District Diaries June 2024 Edition
by Marvin Penner

              Luke 14:13 - Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

Jesus said to Peter and Andrew, “Follow me…” and they took him up on the invitation. It feels good to be invited. I still remember the first birthday party I was invited to. I was in grade one and I was incredibly nervous to enter the house of strangers. I knew my friend from school, but not his parents or brothers and sisters. I overcame those fears because I was invited. There was real money in the cake. I would not have agreed to go if I was told to. The invitation was important in giving me the courage to do something new and scary. Invitations are tricky. You can’t predict who will respond or how long they will stay. They require you to be the kind of person that others will want to be around and follow.
No one will follow the inhospitable. The first picture we have of Jesus’ ministry is an invitation to follow Him. One of the last pictures we have is of Him standing at the door and knocking (Rev.3:20). Two expressions of the same way of being. An invitation to go with Him and the opportunity to invite Him. This is the way of faith. The absence of faith says we can’t trust God to add the right people to His church or give those people the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to make good choices, even though that is exactly what is promised. Without faith there will be no invitation, no hospitality, no following.

The only option then, is to lord it over others. I’d like to suggest that we open the door to the way of Jesus, invite any who will respond into the hospitality of our community of Jesus followers, and seek to live with the kind of integrity that will inspire many to come in.

   Hebrews 13:2 - Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done                                           this have entertained angels without realizing it!

District Diaries April 2024 Edition
​​by Marvin Penner
 
I think I was 14 years old when I first encountered the Biblical story of David going crazy (1 Sam 21:10 -15). Sunday School had already familiarized me with the accounts of David’s ability to dodge spears while playing the harp, as well as his gracious sparing of King Saul’s life. I found these stories interesting, so I began reading 1st & 2nd Samuel for myself. I was fascinated by the idea of David feigning insanity to save his own life. I was thinking about this the other day while attending a National EFCC board meeting. I was thinking about how David had the ability to be a very different person as the context demanded.
              I found myself feeling and thinking about some important issues in very different ways. I’m not talking about changing my mind. It’s just that things can look very different depending on which room I am in. Let me explain.
              When I was in the pastor’s study I would often receive mail from the EFCC mission (Serve Canada now). When I saw that it is yet another appeal to support one project or another, I would carefully consider whether the project would fit well with our church. Often, I would just drop this mail in the garbage. We could barely meet our own church budget, let along finance missions efforts in our community.  I am sure each of these people and projects were well worth funding, but it was discouraging to our congregants to get asked over and over.
              Another room I’ve often sat in is the district board meeting room. From time to time the same mission opportunities have been discussed by the APD board. In this room the whole issue feels quite different. The district board is not asked to budget support for individual EFCC missionaries or projects, but they are aware that our churches often decide between supporting the national projects or the district initiatives. It can feel like a competition for the generosity of the district churches.
              As a board member in the EFCC national board room I recently found myself voting to approve some inspiring new missionary projects. I knew that approving these projects would require fund raising among our churches, but I could see clearly that God was at work and leading us in the EFCC to get behind these people. Somehow my priorities seem very different when I have access to different information, relationships, and responsibilities.
              I found myself paraphrasing 1 Cor 9:22-23, “When I was a local church pastor, I put the wellbeing of my local church first so that we could bring our neighbors to Christ”. I led my church to support the district and home office, as much as was possible, without weakening ourselves. When I was on the district board, I tried to balance the needs of the district with the vision of the EFCC home office. I understood that both have a role to play in supporting our churches and international missionaries. And when I sit on the national board, I do my best to support and provide kind accountability to the home office staff and Serve Beyond personnel. I know I have not always balanced these priorities correctly, but I only pray that in every context God will be glorified and Jesus Christ will be known in our EFCC churches, districts, and around the world.
              I guess what I am trying to say is, be cautious before judging the motives of those who sit in rooms you have not sat in. Even if you never gain the point of view of some of the other rooms within the EFCC, pray that Jesus Christ will be made known by all.

