Elders Stunned by Call to Repentance

SANTA ROSA, CA (September 28, 2003) - Editor's note: This is the fourth in a six-part series exploring Redwood Covenant's experience in spiritual transformation. To read the first three parts in the series, visit the links displayed at the end of this story.

Not long after God spoke to associate pastor Scott Peterson and senior pastor John Strong during three-day fasts, Redwood Covenant Church conducted another leadership retreat involving about 100 staff members, elders and other lay leaders. Strong read Peterson's first document (message from God) to those in attendance. Executive pastor Joanna Quintrell said that within days the church leadership had begun enacting changes designed to enhance the spiritual life of the congregation.

"About three days into it (following the leadership retreat), people started calling me and emailing me, leaving notes in my box," said Quintrell. "I realized I was becoming the depository for all of these messages. And I was able to take everything and produce something (a document) that combined various themes. It all wove together perfectly."

The elders meeting was scheduled to take place September 28, 2000. Peterson fasted that day as a way to honor God, but God had other plans. "I'm fasting, but I'm not feeling right about fasting and it's really weird," Peterson recalls. "By now I'm hypersensitive to God, knowing what is of God and what is not. So very clearly God tells me that at 2 p.m. I'm supposed to eat a cookie. I'm thinking, 'You have got to be kidding. You are the almighty, all-powerful God, and now the word you're speaking to me is eat a cookie?' I know in my heart of hearts where it (this word) is from, but I'm thinking that God is just messing with me."

Peterson obeyed God, ate a cookie and eventually had a full meal before going to the elders meeting. Midway through the meeting, Strong asked Peterson, "Did God tell you to do something really strange today?" When Peterson told him about the cookie incident, Strong replied, "At 2 o'clock today I was driving by a grocery store and I was fasting, too. God told me to go in and buy a cookie." An elder gave a similar story a moment later and proceeded to offer an explanation of why God spoke to them in such a strange manner.

"We were all wondering why God had told us all to eat a cookie and this woman said she knew the answer," Peterson recalls. "She told us God said to her, 'You can't make me do anything by fasting. If you think you can conjure something up by something you do you are wrong.' None of us had the sense that God was telling us to fast that day, we just did it on our own, figuring that at the end of the day we would be more spiritual. And God was telling us absolutely not."

Peterson delivered his second message to the stunned elders, talking about various sins but mentioning no specific names or when the sins had occurred. The 30 minutes of silence that followed spoke volumes. "There were tears shed by all of the elders," said Peterson (elders and staff requested that specific details not be shared outside of that meeting). "I would probably say 10 percent (of the details Peterson shared) was something I knew about or could link to certain circumstances. The other 90 percent? I had no idea what it was about.

"I remember telling my wife, before delivering the second message, that I wished I could have had some bad moral thing to tell rather than to go into the elders meeting and give this word," Peterson continued. "I know what anguish Christ must have had at the garden when he was sweating blood. I felt that kind of anguish."

Longtime member and elder Jim Davenport said Peterson's courage and obedience has made a difference. "The transformation of the mind is being able to recognize truth - I'm sure each of us has dealt with those issues. A critical spirit had shown up more at my home. This is an area that needs to be changed. And it's one of those things you don't take seriously - you think it's not right, but it's okay. And God says to you, 'It's not okay.' Everyone involved in the church, especially the leadership, has been constantly growing and open enough to admit they were dealing with real problems and living real lives. And that has an enabling influence that allows the body (church) to grow."

"It was evident that God was paying attention to us and that he was engaged in what was happening to us," says elder Del Starrett. "It gives you pause to pay more attention to what is happening in the body (of Christ). We're not just coasting and developing our own program and direction. Given that, it not only makes us feel more careful about overall church decisions, but even more in my own life I have a heightened sense of God's presence and his call for me to be a more holy person. It's a call to up it a notch and not get comfortable. You don't want to do anything that gets in the way of God's plan."

Tomorrow: The youth pastor weighs in. To read the first three parts of this series, visit the following links:

• Message from God
• The Messenger