Greetings,
Yep
Darren, I couldn't agree more. It was a real eye opener
for me a few years ago when a young woman asked me where I worked and, when
I told her the Uniting Church over there (pointing), she said (with enthusiasm),
"Hey, that's my church."
Having
never seen her in "her church" I asked what made it her church. She told me that that was the church where she got married.
So
it came to me that people are far more willing to own us than we are to own
them. Likewise with Jesus; there are far more people
willing to own a relationship with Jesus than there are people "we" would
call Christian.
I
had a conversation tonight with a bunch of gGrade
9 kids about their prayer life. They all believe in
God, they all pray, they can talk coherently about their faith and spiritual
(God) experiences. None of them are what we would
formally term "Christian" but all are happy to be part of and worship with
our little house congregation.
I
want to give them are clear message that they belong in every sense of the
word. We can sort out their theology later. Goodness knows us adults are still sorting out ours.
Regards,
Bruce
Uniting Church in
GPO
61 7 3377 9801
0407 702 344
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
darren wright wrote:
As one of the resident devils advocates.... This sounds like an awful lot of work to become a "member".I'd be encouraging people to say "hey presto you're a member" and give them the secret handshake (if you dont know the secret handshake then you're not REALLY a member) And then to offer a faith course, weather it be an introduction to the UCA structure or confirmation or the Dear Kim stuff from Bill or going through the "Sacred Life of Us" book (Phil Daughtry) with young people or use the Belonging resource (Uniting Ed), or the Alpha Course or having a study or activity or conversation with people who are interested in knowing more. A wise man (who i think is on this list...) and I had a conversation where we came up with this formulae: People belong before they believe People come to faith through belonging People are not a "member" until they believe When I read "membership" I read "belonging" especially if "membership" = voting rights. With that in mind, when you do the sums theres a fault in this formulae. So it's a question of process, sure... run some courses but I'd have to ask the question of how Jesus went by his Membership process... The way I see it Jesus did something like this... Jesus: "hey Peter, come here and follow me... trust me, itll be a great trip" Peter: "ummm, yeah sure, just after I gut this fish..." Jesus: "no time for that, come along, we'll learn together..." Peter: "ok, why not, these fish smell anyhow" Then AFTER Jesus grabbed the disciples he started to teach and eat with them. Membership came before knowing.... before believing. Accept the people as members, then run some studies. Besides... if they've come from (another) denomination they're already "members" of the "Church" that we speak of in the creeds... one holy apostolic Church... there's only one, they're already members... Cheers Darren Wright Sinner Youth and Family Worker Canberra Region Presbytery --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.588 / Virus Database: 372 - Release Date: 13/02/04 ------------------------------------------------------ - 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 ------------------------------------------------------
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