“Never Give Up” was the theme CB Northwest selected four years ago when we made a commitment to stay on our knees, seeking the mind of God for our family of churches. We believed it would require a sustained effort of prayer, even courage, to walk in obedience to the direction God would reveal.
That sustained prayer effort, reinforced each May at the Pastors’ Prayer Summit, has helped us find our way back to the most foundational of all biblical principles: relationships are everything, as modeled for us within the Godhead. The relational community called Church, under its glorious head Jesus Christ, should be an ever-widening circle of covenant relationships, extending from generation to generation and built on doctrine, biblical polity, and missional philosophy.
As the community of CB churches in the Northwest, we desire to faithfully express the union between the covenant communities (local churches) that collectively make up God’s Church around the world. If we are to do that, we will have to get our own relational house in order. We must do our part by living in healthy interdependent covenant relationships. The more mature we are as a covenant community here in the Northwest, the greater our contribution will be to the evangelical family of churches.
Beginning in September, two years of work on a CB Northwest covenant will be presented to all our Northwest churches at the Church Health Clinics. Connecting all our churches to the doctrine, polity and philosophy sections of our identity document is critical. That document will be the foundation of the new covenant community of CB Northwest churches.
CB Northwest staff and the area association Trustee will visit each of our 21 associations this fall to make the presentation and receive church feedback. These Church Health Clinics are designed to move us one step closer to formalizing our unity as a committed, covenant community of CB Northwest churches at our Annual Enrichment Conference. That conference will be held in Stevenson, WA, March 7-10, 2005, at the beautiful Skamania Lodge.
Pastors and key leaders, please mark your calendars with the date for your association and make sure your church is represented. Your input is very important. You, as members of God’s family, are His house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. The cornerstone of that house is Jesus Christ Himself. We are carefully joined together, becoming a holy temple for the Lord, united together as part of His dwelling where God lives by His Spirit.
“Never Give Up” praying and working with us to build up the Church, which is the body of Christ, until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full-grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.
