A Message From The Regional President

A Call to Covenant, Unity, and Safeguarding

Hi brothers and sisters,

What an honor it is to be with you today to share a few thoughts from my heart and really share some of the things that the Holy Spirit is asking of us in our region in these years. I’m going to share three things with you today.

First, I want to talk a little bit about the beauty of the Lord’s call for us—the call to covenant ourselves together. Second, I want to talk a little bit about our call to Christian unity, to be a sign of the Holy Spirit’s desire that His people be one. Lastly, I want to share a little bit about the progress that we’ve made in the important area of safeguarding our children.

The Beauty of the Lord’s Call

Probably the most important conviction that the leaders in our region—men and women leaders throughout the North American region of the Sword of the Spirit—have had is that the Lord wants to rekindle in us the beauty of our call. He wants us to recapture the beauty and what it is to covenant ourselves to love and serve one another, to have glue between our communities, and to know that you are part of something bigger than just yourself trying to be a disciple alone in the Lord.

Yes, you have your home community, which is so beautiful, and your home community is part of the Sword of the Spirit. Our region is the way we live that out.

This year, as you hopefully know already, we’re going to have our Summer Conference from July 11–13 in Lansing. I want to encourage as many of us to go to this as possible. The first 400 people that get signed up can attend. The reason this is important is that, yes, we will have great speakers—we’ve invited Anton Colella to join us, a leader from our community in Scotland, and Anton is a great speaker. But much more important is that we, together, worship the Lord, that we get together and hear the Lord’s voice as a people because we are His people and He’s called us into existence.

This is one way that we, as a region, are trying to rekindle the beauty of this call. There are some other things we’re doing, like launching this cool website where you can see some of the wonderful things that the Lord is doing in our region.

For example, you probably don’t know that we have a community in New Zealand that is now a member of the North American region. Yes, the Lamb of God community in New Zealand, which is a national community with branches all over New Zealand, is a member of the North American region.

You can learn about that if you visit the website. The site is being continually updated, and we have a blog there where you can see new and wonderful things that the Lord is doing in our communities, our outreaches, and the new communities being planted.

Our Call to Christian Unity

This is such a hard area, and the Lord has called us to be an ecumenical movement. All our communities—whether ecumenical in membership or single-church Catholic communities—are very committed to this call to Christian unity.

Each community is different and can’t approach this in the same way. In all of our communities, we want Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox members to live out their faith traditions well and fully while living in this common life of discipleship.

As you know, what unites us is greater than what divides us. Many have used that term. We want to continue making ground, and I think each community can make progress in its own unique way.

For our ecumenical communities, some are struggling to grow membership across ecumenical lines. I encourage these communities to talk to our young professional leaders and campus outreach teams in the region and work on plans for Bible studies that welcome not just Catholics but also Protestants and Orthodox into our life.

For Catholic communities, we want members to live out their faith tradition well and know and be deeply committed to it. This includes ecumenical outreach, serving the poor alongside Protestant ministries, or other collaborations.

One idea we are exploring is reaching out to independent Protestant churches to build genuine relationships with their leaders. Some of these churches might eventually become communities—that’s up to the Lord.

We’ve spoken to the North American Regional Council about this idea, and it’s in early stages. If you have relationships with independent Protestant churches, ask the Lord to bless those relationships.

Progress in Safeguarding

Lastly, I want to share the progress we’ve made in the area of safeguarding. We’ve all been learning a lot, and I personally have been on a learning process and education journey in this area.

As a region, we’re getting help from outside expert organizations like Praesidium, which has been providing regular input on important aspects of our policy. A new version of our safeguarding template is being released to all communities, including new recommended practices such as independent investigations when needed.

We’re also exploring the use of independent review boards to address concerns. We want to be a holy people in every way, ensuring that children in our communities are safe and that parents have confidence in this safety.

Communities have already done a lot of training, and I encourage this to continue.

Conclusion

There is so much more I could share, but I’ll end here. Thank you for being a member of your community and of the Sword of the Spirit. You are a treasure, and we are blessed to journey toward the Lord together.

Thank you.