More Visions for the Church of Interfaith Christians

 

Last week I started talking about what our visions for the Church of Interfaith Christians should be.  I welcomed all of you to respond to last week’s message with your thoughts and feelings about what this church means to you now and what you would like to see it become in the future.  I want to think the many of you who did respond.  Also there was some of Dr. Steadman’s visions I didn’t touch on last week.  This message is going to include parts from some of the messages sent in as well as more of Dr. Steadman’s vision.

I’ve said before our church is a new denomination of Christian.  We are pioneers of a new spiritual horizon.  We are not going to emulate our brethren of main line denominations.  We are not just one church but a progressive, inclusive, nontraditional, and independent wave of churches for now and in the future.  We can view ourselves as still in the developmental stage.  As a church we are past being a infant but not yet fully developed nor are we fully developed as a church group.

Dr. Steadman never saw us as one church.  He saw us as a federation of individual ministers and individual churches and ministries.  There would be one main church to train and disseminate materials from and provide resources for many satellite churches all over the world.  All those who felt called to our mission would have a church home where they belonged and could believe and live without fear of criticism and being hurt by others and they would also be empowered by the church and by their fellow ministers to go out and work their ministries and heal the world in the ways that God is inspiring them to do.

Dr. Steadman spoke of a church that would honor its ministers to be the experts of their own lives and work and a church that would encourage its ministers to strive towards creativity, resourcefulness and wholeness.  He expected the CoIC ministers to conduct themselves properly in their services to Jesus Christ and His people and to reflect only the TRUE TEACHINGS of Jesus Christ.  As members in this church Dr. Steadman expected us to respect each other, to understand that we each have different approaches, and to honor the efforts and contributions of others.  He respected and honored the worth of each and every one of us and we should do the same of each other. 

We are to be a light to other faiths.  We are to be a source of enlightenment. We are to help people remember who they really are and help them connect back to God so that each person can grow in divine love, wisdom and the power of God.  We are here to reveal the truth and to do away with the dogma and manmade doctrines.  We are here to stop the hurt and harm that’s being done in the name of religion.  We are here to teach tolerance and understanding and how to get along with each other and work together.

Along that line, here are some thoughts and ideas that have come in this week:

As we grow we need to establish a much more robust and basic but comprehensive training plan for all ministers. I think that all new ministers should be able to complete some sort of plan so that they show their commitment to the ministry and also apply their knowledge.

 

The CoIC will no longer ordain people too quickly and without any training.  If we are going to empower our ministers we need to do so properly and professionally but without creating   any doctrine.  In fact, we must be careful not to create doctrine for ourselves.  I remember Dr. Steadman said some like: If we were to have any doctrine at all, it would be to not make any doctrine.  Our Director of Ministerial Training is working on new procedures for us.  In the future there will be several levels of ministry and each level will have its own complete training program.  There will be reference material and minister resources made available for each level as well. 

 

As a community we do great networking with fellow ministers and the yahoo site is great, we also now have Facebook as well and I think that we just need to continue that community spirit.

 

The Yahoo Group has been around for a long time.  Sadly the group has gotten out of date as far as member email addresses go.  A good 30 % of emails there are bouncing and over 50% of the church membership is not even on the Yahoo Group. With the changeover of leadership in the church and many people observing and not posting, we have lost track of who is who.   We are in the process of cleaning that up. 

 

The church plans on using several means of communication online such as a blog, newsletter, and forums for ministers and training.   Once the membership records are updated with phone numbers, we will also use the RA’s to help provide a two way member phone network for emergencies and getting announcements out quickly. We already have several Facebook accounts setup. 

 

Our Communications Director created the main Facebook account for the church and Reverend Ashley Baldwin has set up the Facebook account for the church in the UK.  We are interested in letting any of our regional RA’s also setup Facebook accounts for the church if they would like too.  If you are interested, we simply ask that before doing so  please send an email with your intentions to rev_sharra@yahoo.com .  Eventually we will want to setup a Podcast service for our ministers to use.  If any of you have more ideas in this area, please send an email.

