August Guillaume

Sphere Sovereinty to me indicates that members of the CRC church must get involved in the other areas in order to influence society.  For education, we do that by establishing schools, with labour we do that by suppoerting Christian Labour associations, in politics and social justice we do that by supporting various groups who wrestle with the situation. If the results of these deliberations indicate that churches should manage their affairs differently, by going green etc. so be it! However many churches do not have such a model and they are stuck with getting the church leadership to pronounce various concerns properly dealt with in other ways.  Perhaps it is time for the church leadership to be more vocal about the members actually getting involved with Christian organizations and groups dealing with the issues to help us all understand our world better.

The Alpha model must be a US invention!  The map ignores Mexico (does not even show it) and considers 'Canada' as a whole.  The classifications (North East etc) is US only.  To us 'west' is Alberta, BC,  Mid West is Sask, Man, Central is Ontario and Quebec, with the rest of the provinces 'East'.  Anything called North is the Yukon, North West Territories and Nunavit.

Church Plants used to be chosen by places where Reformed Christians were living or moving to.  World Shaking mandates were also given to Christian Organizations in education, politics and labour. 

Now that we have come of age and wish to plant churches where any US and Canadian person is moving to (that is growing cities) we need to work together with any church planting initiatives of any denomination, not to overlap, and not be too quick to discount small beginnings, or are we to assume that the alpha cities are big enough, and that we can do our own thing without regard to anyone else?

At our last congregational meeting we thought it would be time to look at the issue BEFORE we have a member that wants to be part of a gay marriage. No body knows how such a look would be and nobody knew how to start such a look. A careful and thoughful study may help us.

This is for churches in USA only. Should country specific issues be in a separate administrative forum?

I ilke "liturgical" instead of the complex #1.  By liturgical I mean preset precise wording before and/or after the sermon such as an official opening, and ending, confession and assurance, certain set prayers. The dominant Christ image is that of the crucified one. Anglican, Lutheran are examples.  These are patterned after the catholic and/or orthodox liturgies

As every church is a combination of certain types,The convergent is not really required. The types need to be unique.

In #6, I would estimate that the Christ image is the ascended one. The role of the preacher is an actor trying to be as effective as the praise team which fills the auditorium with very loud music drowning out any reflective thought.

I am not sure what is meant by preacher as "prophet" Teaching or pointing to the future?

Not very helpful for Edmonton football fans. Edmonton is at 1-9 The whole team is quite humbled by the ordeal. can we learn more by those who do not have 'success'?

One of my grandchildren has mastocytosis. My daughter-in-law needs to keep some safe food in case a sundyschool teacher tries to give children some food.  What a hassle! It is much safer and better to leave giving food for the parents. His siblings are from Uganda and his parents have to often stop them from eating, not because of allergies.

I am sure that sunday school stories can be told without having to provide candies or other things to eat. Have you ever seen ministers distributing peppermints before each sermon or even afterward? What is the theology?

Thanks Mark for your message and warning.

Such a statement made by Lucano is a very popular one. I realized that it was faulty as you mentioned when one of our members who had a child with a great disability drew a picture with him with Jesus with the very same disability, rather than a 'perfect' person. 

Two other trends seem to be a factor.  One, with congregations being rather diverse, perhaps more congregations are looking for pastors with experience to see how they function in a congregation. Secondly, many pastors are purchasing their own home, rather than using a home the church provides and they wish their own children remail in the same school or high school rather than moving them around the country. These two trends makes it more difficult to find suitable pastors within the denomination.

Thanks Keith, for an excellent statement(s).  I know of too many cases where PJ's situation is repeated over and over, mainly due to the 10/25 statement by Keith.

This decision is much more a reflection on the relationship of the UN to the US. Many US citizens distrust the UN.

Root cause? The media seems to concentrate on the immediate vacinity, rather than being global in scope. Only what directly affects the US is usually reported. This makes the UN a totally foreign institution that nobody knows about.

First nations groups in Canada have many serious problems that the Government does not 'fix'. Housing for one is a serious issue. I was happy that a UN representative was here to check things out. UN does not ignore other nations. The US press simply does not cover this type of activitity.