Randy Blacketer
AKA Dr. Raymond A. Blacketer. Reformation scholar, sometime professor, native Californian, lover of the Reformed confessions, brought into the Christian Reformed Church through evangelism. Formerly pastor of Neerlandia CRC in Northern Alberta, Canada, and First Cutlerville CRC, Byron Center. Currently working as a theological editor and translator.
Posted in: Network Quiz
I'm devastated. I can no longer self-differentiate or act as a non-anxious presence because of this. You don't think I've earned it? Slaving away in the trenches of reading boring commentaries and visiting dysfunctional families and going to endless committee meetings? Have you ever been to a classis meeting? Let me tell you, I've earned it ten times over (background music: Battle Hymn of the Republic, to reinforce the heroic-martyr image).
Fine. I'll find someone in Jerusalem to acquire one secretly and surreptitiously from the hidden bunker at 2850. :p
Posted in: Network Quiz
Hmmm...option one is unethical, sneaky, deceptive, dishonest, fattening, politically incorrect and probably contrary to church order, so I'm really tempted to go with that one.
Number two is a better idea. I know we have a few more Network members than two here in Neerlandia (where we also barely have internet (we connect by smoke signals to our ISP, so wherever Crossroads is, we have it worse than they do). The temperature is currently -30, and the official boundary line of human civilization is one mile south of where we live. A trip to the city (Edmonton) is a good hundred miles on the way there, and a hundred and fifty on the way back, uphill on ice roads both ways, with moose hyped up on meth constantly running crossing the road tyring to commit suicide by minivan. We take our lives in our hands every time we need to go to Starbucks or Eddie Bauer. And we never complain about it because our grandparents who went through the war had it a thousand times worse, because they had to go church about fifteen times on the days surrounding Christmas, which is the real reason the Germans left Holland.
I know of at least two other Neerlandians who are on the Network (ecclesiastical spies, actually), who probably haven't completed their profiles (bad weather has been interfering with the high speed smoke signal connection and also with the sled dog mail service). I would expect that number to rise!
Glory, glory Hallelujah!....
Posted in: Reformed Worship and the Lectionary
I can't even get a response to my original post. But that is an interesting idea.
Posted in: How Annoying Is the Captcha?
If it's based on reputation...that explains why I have to do it every time! You can never escape your past.... ;)
Posted in: What Should Be Added to This Network?
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.
Posted in: What Should Be Added to This Network?
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
Posted in: What Should Be Added to This Network?
...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.
Posted in: What Should Be Added to This Network?
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
Posted in: What Should Be Added to This Network?
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!)
Posted in: Overtures 3 & 4: Laying Out the Debate
That's why it didn't make sense to me. I thought it was about this thread specifically. Never mind.
Do we have the capability of deleting our own comments?
Posted in: Overtures 3 & 4: Laying Out the Debate
If you want to compare being female to being homosexual, which is a dubious move. So that's one way in which it doesn't "work" for me. The CRCNA holds, along with the bulk of orthodox Christianity, that homosexuality is a disordered form of sexuality (leaving aside the excruciatingly difficult pastoral issues for the moment). One would not want to say that femininity is a disordered form of gender, or a result of sin, would one?
As for the usual pessimistic prognostications of the CRC's inevitable slide into mainline liberalism, witness Synod 2012.
It sounds, frankly, like typical, boring CRC-bashing to me; and this close to mother's day, it's disrespectful to bash someone's mother (mater ecclesia, see Calvin, Institutes, 4.1.1-4). If you came from the GKN, I can see how you might fear this outcome for the CRC, and in the past I have had that same doom-and-gloom attitude, which I think is less than faithful and less than God-honoring, since God is sovereign over his church. I have many relatives by marriage who are members of the GKN, now the PKN. Moreover, the baneful influence of GKN theology from the 1960's has faded from our seminary and many younger pastors, I think, have an appreciation for biblical faithfulness and the confessions that I find encouraging.
My close colleague in the Ev. Lutheran Church in Canada has now joined NALC, the more confessional denomination, and were I in his place I would probably do the same. The ELCIC not only blesses homosexual unions, but has also arguably jettisoned its confessional Lutheran principles in doing so, defining marriage in purely voluntary terms (my colleague shared their report with me). They are also quickly becoming extinct. And our cousins the presbyterians are leaving the PCUSA for ECO, because they are either more confessional, or maybe more likely, because they are more "evangelical." If such a turn of events does happen in the CRCNA, I think there will be a mass exodus from the denomination, not a realignment of classes. That is a church dividing issue. But this misses the point. If the ordination of women is considered such an extreme fault, equivalent to making homosexual unions equivalent to marriage, why remain in the allegedly apostate and ostensibly ever-more-liberal CRCNA?
It's possible, just maybe, that the CRCNA is not yet apostate, is not heading inevitably toward the rejection of its confessional moorings, is not rushing to be mainline, is not moving to identify the gospel with left-wing politics. I think there is a segment of the denomination that would want to push us in that direction, but there is also a segment that would push us in a fundamentalist direction and identify the gospel with right-wing politics.
Because I am very confessionally oriented, I don't want to see the one wing of the church moving toward polarization or schism, and I see this as an intermediate step along that direction.
I once had a member of the URC, who was unhappy about her own congregation and her pastor (who was eventually forced out of the URC for his extreme views), complain to me about the "liberalism" of the CRC. I asked her what she meant. She said "the women in office." I replied, "we might be in error on that matter, but your pastor is preaching theonomy, which is a heresy." And this URC woman, quite well-versed in theology, had to concede the point. We got along pretty famously after that. So, there are various degrees of error. The question for complementarians, who see ordaining women as an error, is whether this error (as they see it) rises to the level of apostasy or a willful denial of biblical authority. If so, they have no business remaining in the CRCNA. If instead they view egalitarians (these terms are both distasteful in my opinion) as sisters and brothers with whom they disagree, that's quite different.
Can complementarians in the CRC also muster up enough humility to give a female colleague the respect due to the office, even if they believe that said female colleage is irregularly ordained to such an office? I don't know that we as a church body have ever been challenged to consider that question.
In any case, on mothers' day, though it's just a Hallmark holiday, let's respect and honor our spiritual mother. It is our obligation under the fifth commandment. My spiritual mother is the CRCNA, part of the church catholic, who evangelized my family into the faith, baptized me into the Christian family, and nurtured me in the Reformed faith.
Posted in: Overtures 3 & 4: Laying Out the Debate
Thank you for your clarification; it is all too easy to misread someone's posts online. Hartelijk bedank.