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Text of the page (random words):
he nature of scripture when there are specific actions christians are told to take there is almost never a set of detailed requirements for how to do it humans often want more detail and try to expand on the specifics often making them requirements for accepting other christians or groups of christians that is wrong again christians are those who say they are christians and who show that they are by the way they live no one should be allowed to require anything for recognition and fellowship that is outside of scripture and its work of transformation proposition 6 god gave us the ability to think and reason that is a good thing if however in the process of using our reason we come to conclusions that other christians do not reach and that causes us to reject them we have been deceived by the evil one our pride has taken over and stopped our continued growth into the mind of christ a mind of complete humility and self sacrifice human reason is not the ultimate standard for truth christians ought to be growing constantly in their understanding of the profound truths of the gospel that s part of our spiritual growth as communities but requiring or even expecting others to be where you are is not conducive to the visible unity christ so much wants proposition 7 again it is a good thing to use the intellectual abilities god has given us to plumb the depths of the marvelous truths of god it is a good thing to think and struggle and write about these matters individual christians and christian communities can and should draw great benefit in their spiritual growth from such efforts statements of belief can be very helpful in drawing our minds to the unspeakable riches and blessings we have been given and of which we can and should tell others however we must realize that such statements are the product of our human reasoning which like everything else human is not perfect even when we reach a mature level of doctrinal understanding we need to remind ourselves constantly that there will always be christians at all maturity levels but they are still christians proposition 8 once again having an understanding of every christian truth is not a requirement to be a christian a part of christ s church no one who is trying to follow christ ought to be forced to confess any belief beyond what they understand and know all a person needs to know to be part of christ s church is that they are lost and that salvation is through christ when they confess that they believe in christ and that they want to obey him fully according to his word nothing else can be required proposition 9 everyone who confesses belief in christ and commits to obey him and who shows the reality of their commitment by the way they live should consider each other as the precious saints of god should love each other as sisters and brothers children of the same family and father temples of the same spirit members of the same body subjects of the same grace objects of the same divine love bought with the same price and joint heirs of the same inheritance whoever god has joined together this way no one should dare divide proposition 10 division among christians is a sickening evil filled with many evils it is anti christian because it destroys the visible unity of the body of christ it is as if christ were cutting off parts of himself and throwing them away from the rest of his body what a ludicrous picture division is anti scriptural since christ himself specifically prohibited it making it a direct violation of christ s will it is anti natural because it makes christians condemn hate and oppose one another people who are actually obligated in the strongest way to love each other as sisters and brothers just like christ loved them in other words division repudiates everything christianity is supposed to stand for proposition 11 two things are responsible for all the divisions and corruptions in christ s church through the centuries one is a neglect or even and fundmental misunderstanding of god s will for us in scripture that we have the mind of christ and be transformed into his likeness the other comes from the first some christians assuming they are right that they have gotten the facts perfectly have assumed the authority to impose their conclusions on others as terms of recognition and fellowship proposition 12 in reality everything needed for the church to reach the highest state of perfection and purity on earth is first to receive as members only those who have understood their lostness and confessed their faith in christ and commitment to follow him according to scripture second to keep as members only those who show those commitments in their everyday lives and third to see that ministers who reflect these ideals preach only what is clearly taught in scripture finally they must stick close to what scripture makes primary seen in the example of the early church in the new testament without being distracted or corrupted by human tendencies toward pride and control proposition 13 finally in every body of christians decisions must be made about precisely how to conduct its work and worship scripture does not dictate such details whatever the best way of doing things for the local context should be adopted these procedures however should always be understood as expedients or conveniences for that time and place others who do things differently should never be denigrated or condemned for such things and when decisions are made to do things differently in the future such changes should never be an issue of fighting or division in the coming weeks i hope to look more closely at some of these propositions and how they might serve to help us creating missional life in our congregations what did you see that jumped out at you is there anything else in the missional conversation that correlates to what campbell was saying here our history our heritage contrary to the opinion of some i believe is not a liability but an enormous asset to being people who are called out formed and sent for the sake of the world and the glory of god 3 comments posted in church of christ ecclesiology missional text s theology tags churches of christ declaration and address restoration movement thomas campbell posted by mattdabbs october 12 2009 from in the door to in the mission there is certainly a difference between just getting someone in the door on sunday and actually getting them to be a part of the mission of the church it is important for congregations to evaluate how effective they are at making that transition in the lives of those who are seeking i want to toss out one idea that is simple but has been transformative in the way our congregation views involvement in the past we used more of a general recommendation approach to involvement someone places membership the elders find out what they are good at contact the deacon or ministry leader over that area so and hope everything clicks the results were not very good deacons and ministry leaders are volunteer help who only have so much time and attention to give their area most have a difficult time keeping up with the general recommendation approach we have moved to job descritions rather than general recommendations by working through the following process we have developed an effective way to involve people in the ministries of the congregation we start by asking deacons and ministry leaders what their area would look like if it was firing on all cylinders