pat loughery

I belong to two groups of ministers. One is a regional gathering of Vineyard pastors; we meet monthly to catch up, talk shop and share challenges and successes.

The other is a local cross-denominational group of ministers who meet together weekly for prayer and monthly to discuss the business issues of our ministerial association and related food bank.

Today in my email inbox was a reminder about the next two meeting locations. The second meeting is a return after our summer break to the monthly business meeting. At the last one I attended (I think I missed a couple after that), a major topic for discussion was what the area churches’ reactions should be to the gay marriage threat (not my wording).

Anyway, part of today’s invitation included this:

I would also like for us to consider a new doctrinal statement or statement of faith for the VMA. The present one consists of The Apostle’s Creed. I would like to be more specific in regards to the Deity of Jesus, that Christ is only way of salvation, marriage consists of a man and a woman, etc. I am seeing that we need to be very clear on these matters. Any imput you have is welcomed.

Keep in mind that the Helping Hands (Pat’s note: the area food bank) uses our statement of faith as a guideline, since they are under us.

That struck me as odd. I know several of these ministers are strongly involved in promoting a ban on gay marriages, so I can see why it may have been raised. But I’m not sure what such a doctrinal statment “update” is meant to do.

I responded in email to the sender asking what the role of this statement would be to the minsterial association and also to the food bank. I also said that my initial reaction was that the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds worked well for me in terms of defining orthodox Christianity, and I thought it would be wise for us to focus on those common issues in our shared faith. Perhaps that won’t be well received, but I hope it is.

What I’m concerned about is that the food bank restricts their ministry to people who are willing to believe the same things that this doctrinal statement states. Personally, I think we should serve all – Jesus seemed to work well with people who had differing views on theology, sociology, eschatology and social class.

So I’m curious: If you’re part of a ministerial association, what is it for? Who decides who’s in, and who’s not? Do you have a common doctrinal statement?

Note: I’m not asking what you believe about homosexuality or about gay marriage. If you’d like to discuss those topics, check out Radical Congruency (Aaron and Justin’s place) which has a very insightful series of discussions from all perspectives on those issues. I see my own personal beliefs on those issues to be outside my vision for this blog’s purpose.