I grew up in the CRC, and am still here, along with my family. I'm married to Daryl, who has a construction business. I had a CPA license for 10 or so years, then I added EX to the front, and MOM to the back, so now I'm an EX CPA, MOM =). I am MOM to Duncan, Ian and Samantha. Our family also owns a raspberry farm, and in the summers we get to work out there together.
CCLI/song select has a place where you can change each song into any key, up or down, plus and minus an octave or more... I use it ALL the time... I also just found out how to print out the music from CCLI in a smaller format, so that the vocal printout version of songs is only 1-4 pages instead of 3-6 (normal print)... I love this because otherwise I'm turning pages all the time...
I have several women that the Lord has connected me with that are involved in various abusive type situations within the Church, and if you want to get an idea on how that has fared so far, you can read my recent comment under the Pastors network in response to a post by James Dekker titled "of Rob Ford and Pastors".
to summarize, we have found that spiritual leaders are protecting each other, at the expense of the victim, and that abuse thrives in a culture of shame and silence/cover up... and this is a very sad witness to the Church.
anonymous aka protecting victims, feel free to contact me directly (I think you can do so through clicking on my name and there is a tab to email me)... FYI, none of the situations in my experience deal with domestic abuse though, but would fall under other related type garbage. In one of the situations, it has been going through the Church Order process, and so I have become familiar with the CO a bit through that particular situation.
by praying =)... we pray for prayer... that a Spirit of prayer will be poured out in our congregations, in our denominations... we pray that God will help us become men & women of prayer. We pray that our churches will become houses of prayer (Is. 56:7; Matt 21:13), that we will be a church devoted to prayer (Col 4:2; Acts 1:14, 2:42, 6:4 =) there it is again! We pray that the Holy Spirit will convict us of prayerlessness where necessary, and help us to make the commitment to implement the change needed for us to become prayer warriors.
Some will tell me, but you have the gift of prayer. Prayer is not a gift, it's a command! I pursued prayer - read books on prayer and researched people who prayed like Praying Hyde, Count Zinzendorf & the Moravians, Rees Howells, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, etc. , went to conferences on prayer, joined prayer groups, went to prayer gatherings - even if they were of the charismatic or pentecostal stream, and the Holy Spirit graciously and generously taught me a lot through many different ways/people, and through it God has mostly "converted" me from a Miss Martha to a Miss Mary.
The LORD often wakes me up in the early AM as well, and that is a significant part of my personal time with Him. I love this time because it is undisturbed (we have 3 kids ages 11 and under). I have wrestled through many things with Him in those early morning hours. He has used that time to give insight, significantly change the direction I'm going which gave me more time to spend in prayer, as well as enjoy sweet time with Him in the secret place (Ps. 91:1 NKJV).
Our church participates in 24/7 prayer in the county, where 30+ churches each take one day of the month and commit to covering those 24 hours in prayer through having the people in their congregation sign up for a time on that day. We have .5 hour time slots, but many of the churches do a full hour for each person. One of the churches in our area has 200+ people praying an hour each week. All the churches can focus on the same requests specifically for our county, if they so choose.
Thanks John... now I pray when i have to do what i call my "Miss Martha" work. I've had times when i don't want to leave the "secret place", but i have to get the work done, and I'm thinking it's going to take me 10-15 hours to do this project and then it only takes me 3-5! I've thought another project would take me 3-5 hours and it only takes 1-2, and another time when I thought it would take 1-2 hours and it only took 20-30 minutes. I've experienced the LORD helping me get some of my "Miss Martha" work done! Those are all testimonies in themselves. I love "driving" berry harvester on "auto steer" at 1 mile an hour in the warm summer sunshine with the smell of raspberries, eating them to my heart's content... that's probably my favorite God time! and getting some work done too!
John, I was more afraid not to pray. I was thinking about it after I posted yesterday, about why I pursued prayer, what prompted my pursuit in the first place. And I was reminded that the Holy Spirit used 2 nightmares and a testimony of prayer over about a year's time (2005-2006) to compel me. After the first nightmare i remember thinking there was no human way out of that situation, it was impossible to escape, and a while later upon reflection, I realized the only way out was Jesus Christ. In the nightmare I was in a dungeon of hell like Peter describes in 2 Peter 2. As soon as I read that passage some time after my nightmare, I knew that's where I was in my nightmare.
