August Guillaume

In my experience with Classis meetings, 1/2 time is spent listening to reports of organizations. Those may be of benefit to anyone who do not have opportunity read about these organizations. The rest of the time is spent discussing overtures asking Synod to decide something or other.  If there are new ministers, lots of time is spent interviewing them, and listening to reviews and encouraging them.  Time is also taken voting for Synod representatives and openings in various committees of Classis. Very little time is spent in sharing resources, or actively listening to individual congregations. From time to time this has been attempted, but how to do that effectively is difficult especially if there is little preparation before Classis to discuss certain topics. A few minutes is spent in listening to visit reports, but no time is afforded to discuss issues raised with the churches. Perhaps the best network is provided by justr talking with each other.

Classis meetings are for ministers and one elder or deacon. Much of the work in churches are done by others. The representatives may not know enough about certain projects to effectively share resources or lead a discussion.

Other venues are better geared to support churches. For instance, days of encouragement are helpful where various experts in various topics lead discussions. Smaller churches can attend and hear and discuss many aspects which otherwise they do not have access to due to expensive and sometimes dangerous driving. 

August Guillaume

Classical examinations also include ministers who are new to the CRC. In fact Elizabeth's grandfather also had to submit to classis examinations in 1953.  He was very surprised about these examinations. He had 25 years of experience at that time and was treated as if he had just left Calvin Seminary the previous week.

How people feel about classis examinations mostly depends upon the people who are managing the examinations. I believe the last number of years many examinations are much kinder to the candidates and can actually result in celebrations rather than having most delegates hide in shame.

The TODAY I read this evening April 16(!) - (Matthew 20: 20-28) made me think! An "inverted pyramid" model seems to match this text more closely compared to a "CEO model" where the person above is responsible for all the important decisions for all the people below him or her. Because the CEO model seems to be more efficient (consensus building takes lots of time) and most succesful large companies use this model, there is quite a push to upset the inverted pyramid.

As long as church leaders resist the temptation to have obtain more power and congregations resist the temptation to have professionals make all the decisions, won't we need to keep the consensus Inverted system where both Calvin Seminary, the local congregation and classis all need to agree that the candidates are able to become ministers. 

Think before you write Should I write this or not? is still a valid thought on-line as it was before when there was time to do it before you could answer. Now we have to be more deliberate.

 Many members in our church are quite busy and having another 'meeting' every month or so is not for them!

Simple invitations and then let people go to a small group is best without trying to force members to come.

I believe it has to be 'easy' to join a group; then concentrate on the quality of each group as Ruth states.

I worked for Telus for 35 years.... when you call for help you need to say: "operator" to get a live person.

Rogers' commercial indicates Roger has a live person all the time rather than a machine.

Communications companies tries to save $$ to use machines.

When Telus was on strike in 2005 I was at '611' and I loved to talk to Customers to help them!
- it really helped me to get more $$ for my pension.

- August Guillaume

Our current approach:

1. Encourage and ask all organizations and groups which tries to contact us via regular mail to do so only via e-mail and attachments.

2. Keep all incoming mail (except those that are very private), on our gmail account.

3. Allow all members and only members access to the gmail account where they can see all the mail we get.

4. Label all incoming mail appropriately (News, letters, events etc) and put a one liner in the bulletin (ie CRC (Haiti, Calvin College) for all the e-mails we get.

5. Remove all old and expired e-mails and allow one e-mail per organization. Max # e-mails kept are 100 (results to keep items for 6 weeks to 2.5 months)

6. Send e-mails to the congegation only if a member likes to provide some important information that can't wait until the next Sunday. (Error in the bulletin, Health information etc).  Happens about once every few weeks.

7. Keep an information table for items that are printed and sends it anyway rather than e-mail. Happens often if a member is an active member of an organization.

8. Forward e-mails we get to particular people if the e-mail has a very important item for them to actually do something.

Note: we rent our worship area, so we do not have room for mailboxes.

Hi Karl:

Thanks for your comments. "giving the poor a voice for justice" is important. One way as you indicate happens when they comment on our lifestyle or attitude.  I would like them to be more involved in getting the government change policy. However  I find most people including the poor rather apathetic when it comes to trying to effect change.

august

Hi Fronse:

The first step is becoming friends with the poor. Listen to their stories, their hopes for the future, the problems they may have. That is much easier to do with fellow church members, rich or poor. I mean the poor who would never think of going to a church where all the rich people go. 

Once you can do that you start to realize how our society is organized with the result that there are too many poor people.

If lots of people start listening to the poor, these people may think to change things, and if these people have some power, change is possible. 

Somehow I think that music in a church is one of the last things that may need to change...

August

 Personally, I do not like Intuit products. They are designed to expire in a few years causing you to reinvest the same amount to get the networking features again.  Organizations using their products better have an exit plan or have deep products!

 I like "non hierarchical organic leadership"