{"id":373,"date":"2011-01-30T20:38:27","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T02:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/jhpeterson\/?p=373"},"modified":"2011-05-28T05:28:58","modified_gmt":"2011-05-28T11:28:58","slug":"being-covenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/jhpeterson\/being-covenant\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Covenant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was the annual gathering of all seven churches that make up the Tokyo District of the Japan Covenant. We converged on the Meguro Covenant Church for a time of praise, business, learning and fellowship. The theme for the learning segment was Covenant Identity. I was asked to talk about Covenant Identity from the U.S. ECC perspective since that&#8217;s where the Japanese Covenant has her roots. Then two other co-workers shared from their perspectives; one who has been in the Japan Covenant all along and one who came in from another group. I talked about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/who-we-are\/beliefs\/affirmations\/\" target=\"_blank\">Covenant Affirmations<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/who-we-are\/\" target=\"_blank\">Covenant Distinctives<\/a>, requirements for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/who-we-are\/beliefs\/\" target=\"_blank\">membership<\/a> in a Covenant church and then talked about a Covenant view of scripture and why we choose not to use terms like &#8220;inerrancy&#8221; and &#8220;infallibility&#8221;. Finally I talked about why the Covenant is not a creedal denomination.<\/p>\n<p>I appreciated what the other two had to share. They are my co-workers and friends. And even as I resonated with much of what they said, I found myself profoundly disagreeing with certain elements of what both of them shared. And yet at the end of the day I felt more closely knit to them than I did before the gathering. I guess that is about as good of an example as I can imagine of what it means to be Covenant!<\/p>\n<p>When we were enjoying some food and free time at the end I got to talking with Mr. Naito, an elderly gentleman who has been a member of the Meguro Covenant Church for years. He was there all through my youth when we were a part of that church. The conversation turned to my parents and he mentioned that soon after they arrived he took them on a tour of Kamakura. I immediately recalled one particular photograph in my father&#8217;s collection. The note on the negative holder said it was taken in Kamakura and it shows my parents and a Japanese young man who appears to be their guide. I managed to pull it up on my iPod right there and showed it to him and sure enough&#8230; it was him! He didn&#8217;t even remember having their picture taken that day and had never seen the photo before, but it was unmistakably him. I never cease to be totally excited by all the little discoveries I keep making as a result of digitizing and publicizing my dad&#8217;s photos. This particular photo had already made it into my final selection of favorites. My dad is wearing a somewhat Al Capone&#8217;ish overcoat and my mother&#8217;s coat has pockets big enough to carry medium sized animals! I think I might ask Mr. Naito to make a day trip to Kamakura with Hydi and me when it gets warmer!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_371\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2011\/01\/0014.jpg\" rel=\"prettyPhoto[373]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-371\" class=\"size-full wp-image-371 \" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2011\/01\/0014.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"538\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-371\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mr. Naito, Mom and Dad in Kamakura; February 1956<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_372\" style=\"width: 810px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2011\/01\/naito.jpg\" rel=\"prettyPhoto[373]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-372\" class=\"size-full wp-image-372\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2011\/01\/naito.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"512\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-372\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mr. Naito on the far right, sitting next to me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/jhpeterson?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=373&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was the annual gathering of all seven churches that make up the Tokyo District of the Japan Covenant. We converged on the Meguro Covenant Church for a time of praise, business, learning and fellowship. The theme for the learning segment was Covenant Identity. I was asked to talk about Covenant Identity from the U.S. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-missions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Being Covenant - Jim and Hydi Peterson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/jhpeterson\/being-covenant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Being Covenant - Jim and Hydi Peterson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday was the annual gathering of all seven churches that make up the Tokyo District of the Japan Covenant. 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