Edgework

On January 3, 2013, it will be exactly fifty years since I had a dramatic conversion experience in which I committed myself to follow Jesus in The Way. I was sixteen; now I am sixty-six.

Actually my relationship with Christ started much sooner. In Sunday School as a child I had a fairly positive experience. But through the years I heard many sermons about the damnation of sinners to an eternal hell. Although I “accepted Christ” a thousand times, this thought tormented me for many years. What if I hadn’t done it right, I thought? During my early teenage years I had regular nightmares in which I was falling into the great abyss of hell. I was terrified most of the time. But on January 3, 1963 I was able to break through that wall of terror. To my surprise, I found myself embraced by a God of love with no big stick in sight.

After fifty years of reflection, I think that my torturous route to faith was probably not God’s original plan for me. Children should not have to endure such torment. I have, in later years, come to understand that I have a highly sensitive personality that just could not process the stories of damnation I heard at church. It felt so unfair to be damned through no fault of my own, except perhaps, for stealing a cookie. Fortunately, I began to learn that God was love, not wrath and that mercy always triumphs over judgment.

At Elim Bible School my teachers gently led me into a positive view of faith and life. It was here that I became fascinated with the Anabaptist Vision that called for radical discipleship. It was also at Elim that I found my voice; I was affirmed as a gifted public speaker.  As I spoke hither and yon to youth groups and churches in the years following, I was forced to stay on a learning curve on matters relating to The Way.

Before Ruth and I were married in 1969, I shared with her my commitment to radical discipleship. While neither of us knew exactly what that would mean, she agreed to walk with me down that road. By 1974 we found ourselves in Bolivia serving with EMMC missions; which in retrospect were both the best and the worst years of our lives. I was exposed to the challenges of being Christian in a culture marred by massive economic disparity, corruption and injustice on every hand. And I became deeply cynical about the evangelical missionary endeavors I saw all around me that focused primarily on well-heeled North Americans saving souls that would soon be snatched out of their misery on their way to heaven.

My growing uneasiness about missions in the evangelical way, created tensions with senior missionaries and eventually resulted in our leaving Bolivia for seminary in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Here, for the next few years, the unanswered questions originating in Bolivia provided the passion to study issues of faith and life more deeply. I found a deeper grounding in an Anabaptist theology that called for holistic mission in the world; also a new appreciation for the Good News of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. When I subsequently was asked to speak on this topic at an EMMC convention back in Manitoba, I was taken aback by the strong reaction of many people who perceived me to be sliding down the slippery slope of liberalism. How I wondered, could they take issue with the clear teachings of Jesus? So gradually I began to understand just how much my faith journey had taken me to places beyond my starting point in the bosom of the EMMC during my childhood.

While at seminary, our family was deeply involved in the Broad Street Mennonite Church in a black ghetto in Harrisonburg. We were a rag-tag group of people from every walk of life and economic status. But it was here that we learned the meaning of being in community which included submission to one-another to find God’s will. When we left for Manitoba in 1981, it was only after extensive discernment in the context of this faith community.

Back in Manitoba, I soon began teaching at Steinbach Bible College. I sensed I had found my calling and thrilled at stretching students beyond what they had experienced to that point. Teaching courses such as Introduction to the New Testament, The History and Theology of Missions, and Anabaptist History and Thought, among others, helped to confirm my conviction that Anabaptism had a lot to offer contemporary people of faith.

I brought this conviction with me to the position of Conference Minister and Editor of The Recorder in the EMMC in 1998 where I experienced some wonderful years of direct involvement with churches and their leaders. I felt I was making a difference. But in the end, it seemed that I was enjoying life too much as I began expending more energy than I had. So I experienced a burnout in 2002 which, in effect, terminated my formal service in the context of the church for good. I was fifty-five.

But the years since, although quite difficult at times, have not been without reward. Not being in the center of things, I was free to reflect on matters of faith and life from the edge. I started posting essays, book reviews and sermons on my own website in which I pushed out on theological edges with more freedom than I had known in earlier years. More recently I have been posting essays on the local website, www.mySteinbach.ca . I call my writings “Edgework” because that is what they are for me.

I have come a long way since 1963. I sense that my faith runs deeper and wider through my life now than ever before. After fifty years it is more exciting and fulfilling than ever to be on The Way with Jesus. I plan to continue the journey.