Delbert, your comments were very enlightening and encouraging. Also highlighting the vast difference between LDS growth in the millions, and CRC yellowstone in the thousands. We seem so often to be willing to adopt the practices of other cultures that do not lead to growth; perhaps we should adopt some of the practices of the LDS and use them to lead others to the Jesus of the Bible. Wow!! wouldn't that be something?!
I am reminded of the practice of long ago, where the churches were "guarding" the table. (Lord's Supper). Their objective was to make sure everything was protected, that everything was done right. That eventually disappeared, and now there is a simple general warning in most cases that to participate in communion meal, you must believe in Christ as your Lord and Saviour, and seek to obey Him.
The similarity to Classis as an organization that protects "ministry", which literally means "service", is changing to classis as an organization that actually serves, rather than rules. This is good. As an example, there are all kinds of rules in the church order about restrictions and approvals required for elders to preach or perform "official" acts of service (ministry). As a serving organization, classis would do much better to encourage and teach elders to perform official acts of service, rather than restricting them from doing so. It would do much better to enhance and facilitate, rather than to restrict and regulate. In some cases, it is doing this, but in most cases, this is greatly lacking, with the wrong focus and emphasis.
As a result, classis is quite irrelevant to song leaders, to worship leaders, to most evangelism efforts, and to most local deaconal work. Classis can become more relevant by understanding what it means to "serve", diakonos, which is where the word ministry derives from.
As far as classis relationship to synod, as representatives of the elders and overseers, presbyteros, episkepoi, there has been so much convoluted reasoning in the last decades in terms of interpreting how scripture applies to "office", "official ministry", genesis 1, sin, and other issues, that it is quite clear that for many, sociology, culture, and science are all on pedestals as high or higher than scripture, which makes any dependance on the wisdom of classis and synod in that regard less and less tenable, with less and less confidence and relevance.
In terms of their spiritual life and growth, family devotions have a much larger impact than christian school, or any church activities, including catechism, sunday school, gems, or worship. So if you are concerned about your children, and if you love them, you will not neglect family devotions with your children, especially at young ages. By the time they are twelve or fourteen, they will quite likely have their own personal devotions daily, provided the family has modelled and encouraged them.
A couple of options for family devotions that work well: 1. family devotions at mealtimes. This means that you either start or end the meal with prayer, reading scripture, possibly discussion, and possibly singing of some songs, preferably from memory. In my case, this is what we do at least at breakfast and supper, and when on vacation or weekends, also at noon meals. The children enjoy this. When we read the bible, or a bible story book, invariably one or two will want to sit on my knee when we read, although this diminishes when they become older. At breakfast, I am often gone, so my wife leads this reading. When the grandchildren are also there, then often four of them are trying to sit on my knees, and I can barely see the book. They also love to pick the songs, especially the action songs. As they get older and learn, they may want to play the piano for a simple song they are learning.
The other option, 2, is family devotion at bedtime. This works well if children more or less go to bed at a similar time. It can also be done with parent and single child. Again, the children miss it when it is skipped.
Sometimes both options done together are possible, and the children do not mind it at all. In fact, sometimes they are the ones who insist on it, and this keeps the practice consistent.
Usually simply reading the bible, rather than all kinds of devotional books, is the best.
Is there a spot to observe the parallel translations, ie. the present version, and the proposed version, with the changes highlilghted in different font or color?
I think you can be expressing disagreement with various looks, actions, or comments of young people, while still accepting them. That should also be possible in return as well, where they may disapprove of certain philosophies, songs, formalism or whatever of older people, while still accepting the older people as brothers and sisters in christ. If none of us has anything to learn from each other, then the body of christ starts to get weak and shallow. But our disapprovals or disagreements ought to be in a spirit of respect for their youth and their still growing faith and life, with trust in God to bring it to fruition.
By and large, if you want to attract the young people, spend time talking with them. Find out what they are doing. Don't assume a paternalistic attitude. But also don't apologize for your beliefs. Give them something to feel worth belonging to.
"Churches work with hospitals to improve congregants’ health and reduce spending
By Michelle Andrews, Published: October 3 Washinton Post
Two mainstays of the Memphis community — the Methodist Le Bonheur hospital system and nearly 400 local churches — have teamed up for an innovative program that keeps church members healthy while reducing health-care costs. If not actually made in heaven, it’s a match that has significantly benefited all parties. Other health-care systems are taking note.
