I thought maybe…
Well, I thought it might happen and indeed it has. Several of the people in my congregation caught that saving about 95 cents on our GS assessments doesn’t break even when it means paying $15-25 for a subscription to the Church Herald. Several also had problems with the idea that money allotted to a particular purpose could so easily be transfered to “Our Call” (or anything else). It’s too close to what Zeeland Classis did several years ago to make up for the short-fall after the “Sacred Assembly” (took money from a fund that was “easier to raise money for” in order to pay off the debt accrued by the “Sacred Assembly”).
I don’t exactly know how to explain these things to the congregation. Yep. The money went there. Yep. It was collected for something else. Yep. That would be a problem in the business you work for. But, I suppose it’s different in the church?
I guess this is one of the problems of trying to keep a local congregation “up” on what’s going on in classis/regional synod/general synod. I believe the local church ought to be directly informed and connected with the regional/denominational/world-wide church. They are learning how necessary that is. But without question, it does cause some problems.
The benefit is that they have a larger view of “church” and cannot have the perspective that “we are all there is;” the problem is that some decisions are well beyond my ability to adequately explain. How do I explain classical and synodical behavior that would never be allowed where they work? The suggestion that “well, that’s what the body decided” and in the reformed tradition, we believe that “the Holy Spirit guides us in deliberations as the body seeks God’s will” seems a little weak (even if it is true).
Grace and Peace,
`tim
One Response to “I thought maybe…”
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June 18th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Just because the Holy Spirit speaks through assemblies doesn’t mean the Spirit is REQUIRED to speak through assemblies. Especially when the assembly, hoodwinked by the way arguments were presented (yes, there were 10 years of study about the CH, and all the studies were voted down) and slap-happy from the overtaxed schedule, makes a decision of expediency.
To my mind, covenant is a two-way street. The classes gave the GS this money in a DEDICATED assessment for the CH. If the money isn’t going for the CH, I believe the classes should keep the money.