hmmmmm, a couple of imediate thoughts:
"A new Uniting Church alliance that claims to represent up to 80 per cent of members was formed yesterday to reverse gay ordination and restore "biblical principles"." - is this a newer alliance than EMU or is this EMU, or is this an EMU sub committee? or does this alliance have another cool acronym for me to add to my dictionary? - i believe that from my reading of the scripture it's pretty much a biblical principle to not create schisms. "Mrs Hawkes said the alliance would carry out a nationwide survey next month to gauge church opinion on leadership and sexuality." - i always have problems with surveys as i believe that surveys are only as good as the answers that you wish to receive. it's always been my problem with the NCLS data that i just have a distrust with surveys. - Also that the survey wont be an official UCA or NCLS survey i wonder who will fill it in, if it will actually be filled in by a cross section of the UCA or of EMU churches or faith communitite, schools, nursing homes, missions... - will i be given a survey to fill in? if i do will i actually want to fill it in? "Evangelicals believe the national assembly, which voted to recognise gay ordination two months ago, is dominated by professional committee people and is out of touch with the church grassroots." - this automatically excludes anyone at assembly from being "evangelical" and i take offence to that. - the problem i am facing is that as a member of assembly i was not there to represent anyone. infact i was there to pray, reflect and discern the will of god and the call for the UCA over the next 3 years. i am not a professional committee, im actually unemployed, under 35, part of a faith community and by large "not normal." yet i distinctly remember feeling the presence of god when i read what was "proposal 84" and the feeling that this was the right way forward for us. "Mrs Hawkes said the orthodox Christians, congregations and councils who would be invited to join the Reforming Alliance could represent 70 to 80 per cent of the church. The survey would authenticate this." - once again i point out that surveys are only as good as the answers you wish to receive. in this case i dont even want to read the survey results as they have been predetermined by the new "alliance." "We're very determined. We're not in the mood for playing games and sitting round tables," she said. "We're ready for some serious action, working to change the way the church operates and to bring it back to biblical principles. If we can't get a change in leadership we'll work around them." - oh... good. i wont write anything else because im noticing that i'm quickly becoming cynical about this process. for a group thats "tired of playing games and sitting around tables" this certainly stinks of a game, and a game that i long since decided that i wouldn't play. cheers darren --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.520 / Virus Database: 318 - Release Date: 18/09/03 ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
