VOM's Newsletter: behind the scenes

When you receive our newsletter each month (and if you are not receiving it you should sign up immediately!), we hope that are moved by the stories of our brothers and sisters in restricted nations. We hope you are encouraged in your own faith, and challenged to pray for these who live out their faith each day under threat of harassment and persecution.

You may not think about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into getting that newsletter together. This photo or that one? This adjective or that one? Is this statement “challenging” or “inflammatory,” and should we leave it in or take it out? These kind of discussions are an important part of the newsletter process, and it is fun to see articles and pages shaped by the input of many under the direction of Tom White, who serves as newsletter editor and publisher.

If you’ve seen April’s newsletter, you know that I had the privilege of writing the feature article. I wrote an intro in my first version of the article that was very personal to me, harking back to an experience in my own life and then connecting into the theme of the rest of the article.

As the article went through the comment, re-write and edit process, that intro was laid aside, but one of the newsletter staff suggested that it would work well as a blog entry. I agreed, and now that you have seen the newsletter it refers to, here is the intro that appeared on the first draft, along with my suggested title for the article:

No Suffering, No Power; Know Suffering, Know His Power

By P. Todd Nettleton

“All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection…” (Philippians 3:10a)

It has been almost two decades, but I still remember the power of those words jumping off the page and into my heart and mind. I was a college student, studying hard to prepare myself for whatever the future held. I was also, as many young people do, wrestling with what God wanted from me, what His plan and His desire was for my life; wrestling to abandon my self and my plans and give the steering wheel, the brake pedal, the accelerator and all of the maps to Him, to let Him have complete control.

“All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection…” This verse seemed to sum up my desire. I want to know Christ. I want to live in His power. The verse became a statement of my desire and intention, and I quoted it, prayed it and meditated on it often.

But I didn’t finish the sentence. Sure, I read the rest of the verse, but it simply didn’t register on my heart or mind. I breezed over it, focusing instead on my own desires, to know Christ and to experience His power.

Skipping the second half of the sentence, though, really misses the point. For it is in the second half of the verse that Paul shares the key to knowing Him, the pathway to His power.

“…to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.” (3:10b-11) (TEV)

We cannot truly know Christ unless we know His sufferings. We cannot truly live in the power of His resurrection unless we have died to sin and self, crucifying the will and desire of our own flesh and taking on the will and desire of Christ. It is in that new life that we truly know Him, that we walk in His power.

For me as a young college student that connection was not clear; for our brothers and sisters in restricted nations it is made clear every single day.

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I still wrestle with that verse, and with it's teachings. I wonder what it means to me personally, and what it means to the American church as a whole. Perhaps you have insights and comments to add? I welcome them. You may also wish to discuss other aspects of this month's newsletter. You can do so online at the VOMGroups web site.

Todd Nettleton is the Director of Media Development for The Voice of the Martyrs—USA.