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EDITORIAL
Found crops

Jim Coggins

My mother was a much better gardener than I am. (In fact, she was much better at many things than I am.) In her 80s, she had reduced her garden to only about twice the size mine is. She had also decided to get help with some of the heavier chores. She had a composting bin, and every spring she had the neighbour empty it into her garden and till the compost into the soil. This enriched the soil and increased the yield of the crops that she had planted, and reduced the amount of household waste going into the local landfill site. Sometimes the composting process was not complete, and the compost would contain live seeds, which, when tilled into the garden, began to grow. For instance, potato plants would crop up between the rows of carrots my mother had planted.

I suppose some gardeners would have simply rooted out such plants as weeds and focused on the crops they had planted. My mother called such plants “found crops”, unexpected gifts of God. She would put a stake beside the little potato plants, care for them and enjoy an additional harvest.

I think church life can be like that. Sometimes, on our way to do the ministry that we had planned, we stumble across another ministry that we had never intended. At such times, we can ignore it, stifle it and get on with our plan, or we can see the unexpected as a blessing of God and embrace it.

In the Old Testament, God told the people of God, “I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build . . . vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant” (Joshua 24:13). I fear that sometimes, in our over-programmed and over-planned church lives, we are so used to pursuing our own agenda that we miss special blessings and ministries that have been sent to us by God. I think that sometimes we forget that it is God who is the Master Gardener and that we are only His assistants. We are much the poorer for it.

A note to readers

Astute readers may have noticed that two recent issues of the Herald (July 13 and Sept. 14) were shorter than usual (28 pages rather than the usual 32 pages). This is not because we have run out of good material to publish. Quite the contrary. Our files are overflowing with good things we want to share with our readers. The reason is purely financial. The Herald finished the 2000–2001 year (ending May 31) with a small deficit of $19,000. As this was the first year of a two-year budget, the Herald editors have committed themselves to reducing spending in the second year in order to finish the “biennium” with a balanced budget. Now, $19,000 is a small deficit relative to the Herald budget as a whole, but some cuts will be necessary.

Frankly, we were embarrassed and surprised by the deficit. For the previous five years, the budget had been relatively flat, and we had generally come in under budget. As late as a month before the end of the year, we had fully expected to finish under budget again in 2000–2001. It was only when the final figures were in that the deficit became apparent. When we analyzed what had gone wrong, we discovered it was a combination of things. Some production costs (such as the cost of paper) had gone up. We had an unexpected increase in postal rates toward the end of the year. Advertising revenue was down (perhaps due to the current slowdown in the economy). We had a larger than usual increase in our subscriptions, adding a net of 400 new subscribers, compared to the average of 200 new subscribers in recent years. As the mailing list has grown, we have had to increase staff time to process address changes. Thinking that the budget was in good shape, we published a few more pages than in the previous year (doing a 36-page and a 40-page issue). In general, we have been holding the line on budget increases for several years by diligently controlling costs and finding more efficient production methods and time finally caught up with us.

Why don’t we just ask the Canadian MB Conference to cover the deficit? The Canadian Conference has a deficit problem of its own, amounting to just over $200,000 in 2000–2001. The reason is simple. There have been modest increases in the Canadian Conference budget (due to inflation and to expanded programs, such as the Board of Evangelism’s highly praised Key Cities Initiative). Yet, in spite of inflation, an increase in the requested Conference norm and increases in the number of churches and members), the churches generally gave the Canadian Conference the same dollars in 2000–2001 as they did in 1999–2000. This represents a serious problem, and one I am sure you will hear more of in the coming weeks.

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Last modified November 30, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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