The blessings of a disorganized mind

Jim Coggins

My Ph.D. thesis supervisor was a brilliant man. His office was a jumbled mass of papers and books. He said he believed in creative chaos, and organization stifled creativity. I am not as brilliant as he was, but then my office is not as messy as his was either. (Some people may not believe this last point, but they are people who have never seen his office.) I believe in organization, but I also believe that it is good sometimes to let the mind wander, because then it may stumble across scattered truths that it would not normally have encountered. This is the only justification I can think of for writing another miscellaneous editorial column. I hope it serves its purpose.

Herald

I was looking up a word in the dictionary a while back (The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary to be precise) and stumbled across the word "herald". I thought I would stop and check this word out--maybe it would give me some insight into what I am supposed to be doing as editor of this magazine.

A herald, the dictionary said (more or less--I have abbreviated these definitions slightly), is "1. an official messenger bringing news". Well, that is a pretty good description of what we do.

The dictionary went on: "2. a forerunner". Okay. I always thought (or hoped) we were a little ahead of our time.

The dictionary was not finished: "3. an officer who made proclamations and bore messages, settled questions of precedence and recorded names and pedigrees". Hey, we do that too.

But it shows how wrong our preconceptions can be. I always thought this magazine was called the "Herald" because the staff are so angelic.

Blessing

When I was in university, the Christian students ran a regular Sunday night outreach worship service in one of the dorms. One night, I was asked to be the speaker. I gave a message on Daniel 3, emphasizing that we must worship the true God and not false manmade gods. I had spoken successfully before. This was a good message. I had prayed and studied. I was well prepared. I delivered the message well. Yet, somehow the message fell flat. Nothing happened. No one was moved.

Three or four months later, I happened to attend the service again. One of the other young men led a Bible study--on Daniel 3. It was not as tight a presentation as mine had been. It depended to a considerable degree on small group discussions of the topic. The summation and delivery were not as clear or as thorough as mine had been. Yet those present raved about the lesson. They grasped with excitement the lesson I had been trying to get across in my presentation months earlier. Worse still, no one seemed to even remember that I had recently spoken on the same topic.

The lesson I learned from that experience was not that I am a poor Bible teacher--my teaching had been affirmed on other occasions. What struck me was the absolute necessity for our ministry to be blessed by God. No matter what our gifts, no matter how hard we work, our ministry will accomplish nothing unless it is blessed by God. We must do our best, but it is God alone who uses (or chooses not to use) our ministry to change human lives.

Reverence

I was in a worship service a while back when something strange happened. We were sitting and singing, "We are standing in His presence on holy ground." Suddenly, as if moved by the words of the song and by the Holy Spirit, overcome by reverence, the whole congregation rose as one body to its feet. It was not something planned or directed by the worship leader, yet the people got the message of the song he had chosen. That is how much ministry is. God takes our work and blesses it; then He uses it, in ways we had not expected, to do His work.

Conferring

A while ago, I encountered a member of an MB congregation who questioned the value of denominations. Why, he asked, did I place such a high value on being Mennonite Brethren? Surely our conference was no better than and no different from many other denominations? Why did we need a conference anyway? Why couldn't we all just be Christians instead of being divided?

"Okay," I should have responded. (It's funny how I always think of what I should have said sometime after the conversation is over.) "Okay," I should have said. "Why do you belong to a congregation? Your congregation may have some strengths, but surely you wouldn't suggest that it is better than or significantly different from a lot of other congregations? Why do we have separate congregations anyway? Why don't we all just be Christians together?"

Knowing a bit about my questioner, I think he might have responded, "Maybe my congregation is not better than others, but a Christian should belong somewhere. I need a place where I can be held accountable, where I can fellowship with other believers, where I can be taught, where I can serve in joint ministries that I could not do on my own."

Precisely. While it has some unique strengths (and weaknesses), the Mennonite Brethren Church is not the only denomination to possess the truth. But, among others, it does possess the truth of Jesus Christ. It is a forum through which we can have fellowship with other Christians across Canada and around the world. It is a vehicle we can use to do many important joint ministries. It is a place to be held accountable. It is not the Kingdom of God, but it is a useful and important tool in the building of that Kingdom. After all, a Christian should belong somewhere.

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