Susie Grade

I was born into a family that was pretty far from God, but once God got a hold of my family, we began participating in a non-denominational Christian church. I have deep appreciation for those roots, but I never really liked that description “non-denominational.” The description essentially meant that while our church hesitated to align itself with any of the mainline Christian denominations familiar in the U.S., we sought to be faithful to the story of Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures and through Christian tradition. My childhood church recognized that the reality of multiple denominations (“expressions”) of Christian faith testifies to long centuries of disagreement and division among Christ-followers, which is not always a winsome quality to those who are seeking a spiritual home.

Many people see denominationalism as a marred aspect of Christian history, reflecting division, exclusivism, and religious arrogance. Others believe that denominationalism has provided a helpful accountability to Christian interpretation of Scripture and life practice. Most likely, there is truth to both perspectives.

Personally, I think there is a lot of rich history and valuable insight available through the various denominations of our faith. So, in describing Platt Park Church, I usually tell people we are a multi-denominational church: we like to borrow from the best of the various denominations.

This Sunday we are kicking off a new series called “Streams: What We Can Learn from Various Christian Traditions.” We will examine the strengths of the following “streams” of Christian heritage:

8/4 – what we can learn from the Reformed stream
8/11 – what we can learn from the Anabaptists
8/18 – what we can learn from the Catholic stream
8/25 – what we can learn from the Pentecostal/Charismatic stream
9/1 – what we can learn from the Majority world church

I hope you’ll join us for this conversation & exploration of the various streams of our faith. My hope is that each of us will find our faith challenged, deepened, and refreshed by the wisdom sipped from each stream.

I think from God’s perspective there is really only one church. This Church, with a capital “C”, is made up of followers of Christ all over the world. Regularly I find myself asking people, “where do you go to church?” Of course, this is a legitimate question since there are many local expressions of the Church around the city and many different churches are needed to reach many different kinds of people. But sometimes I step back and wonder what does God think of all these churches? I know the Church is the bride of Christ and that God loves his church. But I wonder what he thinks of all the different local expressions. Does he wish we were more united? The scriptures are filled with passages about the importance of unity….what does that look like today?

Tomorrow morning we kick off a new message series on The Lord’s Prayer. We are teaming up with ten other churches around Denver during the month of July to teach/preach through this same message series. Other participating churches include:

Scum of the Earth Church
Mountair Church
The Refuge
Mile High Vineyard
City Church
TNL Church
Denver Community Church
Trailhead Church
Pathways Church
Bloom Church

Of course, each church will have a unique perspective and approach but it has been a great joy to join forces with some other amazing churches in town! By simply sharing together in the same teaching topic for this next month I have become more aware of the exciting ways that God’s kingdom is advancing in our great city and I am thrilled that we at Platt Park Church are a part of it!

Churches like ours rise and fall on the commitment and giving of regular volunteers. This is really no different from the early church that we read about in the book of Acts. The early church started because a band of regular people experienced an event that changed everything and re-oriented their lives and values forever. On the original Easter Sunday a movement was born and that movement is still going strong to this day. Easter has always been about the celebration of a single event in human history – an event that changed the lives of men and women and launched a movement called the church that is still re-writing history to this day. That single event, of course, was the resurrection of Christ, and I am watching the resurrection of Jesus continue to shape us today.

Platt Park Church recently received a $100K gift for building renovations. This gift came from a woman in our community who came to Christ later in life and is experiencing the transforming power of God’s love in her life today. She told Tim and I that she felt God telling her to give this huge gift to our church to help speed up the building renovations so that more people might encounter Christ. I share this with you so that you can join us in celebrating God’s work in the life of our faith community. I feel like we are experiencing the flow of God’s spirit today. Since 2010, when we were required to relocate from our worship space at South High School due to renovations in the school, it has felt like provision upon amazing provision from God. In the midst of many challenges, we have experienced the flow of God’s spirit working in this church.

Week in and week out volunteers give and serve and place the needs of others ahead of their own. We are not perfect – not by a long shot – but we are growing to be more like Christ every day. Our church would not exist without such passionate, devoted followers of Christ. A HUGE thanks to the amazing people who keep re-orienting their lives and priorities around the life of our risen Lord. Thank you for trusting God enough to risk comfort, security and misunderstanding. Thank you for giving your time and talent and treasure so that others might know His love. The greatest sin and shame in most churches today is selfishness and I am continually inspired by the other-oriented-ness that is growing in our church. May it grow even more! You people inspire me. Thank you for living a life that counts for all eternity.

To God Be the Glory!