Message from the (New!) Moderator: September 2016

Moderator’s Musings – September 2016

David Whitten, District Conference Moderator

There was this little owlet sitting with his mother on a limb on a tree at dusk. The little owlet struggled with self- identity. He asked his mother, “Mom, am I really an owl like you? I’m not something else am I? I’m an owl, right?” The mom answered, “Yes, son, that’s right, you’re an owl. Why do you ask?” The little owlet peered into the twilight and said, “Because it’s really getting dark out here!”

It helps to be reminded of who we are when change darkens our horizons. And change darkens the horizon of the Church of the Brethren. There’s been a lot of discussion concerning the numbers coming out of Elgin. It’s a situation we’re only too familiar with in the Northern Plains District. Where once bustling, prosperous churches dotted the prairie landscape there now sits empty relics. Members that once numbered in the hundreds now barely fill a pew. Congregations that enjoyed a balanced fiscal health no longer employ full-time pastors and are strapped with maintaining buildings too old, too large, and too out of date. Congregations are experiencing a tremendous sense of loss constantly comparing today’s struggling church with the way it used to be. I catch myself doing it too.

But I’m reminded of the stories from the Bible where God specifically used small to overcome large, the weak to defeat the strong, the foolish to confound the wise. The story of Gideon is a story of how God used a weak-kneed, self-confessing coward to accomplish great things! The story of Gideon reminds us that no matter our size, no matter how great the odds are against us . . . if God formed, called, and sent us . . . nothing will impede us!

In many ways the story of Gideon is the story of the Church of the Brethren.

We have never been a large denomination. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t done great things. Nor does it mean we can’t continue to do great things. The decline in membership and fiscal shortfalls may just be a part of God’s plan to remind us that the survival of the church is in God’s hands not ours. Our call is to be faithful; to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ in word and deed.

As the theme for the District in 2017, I use the words from God to Gideon in Judges 6:14. After Gideon complained that his family was the least among the families in the least of Israel’s tribes, God had Gideon look towards the approaching darkness, affirmed Gideon’s call and said Go in the strength you have . . . . Am I not sending you (Judges 6:14 NIV)?

And so, for you and me, members of the Northern Plains District of the Church of the Brethren, be affirmed of who you are. Do not struggle with self-identity. You are the church! God equips you and sends you strengthened by his Holy Spirit to your mission field where He has placed you. Go in the strength you have is God not sending you?