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Greetings all.
I would like to put in a plug for Bill Loader's book: "Dear
Kim; This is what I believe" as an excellent resource/discussion book for
talking with interested people about faith and membership of the church. It is
the best and simplest book explaining Christian faith in a sensible way I have
read and it is available free from Bill's website.
Hope this helps.
Allan
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2004 9:57
AM
Subject: RE: Church Membership -
Course
G'day All,
Anne Ryan (forget her UC title but she is
based in Newcastle) ran a course in this part of the world (New England-North
West) last year that might be compatible with what Terence suggests.
'A Place to Start' deals with basic issues of Christian
history, theology and doctrine. I think Anne put it together
herself. Unfortunately I was unable to attend any of the sessions (5 or
6 I think) but got good reports.
Kind regards,
Lindsay
Brash.
At 08:05 AM 4/03/04 +1100, Terence wrote:
Hi Tom,
There is provision
for the receiving of members on transfer - it is
regulation
1.1.21
It will be necessary to satisfy oneself locally that a person
has been a
member of another denomination. However there is no hard and
fast rule on
this although some sort of certificate is usually
available.
Now to the important part. I believe that it is vitally
inportant that some
sort of orientation / induction process take place
prior to making a
decision about accepting the person into membership. In
fact I think it
would be better to do it even before a formal request is
considered ie for
people who are thinking about transfering to the UCA.
This process can be
used to encourage disciplines of the faith but (given
the current times) to
also work on their understanding of the privileges
and limitations of the
congregation. Yes I am talking about polity /
ethos lessons.
Perhaps what we need at this time are opportunities
all over the country for
people to meet and be led in thinking about what
kind of the church the UCA
is. Why is it that the Assembly believes we
can / should have room for
individual conscience on important matters?
What does that say about the
kind of open / respectful / humble community
of faith we seek to be? This
can provide a great opportunity to bring
people together across the
congregation to talk about what they value
about the UCA. It can be a time
of creating / naming images that can
sustain people in the fellowship of the
Uniting Church.
Something
like a short series for people being received on transfer could be
a
marvellous vehicle through which we articulate the vision of what it
means
to be the UCA. That is certainly what we need at this time - an
identity
that is not defined by doctrinal purity but more by the quality
of our
relationship with Jesus Christ and how much we show that character
in our
relationships with others.
Just a thought.
Terence
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