God has placed us in a family and/or body. We need each other to stay centered in Christ. The Board is appointing a Theology Committee that will take special interest in guiding this area, nudging us along in our journey of discovering the beauty of Jesus and his ways.
Posted by: Lil Goertzen
Church:
Date: September 30th, 2010
This past weekend, General Council (GC) members took home draft copies of “A Missional Church Fieldbook”. Some have already started along the journey and are being challenged as they read! By the way, Len was a guest presenter at the GC meetings.
Recommended reading: A Missional Church Fieldbook by Len Hjarmalson – Tools for helping believers transition into missional practices
http://tinyurl.com/len-fieldbook
Posted by: Lil Goertzen
Church:
Date: September 30th, 2010
Chris and Elaine Hurst are associate missionaries with EMMC under Wycliffe Bible Translators, and are currently living in Abbotsford BC. They continue to oversee the translation project on-going in Mexico. The individuals mentioned below are members of their translation team.
You may have heard of record-breaking rainfall in Mexico and consequent flooding. Esteban wrote today that on the 27th their home was flooded. Presumably they awoke to find the river at their doorstep. They have two buildings; a concrete one in which they sleep and a wooden one in which some children sleep and where they have their kitchen and dinning room. The river tore through the wooden one and swept away a lot of their possessions: fridge, tables, chairs, mattress, clothes and dishes. The water rose to 90 cm in the cement house.
He and his family will be sleeping in our one-room house and our office across town until they can find another location; none of them want to move back into their current home. Please pray for them as they recover from this disaster. We could pass on gifts if you would like to contribute.
Plácido tells me that a large portion of his corn field was swept away, but his house was not affected. Hilario says he escaped damage.
I’m glad to have a warm dry place to sleep and clothes to wear!
Esteban closes his message “Mamoweyimati toTeco” = may God be praised.
Chris
Posted in: Praise and Prayer,
Posted by: Arlene Friesen
Church: Nassau Street Church Winnipeg
Date: September 30th, 2010
At SBC’s last leadership conference, Greg Ogden raised the question of whether we were admirers of Jesus only or truly disciples. I just read a story that illustrates this pretty well. It is retold in David Augsburger’s book Dissident Discipleship (pp. 191-192). Read it and post some of your reactions to it:
Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farm, the interracial commune outside Americus, Georgia, grew up in a prosperous family, received a traditional theological education (a Ph.D. in Greek New Testament from Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky), and, known for his brilliance as a writer, was en route to becoming a professor.
Instead, he left seminary to establish an interracial community in segregated Georgia in the mid-1950′s. Opposition was not unexpected, but it was led by his own people, the Southern Baptist congregation that eventually excommunicated the whole Koinonia Community. The charges leveled against them read: “Said members . . . have persisted in holding services where both white and colored attend together” (McClendon 1986, 96).
The excommunication was followed by vandalism, cross-burning, legal pressures, beatings, bombings, a comprehensive economic boycott, and shootings by snipers who aimed at any available target on the commune.
Clarence turned to his brother, attorney Robert Jordan, for legal counsel and asked him to become legal representative of the Koinonia Community.
Robert, who later served as a Georgia state senator and a justice of the Georgia State Supreme Court, declined.
“Clarence, I can’t do that. You know my political aspirations. Why if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”
“We might lose everything too, Bob.”
“It’s different for you.”
“Why is it different? I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church the same Sunday as boys. I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me about the same question he did you. He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ What did you say?”
“I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point.”
“Could that point by any chance be – the cross?”
“That’s right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.”
“Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple. You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you’re an admirer not a disciple.”
“Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn’t have a church, would we?”
“The question,” Clarence said, “is do you have a church?” (McClendon 1986, 103).