The testimony of prayer was the second significant "event", it was about a casino in California that became a Kingdom church because the community prayed. The reason that came up was because a casino was coming to our area, and someone shared that testimony with several of us. We're still praying it into a house of prayer for all nations =)
the 3rd event, was another nightmare, and this one was a "hell on earth" situation, I remember waking up, and I asked God, what do we need to do so that this never happens. and i "got" one word... PRAY! That very day I went to the first Moms in touch prayer group at our kids' school, and have been pursuing prayer ever since. That was the same day as the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania, which I don't remember hearing about until later, but was in some ways similar to my nightmare, so those 3 all were within hours of each other.
Not saying I understand how dreams and visions work... but those were significant "events" that prompted me to pursue prayer. And those were just the beginning. There have been many other confirmations as I started pursuing prayer, that further/continue to encourage me as well.
I know God always has our best interest in mind, because He's God. One phrase that I use is that it's always for His glory and our good. Our good is secondary to His glory, but because He's God, it's an easy thing for Him to make both happen at the same time. When I pray with the healing prayer ministry, that is my assurance to people if they don't experience the healing they are expecting... that God is not answering our prayer in that way at this time because He has something better for them.
I see that I had added a paragraph while the networks' "spam" protector was down time, and then my first one ended up going through... so here's the last paragraph =) sorry, my computer started doing strange things...
John:
I think it's great you are thinking of ways to increase time with Him. He will totally honor that. One of my hopes for our denomination, is that we will start a similar 24/7 prayer movement/relay like we do in our county, similar to the Moravians (see link for some info on the Moravians)
with 1000 churches in the crc that have a lot of "well-churched" fairly mature members, we should be able to get every day covered at least once. So John, I would love for you to pray into that "movement" with me.
I am reminded of Acts 6:4, which is applicable for the church's spiritual leaders (elders, which includes the pastor). Those are the 2 most important callings of our leaders. and if other "duties" are taking time away from these 2 primary callings, then some evaluating and assessment probably needs to take place. So I echo the focus on accountability of the devotional and prayer life for the spiritual leaders. One survey (not recent, I found the results in the praying church sourcebook, but i have heard of these "confessions" from spiritual leaders in the last year or so as well) showed that of 2000 presbyterian and reformed pastors, 95% spent less than 5 minutes a day in prayer =(. makes me wonder (the charismatics were a little better with an average of 18 minutes per day). Another statistic Dan Henderson (pastor, author, speaker, etal) mentioned was that of the time a pastor spent in ministry of the Word and prayer, 95% of that time was focused on ministry of the Word, and only about 5% on prayer.
What are you thinking or seeing as a connection here? I'm interested in why the decline prompted you to ask this question about evangelism and worship...
I do believe there is a very strong and significant connection along with Michael Bentley... Dick Eastman's stories in "Prophetic Worship" (2011) testifies this to some extent... that when the "every home for Christ" ministry began 24/7 worship and prayer around the clock (ok that's redundant ;) along with their outreach, they saw the number of salvations and contacts increase significantly...
There is also a very strong correlation between ongoing prayer and evangelism... Worship and prayer are 2 of our primary callings as believers, and the evangelism flows out of this time in His Presence... the Moravians were a powerful testimony of their mission movement flowing out of a powerful outpouring of the Spirit in 1727 and 24/7 prayer started a few months later and continued for over 100 years, with this small community being the first to send out 100's of non-clergy missionaries around the world - the Moravians were an inspiration to John Wesley, as well as to William Carey, considered the father of modern missions... another key with the Moravians is they were so in love with Jesus after that outpouring...
We have all the "Transformation" testimonies, if you aren't familiar with them, that testifies to how prayer changed communities that were very dark and lost... here's the link to one of the videos... I think you can find a promo piece on you tube too
these are but a few of the many testimonies/resources, although the ones I shared are not crc
The Glory books by Ruth Heflin Ward also share testimonies of when they are worshipping and God lays a specific group to pray for and the next day, they hear that many came to the LORD the previous night...
again, thousands, and probably millions of testimonies... though not all compiled into one nice package at this point for analytical data that I know of.
So curious, if you discover there is a strong connection (which I'm positive of it), then what?
