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From Pastor Bill
More Conversations
This past
Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from KOMO television; they were
looking for a pastor to comment on the Seattle atheist bus sign campaign. I agreed to do it and found myself really
nervous about it. Let me give you some background:
About three years ago, I was approached by the Seattle P.I. (remember that
paper) as they wanted some sound bites about the new local church scene and
asked me, along with three others to give some information about All Saints. I totally bombed that day and ended up getting
a counseling session with the reporter on how to do an interview. It was humbling, to say the least.
Since then, I have been approached a few times
by the media, and every time, I declined.
This time however, I decided to go for it.
I knew what
I wanted to say. I did not want to come across defensive, appalled, or angry that
atheists were putting up signs in the buses that were actually positive quotes
and not mean spirited jabs at the Christian faith. I did some research and
found the quotes they were using were quite fair and reasonably in context with
the person who said it.
I prayed and asked God to give me wisdom and to be sure to give Jesus some air
time. As it turns out, they
did not use
my Jesus references and went with the "safe" stuff. You can catch it on Seattle P.I. website (www.seattlepi.com) and the KOMO TV website (www.komonews.com) web site for the actual
video interview.
To me, these are all opportunities to start
conversations, to irritate people enough to make an inquiry into faith in
Christ. I see All Saints being a catalyst for conversations that bring people
into dialogue with Christ followers who genuinely care for the city and
genuinely want to show people how much we love and respect others.
I do not see
Jesus in the gospels making enemies with those that don't believe, he only
infuriated the religious by challenging them to love and serve the broken,
poor, doubter and seeker. This is the mission of All Saints. I know we are
going to start a revolution in this town.
Let it begin with simple
conversations that turn into life changing events.
This is going to be fun.
Pastor Bill
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General Updates
Gathering Schedule: Beginning Sunday, April 5th we will return to a 2 gathering schedule with gatherings at 9:30 and 11am.
Life Groups: This Sunday we will continue our "re-launch" of current life groups. Updated information about life groups will be inserted into the handouts and sign ups will be available in the Commons and at the Concierge Desk for people who would like a life group leader to follow up with them. If you are not currently participating in a life group, we highly encourage you to give it a try!
Discussion Forum: On April 30th, All Saints will host a discussion forum with Chair of the UW Comparative Religion Program and brilliant author, James Wellman. Wellman will be discussing his book, Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest. This will be the first in a series of discussion forums that All Saints will host to bring local church leaders together around topics relevant to the area.
Website: As we wrap up the process of fine tuning the functionality of our new website, we are beginning to explore new ways to make the site more interactive and dynamic. We are building teams to work on both the technical and the creative aspects of the site.
Concierge Team: Beginning in April, Matt Jones will take over leadership of the All Saints Concierge Team. We look forward to the vision and leadership that Matt will bring to the team. Many thanks to Jackie Himes for her dedicated leadership of the team up for the past couple of years! Our best wishes are with you and your family!
Greeting Team: Also beginning in April, Casey Killett will be taking over leadership of the Greeting Team. Current leader, Brenda Strong is moving on to Olympia for work. Brenda, thank you for your commitment to making sure everyone who sets foot in All Saints receives a warm welcome. *Greeters are asked to meet in the loft at 10:40am on Sunday, April 5th for a brief team meeting.
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The All Saints Newsletter is sent out regularly to the community to engage and inform people of all that takes place through All Saints Church. This and previous issues will soon be available on the All Saints website.
If you have any ideas, submissions, or comments, please send them to life@believedoubtseek.org
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