Previous | Next 

EDITORIAL
Reflections on spiritual warfare

Jim Coggins

The recent Spiritual Warfare conference in Calgary (see related story) was a very enriching experience. It was a good theological education as Christians worked together, wrestling to understand Scripture, the reality of evil and God’s working in the world. In fact, I suspect it was a far more satisfying experience than most Conference conventions, which focus on worship and listening to board reports but which require little active participation by delegates.

We did not reach consensus at this gathering. We are not fully agreed on the extent and nature of evil in this world. We also are not in full agreement on the question of authority. (When we discussed our Confession of Faith three years ago, we were certain that Scripture is our primary source for faith and practice. Yet, when we began discussing spiritual warfare, it seemed that we gave a bigger role to experience and at the least said that our experience colours our interpretation of Scripture.)

Nevertheless, we were agreed on many issues. One of the key ones was that God is far more powerful than evil forces and that we have no reason to fear. Over and over again in meeting together we repeated this central tenet of our faith.

On Saturday afternoon, right after the conference, I had the privilege of joining several other Mennonite Brethren for a prayer walk through downtown Calgary. We were to pray for the Canadian MB Conference National Youth Convention (coming up in January), Mission Calgary (a joint Canadian and Alberta MB Conference church planting venture) and the work of a Youth Mission International team which is coming to Calgary in February. We gathered in Olympic Park for some worship singing and joint prayer and then divided into pairs to walk around downtown and pray. In giving directions for the prayer walk, Randy Friesen, executive director of Youth Mission International, suggested that we should also feel free to walk up to people and offer to pray for them.

Now, the inner city is, as the saying goes, “outside my comfort zone”. Talking to strangers is definitely outside my comfort zone, and the thought of walking up to strangers on the street and offering to pray for them is pretty close to terrifying. Perhaps, I thought, I would be paired with another timid soul and we could just walk around and pray and not attempt anything too frightening.

I was paired with Randy Friesen. First he stopped and prayed with an older man (perhaps my age) sitting on a park bench. Then he stopped and prayed at length for a woman; the woman asked for prayer for her daughter, whom she hasn’t seen for some years and whom the last time she heard from her was a prostitute in downtown Calgary. We walked on a bit and turned a corner. Randy said, “You can talk to these next guys.” The “next guys” turned out to be four young men in black and red dresses. When we approached them, one of them proudly showed us the word “whore” written on a placard across his stomach. They seemly highly agitated; I suspected the influence of drugs. The traffic light changed, and they rushed across the street away from us. (I am not sure who was more relieved – them or me.)

We turned another corner, and I noticed a young man on a small platform at the end of an overhead walkway. Leaving Randy, I went up to him and asked if I could pray for him. He said his name was Jarvis, he had no particular prayer requests and he was rooting around in a jumble of old backpacks, blankets, cardboard and discarded clothing, looking for anything that might be useful. I prayed for him, that he would find what he needed and know that God loves him.

All of this was cause for reflection. Although scary, I am not sure that asking to pray for strangers on the street is the most important ministry we could be doing. After all, how much impact will a five-minute ministry actually have on a life? On the other hand, as we walked around, we encountered a church building, a soup kitchen and a street evangelist. We might not have done much, but what we did might still have been one more useful element in the multi-sided ministry that God is doing there; we do not have to do everything ourselves, but we can still be obedient to God in contributing what we can. Moreover, if our contribution is only prayer and the ministry produces good results, it is easy for us to recognize that it is God’s power and not our own contribution that has achieved the result.

Randy told me that in his experience people hardly ever refuse when he asks if he can pray for them. In fact, people are far more willing to be prayed for than we are to pray for them. What keeps us from doing more is not their unwillingness but our own fear. I reflected that it is one thing to sit in a conference in a church building and affirm that we do not need to fear because God is more powerful than all the powers of hell. It is quite another thing to put that belief into practice even in a minor way by approaching and witnessing to a single human being. It is important that we gain a better understanding of spiritual warfare because a faulty theology can result in spiritual disaster and ineffective methodologies that do more harm than good. It is even more important that, once we have that understanding, we put it into practice.

Previous | Next 

Last modified February 14, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.