by E. Malcolm Parkinson.
Foreword by Roger W. Palmquist, pastor of Salem Covenant Church from 1977-1984.
Foreword
History may be measured by many means, and frequently in a volume of this kind the decision is made to mark the passage of years by showing pictures which are primarily of buildings or artifacts, and by delineating events as they occurred within the periods associated with specific ministers of a church.
In preparing an historical survey of the life of our congregation we have chosen a different route. Believing that history is essentially the record of people, that time itself is meaningless apart from the manner in which people make use of it, and that the life of any church ought more be indexed by the pilgrimage of its members than anything else, we have elected to report on the first 100 years of our history by showing how God has worked in the lives of those people who have comprised our particular family of faith.
By so doing we stand in a good tradition, for we are a family whose nourishment comes directly from the Holy Scriptures, and as one reads the Bible he must be impressed by the fact it is singularly the story of people and their relationship to the Father. From the time when God covenanted with Abraham to form the Hebrew nation until the day of the Christian community which emerged after Pentecost, the Scriptures bear appropriate witness to landmark places and loyal leaders of the faith, but most of all to the many souls who, by their commitment of trust, became known as special “children of God.”
We are honored to think of ourselves as the children or people of God, and whereas our tale is brief when measured against the longer years of the Church-at-large, we count ours to be a significant story because of this. As you read, we hope you will sense the sometimes strong, sometimes gentle manner in which God has dealt with us in love striving always to mold us after the image of the Savior in whose spirit we were formed and continue to live.
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