Canadian Missionality: Two Updates
My good friend Brother Maynard dropped me an email giving me some very exciting news. It seems that Harry Lehotsky, our good friend who died last last year from pancreatic cancer, has been to the first rank of the Order Of Canada. As our nations highest civilian award, this acknowledgment of Harry’s missional commitment to God and his community is an exciting one. I am sure he would have not liked all the fuss, but it is well deserved. Check out the last couple of months of my Tuesday posts for samples of Harry’s former column with the Winnipeg Sun.
An interesting article was also brought to my attention, which is getting some good play in the blogosphere, at least within Canadian circles. It is entitled “How Canadians Can Save The American Church” by Earl Creps. It is worth a read, as well as the comments that follow. As a friend mentioned in an online forum, it might have been more aptly titled “‘Why Canadians Need To Save The American Church”, but it has some interesting insights.
While I appreciate Earl’s perspective, the danger of this kind of post is to create caricatures of both nations that can be too one dimensional and simplistic to be fair. It isn’t that the US church is in desperate need of our Canadian wisdom- or rather, no more so than any national or cultural expression of the church needs the diverse and objective insights of others. Given the power and influence of the US- politically, economically, spiritually, missionally, etc…- perhaps they are in great need of support, but not because they are somehow more deficient. As Canadians, there are areas to which the US church has great wisdom for us.
As a dual citizen, the interaction between Canada & the US is interesting to me. I have posted on this topic several times myself. That being said, I would be interested in hearing my American (and other non-Canadian readers) perspective. I also want to hear from Canadian, so all are welcome to weigh in.
