“I’m glad”
I’m glad I attended the Study Conference in Saskatoon – “Confessing Jesus in a Pluralistic World.”
I’m glad I spent nearly 40 hours travelling in a van to and from Saskatoon with several of my fellow MBs discussing frankly many of the important issues related to “confessing Jesus in a pluralistic world.” In a way, our trip offered the opportunity to both prepare and debrief while the material was still fresh in our minds. The long arduous journey is a small price to pay for stimulating and challenging dialogue.
I’m glad I met so many passionate MB leaders who value meeting to encourage one another and explore how to faithfully confess Jesus as individuals, churches, and a denomination. Gathering together is alone a worthy investment.
I’m glad for the wisdom and peace of Jesus Christ evident among us, his church. We must recognize Christ’s wisdom in society, even the unexpected places – “not anomalies, but confessions that in fact Jesus is God” (Yoder Neufeld). The peace of Jesus breaking down “us and them” barriers reveals the breadth of God’s love amidst his “giant recycling project.” May the wisdom and peace of Christ remain at work in us, as our love for “the least of these” in the world is in fact our love for Christ.
I’m glad for our MB Confession of Faith. The inclusive nature of our orthodoxy represents well our diversity as a conference in Canada and beyond.
I’m glad we celebrated communion together, choosing to be united in our diversity and remembering the call to faithfulness the Lord’s Supper places on us as individuals and as the MB community of faith.
I’m glad, quite simply, to be Mennonite Brethren.
What a family!
Having experienced the 2009 Study Conference, I am again grateful that the Lord grafted me into such a wonderful faith family. I did not grow up in the Mennonite Brethren tradition, and although I have by now been active in an MB setting for more than two decades, there are times when I still see myself through the fresh eyes of a newcomer.
The concluding session on Saturday was one of those times. The wrap-up plenary session had its undercurrents and its disagreements, yes. But it was healthy, respectful. Never was the focus not on Christ, or not on His work.
Then we concluded with worship and communion. We did worship Jesus, together – like a family. And we took the bread and the cup as we understand it is intended – like a family.
I found it a time of surprisingly emotional thanksgiving, appreciation of this little branch of Christ’s kingdom, and a challenging reminder of call and of purpose.
Come, Lord Jesus, we said. And I am so thankful for his presence among us.
October 17, 2009
Saturday proceedings
The final day of study conference dawned not so much bright, as early, with breakfast and a surprisingly information-packed AGM. (You can read more about that in the December Herald’s conference reports.)
The listening committee’s report was remarkably concise, affirming “Jesus Christ is prophet, priest, and king;…the incarnate wisdom of God,” and naming some of the “elephants” in the room (such as tension between our biblical mandate of reconciliation and the present reality of accusations within the conference, the question of the atonement model as controlling metaphor or a multifaceted diamond).
Finally, Saturday’s plenary session offered what many had been waiting for all weekend: a chance to respond to the unrelenting stream of teaching and exhortation, and to discuss within the larger assembly. The mics were not silent long as delegate after delegate stood up to passionately but respectfully appeal, challenge, and question what had or had not gone on this weekend. But several delegates, mostly young people at their first gathering in kind, spoke of the gathering as a rewarding, encouraging experience; a great gathering of family.
When the clock drew the session to a close, I felt we had agreed that our foundations have not changed. Jesus is Lord. And out of our love for him, we work to love our brothers and sisters in the church family – including those with whom we differ.
October 17, 2009
Scripture memorization
I am wondering whether Scripture memorization is on its way back – I hope it is!
For the third time this year, I have been blessed by oral Scripture. It is somehow different than the process of reading printed words, oneself.
At the concluding session of the Study Conference on Saturday morning, Saskatchewan conference minister Ralph Gliege spoke the words of Jude to us, from verse 1 to 25. And the Word “spoke,” in the true sense, because it was oral, and personal, and inflected with meaning. It was awesome.
At the opening session of the Study Conference, the incredible worship ensemble of students from Bethany College treated us to the opening chapters of John, also memorized and contemporized and meaningful. They are making it a project to memorize the gospel of John in this school year.
Those two spiritual treats made me hearken back to the B.C. conference annual meeting – when Mel Fehr of Prince George, our theme speaker, opened with a recitation of Scripture spanning from Chronicles to Hebrews – with amazing impact.
Fabled communications guru Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the message.” As I have been treated to the fresh impact of Scripture, rendered orally, I am thinking the medium of memorization and recitation is indeed a wondrous thing. May the practice increase!
October 16, 2009
Sheep and goats
At the end of a long day, searching, "unsettling" words about Jesus' familiar parable of the sheep and goats. "There's very little that is safe about Jesus' parables," Thomas Yoder Neufeld said. Both the sheep and the goats in this story address Jesus as Lord, he noted, "so it's about us." Following the parable to its logical end, it means that when we answer Jesus' question "Who do you say that I am?" we have to also answer (besides the other proclamations we make) "You are the hungry person, the one without a job, the rape victim, the person in prison... and on and on."
"I find this almost too much to bear," TYN said. "How do you write praise music to this Lord?" Then another probing question, the one to take back to our rooms this evening, "Is our Christology high enough to go so low?"
