Klaas

Thanks for your great words on prayer. Keep it coming!

Many of us are learning more about prayer these days than we ever knew we didn't know!

God is stirring the RCA once again in fresh ways, as He has repeatedly done in the past! He loves this denomination, and He has never stopped moving in and among us. But He seems to like to move in seasons.... and in some ways (as any reading of the headlines shows), the seasons are changing... locally, nationally, and globally.

Prayer -- ceaseless and passionate prayer -- is ESSENTIAL in these days of change!

If we are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength... how can our conversations with God so often be so flat and dry? How can this not bother us?

How can it not bother God!

Thanks, Leighton, for your part in stirring the embers.

Under the Mercy, Dave Cheadle

For the third consecutive year we have celebrated Pentecost with a CME congregation. We alternate hosting the celebration, with the host doing the preaching and the visitors sharing communion as they are accustomed to sharing it. Folks of both congregations find this experience quite moving, and are looking for the opportunity to celebrate with each other more frequently than once a year.

August 9 we invited an ELCA congregation to worship with us in an outdoor service. They accepted, and invited us to worship with them the following weekend - which we accepted.

For many years we've alternated hosting Maundy Thursday with a non-denominational Christian congregation, complete with choirs singing together and celebrating communion.

It's amazing what is possible to celebrate life in a rural area continuing to decline in population.

We just got the results back from the US Congregational Life Survey, and you might not be surprised to find that this small congregation is in the 90th percentile of all congregations on "Focusing on the Community". Two other areas where the congregation was well above average were in "Welcoming New Worshipers" and "Caring for Young People".

Maybe it wouldn't be surprising to learn that 23% of the congregation has joined in less than 4 years - more than offsetting the loses due to death and transfer to bigger towns.

We don't generally view the other congregations in town as competitors, and we aren't looking to pass blame. Instead, we seek to encourage other congregations, and to hear of the hope they have within them. And this in turn encourages us, and gives us hope.

I did think the part leading up to the groups was somewhat unfortunate for the fact that as we were headed into dialogue, I felt somewhat of an uneven presentation was given. However, as a delegate I did my own reading/research.

Thanks for the post!
Joel Plantinga

While I don't believe we have ever rescinded a creed or confession. Were we to wish to discontinue holding one as a statement of faith, how or could we take steps to remove it?

I guess my understanding or intent with "apply" is in regards to how we live out our faith and our creeds. What we confess should inform how we live. They should be more than words on a page, or words recited.

So, when I see the portions that say "we reject," it seem to me to be a call to action. If it was only about stating beliefs, I would have seen it as saying we hold in error the following or something about our understanding of them.

Thank you also for reminding us that there are still more steps to be made in the process. I look forward to hearing more at General Synod as well.

While I am not going to take the time to try and do so, I could see how some could use "we reject any ideology which would legitimate forms of injustice ..." to make a case that we should reject passivism, since in some instances of government sanctioned genocide, it allows the injustice to remain by not taking action to intervene, once all other options have failed.

Perhaps some may also seek to argue that "... any doctrine ... that hinders or breaks the visible and active unity of the church ...." could include the Cannons of Dort. Since, after all, they separate us from those who follow Arminian theology. Thus they break the active unity of the church. (While we may view it as correcting erroneous theology, it does break unity.)

While the intent is crucial for understanding where and how we have received the document, an understanding of how those in the future may interpret or apply it, is just as important to the discussion. After all we can look to church history to see that one word, or even one letter, in a creed is powerful enough to cause a divide, regardless of the intent. Such was the case with homoousion (same substance) vs. homoiousion (like substance).

And while I may not wish to appy "any" in a way that contradicts the intent, it is not hard for me to see that others might wish to do so, now or in the future.

I have received a number of gifts in my lifetime. Some of them have been meant for my pleasure and others have been from friends or family that feel their gift would improve my quality of life. Some of them have been wrong and, while I accepted their gift, it sits gathering dust on a shelf on my house. Others, of course, have been right and their gifts are well-worn and have made my life better in some form or another. In either case, I have said, "Thank you" and the rest was up to me, but I've rarely felt any pressure other than to have the gift out when the giver came for a visit. I'm not sure why the Belhar would prove any different. Unwrapping it is only an opportunity to say "thank you" and determine whether or not we really need it. That's what this synod is about.

As far as a hesitation to speak for fear of being perceived as racist, I have not experienced that either. I'm also not sure that's entirely a bad thing. We all: old young, black, white, and everyone in between, harbor some sort of racism. I doubt few, if any, of us still maintain outright hate, but that doesn't mean we don't hold to racist concepts. Black people can dance and Asians are good at math, are some of the less harmful, but obvious examples. Certainly, we have all experienced the race card unfairly, but that doesn't mean we are always able to put ourselves entirely in someone else's shoes. The only way to have our racism healed is to have it exposed. It's not comfortable, but neither is it bad.