Creeds, hmm
I was raised in the Church of God in churches that our doctrine was taught and preached. Taught meaning sung out of our hymnal, arguably the only thing close to written doctrine that we have. I think there some good attempts, but not labeled as such because of our heritage. doctine and creed are really spelled with four letters.
I think we were wrong. Did we really think that we could go on and do ministry and be fruitful without anything to rally the troops/gather the flock/RA RA the team? "The Bible's our Doctrine" ya, ok, good one. Isn't it and hasn't it been for billions of Christian's over the centuries? What is unity than? So some guys got together a long time ago to agree on some things about our faith. Isn't that what we're supposed be about? Being the Body. One body with many parts [Romans 12]. I guess that's just been our way of seeing it. Creed evil, Bible good. But I think we missed something. God used us humans to write the Bible, and to build his Body. So could it be that a creed is simply agreed upon Christian faith cliff notes? If that's so, what's so E-vil about it? People coming together to agree in prayer about what we believe and live out. That resonates with my ChOG experience, how about you? I know in the time we launched our flegling movement there was a lot of people doing church becuase it got them status of some sort. I know that the more human's interfere with God's will the farther we can go off track. But, wouldn't agreement in the Spirit be something to be valued?
That was the long way to this...
Scot McKnight, uber prolific blogger Extraordinaire, has a series on this. Here's the first post. I'll probably update this post with other articles by him. Emerging and Orthodoxy
other posts by McKnight on this: Emerging and Orthodoxy 2, Emerging and Orthodoxy 3, Emerging and Orthodoxy 4
I think we were wrong. Did we really think that we could go on and do ministry and be fruitful without anything to rally the troops/gather the flock/RA RA the team? "The Bible's our Doctrine" ya, ok, good one. Isn't it and hasn't it been for billions of Christian's over the centuries? What is unity than? So some guys got together a long time ago to agree on some things about our faith. Isn't that what we're supposed be about? Being the Body. One body with many parts [Romans 12]. I guess that's just been our way of seeing it. Creed evil, Bible good. But I think we missed something. God used us humans to write the Bible, and to build his Body. So could it be that a creed is simply agreed upon Christian faith cliff notes? If that's so, what's so E-vil about it? People coming together to agree in prayer about what we believe and live out. That resonates with my ChOG experience, how about you? I know in the time we launched our flegling movement there was a lot of people doing church becuase it got them status of some sort. I know that the more human's interfere with God's will the farther we can go off track. But, wouldn't agreement in the Spirit be something to be valued?
That was the long way to this...
Scot McKnight, uber prolific blogger Extraordinaire, has a series on this. Here's the first post. I'll probably update this post with other articles by him. Emerging and Orthodoxy
other posts by McKnight on this: Emerging and Orthodoxy 2, Emerging and Orthodoxy 3, Emerging and Orthodoxy 4
Posted By Randy | |
Permalink 
It would be nice to hear some concrete resolutions from gatherings like Strategic Planning conferences and Visioning conferences, that sound like "Hey, this is who we are, and this is how we are one." This has spurred a thought, we pastors go to these types of meetings, and we come back to our churches with what? We are a discombobulated body. I think some of us are clammoring for identity. We have lost who the heck we are.
Posted by
Andy |
4:04 PM
I was really hoping that I would get some nasty comments. I talked about Creeds in a posetive. But maybe everyone else is here too, or the "viewing audiance" is of the same mind at least. hey, is there any nasty's out there that would like to post a comment?
I'll leave you with something from Jerry McGuire: "You say we're fightin', But I think we're finally talkin'!" -Rod Tidwell [Cuba Gooding Jr.]
Posted by
Randy |
11:02 AM
Okay, this may not be nasty, but certainly questioning the point of view... Don't creeds just stand to separate us from others who don't hold all the same beliefs? Don't creeds make claims that we have some better way of stating the truth than the scriptures do? If we were meant to have creeds, wouldn't Jesus have said, "This is what you should believe..." Oh wait, he did, didn't he? But maybe you're right. Maybe the Church of God Visioning team can say it better. (Okay, so that may have come across a little nasty).
Posted by
Lori |
9:36 PM
here's the point of view that I'm challenging. Don't do creeds be cause they're man's device and not of God. It does separate us, and thus we shouldn't use them.
what I'm saying is that we will always have man's devices, points of view. Can we separate ourselves from that? I don't think we can. The Bible was phisically written by humans. Jesus chose us to build the church. Creeds like the ancient ones agreed on orhadoxcy. I'm not talking about what Evengelical churches have: long, books full of what they believe. I'm just talking about what they asked me to do in ordination. A paper to see if I was orthadox and not a wacko. Its a way that we can agree on something, help us boil down some main things in of the faith. That's the value I find.
Posted by
Randy |
12:15 AM