Methodist says 70 percent of its patients belong to churches. To help people get the care they need when they need it, the system assigns hospital staff, appropriately called “navigators,’’ to work with volunteer liaisons at area churches that have joined the health system’s Congregational Health Network. When a member of one of these congregations is admitted to the hospital, the navigator notifies the liaison. The liaison then plans a visit, if the member wishes, “so they have a support structure, not just the nurse and doctor,” says Valerie Murphy, the liaison for her small church of six families in Millington, a rural area north of Memphis. inShare
When it comes time to discharge the patient, the liaison works with the navigator to make sure that the transition happens smoothly, connecting the patient with community services such as meals-on-wheels and transportation.
“It’s the social connections, the nitty-gritty practical stuff that makes a huge difference,” says Gary Gunderson, senior vice president for the health system. “Whether people understand how to take their medications, whether there’s food in the house.”
The health system compared the experiences and costs of 473 patients in the program with those of similar non-participating patients who received standard care from 2007 to 2009: The mortality rate for those in the network was 50 percent lower than for non-participating patients; their hospital readmission rates were 20 percent lower....... " ...
Maybe its not about controlling classis. Maybe its about classis controlling itself? Or restraining itself? I agree that a classis that seeks to serve, rather than to control, will probably be more effective. Probably will trust God more. Probably will be a better example as well. I'm sure there are some great classis meetings out there.
Great points. To go from the theoretical to the practical.... of course you can make friends of people from all colors and backgrounds. But sometimes that is difficult, and does not always or even often lead to a change in your actual church body, since other people have as much a tendency to congregate with people of like backgrounds as we do. More practical is to be foster parents or adoptive parents. You will find that color thing changing more rapidly.
And, it's not all about color. There are people of quite different backgrounds who also can join in and become part of the local church, including former presbyterians, united, methodist, lutherans, rom cath., etc., as well as people from a whole host of different countries where color would not be noticed, such as ireland, france, switzerland, poland, sweden, norway, australia, south africa, eastern europe, and all the stans: kurgistan, kazahkstan, etc., and russia, hungary, czechoslovakia,.... Immigrants from all over....
The more attention you pay to color, the more difficult it will be. The more attention you pay to the person, to the people, and to their needs, the easier it will become.
This is not an either/or situation. However, we should realize what is primary, and what has the most impact. It is a good thing for the church to have sunday school, girls clubs, boys clubs, catechism classes. But we should realize that the time that children spend in these activities is quite small compared to the time they spend with their family and parents during the week, whether at meal times, or driving places, or watching tv, or playing games, and just plain talking. What the church does in Sunday school is equivalent to only about one-tenth of what the children are learning in total, about the faith of their parents. The children learn what they see their parents doing, and the priorities their parents have, and what the parents teach them about God, and life, and their relationship to God. It would probably be good if the church learned to train parents to teach their children, because whether parents realize it or not, they are indeed teaching them something. And this something will have a greater impact than sunday school lessons.
I don't think telling horror stories of classis is much fun. But I will say that my first classis meeting was disappointing many years ago. Why? It seemed everything was about dollars and budgets. Not what I had envisioned. We should have sent all the church treasurers instead of the elders. Maybe. Maybe it was just me, young, idealistic. Wondering how church leaders would respond to God's claims. Wondering how church leaders would see God's purposes. But it turned out to be all about money. Mostly.
Having participated in local ministerial meetings for several years, where preachers and pastors would get together to organize events and things for the local community, I saw a different purpose, one where christian witness was foremost, where the hospitals, lodges, and community christmas and easter were claimed for Christ. A great classis would do that. The local ministerial cooperated in encouraging a local christian volunteer radio station, which now pretty well operates apart from the ministerial. It organized and supported christian concerts, dramas that were available to the entire community. It coordinated a local transient approach. It was more outward focussed. Perhaps a great classis would do that too.
A great classis would be spiritually 'deep", not shallow. It has been said that the influence of the church in society is a mile wide and an inch deep. But if it is only an inch deep, then that mile can decrease to a half mile or a quarter mile very easily. A great classis would deepen its spirituality. Grow its roots.
A great classis will encourage the independance and growth of its members. It will not establish rules and regulations about order, but rather will offer helpful suggestions in a respectful context. It will provide advice, prayer, scriptural guidance. It will offer more prayer. Honest prayer. Open prayer. It will leave more things in God's hands. It will seek scriptural leadership rather than using or abusing scripture to fit agendas. It will seek to serve God rather than man, rather than human institutions. And it will return to humble prayer.
Posted in: Life in the Candidate Waiting Room
Good points, Brian Tebben.
Posted in: What's a Classis for Anyhow?
Delbert, your comments were very enlightening and encouraging. Also highlighting the vast difference between LDS growth in the millions, and CRC yellowstone in the thousands. We seem so often to be willing to adopt the practices of other cultures that do not lead to growth; perhaps we should adopt some of the practices of the LDS and use them to lead others to the Jesus of the Bible. Wow!! wouldn't that be something?!
