Watch, as Arthur and Molly Rouner tell the story of reconciliation, "Africa: Healing Power of Forgiveness."     Click here.

The Ministry of Reconciliation
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Is it new, this plea for reconciliation?  Is it a new movement, some reality of which we just haven't been aware in recent decades?

Curiously, it is God's first work, the first thrust of God's love, His first reach to the world He loved.  "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself."  God's purpose was to bring His world and His children home to Him, to break down what St. Paul called the "middle wall of partition."

Forty years of my parish ministry were invested to bring people together: Couples in marriages, children and their parents, inner city with suburbs, white with black, rich with poor, and hurt, disagreeing church folks with each other.  But it wasn't called "reconciliation."  It was "the right thing to do."  It was what communities needed and churches needed, when I started out as a young minister in the mid-1950's.

But suddenly, late in life, as if blinders have come off, life is being seen in a new way!  Reconciliation has come, claiming me with a veritable call from God to not only a deeper emphasis and a newly exposed concern, but also a call to serve, a work to do and a place to go.

It is as if God had taken those years of vital, important, valid, and faithful ministry, and used all those years...and all that experience...as preparation for this one strange and difficult task that calls from across the world.  It comes so late in life, I can only believe, because it is the world's most important task, God's most critical agenda, and achingly..and with unmistakable clarity...the human race's most desperate need.

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Would you like to hear more of the story?  "Forgiveness: The Road to Reconciliation" by Arthur A Rouner, Jr, here.