|
 One of my favorite authors, Dr. Seuss, is on my mind as I write
these words. As is one of my favorite books: Oh, the Places You'll
Go! (He also wrote Oh, the Thinks You Can
Think!, but that's for another day…)
By the time you read this, I will
have gone to several places: to the Mid America Fellowship Meeting
in Maple Hill, Kansas, to the Midwest Annual Meeting in Galesburg,
Illinois, and the Fall Maine Council Meeting in Rockland, Maine.
Along the way, I will have visited the Rebecca Mackish Mission in
Kansas City and the Maine Seacoast Mission in Bar Harbor.
The month of November will
find me in Farmington, Connecticut, at Grace United
Congregational Church, and the Rev. Terry Bascom's installation. After preaching
at Franklin Community Church in Franklin, Wisconsin, I will travel
to Naperville, Illinois for the ordination and installation of the
Rev. Tom Boehne. On November 16th, the good people of the Community
Congregational Church of Lathrup Village, Michigan, have asked me
to preach "just because." And I finish the month by preaching at my
home church, North Shore Congregational, just up the road in Fox Point.
Oh, the places you'll go! And
my travels are not exceptional! My NA office brothers Tom Richard and
Don Olsen are out on the road at least as much as I am, and Tom the most
of all!
Oh, the places you'll go… And
it's been wonderful for me. I've been warmly welcomed by the people
I've met. I've been encouraged by the work those people are doing in
their particular places. And I have been inspired by what our people,
and churches, can do -- together: for one another, for their neighbors, and
our National Association.
I've gone out with good news _
of what God is doing in the churches of National
Association. And I've come back with even more good news _ of what our
churches are doing for others, and for us.
Once again, I want to thank you
for the chance to represent you, and the services we offer. Even more, I
hope you will rejoice with me in the work that is being done. And most of all,
I hope you will give thanks with me, to our good and gracious God
— "who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or think.
To him be glory in the church and Christ Jesus, to all generations, for ever
and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:21-21).
|
|
W. Gordon Robinson wrote:
Although Congregationalists have thus drawn up confessions and declarations for Particular churches
[. . .] they have at once evinced a tendency to let them fall into disuse. The reason for this disuse
lies partly in distrust of anything "man-made," partly in the impossibility of any external coercion
upon churches and in the repugnance of churches to coerce individual members, and partly in the ease
with which non-imposed creeds can be shelved [. . .] when the Holy Spirit leads men to deeper truth. [. . .]
the supremely important safeguard—our belief in the working of the Holy Spirit within our
fellowships.1
1 W. Gordon Robinson, "Congregationalism and the Historic Faith",
Congregational Journal, Volume 12, Number
2, January 1987, pp 19 and 26
Rev. Dr. Lloyd Hall is the Association's Historian
and serves Plymouth Congregational Church of Lansing, MI
|