Posted in: How to Change a Classis
I am reminded of the practice of long ago, where the churches were "guarding" the table. (Lord's Supper). Their objective was to make sure everything was protected, that everything was done right. That eventually disappeared, and now there is a simple general warning in most cases that to participate in communion meal, you must believe in Christ as your Lord and Saviour, and seek to obey Him.
The similarity to Classis as an organization that protects "ministry", which literally means "service", is changing to classis as an organization that actually serves, rather than rules. This is good. As an example, there are all kinds of rules in the church order about restrictions and approvals required for elders to preach or perform "official" acts of service (ministry). As a serving organization, classis would do much better to encourage and teach elders to perform official acts of service, rather than restricting them from doing so. It would do much better to enhance and facilitate, rather than to restrict and regulate. In some cases, it is doing this, but in most cases, this is greatly lacking, with the wrong focus and emphasis.
As a result, classis is quite irrelevant to song leaders, to worship leaders, to most evangelism efforts, and to most local deaconal work. Classis can become more relevant by understanding what it means to "serve", diakonos, which is where the word ministry derives from.
As far as classis relationship to synod, as representatives of the elders and overseers, presbyteros, episkepoi, there has been so much convoluted reasoning in the last decades in terms of interpreting how scripture applies to "office", "official ministry", genesis 1, sin, and other issues, that it is quite clear that for many, sociology, culture, and science are all on pedestals as high or higher than scripture, which makes any dependance on the wisdom of classis and synod in that regard less and less tenable, with less and less confidence and relevance.
Can this be changed?
Posted in: Family Devotions
In terms of their spiritual life and growth, family devotions have a much larger impact than christian school, or any church activities, including catechism, sunday school, gems, or worship. So if you are concerned about your children, and if you love them, you will not neglect family devotions with your children, especially at young ages. By the time they are twelve or fourteen, they will quite likely have their own personal devotions daily, provided the family has modelled and encouraged them.
A couple of options for family devotions that work well: 1. family devotions at mealtimes. This means that you either start or end the meal with prayer, reading scripture, possibly discussion, and possibly singing of some songs, preferably from memory. In my case, this is what we do at least at breakfast and supper, and when on vacation or weekends, also at noon meals. The children enjoy this. When we read the bible, or a bible story book, invariably one or two will want to sit on my knee when we read, although this diminishes when they become older. At breakfast, I am often gone, so my wife leads this reading. When the grandchildren are also there, then often four of them are trying to sit on my knees, and I can barely see the book. They also love to pick the songs, especially the action songs. As they get older and learn, they may want to play the piano for a simple song they are learning.
The other option, 2, is family devotion at bedtime. This works well if children more or less go to bed at a similar time. It can also be done with parent and single child. Again, the children miss it when it is skipped.
Sometimes both options done together are possible, and the children do not mind it at all. In fact, sometimes they are the ones who insist on it, and this keeps the practice consistent.
Usually simply reading the bible, rather than all kinds of devotional books, is the best.
Just some suggestions to consider.
Posted in: Our Three (Updated) Confessions
Is there a spot to observe the parallel translations, ie. the present version, and the proposed version, with the changes highlilghted in different font or color?
Posted in: A Follow-Up: Welcoming Young People in Our Congregations
I think you can be expressing disagreement with various looks, actions, or comments of young people, while still accepting them. That should also be possible in return as well, where they may disapprove of certain philosophies, songs, formalism or whatever of older people, while still accepting the older people as brothers and sisters in christ. If none of us has anything to learn from each other, then the body of christ starts to get weak and shallow. But our disapprovals or disagreements ought to be in a spirit of respect for their youth and their still growing faith and life, with trust in God to bring it to fruition.
By and large, if you want to attract the young people, spend time talking with them. Find out what they are doing. Don't assume a paternalistic attitude. But also don't apologize for your beliefs. Give them something to feel worth belonging to.
Posted in: Robertson, Dementia, and Divorce
Great point, great article, Mark!
Posted in: Deacon Vision
"Churches work with hospitals to improve congregants’ health and reduce spending
By Michelle Andrews, Published: October 3 Washinton Post
Two mainstays of the Memphis community — the Methodist Le Bonheur hospital system and nearly 400 local churches — have teamed up for an innovative program that keeps church members healthy while reducing health-care costs. If not actually made in heaven, it’s a match that has significantly benefited all parties. Other health-care systems are taking note.
