Born Again All Over Again

I'm still very much a work in progress. 

As an adolescent I was plagued with fears of dying before being ready to face God's final judgment. I had heard countless sermons warning me against putting off being saved, and read many stories of people experiencing dramatic conversions, so I prayed many a sincere prayer asking God for my own miracle conversion. I was waiting for something dramatic to happen.

It finally dawned on me, in the privacy of my own bedroom and at age 14, that I simply needed to receive and embrace God's offer of grace and forgiveness. It was a very simple and conscious step, but from that moment (recorded in my diary as being on February 15, 1954) I experienced a sense of peace about God's love for me that has never left, and I was baptized in the fall of that year.

About five years later I was asked to speak at an annual youth gathering of Beachy Amish congregations all over the eastern part of the US on the topic of our church's Anabaptist origins. In preparation I read the text of Mennonite historian Harold S. Bender's ground breaking speech to the American Society of Church History on "The Anabaptist Vision."

I was blown away. Learning more about these brave men and women, spiritual ancestors of present day members of Mennonite-related groups, revolutionized my life. Bender made three points that made a big impression on me.

1) Being a Christian is not just about getting saved and getting a free pass to heaven, but about daily following Jesus's teachings. In other words, it's about a life of faithful and grace-based discipleship.

2) Followers of Jesus are to be a part of voluntary communities of believers who together continue the work and mission of Jesus in the world. To me this meant being a part of a worldwide mission of announcing good news to the poor, the recovery of sight to the blind, the release of prisoners and of the oppressed, and of proclaiming God's Jubilee of salvation, shalom and justice for all. We're recruited to do this together.

3) Followers of Jesus are to lay down their arms, refuse to have anything to do with violence and coercion, and take up Jesus's cross of suffering wrong rather than inflicting it on others, whether in our personal lives or as a part of a state-sponsored military.

Then about five years later, as a college student in my 20's, I read Virgil Vogt's "The Christian Calling," a piece that further reinforced this sense of mission. Vogt stresses that God's calling and our "vocation" as believers are the same for all of us, and that it is not just for a group of ordained ministers, missionaries or "clergy." That is, we are all to be equally engaged in God's mission, to restore what is broken in the world, and to work at reconciling all people to God and to one another. Our individual gifts and the particular work we do to earn a living are simply the context in which we carry out that primary vocation. But the basic vocation is always the same. God's called out and sent people together herald and live out God's salvation vision for healing, reconciliation and peace for all.

Throughout the past 80 years I've felt blessed experiencing one new kind of fresh  inspiration and transformation after another, each building on the one before it. 

And I look forward to the next transformative steps in the journey.