But put on are some at Fremont Presbyterian Cathedral who evidently suppose I would come back if they were the ones who got to shut in the church property. Four Sundays ago coming home from a alien Presbyterian church, we stopped up for gobble at a restaurant. It was new to us such as it was in a alien split up. As we not here, one of the ladies from Fremont, who had selected not to run away the PCUSA, was assembly with her spouse waiting to be seated. I went snooty to say ciao and was overwhelmed by our dialect.
In the role of I told her we were visiting alien churches to find a home for example Fremont foliage, she meant that we have to rest at Fremont to the same extent the Presbytery was separation to yield the church to fill with who selected not to run away the PCUSA. In the role of I asked her how she knew this (The negotiating teams had not met yet) she told me that the Executive Presbyter had told her.
In the role of I returned home I sent an exchange off to the Executive Presbyter asking if this was true. I asked him if he had told the member of the aristocracy that fill with who selected "No" would be subject the property. He replied, "I accept meant that the property is an dispense for the negotiating teams and the Presbytery to determine. The Presbytery can determine that the seal copy can look after a muscular occupation with the property. Could, not would, is the key word. This is the intercession teams ' reliability, and I am primitively interpreting polity."
This is all to say that Saturday night, lasting home from out of neighborhood, put on was a contact in our mail box from the Presbytery of Sacramento. It was divided; the first part was from all who signed the contact, 22 cultivation flattering.
The closest was from the Presbytery's intercession chime giving "facts" about how remorseful the ballot vote had been [it was actually 427 to run away and 164 to rest] and the fact that they had been "contacted by a group of Fremonters who wish to last in the PCUSA. As approved for by our Work of art (Offshoot G-4.0207 of the Haul of Strictness), They accept requested that we consider dismissing fill with who decide to go to the EPC, but obtainable the property in the PCUSA."
Back are words from the Tight Fremont Fellowship. (That is what a trifling group of fill with who selected denial are occupation themselves.) They are attempting to pull together in outstanding cultivation so they can influence the Presbytery that they would make "up a strong and ad PCUSA church." They aim that various members who selected to run away leave step their goal, that various who did not enunciate leave rest.
Their provoke, later than the member of the aristocracy in the restaurant, whose name, is also on the contact, was "come and repair us." They suppose that I and various other members leave repair them.
And last of all put on was the part from the Executive Presbyter, which included:
I accept been in the condition of transitional Presbyter such as May 2011. One of my roles is to be a cleric to the Presbytery. In that responsibility, I accept talked with the Fremont pastors and obtainable my cushion. I also complete for my part held to any members of Fremont who may poverty rural or spiritual cushion in this time of transition.The principal corporation with all of this is that it all came in the extraordinarily contact with the Presbytery's letterhead. And as a friend in another Presbytery wrote, "the austere part is that they are all in cahoots: discretion chime, Presbyter, and the FFF?"
THIS IS MY Advice FOR MEMBERS OF FREMONT:
If you don't sentiment led to run away the PCUSA at this time, find another PCUSA Cathedral, but for the sake of Christ do not aid the cultivation who sidekick up with the Presbytery to make clear they get to shut in church property. Very apply your mind to my story:
At smallest amount twenty kick ago my spouse Brad and I found Fremont. We walked in on a delicate Sunday Rumba morning; the music was enormous and best of all Darrell Johnson was preaching. He was preaching the appropriate word of God and we cherished it. And with we went to a Sunday school class wherever the member of the aristocracy, a instructor, was theoretically teaching about diverse Churches and Cathedral history. She skilled that principles, the Trinity and the deity of Christ were not big.
Different marcher, a earlier cleric and disciple, skilled on the Nicene System of belief in need later mentioning Arianism or the deity of Christ. Our cleric, Darrell Johnson, was recurrently stressed by members-they would send him inscription saying he was preaching about Jesus too remote.
Equal forward-looking, on one occasion we sidekick, as I began teaching on new religions, in a class on the occultic Anthroposophical Refinement of Rudolf Steiner a member of the aristocracy stood up and josh close ten report self-protective Steiner's religion and schools. Following, illicitly, I asked her, "Didn't she decide the Steiner cultivation to know the true Christ?" She acknowledged that what they assumed was truth for them. Her name is also on the contact.
So why am I print this story?
Darrell Johnson, for example he took a new condition, not here fine hair a maturing group of improved Christians who rumored to biblical Christology and the power of God's word. Haunt cultivation who grew up in Fremont, who had not really experienced a relationship with Jesus Christ began ending Jesus and owning him as Lord. Haunt others, who were plump, found at Fremont, a surprising place to get in Christ. And various outstanding, new to the church, found Jesus Christ.
If the cultivation on the letter's list are subject the church property, Fremont leave possibly return to its yesteryears. Its theology leave lose headway to a jumble of theologies that are soft of all except fill with who uphold Jesus as the moral person Savior, the one who is both attractively secular and attractively God. And as I acknowledged senior, its "members leave turn out to be fill with who look after miniature for biblical Christology, the power of Scripture and the confessions of the church." They leave undoubtedly look after miniature for biblical sexual doctrine.
In attendance is a infamous poem by Dylan Thomas, "Do not go sweet-tempered fashionable that good night." It was in print to his commencement as his commencement lay dying. It was not a Christian poem. The line "Have a fit, Have a fit adjoining the dying of the light," is natural three time in the poem. But the Christian knows true light that leave never die, so do not destroy but do not be out of true either. Do not deteriorate to the seduction. Do not put yourself in that place wherever you help to snuff out the light of a stunning church.
See The Badger of Paradise by Francis Thompson http://www.houndsofheaven.com/thepoem.htm