Who ever said only middle-aged and retired pastors and seminary professors go to study conferences? Oh, maybe it was me who made that generalization – or at least thought it. But we’ve been exhorted, over the course of the conference, to break down barriers, blow open stereotypes, open the windows, (use a lot of metaphors). And it starts here, apparently.
A crowd of local young people nearly filled ¼ of the sanctuary for the opening plenary on Thursday night and many returned Friday evening for Tom Yoder Neufeld’s closing lecture. Breaking more stereotypes, these young people filled the front rows, and were enthused to listen to and discuss theology, smiling knowingly as TYN explained a chiasm.
Bethany College students, past and present contributed significantly to the younger demographic present throughout the conference, and several other “young leaders” participated in a special track which allowed them to convene together to process, and to meet conference leadership.
It’s encouraging to see men and women of all ages at events like these. Before we pat ourselves on the back for our good work, however, let’s not forget that the work of breaking down walls isn’t over yet. We’re in the same room; that’s a start. Now let’s make every effort to talk to each other, learning to be “us,” despite differences in approach, worldview, and age.
Doerksen said Christian ethics is about more than "a simple assuming of some position on whatever confronts us." It finds its roots in the fact that God has time. Because God has time, we have time. The ethics of patience creates time and space, he said. It's not just about getting to a conclusion. But patience doesn't mean just waiting around either; it's not devoid of content.
It was a provocative session and I want to reflect further on what I heard. Patience is a practice I'd like to hone in my own life. (I realize, of course, he was focussing on a community practice of it.) I also wonder about its implications for the pace of the conference. Those of us who want more time to engage the speakers may need our patience stretched, especially if our frustration comes out of our desire to get a conclusion. But organizers' not allowing time in the program to talk and hear one another may be a kind of impatience as well.
I had the opportunity to sit in on the exegetical workshop led by Randy Klassen. The workshop was excellent in that Randy made it very interactive. Most sessions can involve more “being talked to” than interacting and Randy did a wonderful job at this.
Randy really put emphasis on the issue of looking at the meaning of the passage in its original context before making the jump to the passage’s implications for today. Many people I talked to said that it help stretch some mental muscles that haven’t been stretch for awhile. Many pastors can get into comfortable ruts when it comes to researching and writing sermons, so this was an excellent session to remind pastors of practical exercises in researching and writing sermons.
In the end, we ran out of time and did not finish everything, but that was just another reminder of the fact that it takes a lot of time and energy when it comes to examining the Scriptures. One thing I took away from this session was the reminder of the continued importance of the Holy Spirit in the context of community for the illumination of Scripture.
Workshop: Christ as our Peace
Wally Unger’s workshop explored the paradoxical truth that Christ makes peace by surrendering to a violent death on our behalf (Colossians 1:20; Ephesians 2:13–18), yet Christ also makes war as an avenging judge (Revelation 19:11, 15). What implications does the tension between Christ’s love and God’s wrath have for us as followers of Jesus?
Wally offered a number of conclusions. First, Christians should not seek vengeance on their own, but endure suffering, because God’s “loving wrath” will dispense justice in perfect measure. Second, judgment and wrath are real, and we should be thankful that Christ bore the punishment we deserved. Third, it is urgent that Christians share the Good News of “Christ as our peace” so that others do not have to suffer God’s wrath.
The workshop raised many questions for me, which we did not have time to address.
When it comes to God’s character, are love and wrath equal character traits? Scripture seems to indicate that love is the primary feature of God’s “personality,” and wrath figures less prominently (e.g., Exodus 34:6–7; Deuteronomy 5:9–10; Psalm 103:8–18).
Assuming that is the case, instead of telling our skeptical neighbours they’re miserable creatures who need to follow Jesus so they can escape the wrath of an angry God, we can put our best foot forward by inviting our friends to experience a loving God, and talk about consequences later.
If my hunch is right (and I think it is), then proclaiming the Gospel in our pluralist culture is a bit easier.
Workshop: Incarnational Living
(Note: Bruce Enns presented, and Sherry Heidebrecht gave a response at this workshop.)
Incarnational living calls us to join God’s mission in reaching out to the world. It is through individuals who build relationships and love others that the church is presented as the body of Christ.
The question was raised about what to do when people have no sense of sin. Is it necessary to convince people that they are sinful? Will not loving and caring about them introduce them to Jesus who can fill the emptiness in their lives? Jesus was concerned with touching people at the level of their need.
It is love that changes people, not programs. It is not fancy buildings but practical care and concern that show God to others. It is going out to find the lonely and the marginalized, not sticking to our circle of acquaintances, that moves us into the uncomfortable parts of incarnational living.
Workshop: Book Discussion on The Reason for God
As a participant in the discussion of Tim Keller’s The Reason For God (led by Laura Kalmar) I was struck by the way in which this book struck a chord with virtually all who had read it. Not all were equally impressed with the apologetic value of the book but all expressed a sense of appreciation for the positive case for the Christian faith that Keller attempts to lay out. I detected a recognition that Keller’s apologetic method might be an improvement on some of the more strident or argumentative ‘defenses’ of the Christian faith that may serve to alienate rather than invite.
