May 28, 2019
By Jane Mackintosh
Conference President
I am writing this the week of another school shooting and this one was right here in Colorado, just a few miles from Columbine which was twenty years ago. This school shooting was even more personal for me because it took place less than a mile from my daughter’s home. My three grandchildren in Highlands Ranch were not part of the school, but there were 1800 kids in that school who were. As life gets more frightening and dangerous for our children and grandchildren, our Conference theme becomes ever more relevant. Clearly, none of us are promised tomorrow, but who would have thought that school would become an unsafe place for children?
As I was speaking with my granddaughter about this, I remarked that one of the shooters in Highlands Ranch was victimized by bullying and that schools need to be places where bullying is absolutely not tolerated in any way, shape, or form. But immediately I had to backtrack to clarify that the adults in our country are the biggest bullies around. No wonder bullying has become so prominent in schools and children are lashing out with guns and suicides as the answer to getting even or making it stop. Even believers have bought into the idea that we can cyber-bully by making snide remarks about the intelligence, morals, and/or hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters who voted for (fill in the blank). We have probably all been easily swayed by seeing a Facebook post snippet of what so and so said and therefore concluded this person must be a heretic or liar or (fill in the blank). We have become a judgmental society and I am concerned that the Church has become part of the problem—rather than the beacon of grace we are called to be. It is so easy to fall into the trap of judging, and it is very difficult to know how to take a stand for righteousness in love and grace without getting unloving and ungraceful. We can know we will get accused of being a bigot, unchristian, mean-spirited, and worse, when we take a stand for righteousness, so we need to expect that, but people are not our judge and jury. That is God’s job. Fortunately, He says we are His precious kids and He loves us unconditionally even when we mess things up.
So how do we navigate these waters? Scripture does give us good guidelines: Is what I am saying loving, joy-filled, peaceful, patient, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and am I exhibiting self control? Of equal importance is the question: Am I sure this is what God is saying and doing, and is now the right time to say and do? We must not be so afraid of making mistakes that we are tempted to do nothing. That is why learning to hear God’s voice is critical to knowing what He is saying and doing, and the timing He has for doing so. At Conference this year, Marlene Campbell and Gaye Dailey will be leading a seminar on “Hearing God’s Voice,” so you can learn how He speaks and how to handle what you hear.
We, as part of the Church, need to Get Ready. We must be good examples of exhibiting the Fruits of the Spirit in our speaking and doing if we have a hope of helping this bullying-obsessed society we live in see a different way. We must not tolerate bullying among adults if we expect to see things change in our schools. We must pray for the eyes of our hearts to be opened first, then the eyes of the hearts of other adults to be opened, to see what is really going on. We cannot expect more of our kids than we practice as the adults. We must examine our hearts to make certain we are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
See you at Conference in Lancaster, PA, July 28-August 3.
PEOPLE GET READY!!!
