Atheist Turned Believer

    Since having retired, I am frequently asked if I miss being in the entertainment business.  The truthful answer is "No.  No, I don't.  I accomplished everything I set out to in entertainment, and I have moved on to another chapter in my life."  Well, as far as I can tell typing the first draft of this post, once completed, I will be finished with my discussion and amplification of Snyder's Wineskins .  I am grateful for this opportunity to do so, but I must say that I'm rather glad to be finished.  I have other things I want to do.  Let's get on with it, then, shall we?     This final post will go over topics which we have either neglected or only touched on previously.  These issues, along with those we have addressed, will collectively constitute our church creed.  The intent is to make clear my own ideas regarding these topics, always bearing in mind that I claim no special authority from which to speak....

      This is the one in which we discuss money, and I want to start by making one thing perfectly clear:  I don't have a dog in this hunt.  I post these diatribes on blogspot.com because it's free.  I am a pensioned retiree, so the time spent on this is my own to use as I wish.  I don't even know how to set up a gofundme account, and my readership is way too low for any advertisers to offer any sort of corporate sponsorship.  I am so not an influencer!  I have never asked anyone for a dime from this blog, nor do I see any reason why I might do so in the future (although if someone is inclined to send along a dozen ginger snaps, they'll almost certainly get gratefully consumed ☺).  The ideas expressed are for the reader to use or not as he/she chooses.  With that said, let us move on.          Much has been said in these posts about how the church should spend its money, or more specifically how i...

    For the most part, my ideas regarding staffing the New Church were laid out rather thoroughly in the post on July 21 of this year.  We will herein reiterate the concepts of that post with a small amount of clarification and illumination.     The Didache , a non-canonical treatise dating to the end of the first century, lays out the personnel of the early church rather succinctly.  We will, for a large part, be using it as an ecumenical guide.  Within the local congregation, we will select from among ourselves elders, deacons and preachers .  Each will be given specific roles and undergo training for these capacities.     Elders  (or presbyters ) are, for wont of better terminology, the church leaders.  Collectively, they are responsible for the administration of the church, training of the disciples, shepherding the flock and defining the church creed (the subject of a later post).  Each of these occupa...

    As we have been discussing in recent posts, the New Church can start easily enough by simply bringing together a small band of people with a common interest in prayer and meditation.  This will not, however, provide a stimulus for continual dynamic growth.  For this, it would seem from Scriptures, we need two other ingredients: a mission and persecution.     There are plenty of Western Protestants who think they are under persecution today, but I see little evidence to support this belief.  In fact, most of the complaints I hear are of the nature discussed in this blog back when the subject was atheism, that many church leaders get bent out of shape whenever a student ventures to ask a question about doctrine.  Ask the question once and you receive a dismissive answer.  Continue asking long enough and you are accused of being blasphemous and persecutory.  As almost any reader of this blog knows, Christianity is the dominant...

      To wrap up the discussion of small groups, they will meet once or twice per week for 60-90 minutes in people's homes.  They will dispense with any business quickly, then spend approximately half their allotted time in guided prayer and meditation, with the remainder of the time in Bible study, sharing, confession and communal prayer.  I think it only natural that these dedicated few will talk about their experiences outside the group and, human curiosity being what it is, the group will begin to grow.  A predesignated number should be established in anticipation of this - say 10 or 12 - beyond which the group will voluntarily divide itself and begin meeting in two different homes.  This will become the pattern for all future growth.     At some early point, we have some other business to take care of, namely our worship, our mission plan, our staffing, our finances and our creed.  We will take these up one at a time, star...

      In a weekly one-hour small group meeting, roughly 20 minutes should be dedicated to guided individual prayer and meditation, another 10-15 minutes to Bible study (an explanation of the seeming brevity here will be forthcoming in another post) and approximately 5-10 for any business.  What happens for the remaining 15-20 minutes?  This is where koinonia comes in, and it should not be undervalued.  I can think of three ways to spend this time together, none of which I personally like, but which Scripture and prayer have convinced me are essential. (1) Communal Prayer .  As I've said before, I really don't like communal prayer.  In my experience, communal prayer virtually always comes off as pompous or degrading.  Left to me, it would simply be eliminated from our spiritual lives.  It's not left to me, however, and the gospels and epistles make it abundantly clear that Jesus expects his church to not only pray, but to pray toget...

    Today we shall take up the subject of small group Bible study, but there is a matter we must deal with first.  Any sort of study requires a study teacher or guide, and this guide will, ideally, know something more about the topic than the other group members.  That is to say that the learning process cannot take place without the possibility of asking questions and receiving answers.  Someone must be able to answer those questions, so some form of student/teacher relationship becomes inevitable.  This begs the question "whom shall be our teacher?"     From the very beginning, then, we have need to select leaders from within the group, and for that we must determine a method for doing so.  I think it is safe to assume that the Holy Spirit has some opinions regarding group leadership and I further find it safe to assume the Holy Spirit's choice will be the correct one.  The only real issue becomes how we mere mortals will be ...