Dec 12
20
Fundraising appeal and Activity report for ChristianGovernance
December 20, 2012
Dear Friend of ChristianGovernance,
We are quickly approaching the end of another year, so some of us are looking back at 2012 to see what we’ve accomplished – and probably some of what we didn’t accomplish that we had hoped to do. You can keep the 2nd list short by not having any expectations, but that doesn’t work well for ambitious people. “Fail forward” is a popular saying – if you fail, learn from your mistakes, get up and keep going.
Having said that, we want to share with you some of ChristianGovernance’s successes and accomplishments from this past year:
- We held our 2nd annual Biblical worldview event in April, a conference and a dinner instead of simply a dinner as was the case in 2011; the well-received theme was again Courageous Manhood with 100th anniversary reflections on the sacrifices made at the sinking of the Titanic.
- In June, we held our 2nd annual Worldview and Apologetics Youth (WAY) Camp, an exciting and intensive 5-day education experience.
- In October, we held our 2nd annual WAY-L(adies’) Retreat for teen ladies at a beautiful new location in upstate New York, increasing our attendance from the first retreat in 2011. We studied the “Danger Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship” because most Christians will be serving the Lord as a couple, so it is very important for young men and women to prepare to marry well.
- Also in October, we held our 1st annual WAY-M(en’s) Retreat for teen men, studying key aspects of spiritual development. Men are to be the heads of their homes, the shepherds of their families, so they must be working hard on their own spiritual maturity well before establishing their own new covenantal unit in society.
- We published our bestselling booklet, “The Biblical Legacy of Canada’s Parliament Buildings,” which must be closing in on 9,000 copies sold. Many people have placed bulk orders, including several churches and Christian schools, as well as the National Prayer Breakfast (850+) and other ministries, and a donation to cover the distribution to all 300 Members of Parliament and 100 Senators in Canada’s central government.
- We published our first book, Michael Wagner’s, “Leaving God Behind,” a valuable historical record of how Canada was once a Christian nation. It shows how we became officially Humanist with the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of our Constitution in 1982. Sales are already approaching 500 copies.
- We continue to publish regular commentary and analysis through our eletter, which many of you find helpful for: a) expanding your understanding of a Biblical worldview, b) providing sound argumentation for defending a Biblical worldview from the competing ideologies and beliefs that exist all around us, even unfortunately from within the church, and c) the encouragement it provides that there is an articulate voice speaking into Canada’s public square with a coherent and reliable message of Biblical truth.
- We introduced a new logo which more accurately reflects the purpose and vision of ChristianGovernance.
What ties together all these things that we do at ChristianGovernance?
ChristianGovernance is a worldview teaching and training organization. THE ONLY ONE IN CANADA building a comprehensive variety of products and services. *
Since our focus is worldview, we get to talk about everything because God is relevant to all of life, and all of human experience must be interpreted and reoriented by Him.
Just as worldview opens up a wide range of material for us to discuss, it gives us a wide open field of opportunities for bringing this message to others. Several commitments and realities guide us as we explore ways to reintroduce a Biblical worldview to the Church and the world.
- THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FAMILY. Socialism is structured around the state as the central organizing principle for reality and human society. God has established the “nuclear family” as the first and most important covenantal social unit in human society. We want to teach Christians how to think right-side-up again in this respect. This is why, for example, we support Christian education with a special emphasis on home schooling, while highlighting the many illustrations of the harm caused by government schooling. We want to do more in several areas including the strengthening of marriage.
- THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CHURCH. Most Christians today who talk about social reform leave the Church completely out of the conversation. They focus is on the state, the family and the individual, and sometimes on business and organic community relations, almost as though these latter two factors can somehow be treated as broadly analogous to the role the Church could play in society. The people of God are the Church, and we have to learn how to re-organize our lives around our Christian relationships 24/7. Fellow Christians exist for more than simply being a prayer partner, someone to visit you when you’re sick, or an extra pair of hands when you’re moving. ChristianGovernance also does not want to replace the Church, and your rightful commitment to your congregation, in the ministry we provide.
- THE IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP. “Those who do not know what they believe and why will always be led by those who do.” In the past few generations, Christians have abdicated so many of the positions of leadership and influence we once held. ChristianGovernance believes that apologetics and Biblical worldview teaching is a core component of genuine leadership training. Everything we do orients readers and participants toward being better leaders. Our eletter content provides material that helps you gain more respectful control in conversations with non-Christians. Our youth camps and retreats provide intensive teaching to help young men and women think so they can order their worlds more effectively, and be more confident about who they are in Christ. Our emphasis on leadership has oriented us towards young men and women. They have their whole adult lives ahead of them, yet so few of them benefit from strong Biblical guidance regarding vision, mission and purpose for their lives. For many, this results in discouragement, confusion and too many wasted years and resources. We want to add valuable mentoring ministry in the future because effective training is so much more than simply “throwing books” at people.
