August Guillaume

Wonderful picture!!

"People aren’t looking to the church for political commentary".

Interesting thought.  The Jews that wanted to kill Jesus went to Pilate, a political leader.

Christian's responsibility is to connect with political leaders. How to do that in a responsible manner is important. Perhaps social media should not be used for anything important.

The article explains it well. 

Doctors do have a challenging task. They can ask their patients to do something or refrain from something yet have no power to force their patients to do so.  We should pray for our medical teams that they have the best interest of their patients at heart. Perhaps a card from the doctor specifying the maximum amount of medicines that can be applied and going to the same drug store may help a bit.

My parents worked hard to keep things together. That was a blessing to our family.  My mom was a stay at home mom and every Monday they took the day off to spend time together. When all the kids were at school, my mom and dad went on visits together in the congregation. My mom did go to women's groups and found friends wherever she went. That was all very intentional, I am sure.

Once I decide that an organization is worthy, I put it in a list.  I edit it from time to time, in case I get bad news or good news. To choose from such a large list of worthy causes, I let a program decide from time to time which organization is to be supported, so that I am not influenced by carefully crafted appeals.

When I visit another congregation I like to scan the bulletin to see what is going on.  Yes, many bulletins get discarded,  How many members actually look at the church's web site or other electronic method of distributing information?  Would members appreciate getting an email or a phone call for each item otherwise printed in the bulletin? Today there are numerous methods to distribute and share information. Unfortunately there is not one method which seems to be the best.  Electronic methods requires a phone, tablet or computer. Should churches encourage members to use these tools 24/7 in order to connect to all the organizations and people who are important to them?  Should people look at all web sites to see whether there is something they are interested in?  Compared to the work in publishing paper every week, what is the work required to make a web site attractive and up to date?  Or drafting an effective email? Or making all the work necessary to check who accessed the web site to be sure the information is getting out to members?   - August Guillaume

We are a church without paid staff.  Hence a system has been set up so people can volunteer electronically with occasional appeals via email and announcements at church.

I am assuming that the local church still has Sunday services where the congregation gathers for prayer, listening to the word, and song, as well as education for the children.  In such a setting a bulletin does well as long as the bulletin contains information for local events.  Announcements before the service starts helps as well.  Social media seems to be better to connect people who can not get together very often.  Unless the congregation consists of members who are rarely there, I would assume social media is second best to being there. 

On line activities for churches.  Very interesting article.  Devices are becoming alike in many ways.  Phones can access the internet and do email, access web sites.  Desk top devices can use apps.  Desk tops have generally more memory and access points so are able to do more in less time than mobile devices.  Social media services are multiplying fast and what is in today may be out tomorrow. More services are being developed for each media service so that restrictions in one will soon disappear.  One approach is starting with the question: What exactly is the church trying to communicate to the on line world?  Messages to church members only? Inviting the on line world to church services or just connecting with its members traveling?  Discuss theology?  Should each church concentrate on what it does best or is most interested in? Should every church try and do everything?  Once the church knows what it plans to communicate, and to whom, the how can be determined as well as  who will be managing the interface and produce content.  Overloading the communications with too many messages saying essentially nothing new will turn many off. 

According to the NT,  there are no such organizations as denominations, splitting Christians in various camps to compete with each other.  Part 1 shows very clearly that resources can be shared easily between denominations. Let us promote such sharing.  Denominations should find more ways to cooperate on a national scale, Classis can start to cooperate on the regional scale and congregations on a local scale. 

August

When the Dutch immigrants came to Canada, they organized churches to bring the gospel and set up separate organizations to be active in education and politics. In that spirit, a Christian Heritage Party was set up as well as Citizens for Public Justice.

As time went on, CPJ complained that the reformed churches were not active in politics. The North American model was for anything Christian, the organization must be directly supported by churches. Kairos works with that in mind. Any separate organization is assumed spiritually neutral. 

I think we should applaud the efforts of the church to be politically active, and encourage both CPJ and OSJ to think European rather than North American in organization.

Complaining that the group only speaks for a minority does not help at all. Both conservative and Liberal minded Christians love the Lord and want to follow His commands for life.

August Guillaume