The two articles that headline this issue, the cover story on Roberta Hestenes and the CT Institute supplement on the ethnic church in America, have been with this staff a long, long time.
While senior writer Tim Stafford interviewed Roberta Hestenes last fall, the idea of handling her story in a cover treatment actually took shape following two disparate events held in the first half of 1988. The first was the Festival of Christians in Arlington, Texas. Sponsored by the National Council of Churches, the festival was hardly a focal point for evangelicalism. Nevertheless, Hestenes was invited to be an evangelical representative, and she used her plenary address to leave no question as to where her theological heart lay. We were impressed.
A month later, CT editors ran into Hestenes again, this time at Leadership ’88, in Washington, D.C. There her passion for the church and its role in evangelizing and discipling came through loud and clear. It is this twofold passion, along with her commitment to biblical teaching, that form the foundation of her frenetic life—and the basis of the profile that begins on page 16.
As for the institute coverage, CT and World Vision agreed late in 1987 to bring together various ethnic leaders to discuss the health of the church in their respective communities. Planning meetings were convened throughout the year (including one at Leadership 88), culminating in a mid-October, four-day conference.
The papers and personalities that were an integral part of that four-day interaction are the focus of the expanded institute supplement that begins on page 25.
HAROLD B. SMITH, Managing Editor
