| Dear friends,
Lat week we spoke about the challenges of our geography and I reminded you in a previous letter of an older and very experienced hand at Regional Assemblies, Annual Gatherings, and the old Federation Triennial, who intimated to me that we communicate far more than we ever did but we never see each other. If you are not actively involved in Leadership Forums or Celebration Dinners, Ministerials or Affinity Groups that would very much be true. However, there are other means of being together. They only begin with some of the newsletters and communiqués that I am about to list. You can read news from Alberta, BC-Yukon, and the Heartland in their Regional Newsletters. Our camps have their own newsletters you can sign up to receive on their websites. My personal newsletter News & Notes goes out weekly. CBWC news comes in monthly Making Connections and the Church Health & Planting newsletter. You can subscribe to any of these 3 newsletters at cbwc.ca/subscribe. Resources and other stories can be found in the newly updated Resource Guide and in Partnerships & Possibilities. With the greater use of Skype we are moving more from print to faces, from the word to relationship. I trust that this is the beginning of the broadening (given our geography) and the deepening of our willingness to engage each other in our lives together. Before I close I want to introduce an excerpt from a speech from the Afro-American evangelist, slave, and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth (read the speech here). It has some offensive language in it but it is an Afro-American woman using slang to describe her own story. Without mentioning the elections to the south of us (no names please). Her speech can refer not only to the giftedness of woman, but the repugnance of slavery, and treating women with dignity. When I read the piece about “none but Jesus heard me” I simply wept. I present it to you for reflection… A voice from a tormented past… One that is appropriate for today (with maybe the exception of her unusual view of Eve and the creation story). Please pray for our neighbours to the south and for our own tendency at times to experience and express a very unwarranted superior attitude towards them. Given our own failings we are sobered by the world around us and the challenges in our midst. Warmly, In Christ, Jeremy Bell Notes from the Family: Next week we will be launching a new way to connect through our mobile devices. Keep an eye on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/TheCBWC/. Quote of the Week: Whatever you may feel about the compulsory nature of the lifestyle covenant of Trinity Western University (no issue about covenants here), the Supreme Court of British Columbia in the unanimous judgement signed by Chief Justice Robert Bauman and 4 other Justices rebuked the intolerance of those who in the name of tolerance judge others: “This case demonstrates that a well intentioned majority acting in the name of tolerance and liberalism can, if unchecked, impose its views on the minority in a manner that is in itself intolerant and illiberal.” More about the historic tenant of Baptist pluralism next week.
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