Becoming a Visible, Voluntary Contrast Society
Posted in: Living Water by Kristin Jackson on February 10, 2012 | 2 Comments
Many people have asked what it means to be an Anabaptist Christian. In coming to understand this way of life, I have been grateful for the wisdom and life example of Sally Schreiner Youngquist. Sally leads LWCC’s Fellowship of Rogers Park cell group, which is also a part of Reba Place Fellowship. She currently serves as community leader of RPF and was a founding pastor of LWCC from 1995-2009.
Here is her description of being Anabaptist.
Peace,
Pastor Kristin
I became an Anabaptist through belonging and behaving before adopting all the beliefs and historical legacy of Reba Place Fellowship. My brother, now a Presbyterian pastor, gave me the feedback, “The Anabaptists don’t have a systematic theology like Calvin’s Institutes.” I retorted, “Well, the difference lies in Mennonites putting their energy into practicing what they believe so they demonstrate something different to the world.”
RPF founder John W. Miller named Mars, Mammon and Me as the prevailing idols in our society. I can see how media, government and the economic engines of mass consumerism breed conformity, captivity and fear within our culture of individualism and so-called free choice. It takes a group effort to resist these powers. I have thrown in my lot with one such experiment for 40 years, learning practices of communal resistance.
Worship repeatedly calls us to declare our allegiance to Jesus before family, country, and way of life. Group discernment lends wisdom and accountability to major decision-making. Pooling our income and living on Voluntary Service-type allowances provide us with what we need while challenging our greed. Locating ourselves in urban areas where violence flares calls us to prayer and peace-building efforts with neighbors. Intentional proximity, table fellowship, evangelistic welcome and mutual aid are shared among people of diverse incomes and backgrounds in our surrounding congregations—Living Water Community Church and Reba Place Church. Through such communal practices we live into Jesus’ new way of life.
Our mistakes are legion and our learning process slow, especially as we wrestle with the entrenched power of racism within and around us. “Seeking first the Kingdom” requires faithfulness over the long haul, with many bouts of failure. Yet we are encouraged to see Jesus raising up a new crop of Anabaptist-leaning intentional communities these days as demonstration plots of the now/not yet Kingdom.
(Originally written for Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary Alumni Newsletter, Fall, 2011 in answer to the question, “What does it mean to be Anabaptist today—in 300 words or less?)
Don’t worry. It’s okay.
Posted in: Living Water by Kristin Jackson on February 3, 2012 | 4 Comments
Pastor Samrach preaching. photo credit: Tim Nafziger
“Don’t worry. It’s okay.”
These are the words that I most associate with my colleague, Pastor Samrach Nuth. I’ve lost count of the times he’s said this after I’ve brought up some issue that troubled me.
“We are the sons and daughters of the Living God,” he added yesterday, by way of explanation. Other times, he’s followed his usual “Don’t worry. It’s okay” with an assurance that God has called him to be a leader in this church, and whatever God wants him to do, he will do, humbly. Or he reminds me not to worry because when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it changes us. Not only on the outside, but on the inside, too.
When Samrach told me his story, I realized that his deep confidence that all will be well has been hard earned. Born in a rural Cambodian village, he moved to Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, in the 1970’s as a young adult. Like most Cambodians of his generation, he was drafted into military service, and so he worked by day as the receptionist for a general in the Cambodian army. By night, Samrach worked in his brother’s jewelry store, where he learned the trade of a jeweler.
When the communists took over Cambodia, Pastor Samrach was forced to move to a rural area and work on a farm. He was moved around from one farm to another for several years. When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia on January 7, 1979—a date Pastor Samrach rattled off, unprompted, with the quick recall of something seared unforgettably in his mind–he had to walk from where he’d been farming back to his home village, entirely on foot. It took him over a month.
Samrach stopped talking at this point in his story, shook his head, and looked down into his lap. So I don’t exactly know what happened to him next, or what he saw when he finally reached home.
But I do know this: twenty-eight members of Samrach’s family, including six brothers and sisters, were killed by the Khmer Rouge Army.
Samrach was not yet a Christian then. Like most Cambodians, he grew up Buddhist. But he has told me many times that after he became a Christian, he learned to forgive Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. “When I became a Christian, I didn’t hold that against them,” he says.
He’s told me he’s forgiven the Khmer Rouge so many times because I keep asking about it. Even as a follower of Jesus, it’s difficult to imagine how someone could have the grace to forgive such unspeakable crimes. But over many tellings, I’ve come to trust that when Pastor Samrach says, “Don’t worry, it’s okay,” he is drawing on decades of grace and forgiveness that run deep and true. Samrach’s story reassures me that God’s faithfulness is sufficient, whatever we may encounter.
Son te pheap (Peace be with you),
Pastor Kristin