November 01, 2006
Sign on the Dotted Line
A few years ago a former minister implemented a program called ‘New Vistas’, which consisted of four, four-hour sessions of lecture and discussion led by preachers and elders. The material started with basic Christianity 101 and progressed through to Christian maturity. I thought the program was especially good for new Christians and new members, but it also provided a refresher course for the old timers. The material itself was Biblically sound, but at the end of each session was a commitment page which participants were asked to sign and turn in to the church. Each commitment page was progressively more demanding as to the member’s responsibility and accountability to the church and it’s the leadership. For me, the commitment page resembled a contract and I questioned why it was needed. The minister explained that when people sign a contract, they are much more likely to follow through on their commitment. Just leave it to man to complicate the simplicity of Christianity.
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Gail;
----You are so much kinder than I am. Man is not a pure critter, although he is a purified child. His heart still beats with self oriented intents no matter how given to the Lord he has become. Truly our righteousness is like dirty rags to Him. I believe these truths are vital to the operation of true humility.
----I believe that true humility is vital to sound leadership because Satan is craftily successful in exploiting our tainted tendencies. Given our shallowness, He is able to put one and one together in ways that only true humility would be able to suspect the resulting foul play.
----Ask yourself, "What leads more into the love for one another and obedience to the depths of the Word of God: 1) what another fallible human will steer me into, or 2) what the Holy Spirit with the Word of God will guide me into?
----Frankly, signing a contract that is an idea of elders who jealously guard and promote their own ideological viewpoionts among a group of people who belong not to them but to their Lord does not sound to me like a bright idea. Stated in another way, I can not trust the combination of elders who select one another by criteria of their own making and contracts they might be expecting you to sign. It all sound somewhere beyond what is written to me.
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