I'm so glad Marlin shared...as a member of the same church, I will confirm that the council did a good job...i would even say great job, of leading the congregation through some tough issues...the prayer was key, and I think a beautiful testimony of how God honors when we seek to do it His way, not our way...then the "conversations" were great for bringing communication to a more comprehensive level for anyone interested. There was good "sharpening", but also a good sense of community, as we wrestled with these concerns together. Marlin didn't share this, so I will...he helped facilitate most of them, and I definitely sensed that he was being led by the Spirit through it. Also, last night we had a "fun" conversation that focused on the various ministries going on in the church (instead of something controversial), and supporting and encouraging each other.
I am in total agreement with Marlin, prayer and open communication were key in our congregation. It really seemed the Holy Spirit helped us with an attitude of love and honor, even when in disagreement. I am also truly amazed at how God has worked in our church over the last year, and my prayer is that every Kingdom church will experience Him anew.
I will second Jack's #1 - prayer, prayer and more prayer (that's 3 principles, right? =)... especially time listening together in prayer.. you want the vision to come from the Holy Spirit. So bring a focus before the LORD, spend time listening for His direction. Crazy stuff happens when you start "hearing" Him.
If you aren't familiar with listening prayer, you will want to be, so that you can test and discern the thoughts that are shared through this time. there are some great books on it, I would say Brad Jersak's "can you hear Me? - tuning in to the God that speaks is a very practical one that helps teach concepts on "listening" to the Holy Spirit.
It seems, we often don't intentionally seek the Holy Spirit's guidance, we just hope and pray that He gives it to us, but it is not intentional, quiet time, listening for what He wants to share. Lots of reasons for this.
So, I pray that you and your team will be led into His vision that He has prepared in advance for you and your congregation, but I also pray that you will have amazing experiences encountering God through listening to the Holy Spirit.
Ken, my family would love to meet you/your family...You are in the Lynden area as well? We would love to hear your testimonies of how the Holy Spirit has been working in your life...please feel free to email us @ [email protected]
God is definitely connecting His body, crossing some traditional barriers... Thank You Jesus!! :) Bev S
For the record, the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an it...God in 3 Persons... Blessed Trinity...
I know we all know that, but I just wanted to recognize God for Who He is...Having stated that...I'm very grateful to see that we in the CRC are starting to realize, that One Person of the Trinity has been sadly neglected in our reformed history (and other denominations as well) for various reasons, and that it is time to change that...PTL!! I have read Gordon Fee, Francis Chan and John Algera's books, as well as the synodical reports from 1973 and 2009 on the 2nd and 3rd wave of pentecostalism. I also pray and worship with a lot of pentecostals, and learn a lot from these fellow brothers and sisters in the LORD, who have been much more open to the Spirit for a long time, and I think we can learn a lot from them, if we are willing to go beyond our denominational walls. God says we are a body, that isn't just in our local church, but ALL of His churches, and He designed that we work together. We are not complete if we are closed to the gifts the Holy Spirit has blessed other denominations with.
You mentioned seeing how the Holy Spirit fits into our CRC culture - have you ever discussed praying in tongues in a CRC crowd?- Interesting responses, both verbal and non-verbal! and that's just one "unusual" gift He gives us. Discussing the gift of prophecy (the prophetic) can also cause quite a stir - especially if you go beyond the definition that it is basically the same as preaching. The Holy Spirit is not an option/program, in case He doesn't "fit", and we do not want to quench Him/limit Him anymore than we already have...
God is more concerned with how we, the CRC, fit into His Kingdom, then how He fits into our crc "kingdom"...
LORD, forgive us for when we have quenched Your Holy Spirit in the past ...transform our denomination through the power of Your Holy Spirit...
Ha, Rod, that reminds me of Numbers 12:3 where Moses (most likely) under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote...now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth... it was probably an interesting discussion between Moses and God with Moses possibly saying "Do I have to write that?"
Posted in: Transposing Church Music
CCLI/song select has a place where you can change each song into any key, up or down, plus and minus an octave or more... I use it ALL the time... I also just found out how to print out the music from CCLI in a smaller format, so that the vocal printout version of songs is only 1-4 pages instead of 3-6 (normal print)... I love this because otherwise I'm turning pages all the time...
