-Excellent talks by Barry Anderson and Dave Housholder
Housholder challenged us in a number of ways:
-When we talk about Biblical authority, are we talking about using the Bible to proof-text our pre-conceived notions, or are we willing to talk about Scripture as a whole, read it as a whole and let it shape our worldview.
-Being a Bible Church: every church claims to be a Bible church. What do WE mean by that? He used the comparison of choosing a line down the mountain when snowboarding- will we choose a soft, easy line, or will we choose to be on the edge, Scripturally speaking, in a more challenging and yet dangerous way?
-He offered some excellent clarity on the topic of inerrancy. Inerrancy, as he showed, means: not imposing your view on the text; being a "good guest" in Scripture... submitting to the Bible's worldview; don't critique Scripture- let Scripture critique you.
-He challenged our congregations to truly adopt a Bible culture. Parking lot test- when you look at people coming into church from the parking lot, how many are carrying Bible? A Bible culture chooses a translation, sticks with it, lives in the Bible, brings it to worship, gives the Bible away, etc.
He summarized the three missiological periods of Lutheranism:
1) Immigration- 1880-1920- Lutheranism grew through immigration from northern Europe. High rate of involvement from people coming from "dead" state churches.
2) Procreation- 1920-1963- Lutherans had kids. 4-5 kids per family. If they could "keep" half their kids in the faith, the church grew. The advent of the birth control pill and widespread use has dropped the average family to 1.7 kids; not enough to sustain the church.
3) Adult Conversion- 1963 to present. We must grow through adult conversion. Hous challenged us to aim for an yearly average of adult baptisms equal to 5% of the congregation's membership (i.e., 200 members- convert and baptize 10 adults in a year) in order to grow.
Keys to adult conversion:
Socialization- give them a place to meet, eat, get to know each other
Catechization- teaching the basics of the Christian faith to an un-churched culture
Transformation- life change
In the afternoon we had an ERD meeting. Good turnout.
A few key points:
-It's time to look, again, at ways to creatively offer financial support to our new mission churches. Successful model in past entailed a handful of congregations each pitching in a little money to a mission church and partnering in that manner. We can and should do that again.
-We will have increased crossover with ARC (Alliance of Renewal Churches), by inviting them to our events and vice-versa. The future is multiple partnerships and crossover between like-minded associations.
-We are needing a small amount of financial support to pay for district insurance, to create a "love fund" to cover travel to LCMC events for our international partners and our mission churches, to provide for minimal travel expenses for congregational visits when/if necessary. We can cover the projected budget with 25 gifts of $200. Dave passed out information on this. Morningside Lutheran has offered to handle the accounting. Donations can be made to "Evangelical Renewal District" and sent to:
ERD c/o
Morningside Lutheran Church
700 S Martha
Sioux City, IA 51106
Enough for now. God bless,
Chris
--
Christian Magnell
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church of Palm Coast, FL
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