- THE IMPORTANCE OF WORLDVIEW. Many friends are active in politics, and most Christians engaged in politics have embraced the classification of “social conservative” to identify the issues and views that they embrace. Christianity, however, is a worldview and every “political” issue is also a moral and theological issue, so Christians need to have a worldview outlook on life and faith. We cannot put equal energy into all issues at a political level, but we need to be self-consciously re-interpreting all of life Biblically, one step at a time. ChristianGovernance provides this worldview orientation. For effective worldview and leadership training, it is at least as important to teach people how to think as it is to teach them what to think. This is fundamental to our youth camp and retreat teaching and to the content of our eletters.
- THE IMPORTANCE OF LAW AND LORDSHIP. ChristianGovernance is vertical and horizontal in orientation. Much Christian social and political activism today is strictly horizontal. Certainly Christians pray, but we so often try to frame our arguments in naturalistic ways, avoiding references to God and citations of the Bible. We haven’t learned how to communicate confidently in a way that is explicitly Christian so we throw the baby out the bathwater and pretend that it is never necessary to be explicitly Christian in arguing our positions on social, economic and political issues. On the contrary, ChristianGovernance believes in the importance of explicitly recognizing the Lordship of Christ in how we understand our own views, and in how we communicate them. We also believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, the Law-Word of God, for identifying the truly Christian position, the Christian parameters, for all of life and godliness. This includes politics, economics and all social relations, since all aspects of human life have ethical implications, and involve choices that are rooted in theological and ethical assumptions. This is why we often say, “There is no such thing as neutrality.”
- THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORY. “Not to know what happened before you were born, is to remain forever a child” – Cicero. History is His story – God’s story. We may not be able to interpret it infallibly outside of Scripture, but we know that God has a purpose and a plan for the world He created, and for the people He created after His own image to live in this world. To know where we’re going, we must know where we’ve come from, and not simply in a general or abstract way. Our Canadian history and Parliamentary tour offerings flow out of this priority, as do the publication of our “Biblical Legacy” booklet and Michael Wagner’s book, Leaving God Behind.
Since all of human experience must be interpreted and reoriented by God in Christ, this is why you see “A Worldview Compass” in our logo. A compass helps people find their way (or keeps them from getting lost). It orients people around an unmovable point, magnetic north.
Spiritually speaking, our Magnetic North is God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, and now through the Scriptures. We must orient ourselves, then, around this Messianic King by way of His abiding revelation in His Law-Word, the Bible. This is why ChristianGovernance says that our understanding of Biblical worldview revolves around the abiding relevance of the Law of God and the Lordship of Christ.
Because the chief idol in Humanism’s pantheon of gods is the (messianic) state, we talk a lot about matters that are seen today as political issues. Part of Biblical worldview reorientation is to learn that most of these issues are not political – they do not exist under the lawful jurisdiction of the state (or civil magistrate). We are not a political organization simply because much of our discussion involves “political” topics. We do not raise these issues simply as news items. We offer analysis for how to think about them. We do not typically provide political action items or lobbying tips in conjunction with these reports. We are not an interface with politicians.
The work of worldview analysis and development is based on a foundation of apologetics. We therefore, also provide teaching in apologetics, but we go beyond apologetics into the realm of worldview.
Some people use these terms in different ways. Apologetics mostly brings to mind teaching about foundational beliefs: Who is God? What is the nature of reality? What is the nature of man? Where did evil come from? Who is Jesus Christ? What is the nature of authority? Some people also use “worldview” in reference to such teaching.
By worldview, ChristianGovernance means building on the foundation of these core Christian truths to explore and flesh out what it means to reorient one’s entire world around God’s truth. That is why we also address matters like family, education, economics, politics, health care, the environment and criminal justice, etc. If we believe in the sufficiency and abiding relevance of the WHOLE Bible, then we know that God has spoken even to these issues.
Christianity exists in antithesis to every other religion or belief system because Jesus Christ Himself said that He ALONE is the Way, the Truth and the Life. This is not an ideological or a strictly future or an intangible reality. This reality is to impact our lives 24/7. Christianity is a living relationship with God.