Posted in: How Do We Handle a Domestic-Violence Husband Whose Restraining Order Is Expiring?
I have several women that the Lord has connected me with that are involved in various abusive type situations within the Church, and if you want to get an idea on how that has fared so far, you can read my recent comment under the Pastors network in response to a post by James Dekker titled "of Rob Ford and Pastors".
to summarize, we have found that spiritual leaders are protecting each other, at the expense of the victim, and that abuse thrives in a culture of shame and silence/cover up... and this is a very sad witness to the Church.
anonymous aka protecting victims, feel free to contact me directly (I think you can do so through clicking on my name and there is a tab to email me)... FYI, none of the situations in my experience deal with domestic abuse though, but would fall under other related type garbage. In one of the situations, it has been going through the Church Order process, and so I have become familiar with the CO a bit through that particular situation.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
I'm glad you get to see it that way, John!
How do we change those 5 minutes/day?
by praying =)... we pray for prayer... that a Spirit of prayer will be poured out in our congregations, in our denominations... we pray that God will help us become men & women of prayer. We pray that our churches will become houses of prayer (Is. 56:7; Matt 21:13), that we will be a church devoted to prayer (Col 4:2; Acts 1:14, 2:42, 6:4 =) there it is again! We pray that the Holy Spirit will convict us of prayerlessness where necessary, and help us to make the commitment to implement the change needed for us to become prayer warriors.
Some will tell me, but you have the gift of prayer. Prayer is not a gift, it's a command! I pursued prayer - read books on prayer and researched people who prayed like Praying Hyde, Count Zinzendorf & the Moravians, Rees Howells, Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, etc. , went to conferences on prayer, joined prayer groups, went to prayer gatherings - even if they were of the charismatic or pentecostal stream, and the Holy Spirit graciously and generously taught me a lot through many different ways/people, and through it God has mostly "converted" me from a Miss Martha to a Miss Mary.
The LORD often wakes me up in the early AM as well, and that is a significant part of my personal time with Him. I love this time because it is undisturbed (we have 3 kids ages 11 and under). I have wrestled through many things with Him in those early morning hours. He has used that time to give insight, significantly change the direction I'm going which gave me more time to spend in prayer, as well as enjoy sweet time with Him in the secret place (Ps. 91:1 NKJV).
Our church participates in 24/7 prayer in the county, where 30+ churches each take one day of the month and commit to covering those 24 hours in prayer through having the people in their congregation sign up for a time on that day. We have .5 hour time slots, but many of the churches do a full hour for each person. One of the churches in our area has 200+ people praying an hour each week. All the churches can focus on the same requests specifically for our county, if they so choose.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
Thanks John... now I pray when i have to do what i call my "Miss Martha" work. I've had times when i don't want to leave the "secret place", but i have to get the work done, and I'm thinking it's going to take me 10-15 hours to do this project and then it only takes me 3-5! I've thought another project would take me 3-5 hours and it only takes 1-2, and another time when I thought it would take 1-2 hours and it only took 20-30 minutes. I've experienced the LORD helping me get some of my "Miss Martha" work done! Those are all testimonies in themselves. I love "driving" berry harvester on "auto steer" at 1 mile an hour in the warm summer sunshine with the smell of raspberries, eating them to my heart's content... that's probably my favorite God time! and getting some work done too!
John, I was more afraid not to pray. I was thinking about it after I posted yesterday, about why I pursued prayer, what prompted my pursuit in the first place. And I was reminded that the Holy Spirit used 2 nightmares and a testimony of prayer over about a year's time (2005-2006) to compel me. After the first nightmare i remember thinking there was no human way out of that situation, it was impossible to escape, and a while later upon reflection, I realized the only way out was Jesus Christ. In the nightmare I was in a dungeon of hell like Peter describes in 2 Peter 2. As soon as I read that passage some time after my nightmare, I knew that's where I was in my nightmare.
The testimony of prayer was the second significant "event", it was about a casino in California that became a Kingdom church because the community prayed. The reason that came up was because a casino was coming to our area, and someone shared that testimony with several of us. We're still praying it into a house of prayer for all nations =)
the 3rd event, was another nightmare, and this one was a "hell on earth" situation, I remember waking up, and I asked God, what do we need to do so that this never happens. and i "got" one word... PRAY! That very day I went to the first Moms in touch prayer group at our kids' school, and have been pursuing prayer ever since. That was the same day as the shooting at the Amish school in Pennsylvania, which I don't remember hearing about until later, but was in some ways similar to my nightmare, so those 3 all were within hours of each other.
