Cedar Park Church
16300 112th Ave NE
Bothell, WA 98011

p: 425.488.3600
e: info@cedarpark.org

Service Times:
Sundays:
9am, 10:45am, 6pm

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A Cathedral Church

If these were the Middle Ages, then Cedar Park would be known as a Cathedral Church. I did not set out to build such a church but the other day I suddenly realized that is what we are. Using that term seldom occurs today but it is a way of thinking about who we are and how we function in this community.

When people hear about a Cathedral today, they think of a very large and ornate church building. While that is often true, the size and ornateness are only incidental to the main function of the church.

Historically speaking, a Cathedral church had certain characteristics. First, and most importantly, it was the Church Pastored by the Bishop. The name cathedral comes from the root word cathedra, which means chair or seat. To speak ex cathedra is to speak from the chair. Since the Bishop was the authoritative spokesperson for the church in that area, he spoke as the interpreter of the Scriptures.

Exodus 18:13 “The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening.”

Matt 23:2-3 "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.”

The early church recognized this authority and what it meant. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in the mid-fourth century said, “The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses seat; for it signifies not his wooden seat, but the authority of his teaching.”

This authority found its highest expression in the Sanhedrin. Yet it existed down to the local town and synagogue level. Outside the gates of the excavated ruins of ancient Dan, I have had the opportunity to sit in a seat where once such decisions were made. There, the city elders gathered to “sit in Moses’ seat.” Proverbs 31:23 gives us a sense for this: “Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.”

I believe it is in this context, and with this meaning, that Jesus spoke the words which Matthew records. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

This is an important moment in the history of Judaism and the Church. Here is Jesus, the Son of God, investing the power of Moses into the hands of his disciples. They now become the ones responsible for interpreting the law. This is decisive for it represents the transfer of spiritual authority. It places within the context of the church the authority held by those who sit in the seat of Moses.

Once Jesus established the Church, we find that this authority continued on. In the beginning of the Church, it was the Apostles themselves who sat in the Seat of Moses for the Church. The Church that took shape had a foundation.

He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

A Cathedral church, by its very name, emphasizes the authority of the Word of God. Among Evangelicals and Pentecostals, everyone says that. However, the Word of Truth must be rightly handled. In 2 Timothy 2:15 Paul said, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

The second feature of a Cathedral Church was its emphasis upon water baptism. The Baptisterium was the building where baptisms took place. In the ancient church baptism was the distinctive event that marked a person’s entrance into the people of God.

When we launch into a discussion about whether baptism or faith is the moment when a person is saved, we are taking up the issues of the Reformation rather than the issues of the Bible. That question never came up in the ancient church. Jesus, in Mark 16:16 said quite simply, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

In the words of Jesus the contrast is between believing and not believing, yet he attaches baptism as a natural corollary.

We are a church that believes in salvation and being baptized. We will give an altar call every service. We will encourage people to be baptized.

At a broader level, we want to be a church that reaches out to lost people. We do that through major events during the year. Beginning with Presentation Sunday. That has turned out to be more than praying for infertile couples. It has been a genuine outreach to people who would never darken the door of the church otherwise. We had had Moslems, Buddhists, atheists and odds and ends of others who have come to that service. We probably cast the net of salvation the widest in that service.

Then we have the Passion Play of Easter. We are coming up on Christmas. Our Music Minister is presenting a methodology for getting people saved with his targeted caroling and invitations. Radio and television reach beyond our walls. Especially television reaches a whole new set of people. The youth have their inviteable events. Skate Church is pure outreach. We had people saved in Summer Day Camp. School is an increasingly important outreach. Larry Cooney, Director of Bread of Life Mission, told me that even though he became a Christian at age 27, he had the foundation of thirteen years of Catholic education.

In America, the small church rarely brings people to Christ. Since most salvation experiences happen through the larger church, we become a critical link in people’s lives. We want to be intentional about this. Each person should be thinking about whom they can invite to special events. We want to plan a series of events next year that will help us with this.

The third feature of a Cathedral Church would be the Martyrium. That part of the facilities was devoted to the burial of Christians as near to a martyr as possible. “First-century Christians attached great importance to the separation of their burial places from those of the pagans since, as Tertullian said, there is nothing particularly objectionable about living with pagans, but to die with them, or indeed to lie in death with them, is quite inadmissible.” Solomon expressed that same idea in Ecclesiastes 6:3. “A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he.”

Christians have always taken this idea very seriously. I don’t get the question so often anymore, but for a while people pretty frequently asked me why a church would build a cemetery. I always answered historically by pointing out that for almost all of Christian history, churches have always had cemeteries and wondered why every church would not today.

By building our funeral home and cemetery, we have returned to the ancient patterns of the church.

The ancient Cathedral had three main features. The bishop preached the authoritative Word of God there. Christians from the whole region were baptized there. And when you died, you were buried there. The idea was a church that provided a spiritual center for the Christian community.

Cedar Park is not alone as a spiritual center, but we provide a lot of ballast to the Christian community. This is true in several areas.

Cedar Park Christian Schools provides one of the largest church based school system in this area. I suppose the Catholics and Lutherans would be bigger. We would certainly be the biggest coming out of a single church. We are on our way to becoming biggest private school in Washington. As we move toward building a school in Kenmore, that reality becomes that much stronger.

Cedar Park Counseling Network has developed into a significant institution. Our critical incidence response team is gaining in recognition. We bless people from a lot of churches. One of our Pastors on the Eastside had a serious situation in their church. He handled the matter up to a point then referred to our center.

A lot of people take advantage of our Mechanics Ministry. Pastor Dane’s parenting and family classes draw from various churches. The Summer Day Camps, and Prism are other examples.

If we took on two main goals, I believe we would be true to God’s call for us. First, our goal is to reach the lost bringing people to salvation and water baptism. Second, it is to serve the Christian community and not just ourselves.

12/8/2000

I have been thinking more about this concept. If we follow this concept further, it eventually leads us to a network of ministries under one umbrella. What if several of our associate pastors would take on a subgroup and turn that into a congregation? We could run two or three services a morning in the chapel, two more in the Sanctuary, and a couple of more at Northshore. We could end up with six fairly different congregations as part of one unified whole. Once the High School is done that possibility continues to multiply.

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