Boynton Beach Retreat 2017
Compiled by Bruce Henderson
A
nother successful Retreat in Boynton Beach, Florida, January 29 through
February 2, drew New Church members from 10 states and Canada, and
featured four-day presentations by:
• Brian Henderson, Director of the Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn,
speaking about this unique religious museum and what it is doing for
the Church, the Academy and thousands of visitors
• Dr. Soni Werner, associate professor emerita of Bryn Athyn College, on
Dark and Light: Psychological and Swedenborgian Perspectives
• The Rev. Mac Frazier, assistant pastor of the Glenview (Illinois) New
Church, on lessons learned trying to plant a New Church in Austin,
Texas, and about what works and doesn’t work for church growth
The Rev. Alan M. Cowley, the new pastor in Boynton Beach, presented
the banquet address on the theme: “The Great Minister-Congregation
Compromise.” The premise, on one hand, he said, “was to look at the
apparent mismatch of a young upstart, long-haired minister, with an ‘older’
congregation. On the other hand, it was to look at tradition and ritual as
similar to my long hair.” And so he had a list of traditions on the board with
the deal that if someone was willing to change a tradition, and was able to
convince a majority of the people in the room to change it as well, then they
would be allowed to cut off a lock of his hair.
Meanwhile, he told about some experiences in London, England, where
he had previously been pastor, “which to me demonstrated well the essential
internals of worship, though they were not in a church context, where our
traditions were not present, and yet the internals (prayer, instruction, praise
and humility) were all very present.”
He ended the talk with a charge “that as we work to keep the Lord’s
Church going from generation to generation, that we focus more on what is
essential, while finding new externals which might be better or more effective
vessels for the internals. Not that we ought to throw out anything that we have
136