2012 JAN

Greetings to all on 10 JAN 2012


Word for the Day
Vestibule - The outer area or hall near the entrance, which may have specific uses or dedications. A specific vestibule leading into the church nave is called the narthex. As a verb, vestibuled means to explain from the pulpit. [1]

Quote for the Day
Corporate worship is often the flash point where this occurs because for immature believers this is their only contact with the Unseen world. [2] The “this occurs” refers to the discomfort, discontent, even anger, over any deviation from the norm in corporate worship service.

Thought for the Day
Change is difficult. And changing one’s theology is nigh unto impossible. One might change from Honda to Ford or from Republican to Democrat, but to change one’s childhood beliefs on core religious concepts is almost unheard of among the majority of our tribe. So how is it, as most of you know, that I have changed my thinking over the past two decades about almost every core belief?

A few days ago, as I was reading through Acts, the story of Peter and Cornelius struck me in a new way. As we would say, Peter was “raised in the church,” well, at least in the synagogue! He had never eaten anything unclean and wasn’t about to start. The vision of the sheet brought down from above was shown to him three times; each time his response was the same: “No, Sir! Absolutely not! I have never eaten food that was unclean.”[3] Each time the Ruach HaKodesh (HS or maybe an angel) said, “Stop treating as unclean what God has made clean.” [ACT 10.15] You know the rest of the story, so I’ll not retell it.

Imagine how difficult it must have been for Peter to repent (change) over something major like accepting the goyim (gentiles) into fellowship. In fact, we have further proof of how difficult this was for him. Paul tells the story in Galatians 2.11 about Peter lapsing back to his original upbringing when, after the arrival of several Jewish brothers, he excused himself from dining with the goyim.

About ten years ago, our elder board (BCOC) decided to install an overhead projector for broadcasting the hymns onto a screen. Something as innocuous as this was apparently deemed semi-heretical by some congregants. A few years before, we had placed supplemental song books in the racks along with the authorized hymnals. The booklets were produced in-house and mostly contained songs the teenagers preferred. However, one day the booklets mysteriously disappeared. Some people had taken it upon themselves to dispose of those books that only had “camp-fire” songs!

Just a few months ago, it was decided to replace the traditional communion cracker with individual “bite-sized” pieces. Even this change had to be vestibuled by no less than the pulpit minister. Otherwise, the orthodoxy of such a change would have been called into question. I know I’ve used the Quote for the Day before, but it’s still so appropriate.

Stop treating as unclean what God has made clean. Maybe there’s a new application of that sentence for us today. Can’t you and I identify with Peter? He was told to “Arise, kill and eat.” All we have to kill are some misguided allegiances to traditions. Peter was told to go against some core beliefs he had known since childhood. Can’t you and I do the same?

May God Bless
Mike Toole
Adrienne Owen, ed.

1. Found on: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_church_vestibule#ixzz1gtlaqUdm

2. Michael S Moore, Faith Under Pressure, Leafwood Publishers, Siloam Springs AR, 2003, p.96

3. David Stern, Complete Jewish Bible, Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. Clarksville MD, 1998