By Colin Saxton, NWYM I have a fantasy that as I near retirement some church will hire me as a part-time associate pastor—not as the visitation or Christian ed pastor. No, I want to be pastor of reader board ministries. Maybe I am just critical, but it can’t be that hard to come up with a simple phrase or quote or thought that does not immediately induce eye rolling, groaning, or worse.

The best reader board slogan I ever saw was: He is Risen!

One of the encouraging signs of growth I have witnessed in the church over the past several decades has been a shift in the way many local churches and even denominations relate to one another. Rather than being so focused on competition there is a much greater spirit of cooperation, as we work together in Kingdom ministry. United in Christ and in our common commitment to the core gospel, the different tribes within Christianity are also finding something good and powerful about having their own unique expression of faith. Read the rest of Colin’s reflections.

by Colin Saxton The work we do together as Friends in NWYM is centered on a few important themes. When asked to summarize them I usually say this: We seek to know and obey Jesus, love and support each other, and carry out God’s mission in the world. These are, in large part, how God is at work in the world in and through us on both a local and on a yearly meeting level. Figuring out how to live it each day is the challenge. Read more out of Colin’s mind.

Colin Saxton: peace is much, much more than the absence of conflict. Rather, as it is imagined in its fullness, it is an unhindered, contented life lived before God and in the beloved community belonging to God. It is learning to live in the righteousness and justice of God in every sphere of one’s life, depending as we must on God’s overwhelming mercy for us to even make a start in this direction. In the Christian context, it is learning to walk in the fullness of our faith, becoming people of truth and a community of light, even as we live in an oftentimes faithless and dark world.

I am struck again and again by the “spacious place” verse found in 2 Samuel. Though directed in particular to David, I think the invitation is open to all of us: God bringing us into a spacious place, in part, because God delights in us. Read the rest of this article.

As I learn to go deeper into Christ, joy is what I experience. Not giddy happiness. Not an absence from pain or elimination of real-world suffering. In fact, in terms of a sensitivity to others’ suffering, it seems that the deeper one goes into the Christ life, the more one is aware of how much hurt and how much brokenness is in the world. Joy is an altogether different animal, isn’t it? It may cause you to do all kinds of outlandish things. Consider the parable Jesus told in Matthew 13. In this story, a man out wandering in a field stumbles upon a treasure. Read the rest of the editorial.

“We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all. And we are unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful we shall be shallow….because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power….I [...]

. . . Colin Saxton is Superintendent of Northwest Yearly Meeting. . . “Are you at peace with one another?” It is not uncommon for elders in some Mennonite fellowships to put this soul-rattling question before the congregation in the weeks leading up to the celebration of a communion service. Behind this query is the [...]

. . . Colin Saxton, superintendent of Northwest Yearly Meeting, shares his thoughts about pastors and elders and leading Friends. . . . . . Out of my mind… Last month, 25 of us gathered on the Portland campus of George Fox University for a weekend course on “Pastors and Elders Working Together.” This was [...]