Hello all:

A few posts ago I mentioned that there would be a gospel meeting in my area held by a one-cup, no class congregation. It will be starting soon and I hope to attend at least one day of it.

However, Sunday night I attended a non-institutional congregation where my friend is the minister. While I was there I saw a poster for a Gospel meeting in the same small town of Wilsonville. This meeting is being held by the non-institutional congregation there (I didn’t even know there was one there). While not being held on exactly the same days, there will be small overlap where both meetings are going on at the same time.

So, two meetings going on at the same time in the same small town. Two groups that have so much in common with each other. They are both non-institutional, both believe in believers baptism, both partake of the Lord’s Supper (albeit in different ways), and both are very conservative.

These two churches are probably somewhat aware of each other-when I attended a non-institutional church in Forest Grove, we had a one-cup church down the road a ways that we all knew about-but probably have zero in the way of fellowship, and probably don’t know about the meetings the other is having.

I was hoping to make it to the meeting for the NI congregation that started last night, but it didn’t quite work into my schedule. I wonder if there is a way to bring these two groups together, even just a little bit.

What I would really like to do is get to know people in both groups and maybe facilitate something, but am I being presumptious?

-Clarke

Hello all:

I was reading through the latest edition of The Firm Foundation and there was an article on Premillenialism. I’d recently been doing a little bit of reading about the “premils” and so I read the article.

The article was chock full of inaccuracies about what the Premillenialists in our fellowship believe. It claimed that Premillenialists believe that the church was a mistake, that Jesus was unsuccessful in establishing His Kingdom, and that none of us can be saved until the Jews are saved.

Furthermore, the article claimed that the doctrine of Premillenialism is so flawed that belief in such a doctrine would jeopardize ones salvation.

I have no problem with debates over doctrine. I have no issue with one person attempted to change the mind of another. I have no issue with someone claiming that a particular doctrine is wrong. However, if we are going to do so, we must make sure that we have a good understanding of the doctrine that we are refuting.

A good primer on premillenialist beliefs in the churches of Christ can be found in R.H. Boll Interviewed.

I’m still making up my mind on this issue. I’d like to hear the opinions of others on this subject.

-Clarke

Hello all:

The last days I’ve spent trying to figure some things out. I’m currently working my long week (four days in a row), and its now my Friday and I look forward to four days off….

I’ve had some time to sit at the computer. but I haven’t had much to write. I’ve just been doing a lot of web surfing when I’ve been sitting at the computer.

I’m not sure where I should be going with my life. I’ve prayed some, and I’ve asked others for their prayers as well. I’m impatient. I want to have a clear focus. I have the opportunity to take classes for free at Northwest College of the Bible, and I might do that. However, I don’t really feel like being a preacher is the calling I’ve received. There is nothing that is really pulling me in that direction, at all.

My wife and I talked about chaplancy last night. I’ve got a lot of experience and inroads in law enforcement and public safety, and that path might be open. I’ve been planning on finishing up my bachlors degree in Public Safety and Human Justice through Southern Chrisitan University, and their program is designed for that path, among other things.

Then there is the teaching route. I always have had the interest in teaching at the college level. Maybe history, maybe criminal justice. I don’t know.

I guess I don’t need to be in a big hurry. My wife can’t start her certificate program until the Spring Term, so she probably won’t have a job until the fall of next year. I have a lot of time to think, prepare, and be led between now and then.

-Clarke