At a personal level, I was reminded of two critical needs that this book seems to put its finger on. The first is the need that we Christians have to make sense of the faith which we confess. We live in a cynical and increasingly post-Christian culture and this will require us to “make the case” not only for skeptics, but also for ourselves.
The second need is to have developed some basic conversational skills for our interactions with family, friends and neighbours who do not share our confession. I was struck by one participant’s reminder that, although a book like this can never provide an airtight rational case for the Christian faith, it could help to keep a conversation going.
Normally, it's hard to keep people's attention right after lunch in a seminar. But nobody slept during the seminar on atonement. No doubt the controversy that preceded the seminar contributed both to the high attendance and the careful attention of the audience.
Much credit for our alertness, however, must be attributed to the presenters. Their concise and fast-moving presentations demanded full attention. Thanks, Mark and Doug, for keeping us with you, and for rewarding our wakefulness.
I was especially attracted to Mark's observation that "Jesus frees us from shame." Many Canadians don't feel guilty about their lives, but do feel shame. They desperately need to know how Jesus can free them. I'm going to explore more deeply what Mark has written about this.
Mark proposed to explain "what motivates me" by telling 5 stories. I was disappointed that the stories were not his own, and, in fact, illustrated "what vindicates me." So I'm left in both Mark's case and Doug's, wondering "what's the motivation?" What personal experiences, what relationships, what personality traits drive a person to understand the atonement? What attracts a person to one or many ways of talking about atonement?
October 16, 209
Morning Plenary and Bible Study
October 15, 2009
Open the windows
What a concept! Just open our windows and let new insights come in! The Canadian MB Study Conference heard that "opening the windows" often runs against orthodoxy and makes us uncomfortable. But it’s what early Israel did as they sought God’s wisdom, and it showed a trust and humility before God.
Tom Yoder Neufeld, theme speaker at the Study Conference in Saskatoon, said the mysteries of God were always difficult to grasp. The wisdom of Israel’s creator, provider, and Saviour was always at the centre of their quest to understand. In the wisdom tradition, he said, old Israel could decide to close itself to all ideas from those not declared as people of God. But, said Yoder Neufeld, they instead opened their windows and let fresh winds blow in.
Israel was willing to learn from other worlds beyond its own community, he said. This is, after all, God’s world and the possibility that others may also have a God-given idea cannot be ruled out. Israel would check a new concept against Scripture, then adopt or reject the idea. And so today, in the traditions and language of old Israel we can still find elements of Babylonian, Greek and other nations’ thought.
Yoder Neufeld said the early Christians acted on the same roots when at times they were not certain about some of Paul’s contentions. Like their forbears, they would search the Scriptures.
But many Christians today are less open to "foreign" wisdom, he said. Often, people reject our confession of Jesus because it appears as an easy spiritual fix. To make matters worse, Christians who are insecure cling to such fixes, and their faith confessions tend to sound dogmatic and shrill.
We need to open our windows, says Yoder Neufeld. And trust Christ as the wonderful reality of wisdom for this world.
Opening Plenary
“My name is Lorraine Dick, and I am a follower of Christ.”
The board of faith and life chair opened the study conference this evening with these tone-setting words. It was a good place to begin a conference about Jesus.Plenary speaker Tom Yoder Neufeld echoed my sentiments as he took the platform, thanking Bethany College’s Point of Impact, saying after their performance of songs dramatically interwoven with recitation from the opening chapters of the gospel of John, “I thought to myself, I might as well go home.”
Before he began to speak, my head and heart were already full of thoughts about what it means to be a Christian, gathered to think together within the larger church body.
After stirring the coals of CFL rivalries, Bruce Enns reminded: “we’re all part of the same team.”
Dave Wiebe outlined 4 components of Christian character needed for discernment in community (humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance), laid out in Ephesians 4:2.
From Brenton Brown and Paul Baloche’s “Hosanna,” we sang, come have your way among us; we welcome you here, Lord Jesus.
Tom did deliver his meditation, and his words continued to inspire, and to challenge. From Ephesians 3:10 (“that…the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to…Christ Jesus”), he spoke about wisdom, and how sophia of the Old Testament and Logos of the New are breath of the same God and Father; about God’s engagement with all creation, and how we see Jesus expressed in the most unexpected places when we broaden our horizons; about confessing Jesus as truth for the world, not only to the world; about artistry as an attempt to express the ineffable.
It doesn’t diminish our confession to recognize the broken lights of thee (Tennyson’s “Strong Song of God”), Yoder Neufeld said, but joins us with God’s gathering impulse, “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10).
There are cracks, cracks in everything / That’s how the light gets in — “Anthem,” Leonard Cohen
October 15
Welcome
Thanks for stopping by the Study Conference Journal. Pastors and leaders from MB churches across Canada are meeting in Saskatoon, Oct. 15–17, to discuss and learn together about Jesus, the cornerstone of our faith.
Check back to read updates and commentary on the event from MB Herald staff (Dora Dueck, Karla Braun, Barrie McMaster) and some guest writers.