Looking forward to 2013
We have a number of projects underway for 2013:
- SPRING WORLDVIEW CONFERENCE. Our 3rd annual Biblical worldview event (conference and dinner) is approaching on Sat., April 20th. Our theme this time is “Courageous Justice.” We expect to have sessions on sexual trafficking, justice reform (looking at the Biblical role of restitution in place of much of today’s dependency on imprisonment), and modern Environmentalism’s assault on the poor. A fourth session will be by the author of a book we hope to publish in 2013 (see below) on domestic violence in a Canadian Muslim home. Our banquet will focus on the growing attacks against Christ’s Church and Christianity in Canada.
- WAY CAMP. Our 3rd annual worldview, apologetics and leadership camp for 14- to 19-year-olds is scheduled for the last week of June. An excellent slate of speakers has already been confirmed. Stay tuned for more details.
- WAY RETREATS. We anticipate holding a 3rd annual WAY-L ladies’ retreat and 2nd annual WAY-M men’s retreat next fall, building on the great blessings of this year’s retreats.
- HISTORY TOURS. We enjoyed providing some very popular Canadian history and Parliamentary tours a couple of years ago, and we look forward to providing similar customizable tours in the Ottawa area in the year ahead. We can also sometimes provide affordable personal tours to individual families if you are traveling to Ottawa, and want to do something different with a Christian historical theme.
- 2ND BOOK PUBLISHED. Imagine enduring years of unrelenting domestic violence, including psychological torture from your husband, and his Muslim family! Imagine being powerless to stop the sexual assault of your daughters by your brothers-in-law with the knowledge of their Muslim father and grandmother! Imagine being redeemed by Christ, and receiving the power to pursue deliverance from this domestic slavery that parallels the deliverance from eternal death as found in Jesus Christ! What is it about Arab Islamism that turns so many men into barbarians who treat women like dogs and slaves? How many women living in Canada today endure similar circumstances? We look forward to bringing this powerful autobiography to you in the weeks ahead.
- OTHER BOOKS. We sell three books Tim Bloedow wrote and published prior to the existence of ChristianGovernance. We are preparing a 2nd edition of No Sacred Ground on the threat of human rights commissions and the human rights ideology on Canada and Christianity. We have seen a new round of human rights complaints across Canada in recent months. That battle is not over. Once we have prepared a study guide for the book, we aim to make it available as an e-book and a regular hardcopy book. We hope to do the same for State vs. Church and for Environmentalism and the Death of Science.
- COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS. We will continue to publish our eletter with regular commentary and analysis on current events and important issues designed to apply Biblical worldview thinking to every area of life. Many of these items are also posted on our website.
- WEBSITE. We look forward to completing our rebranding exercise with a fresh and unified look with our website and eletter, etc., built around our new logo.
ChristianGovernance is a federally incorporated non-profit organization, but not a registered charity. We have been operating as a non-profit corporation now for three years. We have three board members, Rev. Mitchell Persaud, Dave Joslin and Jonathan Bloedow.
All of this work, of course, requires funds. We receive some money from the purchase of our products and registrations to our events, but we try to keep the price of these things as low as possible so that cost doesn’t need to inhibit youth attendance at our camps and retreats or prevent the purchase of important products that need widespread circulation around the country.
Our greatest needs include:
- website development and the improvement of our online presence
- audio/video equipment to produce better recordings of lectures at our events and to help us introduce A/V content to our website along with our written content
- new office equipment, including a printer and a computer
- items necessary for efficiency and sanity in running WAY Camp, include camping equipment, a privacy station or two, a projector screen, and more
- development of appealing and professional promotional materials
Please join us in our mission to be that compass which reorients and guides Christians to the solid foundations in Christ. Your monthly donation of even $10, $20, or whatever you can commit, will go a long way in helping us to meet the needs itemized above. Small donations add up and monthly predictable revenue helps us manage cash flow with events such as our upcoming conference and camps in the year ahead. Please pray also that we would be wise stewards with the resources that we receive from you our supporters.
In closing, I would like to share a kind note we just received from one of ChristianGovernance’s readers and supporters:
“Please find a donation cheque enclosed. More than once it has occurred to me as I read your newsletters that it must be a bit of a lonely existence to prepare these worthwhile letters and then to shoot them off into cyber space and then perhaps not to get a reaction commensurate with the effort that went into them. Let me assure you once again that I, for one, find most of them meaningful and helpful, particularly as the varied topics come up in other conversations with other people. Please keep up the good work you’re doing.”
We are thankful for the many expressions of support we receive from you throughout the year. Your financial help and commitment at this time would be of great assistance as we finalize our plans for 2013. (Please remember we are not a registered charity, so we cannot issue tax receipts for your donation.)
Yours for the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom,
* There are a couple of other Biblical worldview ministries in Canada. The Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity was founded by Rev. Joe Boot. CYWAL (Christian Youth Worldview and Leadership) is an annual Biblical worldview youth camp near Guelph, Ontario.