Jesus. True self-sacrifice is giving up our autonomous self and self-will in order to more fully live in Christ. Our true personhood, our true dignity, thus lies not in ourselves alone, but in union and communion with Jesus. In Jesus, by the Spirit, we think and we live trinitarianly.

Enjoying the life that is ours in union and communion with Christ,
Joseph Tkach

PS: Because our publications team will be at the GCI Denominational Conference in Orlando, we will not be publishing Weekly Update the next two weeks (August 2 and August 9). Our next issue will be published on August 16. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you at the conference!

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Through his incessant trashing of Christian beliefs, German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche (d. 1900) became known as the “ultimate atheist.” He claimed that the Christian narrative, particularly with its emphasis on love, is the byproduct of decadence, corruption and vengeance. Rather than admitting the existence of God, his now famous statement, “God is dead,” proclaimed the death of the very idea of God. His goal was to see traditional Christian belief (he called it “old, dead belief”) replaced with something radically new. He said that upon “hearing the news that ‘the old god is dead,’ we philosophers and free spirits feel illuminated by a new dawn.” For Nietzsche, the new dawn was a society of “joyous wisdom”—a place free of repressive beliefs that set narrow limits on people’s joy.

How should we relate with atheists?

Nietzsche’s philosophy has motivated many people to embrace atheism. Even some Christians endorse his teachings, thinking they condemn a form of Christianity that operates as though God were dead. What they fail to realize is that Nietzsche found the idea of any god absurd and any form of faith foolish and hurtful. His philosophy is thus contrary to biblical Christianity, though that does not mean we mock him or any other atheists. Our calling is to help people (atheists included) understand that God is for them. We fulfill this calling by living in a way that exemplifies for others a joy-filled relationship with God—or as we say in GCI, we live and share the gospel.

You’ve likely seen posters or bumper stickers that mock Nietzsche (like the one above). What these fail to account for is that during the year before he lost his sanity, Nietzsche wrote several poems that seem to indicate a change in his perspective on God. Here is one of those poems:

No, come back, with all your torments!
All the streams of my tears run their course to you.
And the last frame of my heart – it burns up to you!
Oh come back, my unknown God! My pain! My last happiness.

Misunderstanding God and the Christian life

It seems there is no end to the false representations of God that fuel the fires of atheism. God is falsely represented as vindictive, restrictive and punitive, rather than the God of love, mercy and justice revealed in Jesus Christ, the Savior who invites us to abandon the life that leads to death to embrace the new life of faith in him. Rather than one of condemnation and repression, the Christian life is one of joy-filled participation in the ongoing ministry of Jesus, the one who said he came not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:16-17).

To understand God and the Christian life rightly, it’s important to understand the distinction between God’s judgments and condemnation. God makes judgments not because he is against us, but because he is for us. Through his judgments, God is pointing out the ways that lead to eternal death—ways that block fellowship with him by which we receive, by grace, his many benefits and blessings. Because God is love, in judgment he stands against all that is against us, his beloved.

While human judgment is often meant to condemn, God’s judgments show us what leads to life compared to what leads to death. His judgments enable us to avoid the condemnation due to sin or evil. God sent his Son into the world to conquer the power of sin and to rescue us from its bondage and its ultimate result, eternal death. The triune God wants us to know the only real freedom there is: knowing Jesus Christ, the Living Truth who sets us free.

Contrary to Nietzsche’s misconceptions, the Christian life is not a narrow one of repression. Instead, it is a joy-filled life of living in and with Christ, by the Spirit. It involves participating with Jesus in what he is doing. I personally like the explanation that some give using a sports analogy: Christianity is not a spectator sport. Of course, some even misinterpret this to push people toward working for their salvation. There is a big difference between working for salvation (which puts the emphasis on us) and participating with Jesus, who is our salvation (which puts the emphasis on him).

Christian atheists?

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “Christian atheist.” It speaks of those who profess belief in God but, not knowing much about him, live as though God does not exist. A sincere believer can become a Christian atheist by ceasing to be a fully-devoted follower of Jesus. They can become so consumed with activity (even activity labeled as Christian) that they become part-time followers of Jesus—more focused on activity than on Christ.

