Words of Faith
This page contains the programme pages for the online version of the Spring 2012 Congregational Study on “Our Words of Faith” preparatory to the Remit vote on Statements of Faith.
What do we believe? Does it matter what we believe? Does it matter what we say about what we believe? Between January and May 2012 each pastoral charge, congregation, and presbytery will be asked to consider these questions, as preparation for a major decision to be made at General Council in August 2012 regarding our relationship to historic and more recent statements of our faith.
(This is a link to the Church’s “Remit” to engage this process, for those that are interested!: http://www.united-church.ca/beliefs/statements/our-words-of-faith )
Beginning in February, there will be various opportunities at Cedar Park to explore these questions in a series called “Words for Faithful Living.” In addition, I shall be posting to this page excerpts from each of the sessions, for those of you who want to catch up or keep up online. We will also be holding a congregational workshop in March, so all of us have a chance to be involved.
Watch this space for more details in February, and plan to be part of this historic process!
Outline of Sessions : Wednesday evenings 7:30 – 9:15 in the Common Room. All are welcome at one, any or all sessions!
February 22 Faith in context and contest
February 29 Birthing a Church in Canada
March 7 Faith for the 40s
March 14 New Generation, New Creed
March 21 Song for a new Century
March 28 Faith for a future
Session 1: Faith in Context and Contest
Session 1 was enriched by the active participation of 19 people!! (This congregationis so awesome!) And now You are reading this post so that you can join in. (Blessings abound! Thank you).
For this Session we explored the question of how and why we use words at all to attempt to express the inner workings of ‘faith’ (and doubt/questions), our understandings of ‘God’ (in quotes deliberately; not all people call the Divine “God”), and religious or spiritual or ‘liminal’ experiences that convince us that there is more to us than flesh and bone, and more to life in this universe than the things we can see and touch and hear.
We all do use words, and for various reasons: often as ‘expression’ – trying to put into words a deep faith-feeling; for example, hymns, poems, prayers, songs, essays, books, journals.
Sometimes we find ourselves uttering words to explain our faith for clarification - often in conversation and sometimes in conflict with someone else’s faith words.
Much of this session was spent exploring how “contested” many of the “contexts” for uttering faith words have been in our Christian history. We began by looking at the following Biblical texts, words in context, and we discovered, in contest also:
a)Philippians 2:1
The least ‘contested’ Paul is citing an older hymn about Jesus Christ, to a very young Christian community.
b) Mark 1:1
Written in the shadow of Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem, c.70CE. The bold statements in one chapter are anti-imperial, as “Son of God” was a title given to the Roman Emperor. Mark is stating boldly “Not so! Jesus is.”
c) Acts 2:22-36
The writer of Acts is the same writer who wrote Luke’s Gospel, writing c. 90CE, and puts into Peter’s mouth many things that speak directly to his own community of predominantly Gentile Christians.
Our Final section of the evening was spent finding out about the context for the composition of the so-called Apostle’s Creed, c. 380/390 CE, in the aftermath of bloody debate (literal) over whether Christ is “coeternal with the Father”. That people were killed over such a seemingly minute point of dogma that means little to many of us was astonishing to most who attended the group.
We read the creed, pencil in hand, creating marks around those passages
a) with which we agreed/resonated
b) with which we had open questions
c) with which we had serious trouble!!
A fascinating exercise for all.
Here’s the creed. Perhaps you want to download it, print it, and make your own marks, and even post some of your comments below.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.
Preparation for February 29th
Read through Words of Faith p. 9-14. (Link on the WORDS OF FAITH home page). As you read, ask yourself the following questions:
How much does this reflect what I believe about God, Jesus and the Church?
- What parts do I have real difficulty with, and why?
- What does this tell me about the people who wrote the Basis of Union, or the time in which it was written?
Session 2: Birthing a Church in Canada
This Session explored the context and contests that birthed the UCC and generated its ‘founding statement’. The following notes are my outline of the session, which cannot fully replicate the rich conversation as people shared family histories which fleshed out ‘what we know’ about Canada at the turn of the 19th Century into the 20th.
1. 19th C Canada.
What do we know? 1867 Confederaton. Settlement of West.Railroads, demographic shifts, immigration patterns.Economics of merger (1890s -1910) , Klondike (1885)
2. The Context of Canada in 1900
- What were people wearing?
- How did they get around?
- What was in the news at the time?
- Who in your family was alive at the time and where did they live?
3. Religious Context of Canada in 1900
Denominational Unions 1830-1880s Evolution (Darwin 1859), Higher Criticism in Biblical scholarship, Temperance, Social Gospel.
- Who were the Methodists?
- Who were the Congregationalists?
- Who were the Presbyterians?
- Who else was Christian in Canada in 1900?