District Diaries February 2024 Edition
​by Marvin Penner

     As many of you know the Evangelical Free Church of Canada has a partnership with Prairie College in Three Hills Alberta to provide assistance to students from EFCC churches who enroll in the pastoral and missions' programs. In January Trevor Braudy, the Prairie District Superintendent, and I spent some time at the college to meet with and encourage the students who are participants in this program. We team taught a class of pastoral students and treated the students in the EFCC sponsorship program to a home cooked meal.  These students are training to become leaders in the future. Pray for these students. Pray that God will guide them and prepare them for a life of ministry.
     The prophet Jeremiah was lamenting the lack of good shepherds in his time when God promised that a time would come when, "I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding." (Jeremiah 3:15) I wonder if you have been praying that God would show you which young people in your church God has gifted to become good shepherds? I wonder if you have come alongside those young people and encouraged them to pursue the call of God on their future?

District Diaries October 2023 Edition
​​by Marvin Penner
 
              On September 20 I attended the 1 million march for Children. I don’t often go for this kind of thing, but my son and I were curious to see what was happening. I found that marching with such a large crowd was inspiring. I have only ever participated in one other public political demonstration because I think there are better ways to engage with culture and it always worries me that I might confuse a commitment to a current ideology with my commitment to Jesus.
A few days later I read a blog post where Carey Nieuwhof wrote, “More than a few churches have grown by becoming anti-woke rather than pro-grace.” This statement has been spawning a lot of thought and reflection. Are we known by what we are against or by what we are for? Do we even know what we are for or has everything become so politicized that we only know how to be on the defensive?
I’d like to offer a simple suggestion to help answer these kinds of questions on a day-to-day basis. You might have noticed that I sometimes close my emails with the phrase, Grace be with you. I have taken up this habit from the greeting that the Apostle Paul often began his letters with: “Grace and peace be upon you”.  “Be upon you” is not something that you or I generate. It’s like when the sun shines on us. We enjoy the warm presence of the sun but have no control over it. It comes from outside of ourselves. However, we can choose to stand in the sun or in the shade. If I apply this to normal living, I can gauge my actions and words by whether they cause me to stand in the presence of God’s grace and peace. Does my participation in the 1 million march for children fill me with anger and the temptation to see some people as outside of the reach of God’s grace or am I filled with love and a de-escalation of my disdain for those with ideas I disagree with? Do I stand in the light and love of the Son or am I drawn to the shade of fear and discord?
As Paul writes in 1 Cor. 13: 11-14, “Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet each other with a sacred kiss. All of God’s people here send you their greetings. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

​District Diaries February 2023 Edition
By Marvin Penner
 
1Corinthians 9:19-23
Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
After reading these verses recently I have not been able to get these words out of my mind, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” It's easy to think, what a beautiful passage of Scripture. No problem! I’ve got it, “become all things”. It’s easy to think this way when the categories are taken from the ancient world. But what if this was written to us, today in Alberta in 2023 and the categories were the things that divide people in our world? It might read something like this,
Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself to be below everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Liberals I became like a Liberal, to win the Liberals. To the Conservatives I became like a Conservative, to win some. To those who were eager to get the mRNA shots I became like one who trusts the mainstream narrative so as to win some, and to those who refused the mandates I became like one who listens to alternatives, so as to share the good news. To the drug addicted I became like the homeless so that by all possible means I might save some. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessing.
Now that sounds difficult enough to suspect I’ve stretched the paraphrasing beyond all reasonable limits. So, I ask you, if 1 Cor. listed the most divisive possible categories for the 1st century church, what would you sub into the passage to represent the most divisive categories in Alberta today? After wrestling with my own conscience, I have come to this – rather than asking; how can I win the argument? I should be asking; how can I present the gospel in such a way that the people I am with will be able to hear it, no matter who they are?