Then there are those who, believing that God loves them and that they have a relationship with God, see no need to participate in the life of the church. In holding that view, they (perhaps unwittingly) reject being incorporated into and living as a member of the body of Christ. While they may trust God for occasional guidance, they don’t want God taking charge of their lives. Like the poster at right, they want God to be their co-pilot. Some even prefer that God be their flight attendant—merely providing what is asked for from time to time. But God is no co-pilot, and certainly no flight attendant. God is our pilot—he gives the directions that lead to real life. In fact, he is the life, the truth and the way.

Participate with God in the fellowship of the church

God calls believers to join with him in what he is doing to bring many sons and daughters to glory (Heb. 2:10). He invites us to participate in his mission to the world by living and sharing the gospel. We do that together as members of Christ’s body, the church (ministry is a team sport!). No one person has all the Spirit’s giftings, so all are needed. Within the fellowship of the church, we give and receive from one another—we build each other up and strengthen one another. As the author of Hebrews admonishes, we do not neglect coming together in community (Heb. 10:25), we join with others in doing the work to which God has called us as a community of believers.

Enjoying real, eternal life with Christ

Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, sacrificed his life that we might have “real and eternal life” (John 10:9-11, The Message). This life is not about guaranteed riches or good health. It’s not about always being free of pain. Instead, it’s about knowing that God loves us, and having forgiven and accepted us, has adopted us as his child. Rather than a restricted, narrow life, it is a life filled with hope, joy and assurance. It is a life of becoming what God intends for us to become, through the Spirit, as followers of Jesus Christ.

God, having judged evil, condemned it at the cross of Christ. Therefore evil has no future, and all history has been set on a new direction in which we, by faith, can share. God has not allowed anything to happen that he cannot redeem. Indeed, “every tear will be wiped away,” for God, in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, is “making everything new” (Rev. 21:4-5).

That, dear friends, is the gospel, and it is very good news! It tells us that God does not give up on anyone, even when they give up on him. As the apostle John explains, God is love (1 John 4:8)—love is the nature of his being. God never stops loving us, for to do so, he would be contradicting the essence of who he is. Therefore we can be encouraged to know that God’s love includes everyone who has ever lived or will yet live, and that includes Frederick Nietzsche and all other atheists. We can hope that as God’s love reached out to Nietzsche, near the end of his life he experienced the repentance and faith God intends and provides for all. Indeed, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

Loving that God never stops loving any of us,
Joseph Tkach

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In our culture, the word miracle is often used rather loosely. For example, if a quarterback completes a 60 yard-long Hail Mary pass into a crowded part of the end zone to win a game, the TV commentator will likely praise it as a miracle. Here’s another example: ailing Dodger outfielder Kirk Gibson won a game in 1988 by hitting what was said to be a miraculous walk-off home run. Being highly unlikely, his hit was certainly entertaining, but it was not a miracle.

A miracle is a supernatural event that goes beyond the productive capacity of nature, though as C.S. Lewis notes in his book Miracles, “miracles do not…break the laws of nature.” When God performs a miracle, he intervenes in natural processes to do something only he can do.

Unfortunately, Christians sometimes embrace false ideas about miracles. Some say, for example, that there would be more miracles if more people had faith. But history shows otherwise—though the Israelites witnessed numerous miracles from God, they lacked faith. As another example, some say all healings are miracles. But many healings do not fit the formal definition of a miracle—many are the result of natural processes. When we cut a finger and it heals gradually, a natural process God designed for the human body has occurred. This natural healing is a sign (a demonstration) of God’s goodness as our Creator. However, if the cut heals instantaneously, we understand that God has performed a miracle—he has intervened directly and thus supernaturally. In the first instance we have an indirect sign and in the other a direct sign—both pointing us to the goodness of God.

Unfortunately, some who claim the name of Christ abuse and even fake miracles to build a following. You see this sometimes in what are called “healing services.” But such abuses of miracles are not found in the New Testament. Instead we find worship that is about faith, hope and love for God, looking directly to him for salvation that comes by way of the proclamation of the gospel. However, abuses of miracles should not diminish our appreciation for genuine miracles. Let me tell you about one I witnessed. I joined others in praying for a woman whose virulent cancer had already eaten away some of her ribs. She was receiving medical care, and now was being anointed, asking God for a miracle of healing. The result was that she became cancer free and her ribs grew back! Her doctor told her, “This is miraculous. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it.” She explained to him that it was not her doing, but God’s blessing. Some may claim that her medical treatments put the cancer at bay and the ribs grew back on their own, which they can do. But that would have taken a long time, and hers quickly returned to normal. Because her doctor said that her return to health was “not explainable,” we conclude God intervened and performed a true miracle.

