Moving on – to confusion
I recently stopped going to the local Church Of God church I had been attending, and (at my husband’s request) started going back to the local ACoC Anglican church with him. While I have been sorely missing the liturgy, I expected to have some difficulty with the sermons, and sure enough…
The liturgy itself has been a joy – even the BAS services offer such a richness of prayer and scriptures!
“Almighty God, Your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. Give us grace to love one another and walk in the way of His commandments, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever, Amen.” (Collect for the day)
“Gracious God, You show us Your way and give us Your divine life. May everything we do be directed by the knowledge of Your truth. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ the risen Lord. Amen.” (Prayer over the gifts).
The reading from the book of Acts (Acts 11:1-18) spoke about the inclusion of gentiles in the new Christian church (” ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane’… If then God gave them the same gift that He gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”), the reading from the Gospel of John (John 13:31-35) quoted Jesus giving His disciples a new commandment: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”.
Which was followed by a sermon which said, basically, that it doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s your actions that will change your heart (and as long as we all follow the same form of worship, it doesn’t matter if we believe different things).
Say WHAT?!?
Which was immediately followed by the Apostles’ Creed: “I BELIEVE IN GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY…”
Talk about confused!
Seriously, I find this worse than confusion. Here is a minister of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, earnestly trying to teach her congregation that what they believe doesn’t matter. While that same Gospel tells us:
Mark 1:14-15 “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Mark 16:16 “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 6:28-29 “Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
John 17:20-21 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ”
Who are you going to believe?
By the way, if there are any other Anglicans in the Castlegar, BC area who are as fed up with the ACOC as I am, please leave a comment on this blog – I’d love to get together for coffee!