Comments for Ask questions about questions at http://pres-outlook.net , comment 1 to 1 out of 1 comments http://pres-outlook.net Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:47:10 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://pres-outlook.net/opinion/guest-commentary/6368.html#comment-3674 Tom Erlich's article is excellent and I thank him for writing it and Outlook for posting it. We will be a far better church when we ask what people need and would support with time talent and treasure. When we determine what programs and events people would enjoy participating in and to which they'd actually want to invite their friends, we are much more likely to grow in faith and in number. Fr. Erlich has expressed exactly what we, as Presbyterians in the PC(USA), deeply desire in our own denomination - for those making the decisions to actually be in conversation with those whom the decisions affect. We need those at the top levels of church government to listen to the Sunday morning pew-sitters and the Christmas and Easter crowd. This, I believe, is the right way to do ministry. BUT, there is a caveat here, as well. While we must meet people where they are, must reach out and offer avenues people will actually take into deeper relationship with Christ, we must also make sure we don't allow those avenues to head in the wrong direction. As the good Dr. Sunquist taught me so well, church must always be a balance of movement and institution. Movement because without movement we become stagnant, institution because without institution we become rootless drifters. HOW we invite and lead and teach people to grow in their relationship with Jesus should be creative and open and should be a bottom-up way of 'doing church.' (Thank you, Dr. Peters.) WHAT we invite and lead and teach people to participate in must be God's own Truth, not our opinions or a watered down 'gospel of nice.' (Dear Stu!) When we lose sight of the HOW or the WHAT we wander into the wilderness of decline on the one side or heresy on the other. - Twyla Boyer Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:00:00 +0100