IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG

NCF Office – June 9, 2026 5 Comments

In 1986 at NCF’s 10-year anniversary, Julian Rappaport presented this lovely reflection on what God had done thus far, which is now 40 years ago! If it would take too long then to recount God’s good works among us at that point, how will we ever recount 50 years?! AND, it is good to remember! May this bless you and whet your appetite for what is to come. -Renée (Click here to listen to Julian reading this.)

Anyone who knows me knows that for me to talk only fine minutes–my time hasn’t started yet, has it?–for me to talk only five minutes would be enough of a miracle, but to talk for only five minutes about how:

God took a few people who first met in the living room of a young couple, he from Tennessee and she from Pennsylvania, both here via Catlin (?), and turned them into a church; IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG

And to talk about how He took a man who was a philosophy graduate school dropout, another who was a piano tuning principal at a children’s home, a third who was a printer’s assistant and part-time revolutionary, added a guitar playing furniture refinisher, and had them lead a church–IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to talk about how:

God had this group of people meeting in a campus foundation building, where the grad school dropout worked, and when they got so big He (God, that is) had to send them to an abandoned Catholic church building to teach them how to behave.

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to tell about how at that time it seemed like everybody who was anybody lived on Illinois Street. Or was it that they lived somewhere in Linders’ house? I was never sure which, but it sure was easy to find people in those days.  It didn’t take too long. They all had the same phone number.

AND IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to describe how they went through agonizing meetings and prayers to find a name for this thing that was called–in reverent tones and with an air of superiority because they KNEW it wasn’t a church–THE FELLOWSHIP;

Or how my own wife, skeptic that she is, told me one Sunday morning about her dream that we would call this non-church New Covenant Fellowship. And how that very day that name was put forth to the congregation by others who had decided the same thing.

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to tell how in those days there were only about five or six kids in the Sunday School (and half of them were Simkins).

And then there was some kind of birth explosion…some people even started having them two at a time!!!

But that wasn’t as amazing as where God sent this group next–to a gymnasium in Urbana run by some denomination called The Park District.

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to tell about the strange language of NCF. How people don’t just talk to each other, they share. They don’t just help each other–they shepherd.

And I remember the time when we called the youngsters who were leading this fellowship (some of them still in their 20’s) the Elders. Now did that make any sense?

And in five minutes I would have no time at all to talk about how many people have found their lives renewed, and their new careers; and about how farmers and photographers, cabinetmakers, musicians, students, artists and nurses, and engineers, and computer programmers, and so many people who would never be likely to listen to each other’s politics actually came to like each other.

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to describe how many people found 
God through the people of NCF, or how many rediscovered Him, and themselves, and their families, and their neighbors.  

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to recall how He has tolerated our failures and allowed us to learn to laugh at ourselves, and go on trying.

IT WOULD TAKE TOO LONG to recount how God has been with us, building His Church, sending us into the world. Heck, recently it took our teachers over a year just to tell us that!

I couldn’t do all that in five minutes; I’d probably forget too many important events, too many key people, too many powerful lessons. So I am not even going to try.

Instead I will simply say:

Thank God for loving us so much that He has already given us more than we deserve.

As the old Hebrew prayer of thanksgiving says, recited at the time of the seder in remembrance of God’s deliverance of us from bondage. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH–

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH IF ALL GOD HAD DONE FOR US COULD HAVE BEEN SAID IN FIVE MINUTES.

How much more, then, should we be grateful for all the things I have not said?

And for all those things each one of you could add,

And for all that we have to look forward to in the future, as part of His Kingdom.

Presented by Julian Rappaport at the NCF ten-year reunion, July 1986