 

Maybe we should look at lay membership and friends of the church as well. Not everyone is called to the ministry and we do not want to be come and exclusive club. May be we could introduce a group for the lay members and friends of the church who don't want to be ordained.

 

While working on updating the church records for the email addresses on the Yahoo group, I discovered that more than half the email addresses on the group were not CoIC ministers but interested parties and friends who want to stay in touch.  We need to allow for people who want to be members of the church but are not interested in becoming ministers and also allow for people who are interested in what we have to say but don’t want to be listed on the rolls of the church as members.  (I have discovered a number of ministers and priests who want to observe and know what is going on but because of their own churches cannot be affiliated with our church as well.) 

We are going to use Dr. Steadman’s book Pathway to the Stars as required reading for all who want to become members.  We are also going to require that a person be a member of the church before applying for the ministerial program.  As explained above there will now be several levels of ordinations.  This will apply to new, future ordinations.  At present all ministers of the church are being ‘grandfathered’ in.  We are updating records and will soon start sending out needed certificates to be sure everyone is up to date.  As training programs become available existing members will be given access to take them if they would like to.

In the interest of going forward, our church communications should not be ‘flame wars’.

“Flame wars” is an interesting term I hadn’t heard before.  I am very aware of some of the heated discussions that have gone on in the Yahoo Group in the past and I think that’s what this is referring to.  (I used to turn the group emails off at such times not to have all the negative energy pouring into my home via the computer.)  Rev. Long posted a quote to the group this week and I thought it was so fitting:

On this day, God wants you to know
... that there are many truths, and they all point to one source - God. Do not spend energy arguing whose truth is righter, - just like all life springs forth from one source, so are all truths but a reflection of God. Accept another truth as another way of loving God.

In the interest of peace keeping, cooperation, understanding, working together and servitude to others, we must not allow ourselves to focus on our differences.  Instead we need to focus on God within us and allow Him to work through us as individuals and as a community.  One of my favorite quotes:

"Youare here to enable the divine purpose of the universe
to unfold. That is how important you are!"

As moderators of the group, the Board of Directors and myself are going to be more watchful of the messages posted there and will not let these kind of discussions to get started.  We are not going to say take it ‘offline’.  We are going to immediately put the person or persons on moderated status while they think through the harm that is being done by such actions and find a better way to tolerate others belief systems.

Rev. Bob answered my email on this group but not all of you received the message.   I would like to echo his sentiments for they touched my heart:

 

This Church means the world to me, it taught me, through its teachings, what God is really about and really caused my faith to grow more than I thought it ever could. We learn from all and if we don't learn we don't grow. 

I'd love to see this church become what everyone had envisioned and have ministers all over the world, bringing faith, love and a sense of inner peace to the members and others who do not share our relationship with Christ.

I'd love to see in my life time a Church of Interfaith Christians in every town, working with other faiths to bring people closer to God.

It is not just what we are as the Headquarters church.  It is what we are as a group of individual ministers and ministries making a difference in this world.  It is through our individual churches and  ministries that we will make the biggest difference.  Each and every ministry is a church or ministry of Interfaith Christians.  Working together our goal is to bring about an atmosphere of sharing and community. We are to spread the true teachings of Christ to enlighten, uplift and heal those we serve.   As Interfaith Christians, we will recognize those who include Christ in their worship, regardless of what faith they might be. We will not focus on our differences.  Each of us will seek the Truth and unite in the quest for higher values in worship and in living. It is important that we encourage each other to seek out the divine spirit within ourselves and explore our individual callings, in our worship of God. As churches of Interfaith Christians, our goal is bring together an atmosphere of love, sharing and community, living by the example of Jesus. It is important that we help each person we serve to find inner peace.

If each person found inner peace it would not be long before outer peace would prevail. Every person who finds inner peace provides the world with one more person who lives peacefully.  Sant Rajinder Singh Ji

There is much work left to do where the Church of Interfaith Christians is concerned and truly it helps to focus on our visions now.  I welcome any of you who would still like to send me their visions for the Church to do so.  If we have more ‘visions’ cme in this week, then we will continue with this subject in next week’s message.  If we do not, then I will start a new subject next week.

Blessings, Rev. Sharra