Tonight was week 6 of our "Church and Mission" class at Vintage Faith Church. It is one of 6 classes being taught in our School of Theology that runs in the summer - and this class is one that goes over the basic philosophy of how we function as a church, our doctrinal beliefs etc. It is primarily newer people to the church who are there to find out more about the church or desire to join in the mission of the church. So they are fun for me since you get to meet new people and hear stories of where people are coming from etc.
Tonight was the night I taught on specific doctrines - and we also open it up for questions and have discussion on whatever comes up. Some of the questions and discussions after were:
- If marijuana becomes legal in the state of California, would we then say it is OK to smoke marijuana like one may have a casual drink?
- Did we as a church support Prop 8 financially or publicly teach on it as a church to sway people to vote a certain way?
- If a married gay couple ends up changing their theological view of gay marriage and feels it is not in alignment with Scripture - we would then support a divorce, even though the Bible teaches to avoid divorce unless under certain situations, but that is a reason that is not listed?
- Does it matter if one believes in a 6 Day creation or not? Can someone be a Christian and in leadership if they believe in evolution?
- What are the essential doctrines that impact one's salvation and which are ones that aren't essential?
- How many and which doctrines are ones which leaders of the church should all agree on and which are doctrines that there can be a diversity of opinion on but still be serving in leadership in the church?
I did respond to these questions that came up - but those are the fun types of things that were raised up. I love these types of questions and dialog.
Just today, I met with Kristin on church staff and we talked about launching a monthly Theology Pub. I heard about doing this at Journey Church in St, Louis when I visited there. It is where you have open forum discussion about various theological issues. I am so schedule-full already this Fall but I am seriously considering doing that, as it is probably one of my absolute favorite settings and types of discussion is like a forum about a topic. So we shall see......
