Women Supporting Women

This week’s guest post is written by Val Hausman. If you are interested in writing for our blog, please contact Pastor Pete or Pastor Jen!

How lucky are we at WCC that we have had so many ways to support women and women’s ministries… Covenant Women, women’s groups, women’s retreats (one at Covenant Point this fall, and our WCC women’s retreat returning early in 2024!), women in leadership. So many ways to connect and support each other! I had the great pleasure of worshiping at Kingdom Covenant a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t help but notice the many ways in which women contribute to the ministry there. In September they plan to hold a retreat for women called “She Walks”.

The price for participation is $75 for two days, a cost that may be prohibitive for some. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every woman who wanted could participate? For each to take a step to join in the fellowship without the worries of finances?

The step I am asking women of WCC (and the people who love them) to make is to help support this ministry. Here’s how you can help:

Go to kingdomchicago.org

Click on “Give” and “Give Now”

Select “Women’s Day Weekend 2023”

This will hopefully help to defer the cost of someone attending or reduce the overall amount.

Thank you!

Valerie Hausman

Women Supporting Women

This week’s guest post is written by Val Hausman. If you are interested in writing for our blog, please contact Pastor Pete or Pastor Jen!

How lucky are we at WCC that we have had so many ways to support women and women’s ministries… Covenant Women, women’s groups, women’s retreats (one at Covenant Point this fall, and our WCC women’s retreat returning early in 2024!), women in leadership. So many ways to connect and support each other! I had the great pleasure of worshiping at Kingdom Covenant a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t help but notice the many ways in which women contribute to the ministry there. In September they plan to hold a retreat for women called “She Walks”.

The price for participation is $75 for two days, a cost that may be prohibitive for some. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every woman who wanted could participate? For each to take a step to join in the fellowship without the worries of finances?

The step I am asking women of WCC (and the people who love them) to make is to help support this ministry. Here’s how you can help:

Go to kingdomchicago.org

Click on “Give” and “Give Now”

Select “Women’s Day Weekend 2023”

This will hopefully help to defer the cost of someone attending or reduce the overall amount.

Thank you!

Valerie Hausman

Kataphatic and/or Apophatic?

Brian McLaren, one of my favorite sages, talks about two ways of thinking about God. Kataphatic tradition experiences God as describable, image worthy, and dealing in certainty. God is our fortress, a burning bush, a potter, a Heavenly Father. God is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…” (Ps. 23)

Apophatic tradition finds human language and imagery failing. God is a mystery, wholly other, mystical and on the far side of human experience. Silent wonder is faith’s greatest expression: O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable are his ways! (Romans 11)

The obvious question is, “Which of these traditions is more compelling to you?” And though indeed our spirits lean toward one tradition more than the other, As with so many “one or the others”, wisdom is found in the strengths of each, and especially the art of navigating between the two. I’m reminded of one of many occasions when my dad was offered either cake or pie for dessert, and just said “YES!” — in other words, some of both is best. Both ways of seeing and experiencing and talking about God are biblical, and each serves as a counterpoint and even sometimes as a check and balance to the other.

In those moments when I’m so sure about God, it might be good to watch an approaching thunderstorm in silence and humble myself a bit. And on those days that my spirit is unsettled and shaken, I might meditate on an image of God that comforts me — for instance, God is like a mother hen who gathers me under her wing where I find refuge. (Ps. 91).

My seminary professor Kyle Snodgrass talks about a life of faith as a life of holding the tension between this and that, between two things that are true…He says, “One of the best contributions which Christian thought can make to the thought of the world is that life is complex. It is part of the Christian understanding of reality that all simplistic answers to basic questions are bound to be false. Over and over, the answer is both-and rather than either-or.” (Between Two Truths, Zondervan, 1990, p. 29).

We are saints and sinners. Pride and humility dance together. Hold in tension strength and weakness, authority and submission, faith and works, grace and law, freedom and responsibility. This is where maturity takes shape, when we are able to see truth and value in each, even as they offset each other. We are able to embrace the tension of life and faith and find our way through with joy and peace, rather than always being fearful of the other and different.

What I’m thinking about is the challenge former Covenant Church president Glenn Palmberg used to give when tension was present in the church: “Move toward your opposite.” For me, as one more comfortable living in an apophatic world and church tradition, it’s important for me to befriend and respect and value kataphatic writers and thinkers and friends, and the strength of their images and certainties.

Mclaren concludes: “God is the wind in the sail (apophatic) and the sea we sail upon (cataphatic). We are embarked.“

What do you think and feel about this?

Peter Hawkinson