A gracEmail subscriber writes: "In a recent Family Notes you gave the website address of a particular church. The first thing that met my eye on the website was the set of organizational bylaws. Since you are knowledgeable in the Scriptures and in the law, I would be interested in what you think about these church bylaws." * * * Bylaws in general are merely part of the legal technicalities of a corporation, including 501(c)(3), charitable, nonprofit corporations. Unless churches in the U.S. are incorporated with 501(c)(3) status, contributions to them are not officially tax-deductible. Some … [Read more...]
Archives for 2012
WOMEN ON CHURCH BOARD?
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether I think church "boards" should include only elders and deacons, or also chairpersons and ministry leaders. Elders and deacons only, in his church, would mean an all-male board. He prefers that because he believes it "God's will that men should run the church," and because he thinks "men are more capable of making the decisions without getting too cluttered with our emotions." * * * I suspect that Jesus and his apostles would be far more concerned about our notions of "running" things than with the gender of those who do it (Mk. 10:42-45; 1 Pet. 5:1-4). The … [Read more...]
FEEDBACK: ‘KNOWING ONE ANOTHER’ – 3
Judging from your feedback, the gracEmail for May 18, 2008 titled "Knowing One Another" touched a live nerve. Following are a few responses (some edited for space or form). Thanks to all who wrote! * * * "Can you imagine ACTUALLY 'confessing our sins to one another'??? Yikes!" -- Mike (msecuro777@yahoo.com). * * * "Rarely, I'm convinced, do individuals share themselves on a deeply personal level. A larger part of social relationships are presenting oneself as consistently as possible to what we want people to think of us. . . That does not mean that there is no true and relevant … [Read more...]
FEEDBACK: ‘KNOWING ONE ANOTHER’ – 2
Judging from your feedback, the gracEmail for May 18, 2008 titled "Knowing One Another" touched a live nerve. Following are a few responses (some edited for space or form); we will share others from time to time. Thanks to all who wrote! * * * "A few weeks ago my husband John needed to see two men about two different matters and he scheduled separate appointments. Eeither one ran late or the other was early, andthe two ended up in his office at the same time. They had not met each other before that day. One had lost a child to cancer a few years ago and was still grieving. The other lost … [Read more...]
FEEDBACK: ‘KNOWING ONE ANOTHER’ – 1
Judging from your feedback, the gracEmail for May 18, 2008 titled "Knowing One Another" touched a live nerve. Following are a few responses (some edited for space or form); we will share others from time to time. Thanks to all who wrote! * * * "People everywhere are longing to be known. The desperation of alcohol addiction has led to transforming life-sharing help through Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings since 1935. Yet many churches are still having arms-length meetings with no openings to give anyone Jesus' love." -- Wayne (Wayne7282@msn.com) * * * "All of us have friendships like … [Read more...]
KNOWING ONE ANOTHER
Sara Faye and I participated in our congregation's food-and-fellowship network the other Saturday. It was a joyous event which convicted me regarding the shallowness of my friendship with our hosts Don and his lovely wife Vee. I thought I knew them -- after all, we had exchanged pleasantries almost every Sunday morning for 26 years. I knew, for example, that Don and I shared an emotional bent, that we both appreciated a Eucharistic liturgy borrowed from the Book of Common Prayer, and that we had been good-natured co-conspirators for many years in trying to add a cross behind the pulpit. I … [Read more...]
SOMETHING AGAINST CHURCHES OF CHRIST?
A dear gracEmail subscriber writes, "I have been receiving your mail for almost a month now. I get the picture that you have something against the churches of Christ. Is that so? If it is, why?" * * * If by "churches of Christ" you mean the congregations of those who trust Jesus as Savior and who follow him as Lord, those assemblies mentioned in Romans 16:16, then I certainly hope not to be "against" them, for that would place me, like Saul of Tarsus, squarely against Jesus himself (Acts 9:1-5). If you refer to the modern-day Christian group known as Churches of Christ, which sprang from … [Read more...]
SECTS, DENOMINATIONS AND CHRIST’S CHURCH
A brother suggests that the mainstream of congregations calling themselves Churches of Christ are either a "sect" or "denomination," but that his associates (whose sign says "church of Christ") escape both those categories and any identification with founding fathers Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. * * * Whether we spell "church(es)" with a capital or lower-case letter isn't nearly so indicative of a sectarian or denominational attitude, I would suggest, as how we think about God's entire people in the world and "our" relationship to that larger whole. Any group of professing … [Read more...]
WHY RELIGIOUS DIVISIONS?
A gracEmaiI subscriber writes: “I am a Psychiatric Social Worker and an avid reader. Only a few years ago did I learn of so many branches in our Restoration Movement heritage. That grieves me severely because it is contradicts Jesus' prayer for unity in John 17. Can you tell me how these divisions started?" * * * The Restoration Movement, like most tribes within the Christian church, began with small groups of people meeting in simple fellowships doing things in uncomplicated ways. As time went on and the people became more numerous, prosperous and sophisticated, the mainstream would propose … [Read more...]
THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT VISION
A gracEmail subscriber notes the divisions among Churches of Christ, a contemporary wing of the back-to-the-Bible movement led by 19th-century reformers Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. This subscriber asks whether the vision of this particular Restoration Movement is even viable, or if it is inherently self-destructive and doomed to failure. * * * Modern descendants of the Stone-Campbell movement differ in defining its fundamental vision and they naturally differ also in answering this question. If one concedes that the Restoration Movement vision includes its founders' … [Read more...]
