Dear friends and family,
I have spent the last year wrestling with my allegiances to the Reformed and Presbyterian Church. I mean to distinguish them as two distinct institutions in creed and practice. My allegiance in that I have been a member of the URC for several years now but have had more dealings in the Presbyterian Church for the greater half of 2006 and now into 2007 being in Mississippi. I have wrestled over the confessions; Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Confession of Faith. I love all these creeds and confessions and would stand by either.
However, as I contemplate where I am heading, both theologically and pastorally one place resonates better for me. Many of you know my peculiarities - a liturgical service is more consistent from church to church, meaningless illustrations in the pulpit are a no no, Lord's Supper every Lord's day, and increasingly moving toward exclusive singing of inspired texts, the URC fits like a glove with less waves being made and less explanations for my views. I mean in a reformed church you don't have to spend a good deal of time convincing the folks about the frequency of the Lord's Supper and you generally know what your gonna get when visiting URC to URC. That has not been my experience in the Presbyterian Church. =)
Anyway these are not all the issues, of which I will be keeping off cyberspace. I have wrestled privately for sometime now and will be in dialog with Pastor Tom Morrison and the Consistory at HDURC. They invited me on Feb.11, 2007 to begin conversation about my future in the URC. Though we will be entering into the very beginnings I am going to pursue ministry within the Reformed Church...I am a Heidelberger. Also, the availability of open pulpits and opprutunities of church plants will all play a factor at the time of my graduation. In other words, in the end I may not end up in the URC but it will be my initial aim.
Rev. Jesse Pirschel, my Orthodox Presbyterian friend, introduced me to the Dutch confessions when we were ministering in Slovakia in the late 1990's and have been doing my morning mediations from them, off and on, ever since. I love em and would be honored to labor in the Reformed church.
I would encourage you to pray for me that God's will to be abundantly manifest so that His maximum glory will be given to Him in all that I put my hands to. Thank you friends and family.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
That made my day, in ways you cannot fathom, miss you a lot brother, more than you know.
I miss you to man. Sorry I'm not much of friend to any of my friends, including you. I hardly dialog with anyone...lol...in fact my best friend often hears from me once or twice a year...eeh gads! Which brings up if I ought to be in ministry at all! Perhaps a professor suites me well or perhaps I should just repent! Oh, well. Thank you for the comments. I enjoy "hearing" from you and keep your blog coming...I'm reading. You gotta start somewhere.
CR
Chris, you describe the URCNA this way: "a liturgical service is more consistent from church to church, meaningless illustrations in the pulpit are a no no, Lord's Supper every Lord's day, and increasingly moving toward exclusive singing of inspired texts..."
It seems to me that you must have a very limited experience with the URCNA. Perhaps that's because your experience has been largely Californian.
But in the rest of the URCNA, you'll find that there's little interest in singing exclusively inspired songs, let alone exclusive psalmody.
The official URCNA position (in the Church Order) is that the Psalms have priority. That's probably the view of most of the ministers. But many congregations love their hymns, and several congregations have extra supplementary songbooks which contain gospel songs, choruses, etc. I've seen very little interest in exclusive inspired song in the URCNA.
As for a consistent liturgical service, I can tell you that there's very little interest in "liturgy" in the URCNA. Of course, every service follows some sort of liturgy, but there are many URCNAs that don't have an absolution, for instance. The liturgy is largely Call to worship, Votum, Salutation, Song, Ten Commandments, Song or maybe a prayer of confession (maybe), Scripture, Sermon, Song, Congregational Prayer, Song, Offering, Song, Benediction.
You mentioned the Lord's Supper every Lord's Day. That's California, man. It isn't -- emphatically: isn't -- the URNCA as a whole. There are very few URNCAs outside California (if any) that practice weekly communion.
So, if you're considering the URCNA, I'd recommend getting a broader understanding of the ethos of the federation as a whole. Unless you're absolutely guaranteed a call to a church in California ... and one that's open to the things you describe.
Post a Comment