God's Lawyer

Casey Korstanje

"When you are in the criminal courts, you don't excuse what has been done, but it is your job as a defence advocate to place the most compassionate possible light upon it."

That's how Marvin Dyck describes his 13 years as a lawyer in the provincial court system in Hamilton, Ont. He stood up for an endless stream of people on the fringe--the downtrodden, miscreants, vagrants, the foolish and the foolhardy, people who have made mistakes, the innocent and the guilty.

The experience deeply affected him, providing him with moments of introspection and illumination into the frailties of humanity. It softened rather than hardened him. "There but for the grace of God go I", he says.

In spite of the positive experience, in the summer of 1996, Herman Faber, an old friend and fellow lawyer, agreed to help Dyck wind down his law practice. The time had come, Dyck quietly told his friend over lunch, to enter full-time ministry.

Not a big leap

The step from lawyer to pastor is not as big a leap as one would expect. Fundamental to both professions is the ability to grapple with the meaning of a text, whether from the Criminal Code or the Bible, and then apply it to human circumstances.

Any student of the Scriptures will readily recognize that the image of defence lawyer, among others, runs through the life of Jesus: "If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (I John 2:1).

Dyck's philosophy of faith is "probably most eloquently stated in Matthew 25". The passage deals with final judgement. Dyck sums it up as: "I was sick and I was in prison, and either you came or you didn't come. I have had the privilege of being paid to work for the people that Jesus identified with, the people on the fringe, the people in prison, the people who are ill--I've done a fair bit of work for people who have a psychiatric difficulty of some sort or another--people who are hospitalized, people who are poor. To advocate for them is something required of a Christian."

But how does one decide that today I'm going to wrap up my law practice and become a minister?

A long path

It turns out that Dyck has been following a path to the ministry for 20 years. He grew up on the family farm near Beamsville, Ont. After high school, his parents encouraged him to attend a Bible school for a couple of years while he determined his future. He spent three years at Bethany Bible Institute in Saskatchewan.

He decided his future lay in agricultural engineering and applied to the University of Guelph. The Guelph program was full, so "after a whole 30 minutes of reflection probably" and with no idea what he wanted to study, he decided to attend Mennonite Brethren Bible College in Winnipeg.

Dyck returned to Ontario for a short visit before school started. Just before he was ready to leave for school, another letter arrived from Guelph. He had been accepted.

There is an old biblical adage that God generally sheds just enough light on the path ahead to take one sure step at a time. For Dyck, he had taken a step toward Winnipeg, so that was where he was going to go. "The order was not coincidence. . . . That summer was like this summer 20 years later. . . . It was a matter of following the next step and not being able to see any farther, but always when I had to know the answer, I knew the answer."

Dyck completed a Bachelor of Religious Studies at MBBC, along with some university arts credits. Winnipeg led to law school at Osgoode Hall in Toronto and his call to the Bar in April, 1983. The next day, he set up a solo practice in Hamilton.

The next step

There was already at the back of his mind a sense, also shared by Edith, his wife of two years, that one day the couple would enter into some kind of church work. "We figured we'd probably be here five years. And in five years we did have an opportunity to move into a church-related position, although it was administrative rather than pastoral or teaching. . . .We discussed it with a mentor and prayed about it and came to the conclusion that I should stay where I was. I remember thinking, 'I'm just starting to figure out what's going on.' " He worked for six more years.

Then, in February, 1994, "Edith and I began to feel increasingly unsettled in our current situation." They talked about it, prayed about it and sought counsel from others. "But with each wave of unsettlement would come a wave of clients with very significant needs."

This strange dichotomy--job satisfaction versus an undeniable pull to leave--finally came to a head in June, 1996. The couple met with the leadership of their church, Mountview MB Church in Stoney Creek, Ont. The leadership affirmed their gifts for ministry, but closing down the law practice, they said, could only be decided by the Dycks.

The prospect of a significant drop in income wasn't a big factor. The decision would be based on what the couple sensed God was asking them to do. It was their 15th wedding anniversary. The following day, Dyck called Herman Faber and asked him to lunch. "I'm going into the ministry," he told him. The plan was to close the practice over the summer of 1996 and then attend Ontario Theological Seminary full-time.

But that's not what God had in mind. Dyck got a phone call from St. Vital MB Church in Winnipeg. "Would you come and visit us?" the church asked.

The church had gotten his name in May from John Unger, moderator of the Manitoba MB Conference. The church was looking for a pastor and had asked for Dyck's resume. He had sent it along but had not expected much would come of it. That was okay. The experience of someone actually asking for his credentials had helped firm up the final decision to leave law.

St. Vital MB Church was a seven-year-old congregation with 28 baptized members currently meeting in a school. The Dycks had been planning a summer trip to Manitoba anyway, so they agreed to visit the church. The church liked the Dycks, and they liked the church. He was invited to apply for the position of pastor. He did. During the last week of July, St. Vital called again and officially asked if he would be the pastor. The Dycks took a couple of days to consider it and pray about it. They accepted.

The deal was that the Dycks would come to St. Vital by Jan. 1, 1997. That way, they and their four children aged 6-12 could properly say goodbye to their friends in Hamilton, and Dyck could at least take a semester at Ontario Theological Seminary.

Everybody was happy--except perhaps God. On the August long weekend, the Dycks signed a listing agreement on their home. It sold the day the sign went up on the front lawn. The closing date was Sept. 12.

The Dycks moved to Winnipeg in late August. Marvin studied for a semester at Providence Theological Seminary and began serving as pastor at St. Vital on Jan. 1, 1997.

Casey Korstanje is religion editor for the Hamilton Spectator. This article is reprinted, with permission, from the Aug. 24, 1996 issue of that newspaper.

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