Methodist says 70 percent of its patients belong to churches. To help people get the care they need when they need it, the system assigns hospital staff, appropriately called “navigators,’’ to work with volunteer liaisons at area churches that have joined the health system’s Congregational Health Network. When a member of one of these congregations is admitted to the hospital, the navigator notifies the liaison. The liaison then plans a visit, if the member wishes, “so they have a support structure, not just the nurse and doctor,” says Valerie Murphy, the liaison for her small church of six families in Millington, a rural area north of Memphis. inShare
When it comes time to discharge the patient, the liaison works with the navigator to make sure that the transition happens smoothly, connecting the patient with community services such as meals-on-wheels and transportation.
“It’s the social connections, the nitty-gritty practical stuff that makes a huge difference,” says Gary Gunderson, senior vice president for the health system. “Whether people understand how to take their medications, whether there’s food in the house.”
The health system compared the experiences and costs of 473 patients in the program with those of similar non-participating patients who received standard care from 2007 to 2009: The mortality rate for those in the network was 50 percent lower than for non-participating patients; their hospital readmission rates were 20 percent lower....... " ...
Posted in: How to Change a Classis
Sounds like a bit of a carrot, Paul? :)
Maybe its not about controlling classis. Maybe its about classis controlling itself? Or restraining itself? I agree that a classis that seeks to serve, rather than to control, will probably be more effective. Probably will trust God more. Probably will be a better example as well. I'm sure there are some great classis meetings out there.
Posted in: Connecting the Dots
Great points. To go from the theoretical to the practical.... of course you can make friends of people from all colors and backgrounds. But sometimes that is difficult, and does not always or even often lead to a change in your actual church body, since other people have as much a tendency to congregate with people of like backgrounds as we do. More practical is to be foster parents or adoptive parents. You will find that color thing changing more rapidly.
And, it's not all about color. There are people of quite different backgrounds who also can join in and become part of the local church, including former presbyterians, united, methodist, lutherans, rom cath., etc., as well as people from a whole host of different countries where color would not be noticed, such as ireland, france, switzerland, poland, sweden, norway, australia, south africa, eastern europe, and all the stans: kurgistan, kazahkstan, etc., and russia, hungary, czechoslovakia,.... Immigrants from all over....
The more attention you pay to color, the more difficult it will be. The more attention you pay to the person, to the people, and to their needs, the easier it will become.
Posted in: What's The Point?
This is not an either/or situation. However, we should realize what is primary, and what has the most impact. It is a good thing for the church to have sunday school, girls clubs, boys clubs, catechism classes. But we should realize that the time that children spend in these activities is quite small compared to the time they spend with their family and parents during the week, whether at meal times, or driving places, or watching tv, or playing games, and just plain talking. What the church does in Sunday school is equivalent to only about one-tenth of what the children are learning in total, about the faith of their parents. The children learn what they see their parents doing, and the priorities their parents have, and what the parents teach them about God, and life, and their relationship to God. It would probably be good if the church learned to train parents to teach their children, because whether parents realize it or not, they are indeed teaching them something. And this something will have a greater impact than sunday school lessons.
Posted in: When Bad Classis Happens to Good Leaders
I don't think telling horror stories of classis is much fun. But I will say that my first classis meeting was disappointing many years ago. Why? It seemed everything was about dollars and budgets. Not what I had envisioned. We should have sent all the church treasurers instead of the elders. Maybe. Maybe it was just me, young, idealistic. Wondering how church leaders would respond to God's claims. Wondering how church leaders would see God's purposes. But it turned out to be all about money. Mostly.
Having participated in local ministerial meetings for several years, where preachers and pastors would get together to organize events and things for the local community, I saw a different purpose, one where christian witness was foremost, where the hospitals, lodges, and community christmas and easter were claimed for Christ. A great classis would do that. The local ministerial cooperated in encouraging a local christian volunteer radio station, which now pretty well operates apart from the ministerial. It organized and supported christian concerts, dramas that were available to the entire community. It coordinated a local transient approach. It was more outward focussed. Perhaps a great classis would do that too.
A great classis would be spiritually 'deep", not shallow. It has been said that the influence of the church in society is a mile wide and an inch deep. But if it is only an inch deep, then that mile can decrease to a half mile or a quarter mile very easily. A great classis would deepen its spirituality. Grow its roots.
A great classis will encourage the independance and growth of its members. It will not establish rules and regulations about order, but rather will offer helpful suggestions in a respectful context. It will provide advice, prayer, scriptural guidance. It will offer more prayer. Honest prayer. Open prayer. It will leave more things in God's hands. It will seek scriptural leadership rather than using or abusing scripture to fit agendas. It will seek to serve God rather than man, rather than human institutions. And it will return to humble prayer.