After working with youth for 15 years in ministry and then in social services, you get used to hearing a lot of the same questions. The first questions I hear usually go like this. From parents: “Why won’t my child listen to me?” From youth: “Why won’t my parents listen to me?” Even from other youth workers: “How do I get parents and kids to listen to each other?”

In the culture in which we find ourselves it is popular to be critical, cynical, and to complain about the deficiencies we see in the world around us. All too often we as the church simply follow suit.

Why do we have a Conference of churches? Some say it’s because of missions; we work together to make disciples and plant churches. Some pastors, missionaries, and evangelists emphasize this. Yet, at best, it’s only partly right. We are a conference because of Jesus—a person, not a task.

Psalm 13 begins with these words, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” We do not know exactly what the Psalmist’s circumstances were when he penned these words, but we do hear the agony, the feelings of God having forgotten him, of God hiding His face from the writer.

An index of all Messenger content from 2017

In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Would Martin Luther have signed the statement?

A Poem

A look at the ministry of Judy and Dave Schmidt

While we can celebrate half a millennium of existence as Anabaptists, it is sobering to think that we are also commemorating what we would now call a church split.

I was baptised as an infant. Don’t be too shocked, please. I was rebaptized as an adult.

When we think of pacifism, it is unlikely that we apply it to our workplace. Most of us don’t engage in fisticuffs with our boss.

Sunday is not just a day. This story is about Sunday the man. Sunday grew up in refugee camps as a Sudanese orphan. Camp life was very difficult and as an orphan, and especially a Sudanese orphan, he had to figure out how to support himself in another country.