Common Ground The Focus Of Davenport's Sermon

Don Davenport, a representative for the Covenant's Department of Church Growth of Evangelism, spoke at Wednesday's World Mission service and asked that question to a packed audience at the Keystone Conference Center. He used Acts 1:8 to tell the audience that "God is up to something" in the denomination and that something includes helping people understand that we all share a common pain that desperately needs Jesus.

"We are starting churches because we have a common need and a common pain," said Davenport at the Wednesday evening service that included the dedication of Covenant short-term missionaries. "We need to give them a Jesus that says He can give them life and give it to them abundantly."

Davenport told of a town that held a contest to see who could swim across a vast lake. For years, no one had dared try to make the trip across. One day, someone swam across the lake and the town welcomed him when he arrived on the other side.

"I've got one question," the swimmer said as he walked out of the lake. "Who pushed me?"

Davenport said God may be pushing us too. He stated that the Covenant must respond to the love of Jesus like the proverbial rock that gets thrown into a body of water - a rock that breaks the water, creating a ripple effect that moves throughout the water. He hoped that the denomination would drop into the world in a movement of righteousness, moving in concentric circles from inward to outward as it shared the gospel throughout the world. He believed it fit perfectly with the start of the denomination and the planting of churches in the U.S. in the 1870s and 1880s.

"About 116 years ago there was a group from Sweden that tossed this rock in the U.S.," preached Davenport as he described the Covenant's beginnings. "And it made a ripple that started in Chicago, and Minneapolis, to Farmington Hills, Michigan, to Sacramento, California, and...all the way down to Mound Bayou, Mississippi...and it has traveled to Covenant world mission sites from Colombia, South America, to the Congo in Africa...and those Covenant saints are up in heaven and they're cheering us on."

But Davenport warned that "for every new mission level there's a new devil." And the disconnected life of the world and its ignorance of the gospel make it necessary to take risks to lead people to Christ. Davenport told stories of trips to Ecuador, Ethiopia, and other areas that showed him how passionately Christians wanted to preach God's word to their neighbors. And his stories helped him connect his past and present as an African American who had come home. He hoped that Covenanters would find comfort in a God who could make even the most uncomfortable and unlikely ministry opportunities seem like home.

"They were hungering for something more," said Davenport of his trip to refugee camps in Africa. "...And we're not through with these worlds. They're spiritually dis-functioned and they're disconnected. But I had to do a paradigm shift in my thinking. Because when we look at this world, it has the same issues, a common pain, that pulls this disconnected, fragmented people together. We have more in common than not in common."

Davenport used his memories of September 11 to remember the dedication of New Yorkers who risked their lives to search for bodies that were black, white, and all other skin colors. The experience brought home the point that no race, cultural difference, or economic variance can separate us from the common pains of life.

"Even though there was a 911 there is a (John) 3:16", said Davenport, noting the words that tell how much God loves us. "...That's why we do what we do."

For more information about those dedicated Wednesday for short-term mission, check out a related story on the Annual Meeting link at www.covchurch.org.

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