- What were people singing in Church in 1900?
- Take a look at Voices United #s 271, 667, 274=Anglican, 541= Presbyterian, 213-Methodist, 365= US Congregational
4. The Basis for Union
- The “Christian Century” - unity vs. clarity!
- Masterminds and pragmatists
5. The Basis of Union
Statement of “Doctrine” – basic teachings of Christian Faith
Basis for ecumenical amalgamation
Statement which reflected both tradition and current context (of 1904-08)
NOT a document for worship
A “legal” document
6. The Basis: Content. (Use your booklet p.10-14)
- What does the document say about God?
- What does the document say about Jesus?
- What does the document say about the Church?
We divided into groups
7. Reflection.
- How much does this reflect what I believe about God, Jesus and the Church?
- What parts do I have real difficulty with, and why?
Finding out More
If you want to know more about the UCC’s founding in 1925, check out the UCC website for the following pages:
http://www.united-church.ca/history/overview/brief/
http://www.united-church.ca/history/overview/timeline
http://www.united-church.ca/files/history/overview/uccfamilytree.pdf
FOR NEXT TIME: Faith for the 40s.
(As in 1940s). Next time we will look at the Statement of Faith of 1940. To prepare, read pages 15-16 (Intro to 1940 statement), and pages 21-26.
- How was this document a ‘living’ or ‘cherished’ statement of faith in the 1940s?
- How much does this reflect what I believe about God, Jesus and the Church?
- What parts do I have real difficulty with, and why?
- What does this document tell me about Canada, and the UCC in the period just before and during World War
- What questions do I have about the context?
Session 3: Faith for the 40s
If you click on the link here, you’ll be able to open a Word document that was the handout for the session we had on March 7.WFL Session 3: Faith for the Forties.
Some insights from the session include a fascinating conversation about the character of this community of faith leading up to and during the War years, when Albert Hinton was minister of Lilly Memoria (33-39), followed by Victor Rose. In both cases, the ministers were opposed to the War, while also offering pastoral support to those families of servicemen. A War Service Committee was formed, and the congregation joined in the UCC protest of the Canadian Government’s treatment of Japanese Canadians.
Session 4: New Creed for a New Generation.
If you click this link, you’ll find the handout used at the fourth Session, held on March 15, which explored the context for composition of a “new Creed”WFL Session 4:A New Creed.
The following link is for those who like pictures with their words! It’s a pdf of a powerpoint we used, which contains some of the visual ‘signs of the times’ of the 1960s.WFL Session 4: New Creed powerpoint pdf.
Now we’re into the 1950s and 1960s we are into ‘lived history’ for most participants, so you can imagine the stories ran thick and fast. We did take time to notice the changes that have been made to the 1969 New Creed, in 1980, when the language for God and for people was made more ‘inclusive’, and the last addition in 1994 when “to live with respect in creation” was added.
We spent some time noticing that A New Creed has a whole section on what it means to “be the church” – something that the ancient “Apostles Creed” sums up in one phrase “I believe in the catholic (i.e. world wide) church.” For many it is this section on being the church that makes it ‘relevant and real’ and is a connecting point with other faiths, and those of none.
For most in the room last night, this “New Creed” is a much loved statement of faith which reflects their own faith and that of this community.
Next week we look at the latest set of “words of faith” – the “Song of Faith”.
Session 5: Song for a New Century.
Session 5 explored the “Song of Faith” which was published in 2006, after a number of years of writing, consultation and editing.
You can find the Song of Faith at this link: A Song of Faith
You’ll find an outline here of the exploration we did:
As the Song of Faith is quite long, we divided into 4 groups, each taking one of the following categories: God, Jesus, Church, Sin and Salvation. For the second week in a row, people were not happy when “time” was called at the end of the evening – always a good sign that the topic is worthy of people’s time!!
One exercise we tried was to “wordle” sections of the Song of Faith, “Wordle” is a free online app which takes words you input and creates a word picture with them, the size of the words in proportion to the number of times it is used in a document. Here is an example, created using the Song of Faith opening section on God.
The general feeling was that the Song of Faith is ‘wordy’ and hard to get into,
but that if you try, it’s worth the effort and it grows on you!
The challenge we face as a church in relation to this “Word for faith” is that it’s not a liturgical text like the New Creed, so not easy to get into everyone’s hands/memory. Neither is it a simple catechism, but something that begs for reflection. How we will rise to these challenges at CPU is my next ‘task’ coming out of this study series. Watch for words from Song of Faith occurring in various places in our life together in the coming weeks!
One response so far
I want to wish everyone at Cedar Park a healthy and joyful holiday. I have been so fortunate to have found you and to have been accepted into your family. I will see you more in the new year.
God Bless.
Darleen