Believing in miracles is not necessarily anti-science, and looking for natural explanations does not necessarily indicate a lack of faith in God. When scientists propose a hypothesis, they run tests seeking to falsify it. If their attempts at falsification fail, the hypothesis is strengthened. Thus we understand that looking for natural explanations for what might seem to be miraculous is not necessarily a refusal to believe in miracles.

We’ve all prayed for the sick to be healed. Some were delivered immediately and thus miraculously while others recovered slowly and thus naturally. In the case of those healed miraculously, it does not seem to have depended on who prayed or on how many prayed. The apostle Paul was not healed of his “thorn in the flesh” despite praying three times. My point is this: when we pray for a miracle of healing, in faith we leave the means and the ultimate outcome to God. We trust him to do what is best, knowing that in his goodness and wisdom he takes into consideration factors we cannot be aware of.

Praying for a sick person to be healed is one of the ways we show love and compassion for those in need, joining Jesus in his faithful intercession as our Mediator and High Priest. Misunderstanding the instruction in James 5:14, some may be hesitant to pray for a sick person, thinking that only church elders are authorized to do so, or that somehow an elder’s prayer is more effective than the prayers of friends and family members. It seems that James’ intent in telling church members to call on the elders to be anointed when they are sick was to make it clear that elders, as servants of the people (and not lords over them), must make themselves available to those in need. Biblical scholars see in James’ instruction a reference to Jesus sending out his disciples in pairs (Mark 6:7), who then “drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them” (Mark 6:13). [1]

When we pray for healing, we must not think that our task is somehow to persuade (or otherwise condition) God to act according to his grace. God’s goodness is always freely given! Why then pray? Because through prayer we participate in what God is doing in the lives of others, and in our own lives as well, as God prepares us for what he will do according to his compassion and wisdom.

Let me add a note of caution: When a person comes to you asking for prayer concerning a health issue, and they say they want to keep the request private, their request for privacy should always be honored. People should never be made to think that their “chances” of being healed are somehow increased proportionate to the number of people who are praying for them. Such an idea reflects non-biblical, magical thinking.

In all our thinking about healing, we must remember that it is God who heals. Sometimes he heals through a miracle and other times he heals using the natural means he has placed within his creation. Either way, all the glory goes to him. In Philippians 2:27, the apostle Paul thanks God for having mercy on his friend and co-worker Epaphroditus who was deathly ill until God healed him. Paul does not mention a healing service or a particular power possessed by a particular person (himself included). Instead, Paul simply praises God for healing his friend. That’s a good example for us to follow.

Based on the miracles I’ve witnessed, and ones I’ve heard about from others, I’m confident God still heals today. When we are ill, we have freedom in Christ to ask anyone to pray for us and to ask the elders of our church to anoint us with oil and pray for our healing. It is then our responsibility and privilege to pray for others, asking God, if it is his will, to heal those among us who are sick and hurting. In all instances, we trust God for his answer and timing.

Thankful for God’s healing,
Joseph Tkach

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[1] Though GCI does practice anointing the sick with oil for healing, it does not consider this practice to be a matter of obedience to a command (as is the case with the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper). For additional information about this practice and GCI’s understanding of the related instructions given in James 5:14, click here, here and here.

There is no regular issue of GCI Weekly Update this week due to the U.S. celebration of Independence Day (July 4th). We look forward to bringing you a full issue on July 12. In the meantime, you might enjoy reading a compilation, in booklet form, of the first 11 parts of Gary Deddo’s essay, The Church and Its Ministry. Click here to read it online.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I am intrigued by the variety of things celebrated in the nations of the world. In the U.S., we celebrate freedom each Fourth of July (Independence Day). On July 4, 1776, America adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring that the 13 American colonies, no longer regarding themselves as part of the British Empire, would henceforth be called the United States of America.

Though highly regarded by most Americans, Independence Day does not have the same significance for most people living elsewhere. However, the U.S. has several celebrations that might be of interest to many. For example, July 4 is also National Barbecued Spare Ribs Day and National Caesar Salad Day. July 6 is International Kissing Day, established to remind us of the simple pleasure of a kiss (though kissing is cited as a direct cause for National Mono Day!). And don’t forget World Chocolate Day on July 7.

