Christian Ministry 105

Introduction

   I. The Nature and Purpose of a Schedule

  1.    In this church’s facilities what officiating personnel may be used? May weddings be performed by persons other than a paid staff member? Is there a church receptionist in charge of scheduling, planning, and supervising rehearsals and ceremonies?

              We reserve the word criticism for illegitimate fault-finding. It means something negative because it has negative cause, result, or both. Criticism is evil because it does not edify of others but aggrandizes self. A critic’s conscious motive may be to hurt or offend, and the person criticized feels that hurt. Criticism does not build up anyone or improve the situation. It is not done the same way constructive efforts are done. Many times critics do not go to the person himself, but air their complaints to third parties or in public situations. They make their statements in condemnatory tone of voice and in ways which imply their doubt that the other person to be willing or able to make adjustments that correct. Their aim is to evaluate rather than ameliorate–to condemn rather than to help

  1. Is marriage a Christian institution or a social/racial/human one?

         Temptations appeal to two basic aspects of our nature–physical and social. Temptation addresses legitimate physical drives in an effort to get us to fulfill them in illegitimate ways either in excess or in the wrong way. In the social dimension, temptations come through evil example, social pressure, social reinforcement, even misunderstood good example. Temptations also play on our ignorance, taking advantage of what we do not know, misreading God's invisibility of God as absence so as to remove that curb our impulses, and turning our viewpoint of consciousness into selfishness.

I. Specific Questions About Policies

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April 28, ____