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It's Harvest Time! - Rev. Dr. Arnetta McNeese Bailey

1/31/2019

“The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields” (Matthew 9:37 NLT).

I remember as a child sitting in my backyard, bored because there appeared nothing to do. After sharing my frustration with my mom, I was suddenly given a list of things that I could do. Working in ministry can sometimes seem so routine that it appears that there is nothing meaningful to do, but there is. If we share our thoughts and frustrations with the Lord, the one who is in charge of the fields, he will show us what to do. A new assignment might emerge, or a revitalization of one that was.

For over eighty-five years we have been blessed to partner with the church in women’s ministry. This ministry was birthed out of the need to help our missionaries and educate women and children in the call to mission. This call has not waned nor lost its purpose. How we articulate and promote our methods has changed and evolved, but our message remains the same. There is a harvest of souls waiting for you and me to help show them the way.

Yes, we need workers. We need volunteers, we need women who care. As a leader I know that often it is difficult to find people to serve. When that has happened to me, I have learned to ask this question first, “Is what I am asking folk to do, inspiring, transformative, or meaningful.” If we design our ministries to make a difference in another person’s life, God will send the workers.

I encourage you to be as creative and culturally aware of your surroundings as possible. There are needs all around you, in and outside the local congregations! This great harvest surrounds us, our cities are ripe, the needs are massive, the homeless are among us, the marginalized are in our midst, and lost souls are abundant. It’s harvest time.

Let us pray to the Lord of the harvest how best to meet those needs, and he will send the workers.

We in the national office have provided tools to assist your endeavor. I encourage you to use the resources available: Connector Ministries (web-based ministry guides), re:Connect, CBO materials, Friday Connection, and this magazine to name a few.

It’s harvest time dear friends! We need workers, persons just like you and me who remember when they met Jesus!

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Justification without Justice: On Dreaming New Dreams - by Kimberly Majeski

1/16/2019

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a magnanimous dream. His dream was noble, virtuous, and it continues to challenge us decades later; never stop believing in the dream. There were great sacrifices to keep his dream alive. His dream was evolutionary and powerful enough to impact the next generations to come and rested in the brave laps of those who received the call to continue to dream. There is a call to dream! The call to dream has been heard by women such as Rev. Lena Shoffner as she preached unity among blacks and whites in the Church of God. Nora Hunter, who had a daunting dream, to empower women to help spread the gospel through missions. The call to dream cries out from the pulpit of Rev. Dr. Arnetta McNeese Bailey as she implores women coast to coast to dream with her! Christian Women Connection continues to imagine; to dream.

From Segregation to Celebration of Women with a Dream

In light of the injustice that plagues our world, Dr. Kimberly Majeski encourages us to seek justice, love, and freedom. She asks us to dream new dreams. New dreams of gender equality with women pastors and even newer dreams of black women pastors. We have experienced the dream of Dr. King and so many others who followed unmistakably through Christian Women Connection. Through the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Dr. Majeski’s article below, you will understand the beautiful well of dreams manifested.

"...and we will dream new dreams and we will see new visions of hope and peace and justice"

Kimberly Majeski serves as the assistant professor of biblical studies at Anderson University School of Theology and as a co-host for the ViewPoint radio ministry of Christians Broadcasting Hope.

I grew up in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, more specifically in the fiery reformation movement known as the Church of God—Anderson, Indiana. Raised in a church that had been pastored in the early 1930s by a woman, I grew up steeped in the stories of our pioneers and their work for gender and racial equality. Before I was old enough for the youth group, I knew about Evangelist Lena Shoffner, who had preached a revival in the racist South just on the heels of the civil war. In the tent where she spoke, there was a rope hung down the middle dividing space where black and white folks could sit. As she preached the kerygma of gospel holiness and unity, she called for the rope to be torn down and the divisions to be forgotten since we are all one in Christ Jesus. Later, those who opposed Shoffner’s message of unity blew up the site where the church had been gathering.

I am not sure what it was, but as a very young child, I felt connected, felt at home in the company of a people who were committed to human rights and dignity, who believed in Paul’s words that Christ had made us one, who acknowledged there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free (Gal 3:26–28). This sense of unity, holiness, and justice seemed to resonate deep in my bones and, in some ways, defined me and my place in the world.

It wasn’t until later that I’d learn about the great Holiness revivals of the late nineteenth century, that I’d learn about sisters and brothers who were born of the same water and fire. All of us are descended from John Wesley’s Methodism. The Free Methodists had broken off because they believed the poor should not be excluded from worship if they couldn’t pay dues; the Wesleyans had separated during the fight for the abolition of slavery; and my own tradition distinguished itself over the insistence of inclusion, believing that all are welcome at the table of the Lord.

As I have matured, have studied, have grown, I have wondered about those early days, about the passions and call that drove us forward that seem to have been all but lost across the last century. I wonder where the fire that burned during the American civil rights movement of the 1960s has gone; where we lost our way in the fight for gender equality; how it is that we have been silent on issues of justice, have forgotten the poor and the alien in our midst. Instead, there has been much talk of justification, taking Augustine’s perspective on justification as conversion. We have busied ourselves winning souls for their safe keeping in the afterlife with no attention to living in such a way that we might make this world a better, more just existence.

This is a misunderstanding of the Pauline notion of justification, at best, and a complete and total missional estrangement, at worst. For Paul, justification cannot exist without justice, and the justice of God is worked out on this earth through the people of God who live and love as Jesus (1 Cor 15). As God’s creatures, we are saved to do the work of God in the world, to partner with God in setting all things right. (https://chognews.org/2014/03/24/justification-without-justice-on-dreaming-new-dreams/)

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It's Harvest Time! - Rev. Dr. Arnetta McNeese Bailey

Justification without Justice: On Dreaming New Dreams - by Kimberly Majeski

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