Not saying I understand how dreams and visions work... but those were significant "events" that prompted me to pursue prayer. And those were just the beginning. There have been many other confirmations as I started pursuing prayer, that further/continue to encourage me as well.
I know God always has our best interest in mind, because He's God. One phrase that I use is that it's always for His glory and our good. Our good is secondary to His glory, but because He's God, it's an easy thing for Him to make both happen at the same time. When I pray with the healing prayer ministry, that is my assurance to people if they don't experience the healing they are expecting... that God is not answering our prayer in that way at this time because He has something better for them.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
I see that I had added a paragraph while the networks' "spam" protector was down time, and then my first one ended up going through... so here's the last paragraph =) sorry, my computer started doing strange things...
John:
I think it's great you are thinking of ways to increase time with Him. He will totally honor that. One of my hopes for our denomination, is that we will start a similar 24/7 prayer movement/relay like we do in our county, similar to the Moravians (see link for some info on the Moravians)
http://www.thewellumc.com/templates/System/details.asp?id=39121&PID=623515
with 1000 churches in the crc that have a lot of "well-churched" fairly mature members, we should be able to get every day covered at least once. So John, I would love for you to pray into that "movement" with me.
Posted in: What are best practices for doing the monthly Pastors' reports to the Elders?
I am reminded of Acts 6:4, which is applicable for the church's spiritual leaders (elders, which includes the pastor). Those are the 2 most important callings of our leaders. and if other "duties" are taking time away from these 2 primary callings, then some evaluating and assessment probably needs to take place. So I echo the focus on accountability of the devotional and prayer life for the spiritual leaders. One survey (not recent, I found the results in the praying church sourcebook, but i have heard of these "confessions" from spiritual leaders in the last year or so as well) showed that of 2000 presbyterian and reformed pastors, 95% spent less than 5 minutes a day in prayer =(. makes me wonder (the charismatics were a little better with an average of 18 minutes per day). Another statistic Dan Henderson (pastor, author, speaker, etal) mentioned was that of the time a pastor spent in ministry of the Word and prayer, 95% of that time was focused on ministry of the Word, and only about 5% on prayer.
Posted in: Any research on the relationship between worship and evangelism?
What are you thinking or seeing as a connection here? I'm interested in why the decline prompted you to ask this question about evangelism and worship...
I do believe there is a very strong and significant connection along with Michael Bentley... Dick Eastman's stories in "Prophetic Worship" (2011) testifies this to some extent... that when the "every home for Christ" ministry began 24/7 worship and prayer around the clock (ok that's redundant ;) along with their outreach, they saw the number of salvations and contacts increase significantly...
http://www.ehc.org/inside.jsp?sectionid=3&pageid=94
There is also a very strong correlation between ongoing prayer and evangelism... Worship and prayer are 2 of our primary callings as believers, and the evangelism flows out of this time in His Presence... the Moravians were a powerful testimony of their mission movement flowing out of a powerful outpouring of the Spirit in 1727 and 24/7 prayer started a few months later and continued for over 100 years, with this small community being the first to send out 100's of non-clergy missionaries around the world - the Moravians were an inspiration to John Wesley, as well as to William Carey, considered the father of modern missions... another key with the Moravians is they were so in love with Jesus after that outpouring...
Link on story of Moravians
http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1982/issue1/118.html
We have all the "Transformation" testimonies, if you aren't familiar with them, that testifies to how prayer changed communities that were very dark and lost... here's the link to one of the videos... I think you can find a promo piece on you tube too
http://revivalworks.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=26
these are but a few of the many testimonies/resources, although the ones I shared are not crc
The Glory books by Ruth Heflin Ward also share testimonies of when they are worshipping and God lays a specific group to pray for and the next day, they hear that many came to the LORD the previous night...
again, thousands, and probably millions of testimonies... though not all compiled into one nice package at this point for analytical data that I know of.
So curious, if you discover there is a strong connection (which I'm positive of it), then what?
