Bible or not....churchiology or Christian?

The following postings are part of an exchange on the Fairlawn-West UCC, Akron, OH congregation listserv recently:

I.
The Bible is not to convince people of the existence of God or to believe in Jesus Christ. It is for those who have a relationship with God and follow Jesus Christ. The indication that there are people within the life of the body of Christ, the Christian Church, who argue with a great deal or even deny the message of the Bible, indicates how much the Church has lost its roots. We all have argument to some degree, but not to the degree that the Bible is called "outdated" or "irrelevant." If it has become that for folks, no argument from me. Only...why then seek to be part of the body that is guided by the Book of Books of the story of God's people?
David Loar

II.
Great post! The Bible is often used as a weapon.
Why do people seek out church?
Partial list...1. Looking for a substitute for family.
2. Status
3. Sense of belonging
4. Education of kids
5. Social outlet.
6. Looking for meaning
Any others?

The question that flows from this is what do we do with people who areseeking for whatever reason. The real evangelization happens after youwalk in the door.

Clare

III
Clare, important issue you bring up...how do we set clear boundaries andyet be extravagantly inviting to a wide circle? Remember...our mission is to serve...not to get members. Serving and inviting to experience are different than calling for dogmatic, orthodox belief. Yet, if we are clear about our faith, and what motivates us to be extravagantly hospitable, we will also be clear about our own boundaries as a community.

For instance, the most risk taking and far reaching Christian communities to protect Jewish people during the Holocaust/WW II in Europe were the clear boundaried Christian communities of the Mennonites and similar groups. The more "open", culturally flexible groups were afraid to risk it. Action was prompted by a clear boundaried community of faith.

Here ins the US for at least 5 decades, mainline churches like our own have not had clear boundaries. They have sought to be more "socially acceptable" and to get people to become "members." At the same time, their identity of faith AND especially their ability to take courageous action in the world around them has diminished if not disappeared. Bu tmany local "christian" (the small "c" is intentional) churches now have scads of members who are more entrenched in "churchiology" than Jesus Christ. And since the bottom line in people joining was implied "Are you a warm body?", there has been no accountability of faith and action.

So, now when the culture no longer props up the "church" and the Christian Church if it is to be known as anything of worth has to become more clear with itself, let alone the world around it, about what it believes, finds itself entangled in internal debates because no one is clear about what WE believe. They are all clear about what "I" believe, but that isn't a community of faith is it? That is a membership organization with a lot of individual members.

In this time of being challenged by the world around us about who we really are and what we really believe, longer term "members" have felt that the rug has been pulled out from underneath them. They have not had to deal with this faith and belief stuff before. They just joined the church. However, the truth be known, they weren't really a church all along. The closest they were is what John of Patmos calls the church of Laodecia in the Book of Revelation...a lukewarm church. And he says a group of people who deny Christ are better than a lukewarm church.

David

pic 1 from Egypt

Yes, I really did go to Egypt. The sand storm reduced the visibility.

benchmarks of a church

Here are the benchmarks Tom Bandy thinks churches should use:

a) Are adult members growing?
b) Are more micro-cultures connecting?
c) Are more volunteers engaged in mission?
d) Is the DNA being embedded and used for accountability?
e) Are lives being changed?
f) Is the world (and our primary mission field) any different because we exist?

the becoming of Fairlawn-West

Fairlawn-West community...
This note is from Mary Mounts of our congregation who is in Fla for the winter and attends Grace Un Methodist Church in North Fort Meyers. Mary is developing a study tour for our church to Mexico and I am working on a partnership for us with a church in Mexico. Mary is writing below about how many people in the church in Fla who are just plain ordinary church folks like us have taken time to go at some level of time commitment as a missionary from that church to other settings in the world. Our hope is that something similar will develop from our ongoing relationship with the church in Mexico. Mary, who is a retired Spanish teacher and helps with literacy training at the two Catholic Worker houses in south Akron where a lot of immigrants come to stay when they first arrive in Akron, will offer Spanish class here for those of us who will be part of this experience. We are working both through the United Church of Christ and BorderLinks <http://www.borderlinks.org/bl/index.htm> .

The Monday night discipling group is hosting a workshop June 2 & 3 with Don Zimmerman of Worshipful Work. Don will help us to learn about other churches who have used spiritual discernment intentionally in their decisionmaking as a church and then how we could develop our own particular process that will fit our core values and bedrock beliefs. On Fri the 2nd we will have an evening introductory session for other churches to be a part of. <http://www.worshipful-work.org/>

Bible and Jesus

Two of the most contentious issues in the more liberal parts of the Christian church in the US and predominantly among those who are baby boomers and of the WW II generation are around how to understand and accept the Bible and what to believe about Jesus. A vital issue in the former is how these two generations are children of the enlightenment and are very focused on "belief" as something more intellectual whereas previous generations and even younger generations today were more focused around belief and faith coming out of story which speaks a truth beyond verifiable fact of history or science. The englightenment reduced truth down to fact and lost the meaning of story as truth.

In the latter of Jesus, we face a similar situation around truth, story, fact and intellect. But also, experience. When life is reduced down to simply filtering through what WE "know" prior so we can control our experience, we lose much of the serendipitous nature of God's creation and revelation.

I invite you to visit a few pages of our web site which I think are probably some of the best collections of links on the internet in regard to these matters.
http://www.fairlawnwest.org/biblepg.htm
http://www.fairlawnwest.org/bibcrit.htm
http://www.fairlawnwest.org/purpose.html

I also encourage you to consider being a part of the new Wed night discipling group which is using Brian McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian." I have begun also to use this book in the individual mentoring relationships that I am part of weekly with some folks from our F-W community. We are ordering a whole slew of these books for our bookstore because they keep selling out.

The paradox I find is how we claim the identity of "Christian Church" but will try to eliminate the reality of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible as scirpture, which is what becoming Protestant was all about in the first place. I don't wish to avoid conversation about these topics, but by trying to avoid or reduce or shift the central tradition of these in the midst of the Christian Church is like trying to claim the Cleveland Indians are a professional badmitton team when they have been a professional baseball team for over 100 years. Or its like trying to claim that the two narratives of creation in the beginning of the book of Genesis are science, when they began as vision and truth and story beyond story. For instance, when I tell the story of my family history, how much fact is there in it? 95%...or less? When I talk of my daughters, how much am I exaggerating, how much is hope and dream and how much is fact? 100% fact!!!! You get my point. There are important places in the life story of us as individuals, as families, as a church, as a people where truth transcends fact. When we try to reduce everything down to verifiable fact and take away the story and even the mystery, we have lost God! For if we can prove God...then who is in control and in charge...us or the one we have just proven and named God?

These are essential and vital topics of communication for us. They are not to be avoid ed or to be rejected. But there are places of boundary of identity that all of us have and need for who we are as individuals, in our genders, in our nationality...and who we claim to be as the body of Christ. The center of all that are the highest holy days of our life...Maundy Thurs, Good Fri and Easter...and the story that surrounds them. That is the journey we are on now in the season of Lent. Questions, doubts, hopes, faith, and belief. All, but none to the exclusion of the other.