Randy Blacketer

I can't even get a response to my original post. But that is an interesting idea.

Pastors certainly don't do much resting on Sundays, and often we find it challenging to make work of resting, so to speak, even though the spiritual practice of sabbath is essential for us as persons, spouses, parents, and pastors.

Thank you, Joyce!

Our dilemma is that we use the lectionary and RW, but they don't usually mesh. Everything we do in Advent and Lent is related to RW somehow. It's our #1 go to resource, followed by the Worship Sourcebook.

I remember someone giving a presentation on the RCL at the Worship Symposium some years back; he had been involved in its creation, and he said sometimes the readings are all coordinated in some way, and sometimes they are not, or in different ways...it's confusing. The lectionary is not always so user-friendly or self-explanatory. If it weren't for the ecumenical aspect I might not use it that much; it certainly has its faults (skipping large portions of scripture; questionable verse selections, etc.) I've been using it for at least a decade and I still don't have it figured out. Sometimes I think they need a "Year D" to cover what they missed in A, B, and C.

What we are missing, or what we're looking for, is some kind of theme that ties the advent or lenten readings together. What we do now is basically create a hybrid of stuff we find on RW and the lectionary readings, and I do some exegetical gymanstics to relate the text to the theme; sometimes it works very naturally, other times its more like a trapeze act.

Joyce, you said "There are a plethora of good resources available for churches that follow the lectionary there are fewer good resources for non-lectionary based worship." That is not my experience as a lectionary user. I use Textweek.com, but I don't find the resources there anywhere as creative or helpful as RW. I don't want RW to leave us lectionary people behind. But I may be in a very small minority.

Thanks again for the response!

Randy

I would love to see sample job descriptions for: President of Council, Clerk, Adjunct, Treasurer etc.

Also, a good guide for taking minutes that are useful and contain enough information to be effective but not overly detailed.

Thanks Tim. Unfortunately there are no sample job descriptions for functionaries of council. Also, we need a basic guide for taking minutes, especially for communities in which few people are familiar with business/board meetings. If we end up finding or creating some, we will share them on the network.

Another question: If I am logged in, why do I still have to type that captcha thing all the time?

Randy

...I should add that there is a sample job description there for treasurer and assitant treasurer. We have used those resources and they are very helpful.

Thanks Sheri,
You might notice I tried to correct my oversight there in that last post. These comments arise from recent experience of looking for resources to train new officebearers, many of whom have never chaired a meeting or taken minutes. We tend to get minutes that are too vague to be useful or else overly detailed. Also, I think the seminary ought to have some kind of training in policy and process for pastors (what I received years ago was not all that adequate or practical; it was all about big theories of how systems works and not the basics about how to get things done and how to communicate effectively), Do you know who teaches church admin over there?

Randy

Hi, Sheri, wondering if you've thought about those council functionary job descriptions, or if any other churches have made them up.

Thanks, Randy

(from Riverside, not far from Redlands!)

Thank you, Meg. There is complementariansm, and then there is the way one expresses it. I wonder if this recent post on CT may be quite relevant to this point. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/mobile/hermeneutics.html?id=105509. My opinion is that when we Balkanize ourselves into affinity classes, we all lose. We lose the opportunity to disagree with civility. We lose the benefit of radically different perspectives. Synod has rejected this before and it should do so again.

Thank you for that fascinating reflection, Mark. As a (part-time) academic theologian and full-time pastor, I can personally imagine some of what Küng fears, how he laments his decline, and how he will grieve his loss. On the other hand, I would expect one of the most famous (sometimes infamous) theologians of the twentieth century to understand that lament and grief are part of living in a world groaning for its redemption, and that suffering can at least potentially be or become redemptive; not least of all in the Suffering Servant himself, but also how our suffering can in some mysterious way participate in Christ’s sufferings. I think of the very difficult-to-interpret saying of Paul, Colossians 1:24: “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.” Not that there is something lacking in the value of Christ’s suffering, but that we also take up our cross, die with Christ, and also experience fleeting moments of resurrection and new life. The NLT might be on the right track when it renders this verse “I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church.” Suffering is a profound mystery, one that apparently eludes this theologian (presuming his views are rightly represented, and presuming that his utterances are deliberate reflections and not just cries of desperation.) Being united with Christ also means that our suffering, perhaps even what we think of as “natural” suffering, can at least potentially take on a meaning and significance that cannot be found in a naturalistic worldview, one with which Küng found himself far too comfortable. The utterly secular, vacuously utilitarian view of suffering that Küng appears to buy into is astounding and disappointing. It is not, however, terribly surprising to those familiar with his rationalistic theological method, which exegetes culture more than listening to Scripture, and seeks to defensively justify Christian faith to a secular world, when the Christian faith rather stands as a prophetic critique of secular, materialistic, utilitarian—in a word, hopeless naturalism. When I was in seminary I read his 800 page book Does God Exist? and at the end I still had no idea what Küng’s answer was. I hope for his sake, and perhaps for the sake of those who admired his culturally respectable, but scripturally inadequate and, it seems, spiritually comfortless theological work, that he comes to a deeper, more authentically biblical, more genuinely spiritual view of the matter, and also that he comes to see how harmful and dismissive his statements are for those who don’t have perfect minds and bodies. And perhaps this is not Hans Küng at his best, but in his weakness, and perhaps were he in a better state of mind and spirit he would not say such things.