Terry Woodnorth
Former CRWRC board member. Current trustee of the Center for Public Justice. Previous chair of Diakonia Remixed: Office of Deacon Task Force and the Task Force to Study the Offices of Elder and Deacon for the CRCNA. Retired software engineer living in Lebanon, PA. Attended Synod 2016 as a deacon delegate.
Posted in: Grace Valley CRC and Conserving Energy in Las Vegas
You may want to check out a Solar Power Purchase Agreement as an alternative to purchasing the solar power system. A third party that can take advantage of the tax credits would install and operate the system on your property and sell the electricity to the church. See http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/buygp/solarpower.htm for more information.
For those who think only buildings in Las Vegas (and similar sunny areas) can take advantage of solar power, I just had a solar system installed on my house in upstate New York this week. It was sized to provide, in an average year, 100% of my electrical demand.
Posted in: What About Waste, Injustice, and Selfishness?
Partnering with Bread for the World with their annual Offering of Letters (http://www.bread.org/ol) is one of the best ways U.S. deacons can fulfill this part of their charge. This year, for example, the focus is on reforming U.S. food aid, directly addressing waste and injustice. I'll be organizing an Offering of Letters in my church this coming Sunday, facilitating the writing of letters to members of Congress on this topic.
Posted in: Diakonia — We've Passed This Way Before
The Diakonia Remixed report likely won't be considered by Synod until Thursday at the earliest. Watch http://www.crcna.org/synod/synod-documents to monitor what has been processed by Synod. It appears that this will be one of the last items on the agenda to be considered.
Posted in: Diakonia — We've Passed This Way Before
It appears that Synod won't be considering the Diakonia Remixed report until Thursday at the earliest. You may want to monitor http://www.crcna.org/synod/synod-documents to see what items Synod has remaining on its agenda. This will be one of the last items on the agenda to be considered.
Posted in: A Better Way to Select the Officers of Synod?
Being able to do this assumes two things: 1) The officers' respective classes will delegate them to Synod the next year and 2) requires that they still be in office the next year. #2 can be easily addressed by only selecting those whose term of office continues for at least another year. One way to accommodate #1 without binding a classis to delegate a specific person the following year would be to create four at-large positions to Synod for the officers to fill. Doing that would require a Church Order change. This could be considered to be within the scope of the mandate of the new Task Force to Study the Offices of Elder and Deacon to consider. Other ideas?
Posted in: Energy Efficiency Project (Pilot Churches Needed)
Note: The deadline for submission is November 15, 2010.
Posted in: The Church and the Exercise of Non-Ecclesiastical Power
The Form for the Ordination of Elders and Deacons does charge deacons to "[b]e prophetic critics of the waste, injustice, and selfishness in our society."
Posted in: The Church and the Exercise of Non-Ecclesiastical Power
I would encourage your congregation to read and study together Richard Mouw's book "Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World" (IVP Books, second edition, 2010).
Posted in: Leadership in Ministry Course - Your Input Needed
Amy Sherman's book "Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good" is an excellent resource on this topic.
Posted in: Diakonia Remixed Report To Synod
I wasn't planning to attend the upcoming meeting of CANE; I need to save vacation days for a week at Synod in June.
The following is an explanation of Articles 76 and 77 from Kathy Smith, one of the task force's advisors.
The current Articles 76 and 77 give grounds for the existence of denominational agencies of home missions and diaconal ministries and world missions. Since the Diakonia Remixed report calls for a missional understanding of and coordinated approach to all denominational ministries, the proposed articles apply to all those denominational ministries together. Rather than describing the ministries separately in Articles 76 and 77, with a supplement that explains that synod regulates their work through the Board of Trustees, the proposed articles describe the ministries as a whole in Article 76 and the statement about regulating them becomes Article 77, instead of being a supplement. The statement in the proposed Article 77, that "Synod shall regulate the work of denominational ministries by way of the Constitution and decisions of the Board of Trustees of the CRCNA" is and has been what the Board of Trustees does, per its Constitution which was approved by Synod. So, nothing is changing in that regard and it is already official. The only change here is taking a supplement that records a decision of synod and making it into an article in the Church Order.
Posted in: Diakonia Remixed Report To Synod
To address your third point, the Current Supplement Article 77-a states "Synod regulates the work of the world missions committee by way of the Constitution and decisions of the Board of Trustees of the CRCNA." This governance statement was generalized by moving it into article 77 and applied it to the regulating duties of Synod with respect to all denominational ministries. REVISED Article 77 - "Synod shall regulate the work of denominational ministries by way of the Constitution and decisions of the Board of Trustees of the CRCNA." I don't see how you can interpret this as removal of synodical oversight and encouragement of our denominatoinal agencies. That certainly was not the intent.
Posted in: The Diakonia Remixed Preliminary Report
The alternate scenario considered for continuing to delegate four persons to Synod is more flexible than 2 ministers, 1 elder and 1 deacon. The task force considered 1 minister, 1 elder, 1 deacon, and one other officebearer. The manner in which the fourth officebearer would be chosen could be left up to each classis or the BoT or Executive Director could provide direction if a specific balance was desired. The details on how the fourth officebearer should be selected would not necessarily need to be part of the Church Order. Feedback (and reasons) on which scenario is desirable is welcome.