Covenant Annual Meeting: The Centrality of the Word of God

I am stopping by my denomination’s Annual Meeting today on the way to our almost two weeks of road-tripping and vacation!  News stories from the Annual Meeting already include interesting updates on awards given, tributes for and a sermon from outgoing President Glenn Palmberg, and summaries of sermons given related to the topic for this year, “Living Our Affirmations: The Centrality of the Word of God.” The web has some interesting stuff related to the meeting, especially if you are part of the Evangelical Covenant Church – the online coverage is getting very good even if you don’t attend it in person. 

Even if you’re not part of the ECC, the attention given to this theme of how to read scripture is an important one within the wider evangelical world. I think that the Covenant denomination has a unique gift to give the wider church in our perception of how to read the Word, and in the way that we hold this central tenent right alongside our other five affirmations (the necessity of new birth in Christ, living the whole mission of the gospel to the whole world, reliance on the Holy Spirit, reliance on community, and freedom in Christ). There is a new resource paper being voted on shortly that outlines a more in depth suggestion for how to understand this commitment to rely on the Word of God that I am fairly impressed by; the draft of the paper is found on this page (scan down to the pdf #10, titled “Covenant Resource Paper”) if you want to look at it further. I think that it may prove to be a solid resource for many churches throughout the evangelical community.