I laid down the gauntlet this morning to the congregation in asking what Jesus would say to us in a message? I thought that we are better than Laodicea but probably not as good as Philadelphia. So it's open to you. For the people of Adelaide Place what do we think? For those further afield what is Jesus saying to your church or the wider church?
My own thoughts will follow later in the week!
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhb3kbsd_4fvsn6mft
"So teach us to number our days..."
2 years ago
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ReplyDeleteI think AP is very good at welcoming the stranger
ReplyDeleteThis is a difficult question to answer properly. It seems to be the case that we remain welcoming. Considering our geographic dispersion, the sense of family/community is striking.
ReplyDeleteThe way I'm critical is with a view to improvement, so what I'm about to say comes in the form of suggested improvements. That's just how I think. Try as I might, I'm unable to separate the criticisms from the supposed improvements. In other words, I don't know how to answer the critical part of this. I don't want to either, but I feel obligated to help get the ball rolling however inadequately.
"Change the teaching/ preaching time to a shorter teaching time with discussion following." That's from a recent blog of an american pastor.
I personally feel that this would move us towards more fully understanding, engaging with and learning from one another. It would extract far more value from the sermon too.
I know this isn't technically what Jesus would tell us, but I think that the building of understanding and community is something he'd desire. In fact, the more we have of it, the more progress we can make on other things, since we'd talk more.
I've also been wondering about accountability lately. In the early church they held one another to account rather publicly. Since we got rid of confession, we seem to have lost any sort of institutional accountability and I think that's a pity. My suggestion, for what little it's worth, would be reinstitute Catholic style confession. I don't expect this will fly with anyone.
Finally, I'd suggest that we actively strive to be as ethical as possible in the goods and resources we consume in the building. This would be good on a direct level as well as a symbolic level.
Sorry, I should've identified myself:
ReplyDeleteDavid Herbert
(I would love to have more emphasis on social action, but I have no conception of what that would look like. I think Jesus was particularly keen on that kind of thing.)
ReplyDelete