Three keynote speakers highlighted the national convention theme of “Salt and light: Faithful living in a secular culture.”
Kluth shares seven tips for generosity
Brian Kluth, national spokesperson for the Financial Health and Bless Your Pastor programs of the National Association of Evangelicals, spoke Thursday evening about Generosity FAITH, an acronym standing for Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him.
“We don’t have all the answers, but we follow the Savior,” Kluth said. “When it comes to generosity, that is an incredible expression of faith.”
Sponsored by MB Foundation, Kluth drew from personal experience to provide seven ways to help families and churches shine bright in a dark world. One of the ways Kluth has helped to literally brighten the world for the past 12 years is providing solar lamp gifts to African families in need. His seven tips to families and churches were:
- Educate your family with God’s Word about generosity
- Establish and fund a family giving account and give-save-spend plan for kids and teens
- Encourage special giving on holidays and at celebrations
- Engage family members in generosity experiences locally and globally
- Expand your family giving through assets, business, possessions, investments, legacy and estate giving
- Embrace giving opportunities at your church, community and to the ends of the earth
- Experience God’s love and blessings from your generosity
Kluth encouraged the audience to make a weekly list of God’s provisions and set aside this money for God. Money has three purposes: giving, saving and spending, Kluth said, adding that giving is the priority.
Kluth shared how he encouraged his family to give at Christmastime, when each of his children received an envelope of money for Jesus. Each Christmas, his family takes gift bags for the homeless in Denver.
“When you help the poor, you are not giving, you are lending to God,” Kluth said.
Three things happen in the ministry of giving, he said: needs are met, it results in praise to God and those who were helped pray for those who gave.
“I believe that God wants to bless us to make us a blessing,” Kluth said. “It’s not about giving to get. It’s about giving to be a blessing.”
Crain champions faithful living
Podcaster and author Natasha Crain from Southern California spoke twice, drawing from her book Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture.
In her first session Friday morning, Crain looked at the status of Christianity in America and beliefs of those holding secular worldviews.
The body of Christ, she said, is being impacted by culture, pointing to research conducted by Barna Group, a Christian research organization, reporting that while 65 percent of Americans identify as Christian, only 6 percent or less hold a biblical worldview with basic beliefs in the existence of absolute truth, heaven and hell, for example.
“We have a whole lot of Christians identifying as Christ followers but not actually believing the truth of what the Bible says,” Crain said. “The word ‘Christian’ has been watered down.”
Crain looked at the nature of prominent worldviews, saying that 88 percent of Americans embrace an “impure, unrecognizable worldview that blends ideas from multiple perspectives,” according to Barna.
Crain encouraged attendees to think of worldviews like boxes of puzzles, each proposing a view of reality. If a person were to pull pieces from many worldview boxes, the pieces would not fit together.
The surrounding culture is compelling, even for Christians, Crain said, listing four tenets of secularism—feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, judging is the ultimate sin and God is the ultimate guess— to better recognize and separate from it.
“The tie that functionally binds the worldviews of millions of people is the authority of the self rather than the authority of God,” Crain said. “It’s hard to remain firm and clear in this culture.”
Continuing in her second session Friday evening, Crain said Christians need clarity, conviction and courage in order to speak truth.
Speaking truth, even if the truth is offensive, is important for Christians, Crain said, as speaking truth is loving and cares for people’s souls and earthly needs as well as shares standards of morality in a fallen world.
Crain discouraged listeners from being a “Private Patrick” who doesn’t want to tell others what to believe, a “Nice Nancy” who doesn’t speak up to maintain relationships or an “Abrasive Abraham” who speaks truth without grace.
While redefinition, normalization and celebration are being used to define immoral things as moral, gaining conviction means knowing why there is good reason to believe the Bible is God’s Word, recalibrating one’s view of God as the only moral authority and grounding one’s view of love and harm in God’s objective standards.
“You are not being harmful when you’re speaking God’s truth,” Crain said.
To gain courage, Crain said Christians should expect to be canceled, refuse to be intimated, remember whose we are and educate ourselves on specific topics in order to make a case.
“You can’t be salt and light in your living room,” Crain said. “We have to speak up.”
Box encourages USMB churches to paddle together
New National Director Aaron Box spoke Friday morning.
An outdoor enthusiast, Box used a waterfall and rafting as analogies in his message.
He told of a visit to Veil Falls, a small waterfall.
Box said it can be easy for Mennonite Brethren to question our impact as a small conference of churches. However, just as Veil Falls is easily blown by the wind and results in a lush green area surrounding it, when Mennonite Brethren allow the wind of God’s Spirit to lead and move us, we can have an impact.
“God is never once dependent upon the strength, size, wisdom or power of his people to accomplish his purposes,” Box said. “All he needs is our obedience and faith.”
Referencing 1 Corinthians 1:26, Box said that God chose weak things so no one may boast before him.
“God uses people like me who are foolish and weak to do things that seem like they’re beyond us,” Box said. “That’s the story of Scripture. That’s how God works.”
A whitewater rafting guide, Box then used a rafting illustration to offer three ways U.S. Mennonite Brethren can impact their churches and family. Everyone needs to be an active participant, he said, and there can be no spectators.
Like the top of a rafting paddle, Box encouraged people to mind their grip and hold onto the part that’s most important, in other words, the shared Confession of Faith. He assured people he fell in love with USMB because of its Confession of Faith, which holds the conference together.
Box then advised people to change their stroke if necessary. A rafter splashing the surface or paddling too deep shows that effort alone is not effective. He invited people to focus less on what to do and more on who to invest in. Instead of measuring attendance, churches should measure effectiveness on how many they’re sending out.
Finally, Box encouraged people to paddle together. When everyone paddles together, one can feel the boat jump forward, he said, encouraging people to lean in, get over their differences, pray for each other and be a family because these efforts will produce something different.
“Our unity is evidence to the world that Jesus is the son of God,” he said. “We create a picture that shows the world this is real.”
Retiring National Director Don Morris was to speak Saturday morning, but skipped his message because of time, simply asking listeners if they are willing to be salt and light.
Janae Rempel Shafer is the Christian Leader associate editor. She joined the CL staff in September 2017 with six years of experience as a professional journalist. Shafer is an award-winning writer, having received three 2016 Kansas Press Association Awards of Excellence and an Evangelical Press Association Higher Goals award in 2022. Shafer graduated from Tabor College in 2010 with a bachelor of arts in Communications/Journalism and Biblical/Religious Studies. She and her husband, Austin, attend Ridgepoint Church in Wichita, Kansas.
