Editorial: Rethinking well-behaved churches and embracing God’s transformative power
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The Messenger Vol. 62, No. 3 - Cover
A FEW YEARS ago, after an Abundant Springs* weekend, we heard back from Briercrest about how respectful and well-mannered EMC students were compared to some of their other groups. Naturally, we congratulated ourselves because that spoke so well of the students, families and ministry leaders in EMC churches.
But then somebody ruined the moment by pointing out that maybe the more unruly groups were that way because their youth groups included more students coming from outside the church family and had experienced a lot of brokenness. If that was the more accurate way to interpret the comment, then being a “well-behaved group,” though still reflecting well on EMC students and their families, was less of an achievement in terms of how well we were being the church.
You can do with that what you will, but the point is that if we’re drawing people from outside our church family, then our churches may well be less predictable. If we’re actively caring for and discipling people from our own church body who are dealing with troubling circumstances rather than letting them pull away unnoticed, we will look less put together. Just as importantly (because it turns out, the unruliest groups at Abundant Springs were super-churched kids, not un-churched kids) if we coach rather than dismiss people who act arrogant and superior, we could open ourselves to more critique.
The good news is that we’re already less put together than we might think!
The great news is that God is at work right where we are!
In this issue you will find a range of topics, from a theological conundrum that is creating intense discussions in some EMC churches (Zwaagstra) to articles about passing on the faith and two about God’s transforming power.
On that last one: It wasn’t our intention as editors to put Gord Utz and Kyla Gillespie’s stories in the same issue of The Messenger to make a point—they were just great stories of God at work transforming people into his image. But their stories share a surprising number of parallels including the fact that both were raised in Christian families and enjoyed hockey. They both found themselves not fitting the world they were born into and not fitting the alternative either—both were alienated from God, and both returned to him in large part through the ministry of pastor friends. Like I said, great stories!
But they are also very different. The story of Gord, told by Phil Callaway, talks about issues most of us have seen, often in our own families. And the familiarity means we can hear it quite easily and celebrate God’s work in his life.
The story Kyla tells on the other hand, is not one most of us have experienced personally and her struggle is with things that are in the realm of “issues;” frequently in the news and often politicized. That means her story might spark other parts of our brain when reading it. If it does, it’s okay to give ourselves space to work that through and then read it again and see, instead of an issue, a person God loves deeply and has invested in.