Decide on unity first

The Board of Faith and Life (BFL) has drafted a resolution on the question of women in ministry leadership, recommending that “our churches receive all our Lord’s gifts and be free to discern men and women for leadership roles to which the congregation calls them and to which they are called, gifted and affirmed, including the position of lead pastor.” (See the BFL report in News and the full resolution.)

A decision on the final draft of this resolution will be made when we meet as a conference of churches at Gathering 2006, to be held in Calgary next July. In the intervening year, all of us will have the opportunity to pray about, discuss and study it further.

The recommendation is bold and unambiguous, and it will probably draw strong reactions of approval or disapproval. But can we agree about one thing before we enter this year of continuing debate and discernment?

Can we agree that we will not leave one another over this matter?

The issue deserves our attention and our courage to engage it as a diverse body, yes. But we have also said it is a matter of polity, not of our Confession of Faith. It should not cost us our unity.

One sometimes hears comments that if such a resolution passes, individuals or even congregations may leave. One hears similar comments about what may happen if the resolution fails. Such declarations, if they are being made, can act as threats that subvert the process. They belie our commitment to a community hermeneutic and our belief that God can lead us well through the procedures – of study and listening, BFL leadership, further discussion and listening, and then decision-making together – we as Mennonite Brethren practice.

Choosing to stay together over this issue means, essentially, choosing to yield to the outcome of the process and next July’s vote before it is known. This will not be easy for those who care deeply about a Yes or a No to the resolution. It is in this great love for one another, however, in this humble interdependence, that we will experience the Spirit’s wisdom and joy among us as we decide together.

Light reading

There’s a lightness generally implied in the label “summer reading,” as if the brain must also get away, as if in the warmer months one will want only words that brush the surface, like a kind of sun screen against deep or hard-work thought.

The habitual reader knows this is not true, of course, knows there may be a need for a fast-paced, entertaining narrative or some short chicken-soup-for-the-soul story on a cold winter’s evening, and conversely, that Dostoevsky or something similarly stretching may be exactly right for a summer afternoon by the lake. For the habitual reader, not to mention those who are compulsives, reading is not seasonal as much as necessary: even the text of a mosquito repellent container will have to do in a pinch for words.

The summer reader label for this issue, therefore, implies nothing except that it’s a Herald for the summer. We do hope, of course, there will be something for many readers and moods, as throughout the year, and that it will be packed along on your vacation.

But there’s some other “light” reading I’ve been wondering about lately, and that is the marquee style signs that now appear in front of many churches. Used to post announcements of events or programs, or perhaps the Sunday sermon title, these signs also frequently carry sayings of various kinds.

On a short evening’s walk, I can pass four churches and read four messages, for example, everything from the cute (“If you growl during the day, you’ll be dog-tired at night”) to the obvious (“There’s no right way to do a wrong thing”) to the invitational (“Join us Sunday at 10”) to the biblical (“Wonderful are my ways beyond your knowledge”).

Similarly, if one misses morning devotions it is possible now, with signs ubiquitous, to grab a few thoughts for the day on the way to work. Most of what one reads is true enough, though often more clever than profound. These signs are very different from an earlier generation’s grim roadside billboards that reminded one about the brevity of life, the certainty of death, and after that the judgment. Whether ours are better, theirs worse, I cannot say.

I do know that one sign board I watch in particular is the one at a local funeral establishment. Their sign alternates notices about burial options with pleasant sayings such as churches post. I can’t help but read the message, no matter how generic, in the context of the owner’s business of tending to the dead. In addition, just behind it is the cemetery with its gravestones reminding me wordlessly that I am going to die.

Do the sayings on church signs, I wonder, gain any gravity because they stand in front of our churches, which also deal in life and death?

On the other hand, do the messages we post align with who we are? And what is it we want to accomplish with these very short sermons?

We put them out there, surely, with the advertiser’s hope that something will be effected by words set beside the wordless communication that is our building. Some churches may aim for smiles, but at the heart of the exercise is probably a longing that our words will go deeper, perhaps even work a miracle like St. Augustine experienced, when hearing what seemed to be a child’s voice cry, “Take up and read! Take up and read!” he turned to the book of Romans and was converted.

Victor Kliewer, pastor of Elmwood MB Church, a Winnipeg church located on a busy traffic thoroughfare, says he takes the job of choosing their sign’s message seriously. The messages need to be genuine, he says; they need to reflect an awareness of the community. He insists, further, that the church has “to do better than” lighthearted or cute.

I think he is right. Many people hear nothing from a church beyond a saying on their sign. We do well to speak honestly and with all that love requires. Perhaps the words will carry weight; perhaps someone will read and then listen too. As a church sign recently said, “God speaks to those who take the time to listen.”