Too kind, but nice to hear

I freely admit to having only recently paid attention to the total content of the Record. The magazine has arrived at our home for the last five years, yet I only started thoroughly reading and thinking about some of the articles in the past little while, dating I think to a visit one Sunday morning from Rick Fee in his position as Moderator (good for him to visit our church; great visit and a great guy!).
I've enjoyed many articles in the 2005 issues, some by your regular contributors, others by authors whose names I've seen only once. While divergent in content and length and variable in message and style, all provide thoughtful commentary on the issues presented. It would be an interesting exercise for congregations to identify categories of Christian principles and then to seek articles in past issues of the Record for discussion. One wonders what action(s) might fall out into the congregation and the community from such an exercise. Certainly the diversity of article type is there, and I compliment the editorial staff for their wisdom (and perhaps courage!) in presenting ideas for us all to think about (even with the occasional disclaimer at the bottom of a page!).
I hesitate to pick out a particular contributor but simply say a personal thank you to Andrew Faiz for the thoughts and ideas in his regular column Pop Christianity. He offers many gems of thoughtful analysis about current practices of advocates within the Christian religion in North America. He writes that "church isn't about tradition, it's about mission" (May), he comments on a recent book by a "conservative author (that) huffs and puffs without mentioning Christ" (January), he challenges mainline churches and laments the absence of youth by suggesting that "many possible congregants are lost, usually in the teen years, because of the tone and style of the traditional service" (April), he speaks of personal anguish during the loss of his father to a form of Parkinson's disease and so perhaps gives comfort to those experiencing similar trauma (June), and he writes of "how religion is misused over and over to promote intolerance over inclusion" (March). I expect there will be letters to the editor about his comment (July/August) that "we stay (in church) because our fellows in the pews become our family; and Sunday service is merely the dysfunctional weekly gathering of the clan. The sermon, the price we pay for coffee hour." But it is an interesting comment!
It is a credit to our denomination and to the editors of the Record that we all have the freedom to write, to read, to think and perhaps to begin to revise our ways of doing things so that the thoughtfulness of our worship can be deepened and strengthened. Columns by Andrew Faiz and others in the Record contribute to that hope.