While I love ribs, kissing my wife and chocolate (not in that order, my wife comes first!), I have a particular appreciation for Independence Day. While it reminds me of our freedom as a nation, it also reminds me that Jesus Christ has set us free from slavery to sin thus granting us spiritual independence. Indeed, the freedom we have in Christ is worthy of great celebration!

By the Spirit, all who follow Jesus receive the freedom that comes with the gift of the new life that is theirs through our Lord’s death, resurrection and ascension. As Jesus, who is the Truth, said, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (John 14:6; 8:32). As we trust in him, believing his word of salvation, we are set free from the sin and death that imprisons all humanity. The apostle Paul celebrates that gift in one of my top ten verses in the Bible:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened [entangled] again by a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1)

Physical death cannot rob us of this freedom for it has to do with the gift of eternal life, which greatly impacts how we live now. Paul shows how the life of freedom in Christ involves much more than behavioral conformity to a code of law. Instead, it involves being conformed to the righteousness of Christ with our whole being, including our thoughts and attitudes. Though we fall short of that deeply personal righteousness, we trust Christ to be our true “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30 NRSV). We trust Christ to share with us by the Spirit his salvation in all its parts. There is great comfort in knowing that Christ, our righteousness, never leaves or forsakes us. Though we struggle against our sinful nature (which, thank God, is passing away!), we do so trusting Christ to stand with us and strengthen us. Confident in that grace, we receive God’s forgiveness and, by the Spirit, join Jesus in extending that forgiveness to others, that they too may receive it.

Spiritual freedom is not something that can be earned through our own efforts. The only way we can escape the condemnation under which all humanity has fallen is through an act of grace by which God grants us freedom. Jesus is that grace, that freedom—he is “the way” (John 14:6). Because of Jesus and what he has done for us, we do not fear the Day of Judgment. On the basis of Christ’s righteousness and faithfulness (and not our own) we have been justified before God. By grace, we are saved by Christ’s works not our own, and now the Holy Spirit enables us to participate in Christ’s works—in his faithfulness. Though our participation, on this side of glory, is always incomplete, one day we will share fully in Christ’s completed work on our behalf. May God speed that day!

What are we to do with our God-given freedom besides celebrating? The answer is somewhat different for each of us. But one thing is true for all—Christ has not purchased our freedom merely for us to live selfishly. As Paul notes, we have not been set free only to return to the slavery of our passions: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Gal. 5:13). The Greek word translated serve is douleo, the verb form of doulos, meaning slave. Christ has not set us free only to return to slavery to the sinful nature. Nor has he set us free to become slaves to the law. Instead, we are to be slaves who, in humility, serve one another in love. Imagine what the world would be like if we all lived that way!

As Paul goes on to note in his letter to the churches in Galatia, now that Christ has come, living according to the law and living according to the Spirit are mutually incompatible, for “If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Gal. 5:18). As Christ-followers, our allegiance is not to the law but to the Spirit of Jesus who gives us a renewed nature. Our obedience is now by faith in Jesus our living mediator. The Spirit leads us not into old covenant rituals, but into joining Jesus in his acts of love. Jesus, not the law, is the solution to sin.

Paul instructs us to go beyond the law by living in ways expressive of the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Gal. 5:22-23). The law does not deal with most of these things, but the Holy Spirit does. Led by the Spirit, we go beyond what the law required—we go beyond trying to justify ourselves by our works. We go beyond trying to “qualify for the kingdom.” Instead, we live out of our union and communion with Christ, which leads us to focus on others, acting in freedom to join Jesus in loving them that they too might be set free from bondage to guilt, shame and the power of sin and death.

People who are fixated on the old covenant have set their sights far too low. It is much more life-enhancing to focus on the high calling we have in Christ to live and share the gospel. I like the way the old Kings James Version puts it: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14 KJV).

In Christ we have true freedom—the kind worth celebrating every day of the year, July 4 included!

Enjoying the freedom that is ours in Christ,
Joseph Tkach

PS: Due to the July 4 holiday, we will not publish GCI Weekly Update on Wednesday, July 5. Our next issue will be published on July 12. However, we will publish the July issue of GCI Equipper on July 5. It includes part 4 of Gary Deddo’s essay, “Clarifying our Theological Vision.” I encourage you to read it carefully.

PPS: One more thing: in the U.S., July 9 (as designated by the National Association of Evangelicals) is “Pray Together Sunday.” For information and registration, click here.