Just to let y’all know that Bob’s Blog will be winding down soon–destined for cyberdestruction come April 1. The primary reason for that isn’t, you, it’s me. I confess to being a horrible blogger who does not deserve my own blogsite. Balancing two parttime jobs (Banner editor and a pastor in West End Christian Reformed Church in Edmonton, Alberta) just doesn’t make it practical for me to interact sufficiently with you and to appropriately moderate the many good discussions to which you have so faithfully contributed.

The closure of my blog is actually taking one step back so we can take ten steps ahead. Starting mid-summer we hope to greatly increase interactivity on www.thebanner.org to allow for a much higher level of communication and dialogue not just with moi but also with our authors, news hounds, media reviewers and whatnot. So stay tuned! The guiding image of the every (Christian Reformed) household Banner has been the (retro) image of a family kitchen table, where families, friends, guests, and coworkers can meet regularly to enjoy fellowship, swap information and chew the fat. Now we want to add another leaf to that table, an electronic one, that allows us to extend our conversation and dialogue to www.thebanner.org. So keep an eye out for those enhancements this summer!

I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all who have participated. Personally I have benefitted a LOT from this. You’ve given me much, much more than I could possibly give back. So thanks again!

I thought I’d let you know sooner rather than later, so that y’all can find other venues to carry on. The cool thing about cyberspace is that you can always find other good places to meet.

So here’s the “Last Call” on our various discussion threads. You can use the comments under this post to refer those who wish to keep interacting to another location.

Blessings to each and every one of you!

Just got off the phone with The Banner’s news editor. She’s been very busy gathering info on Haiti and the Christian Reformed Church’s contribution to the relief & rebuilding efforts there. That’s for our March issue.

She talked my ears off. She’s just blown away by what our small denomination and its agencies are able to do there and why we’re so well-positioned to do it. I’m not going to steal her thunder on that. I’m just going to climb off my monthly editorial high horse and let her have her say in a guest editorial. Watch for it in the March issue of The Banner.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear any scuttlebutt you have on what the CRC is doing in Haiti and how it’s going. We’re all ears.

So far I’m having a good year. I resolved not to make any New Year’s resolutions this year and so I haven’t already defaulted on any promises to myself. The writer of Ecclesiastes calls making promises you can’t keep “offering the sacrifice of fools” (5:1). “Better,” he continues, “that you do not vow than that you vow and do not fulfill it” (v.5).

This year I resolve to make less promises. Oops . . . I just did it again!

Reflecting on the responses to my last post re “Blue Christmas” services, I think it might help our discussion to make a distinction between joy and happiness. I believe the two concepts are related, but not the same.

I’ve been told that Disney’s mission statement is: “We exist to make people happy.” I think that’s an excellent mission statement: clear, concise, and communicable to all employees so that all who work for Disney can allign their efforts with that overarching raison d’etre. But happiness in this present age is ephemeral and short-lived. It comes and goes. Many of us have experienced happy Christmas seasons. All of us have had or will have, blue ones (unless God calls us home early).

Joy, however, is something much more lasting. For the believer, joy is based on faith and hope–on God’s sure promises of lasting happiness to come. Even when we feel sad, depressed, anxious, or bereft, we can still rejoice. We can remember, celebrate, and find consolation in what God has done, is doing, and will surely do in the future. The mission statement of God’s church might be summarized as: we exist to bring people joy.

Happiness and joy: the tune is the same, the key may differ. Happiness is always in a major key. Joy is often best experienced in the minor.

Many churches recognize how painful the Christmas/New Year season can be for those who have recently lost loved ones, have experienced relationship breakups, or who have experienced serious trauma or illness. So those churches offer a “Blue Christmas” service in which the overtone is not mirth and merriment, but lament, supplication, and consolation.

I’d love to know how those services are being conducted and received in your congregation. Any tips you could give would be very welcome. I’m sure mine is not the only church contemplating including a Blue Christmas service next year.

I got into an interesting discussion with my colleagues about the diminishing ability for even mature Christians to put words to their faith. A faith vocabulary that has taken a few thousand years to develop is steadily eroding. And that’s a scary thought. Ask folks to define terms like trinity, salvation, sanctification, and atonement, or even use them in a sentence, and you’re likely to get blank stares. Some of us “old dogs” still remember better days in that regard.

I’m not arguing that we always need to toss that language around. If we did, we would confuse and intimidate newcomers. But if we can’t articulate the essentials of our faith for ourselves, how do we ever hope to translate them into language and concepts that others do understand?