Posted in: What are best practices for conducting a Congregational Meeting dealing with controversial issues?
I'm so glad Marlin shared...as a member of the same church, I will confirm that the council did a good job...i would even say great job, of leading the congregation through some tough issues...the prayer was key, and I think a beautiful testimony of how God honors when we seek to do it His way, not our way...then the "conversations" were great for bringing communication to a more comprehensive level for anyone interested. There was good "sharpening", but also a good sense of community, as we wrestled with these concerns together. Marlin didn't share this, so I will...he helped facilitate most of them, and I definitely sensed that he was being led by the Spirit through it. Also, last night we had a "fun" conversation that focused on the various ministries going on in the church (instead of something controversial), and supporting and encouraging each other.
I am in total agreement with Marlin, prayer and open communication were key in our congregation. It really seemed the Holy Spirit helped us with an attitude of love and honor, even when in disagreement. I am also truly amazed at how God has worked in our church over the last year, and my prayer is that every Kingdom church will experience Him anew.
Posted in: What are your three principles for running a good "vision meeting?"
I will second Jack's #1 - prayer, prayer and more prayer (that's 3 principles, right? =)... especially time listening together in prayer.. you want the vision to come from the Holy Spirit. So bring a focus before the LORD, spend time listening for His direction. Crazy stuff happens when you start "hearing" Him.
If you aren't familiar with listening prayer, you will want to be, so that you can test and discern the thoughts that are shared through this time. there are some great books on it, I would say Brad Jersak's "can you hear Me? - tuning in to the God that speaks is a very practical one that helps teach concepts on "listening" to the Holy Spirit.
It seems, we often don't intentionally seek the Holy Spirit's guidance, we just hope and pray that He gives it to us, but it is not intentional, quiet time, listening for what He wants to share. Lots of reasons for this.
So, I pray that you and your team will be led into His vision that He has prepared in advance for you and your congregation, but I also pray that you will have amazing experiences encountering God through listening to the Holy Spirit.
Posted in: What are some good study materials for learning about the Holy Spirit?
Ken, my family would love to meet you/your family...You are in the Lynden area as well? We would love to hear your testimonies of how the Holy Spirit has been working in your life...please feel free to email us @ [email protected]
God is definitely connecting His body, crossing some traditional barriers... Thank You Jesus!! :) Bev S
Posted in: What are some good study materials for learning about the Holy Spirit?
For the record, the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an it...God in 3 Persons... Blessed Trinity...
I know we all know that, but I just wanted to recognize God for Who He is...Having stated that...I'm very grateful to see that we in the CRC are starting to realize, that One Person of the Trinity has been sadly neglected in our reformed history (and other denominations as well) for various reasons, and that it is time to change that...PTL!! I have read Gordon Fee, Francis Chan and John Algera's books, as well as the synodical reports from 1973 and 2009 on the 2nd and 3rd wave of pentecostalism. I also pray and worship with a lot of pentecostals, and learn a lot from these fellow brothers and sisters in the LORD, who have been much more open to the Spirit for a long time, and I think we can learn a lot from them, if we are willing to go beyond our denominational walls. God says we are a body, that isn't just in our local church, but ALL of His churches, and He designed that we work together. We are not complete if we are closed to the gifts the Holy Spirit has blessed other denominations with.
You mentioned seeing how the Holy Spirit fits into our CRC culture - have you ever discussed praying in tongues in a CRC crowd?- Interesting responses, both verbal and non-verbal! and that's just one "unusual" gift He gives us. Discussing the gift of prophecy (the prophetic) can also cause quite a stir - especially if you go beyond the definition that it is basically the same as preaching. The Holy Spirit is not an option/program, in case He doesn't "fit", and we do not want to quench Him/limit Him anymore than we already have...
God is more concerned with how we, the CRC, fit into His Kingdom, then how He fits into our crc "kingdom"...
LORD, forgive us for when we have quenched Your Holy Spirit in the past ...transform our denomination through the power of Your Holy Spirit...
Posted in: How has the Article 7 change affected those seeking to become Ministers of the Word?
Ha, Rod, that reminds me of Numbers 12:3 where Moses (most likely) under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote...now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth... it was probably an interesting discussion between Moses and God with Moses possibly saying "Do I have to write that?"