Foundations: Who We Are

On May 14, 2024, I was humbled that in our biennial General Conference business meeting, I was elected to serve another four-year term as general superintendent of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC). Susan and I are very grateful for our Fellowship’s confidence and loving, prayerful support. In a future article, I will reiterate the areas of vision I continue to share with our various leadership groups within the PAOC.

In this article, I share from a clear conviction that we need to keep foundational things clear. As an experienced coach understands, there are times to go back to the beginning and reinforce the basics that make us who we are meant to be.

Back to the beginning

During the seasons of life, there are times when one is reminded to get back to basics and to do the main things well. This can range from challenging times in relationships with family or friends to performance struggles such as the ones athletes and others experience during their careers.

For those who live their lives to glorify God, there is a starting point we share that assists us in aligning all we are and what we do. It involves going back to the “Book of Beginnings”: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[1] “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”[2]

In the beginning, God

The starting point for all alignment in our lives, individually and corporately, is that we are worshippers in full relationship with the One and Only God, who is righteous and just.[3] The contrast between those who align this way and those who do not becomes very evident in Christian families, leadership groups, churches and ministries. A concept that sounds very theoretical and theological very quickly impacts attitudes and decisions in the laboratory of real life.

To fulfil their God-given missions to one another as well as to their neighbour, the home and church are dependent on each of us to wholeheartedly and whole-mindedly live our whole lives as worshippers. Spiritually vital people have the ability to see life and situations, albeit in our humanness, from a rootedness in the character and nature of God as revealed in the Scriptures and enabled by the Spirit.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth

Starting with a magnificent universe, the Lord created an amazing, sustainable place of provision and beauty for humanity. The call was to be stewards of this creation, living with God’s initial design in mind.

The fall of humanity through sin creates death, chaos and conflict in all dimensions of creation. Yet, as followers of the Creator, who saves, restores and renews, we live out our calling in this already and not-yet kingdom of God to be good stewards of creation—even as we call people to Creator God, who through Christ’s sacrificial grace will make them new creations.

In the beginning, God created others in His image

People who live as worshippers, with God as their first allegiance, will long to act and speak rightly towards others with a justice rooted in who God is. As a reminder, each person is created in the image of God. The greatest answer to injustice is not rants or fear-oriented responses, but as worshippers of the Almighty, to live and speak from lives marked by His righteousness and justice in every context where we find ourselves. In this way, as ministers of reconciliation, “we regard no one from a worldly point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16), and we get back to revealing the beauty of the reconciled relationship through Christ Jesus that we were all created to experience.[4]

In the beginning, we are created in His image, male and female

Created in our diversity as the two sexes, it is in unity that we best reveal the image of God to others. This theme, rooted in our beginnings, is clearly on display in the new humanity: “[A]ll of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”[5]

It is crucial that we respect the God-given diversity of the body of Christ as created by God. Women and men of different ethnicities, ages and socio-economic realities are not to be denied or homogenized. They each add to the complex beauty of the new creation, the church. The clear expectation of Scripture is that all will be able to bring their love for God and others and to contribute their giftings and callings of the Spirit as part of the unified revelation of the Triune God.

I pray that we will always return to the original intent of God for the church so that together, we are the image-bearers who have the privilege of demonstrating that “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[6]

In the beginning:

God

            created the heavens and the earth

                        created others in His image

                                    created in His image, male and female

                                               so that “the manifold wisdom of God should be made known”

                                                                 (Ephesians 3:10).

This article was written by David Wells, the general superintendent of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. This article appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of testimony/Enrich, a quarterly publication of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. © 2024 The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. Visit www.testimonyenrich.ca.