We’re thinking of adding a box to every weekly bulletin in which we feature one faith word and provide a simple, straightforward definition. Then annually we’ll throw some kind of gig where we feature a quiz with the winner getting a grand prize–like an all-expense paid trip building latrines for Hondurans or a complementary trip to Iona.

I’d love to hear your wisdom on how to watch, and improve, our faith language.

In response to my last post (”In the World but not of the World”), Eric Verhulst writes: “Given that God’s Kingdom covers the universe (Jesus IS Lord - this does not require our permission), it cannot grow.”

Jesus’ parables of the mustard seed and of the leaven in dough seem to indicate otherwise–that God’s Kingdom doesn’t just come with a bang but it grows slowly and imperceptibly. How do we square that notion with an ascended Lord who already sits at God’s right hand?

An old Kuyperian distinction might be helpful in thinking about that. It distinguishes realm from reign. The realm of God’s kingdom already stretches from pole to pole and across the vastness of the universe/multiverse. But God’s active reign over this realm has been largely usurped (on earth, at least) by our willingness to knuckle under to the devil. Jesus came to reassert God’s active reign in the world. Wherever believers live their lives under his glorious and gentle rule, there the kingdom of God reasserts itself. So, in that sense, the kingdom of God can and does grow.

One day our Lord shall actively reign everywhere. It shall be when “every knee shall bow to him, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord . . .” (Phillipians 2:10-11).

Though Eric doesn’t make this distinction, I do believe he ends up in the right place. “The issue is one of willing submission - how do we persuade more people to willingly submit to their Lord and King?” He believes the best way is to live that way ourselves.

So in this “time between the times” when Christ’s active reign is here but not yet fully here, how do we live in such a way that we extend (the recognition of) Christ’s kingdom on earth? Traditionally CRC folks have looked to Christian day schools and universities, organizations based on Christian principles, and to the church to do that. In our North American context that effort seems to be largely restricted to the church alone and to personal evangelism.

How should we proceed in the twenty-first century?

I’ve been very interested in following the discussion in response to my last post (”Making Space for God”) in which I asked if the busyness in our lives isn’t often crowding out our walk with God.

If I understand correctly, the heart of the discussion has been centering around the issue of how and where we’re investing much of our time: within the Christian community or also outside of it? Should we lean to the more classically Anabaptist position and as much as possible give up interaction with “the world” in order to focus our energies on building up the Body? Or should we lean more in the classically Reformed direction and engage “the world” wherever we can in order to witness to it and transform it?

Maybe we need to take another look at what God’s Kingdom is, how it grows, and how we can be most strategic in being in service of it. That’s definitely worth discussing, I believe. How are we to be different from the world and yet in service to the world in Jesus’s name? To me, that question is HUGE.

Rumaging back a bit through this blog, I reread with great appreciation John Zylstra’s response to the question: “So what does it mean that Christian education begins in the home?” (”More on the CRC Stand on Christian Schools,” post 13). He gives a list of things that everyone can, and should do. One could quibble with items appearing/not appearing on his list but it’s a great start.

I know that our households today are busy, very busy. But busy doing what? What, and for whom?

“The world” can take its share of the blame for keeping us from spending time with our God. But–and I’m ashamed to say it–often it’s churches, Christian schools, and Christian organizations that add way too much to that frantic pace as well. Maybe we somehow need to reflect on the principle involved in Old Testament form in Deuteronomy 24:5, “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be charged with any related duty. He shall be free at home one year, to be happy with the wife whom he has married.”

What could be more important than to go out fighting the Lord’s battles? But if God could sometimes get along without the Israelites of old he can also sometimes get along without us.

Maybe churches and schools, among others, have the right to ask for our time and involvement. But for our and/or our family’s sake, God may well give us the right and responsibility now and again to say “No.”

Just a followup on “however, the one topic that has been grossly overlooked is the issue of financing Christian school.” This is a real and legitimate issue isn’t it?

In Edmonton, Alberta, the public school board allows a variety of schools with their own faith commitment to operate under their umbrella. As a result Christian day schooling is very affordable and doesn’t place an untoward burden on families. Throughout western Canada governments supply funding to Christian schools to keep costs in check. In most of North America, however, governments keep their wallets closed. This causes a great deal of hardship on those who pay twice: for public and private education.

In a time of recession how can we still afford Christian day schools? Is there a way we can at one and the same time allow families to decide where best to send their kids and still sufficiently support Christian day schooling so that parents who make that choice don’t suffer a financial meltdown?

In the past CRC congregations went a long way to helping pick up the tab. But that’s eroding. Can it be shored up once again? Or is there another/better way?