Joshua Benton

Mark...

More of what I'm thinking has to do with being spiritually fed. This is done as much by the worship as it is with the ministry of Word and Sacrament. The question that is being brought up I think more so is "Are people being spiritual fed with healthy food their spiritual stomaches can handle?" In other words, somneone used to steak and potatoes with just salt and pepper to taste may have a hard time with spicy Thai food at first. Now, if you switch it up on them and say "All you can eat is Thai food or nothing at all." Then they are no longer being fed. The same is true with those who are not used to things such as steak and potatoes and eat a less meat filled diet. To expect them to eat only steak and potatoes is alos not good.

Until you can properly move somoene from one menu to the other, there needs to be at first a balance to make sure both are being properly fed.

I deeply enjoy and am fed by Praise and Worship music (sometimes the harder the guitar and louder the drums the better). But where I'm at right now, I know that it wouldn't feed everyone but only a few. Not only that, but there was a bad situatoin some years back because it was forced upon them. So, it takes time to transition to get to the point where both sides are being fed.

Cultural relevancy needs to be acted out with pastoral hand.

I feel that the multicultural push by the denomination is forced and not truly authentic at times. There are many genuine multicultural churches in our denomination, but without authentically being multicultural, there is a forced almost fake feeling to it. Many times in predominantly white CRCs with limited number of minorities, it feels like they are either token members or the product of white guilt.

Though I strongly believe that many people of the more conservative leaning and Dutch ancestry would be willing to move towards the direction of authentic multiculturalism and the ultimate goal of Christ-like inclusion, many feel that they have not had ample time to truly think it over, discuss it and have their opinions heard. Even if it is not the desire of Synod to go with the desires of these people, to dismiss their opinions out of hand without a proper explanation as to why the denomination is going in the direction they are creates a feeling of superiority on the denominations side.

To be truly inclusive, there needs to be a more balanced authentic multiculturalism which warmly embraces those of the conservative bent Dutch ancestry. To deny the past is to distort the present and to devaluate the future.

Please in the future do not tote how much we are multicultural but instead wave the flag of cooperation allowing all backgrounds and viewpoints to be seen as valid and accepted at Synod. In doing so, those elders might desire to come and feel like they actually matter instead of feeling like they are an inconsequential dying breed.

Don't know the exact link but here's ours from SD

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Corsica-SD/Corsica-CRC-and-Grace-Reformed-Church/154085967954719

Post almost daily. How do you get more people to interact with it? It feels sometimes like a one way conversation