the deacon ministry leader is then asked to write down what actions would need to occur for their ministry to be effective next we ask them how many people would it take to make that happen then they write out detailed job descriptions for people to agree to do last they begin asking people to do the job descriptions they outlined this has several advantages to the old approach people know exactly what they are being asked to do and are agreeing to do it this is way better than saying to them i think you would be great in evangelism it is saying you are signing up to host a bible study that will be every other tuesday night in your home you will be expected to provide some light refreshments and adequate comfortable space for 6 10 people to study the bible together it is measurable we can tell if it is happening the deacon ministry leader and the volunteer are all on the same page the congregation becomes more mission minded as these needs job descriptions are regularly brought up before the congregation 1 comment posted in ministry tags involvement posted by michaelhanegan may 2 2009 towards a more holisitic understanding of salvation this is the first post in what i hope will become a valuable discussion what is salvation some of the responses would be forgiveness of sins eternal life indwelling of the holy spirit a home in heaven when we die membership in the church but for the most part we tend to limit our discussions and maybe this reflects a limited understanding on our part of salvation to just a couple of metaphors james d g dunn in his book the theology of the apostle paul gives a list of pauline metaphors for salvation keep in mind this list is only from paul s writings and not the rest of the new testament justification redemption liberation and freedom reconciliation waking up night turning into day putting on or taking off clothes or armor receiving an invitation writing a letter sowing and watering irrigation grafting harvest seal or stamp priestly service but not the person of priest circumcision washing and purifying new creation new birth listen to the concluding thoughts that dunn offers after this intriguing list two lines of reflection emerge from consideration of such a kaleidoscope of images one is that these metaphors bring out the reality of the experience of the new beginning for paul evidently they all described something in the experience of his readers with which they could identify something had happened in their lives something of major importance underlying all these metaphors was some tremendously significant event a turning pointof great moment one does not use images like birth marriage and death for everyday occurrences they only function as images for events which are literally life changing it means that many of paul s first readers experienced the gospel as acceptance liberation or rescue as cleansing and new dedication as a dying to an old life and beginning of a new there is little evidence that paul preached for conviction of sin or to stir up feelings of guilt nevertheless for so many of his converts the gospel was received and experienced as an answer to unresolved riddles as a solution to their plight in a word paul s gospel met real and felt needs the very different metaphors paul drew upon were presumably attempts to express as fully as possible a reality which defied a simple or uniform or unifaceted description there was something so rich and real in the various experiences of conversion which paul s gospel brought about that paul had to ransack the language available to him to find ways of describing them for the wide variety of metaphors presumably reflects a wide variety of experiences given that variety it would be a mistake to take any one of paul s metaphors and to exalt it to some primary or normative status so that all the others must be fitted into this mould the danger is that the event of new beginning in faith comes to be conceptualized as of necessity following a particular pattern the same for everyone to attempt to dispense with metaphors or to reduce their poetry to the prose of clinical analysis would be as great a disservice as any that theology could be guilty of here he cites fitzmeyer quoting paul offers us not theories but vivid metaphors which can if we let them operate in our imagination make real to us the saving truth of our redemption by christ s self offering on our behalf it is an unfortunate kind of sophistication which believes that they only thing to do with metaphors is to turn them into theories so how can we take into to account the kaleidoscope of images that we have for salvation to better understand just exactly what god does is doing and will do in the event process that we call salvation 4 comments posted in theology tags apostle paul james d g dunn salvation posted by michaelhanegan may 2 2009 newbigin on election the doctrine of divine election has fallen into disrepute because those who were chosen and called the elect so often saw themselves as exclusive benficiaries of god s choice rather than as trustees on behalf of all the nations but this disastrous misundertanding so manifest in the story of israel and in the life of the church in all generations cannot negate the fundamental truth of the doctrine of election it is god who chooses calls and sends the open secret an introduction to the theology of mission leave a comment posted in books newbigin the open secret theology tags election lesslie newbigin posted by michaelhanegan april 27 2009 missional going mainstream so i m in my car this afternoon my wife is in the back seat making funny faces at my little boy and we are listening to one of the major christian radio stations in town their information update came on with a positive and encouraging story and it was about more churches going missional in the following 60 seconds there was a sound bite from reggie mcneal about missional church being about being the church instead of going to church and that it really was a challenge to the way that a lot of communities of believers have done church the reporter concluded that many are joining this new movement and that many others are subsuming their ministry and congregations under the banner of missional whatever that means my questions about what i heard were this is missional really a movement if a lot or even maybe a small majority of people are joining the movement would it really be missional here s why i ask being missional missional theology missional ecclesiology or whatever you want to call it is always going to be from the margins and therefore will also be marginalized in the wider church while there may come a time when this theological framework gains momentum and practicioners i think that we must be suspect of much of the explosion that we have seen in the movement and let me be very clear i am not saying that we need to be suspect of them but that we need to be checking ourselves our hermeneutics our theology our ecclesiology and our motives to determine if we are truly joining god in his mission or if we have simply instead and more dangerously crafted a new and more relevant image of god and are serving in that god s mission what does it mean to be missional many people are asking but i hope that we will simply show them instead of merely trying to tell them welcome to the journey 4 comments posted in culture ecclesiology hermeneutics theology posted by mattdabbs april 19 2009 parable of the sea have you seen t...
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