Examining the nature of faith

Pastor Arnie Wyllie

This past week, our church hosted a Vacation Bible School program for the kids of High Prairie. Although an after school program for the community is not uncommon for a Christian church to host, what made this program unique was that a youth group in Edmonton came up to run it. Bethel billeted these 25 teenagers, fed them, and came up with evening activities. Their days were filled with services projects in our community and the VBS after school program. The week was a huge success, with a lasting, positive impact left on not only our church, but on High Prairie. This was not the first time we had participated in an activity with this church, Central Baptist, in Edmonton. Last year, they came up for a similar VBS program and also, during the summer, some of our youth joined them on a Mexico Mission trip. When I first met the pastor of Central, Terry Fossen, he came up with a phrase that described our church’s relationship with theirs. He called us “hugging friends”. It seems there is a point in friendship when it is appropriate to give a light, welcoming embrace signifying the depth and joy you have for the other person. He felt, as do I, that our churches are in that kind of relationship. Relationship. When you’re in a relationship with someone, you act differently than you would to a complete stranger or just a mere acquaintance. You follow social rules and etiquette around people who are just acquaintances. You behave friendly with and cordial, but only good friends hug. Christianity, when applied right, is a friendship; a friendship with God. It has often times been reduced to a set of a rules, a set of ordered rules used to control people and use against anyone who breaks these rules. Yet, when we read the Bible in John 15:15, we see Jesus offering a different perspective: “I call you no longer servants...but as friends, since I have told you everything my Father has told me,” Jesus says. In other words, Jesus has extended a “hugging friendship” to all of us. When we’re in friendship with someone, we look beyond ourselves, we seek a good that is beyond just our own. Friendships, when two people are focussed on each other and not on themselves, are the healthiest. During Central’s stay with us, a 13-year old young man offered a mental image of how he saw his week with us. He described to our church a highly elaborate picture of people with buckets on top of a ledge, pouring luminescent water down on other people with buckets. This water, full of light, would then circulate back up to the original people and the cycle would start all over again. They poured; they received. The water, in this young man’s metaphor, was Christ’s presence and the pouring was our friendship. The fact that it all came back demonstrated the important reality that giving, ultimately, is receiving when it comes to “hugging friendships”. All of this begs the question: how is your relationship with God? With others? Have you ever chosen to enter into the “hugging friendship” with Christ?