1 24 12 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/9fcb672c2206f72e669f708fc360b7b5.pdf f02dd605cad1091807c6efa842f0b960 PDF Text Text You Can Never Go Home From the series: Good News Then and Now Scripture: Jeremiah 23:23-32; Hebrews 4:12-13; John 1:1-5; 10-14 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan October 10, 1999 Transcription of the spoken word One of the great greetings that is addressed by angelic visitors or messengers to human beings in critical situations in the biblical story from time to time is, “Fear not.” I would like this morning to say to you as a congregation on a pilgrimage of faith, in an explosive and wonderful and fascinating world, “Fear not. Be not afraid.” It’s a wonderful endeavor to traverse 2000 years of Christian history and to find that through those centuries there have been periods of vitality and life, and there have been periods of dryness and desert existence. There have been times when it would seem that the flame of faith would flicker and die. And then there have been surprising moments when the word of God sounded, some voice was found, some happening caused once again a new freedom and joy and confidence to mark the people of God. A study of the history of the Church builds one’s confidence, not in the infallibility of the Church or the infallibility of the Bible or the total accuracy and absolute truthfulness of the Christian dogmatic structure, but rather, that God goes with the Church; the Spirit of God now and again breathes new life into the Church. There are periods of dryness, but there are periods of renewal, and finally our confidence is in God and therefore, my word to you is, “Fear not,” as we continue our pilgrimage of understanding that faith that has been our heritage and that is our hope. I said last week that the Reformation of the 16th century, that critical event out of which the Protestant movement emerged, was actually a family fight. It was an intramural exercise. To be sure, the upshot of it was the rending of the body of Christ, unfortunately. To be sure, there was a fresh experience of the grace of God, the Gospel was freed, the scriptures came to new life, but it was still a family affair. There wasn’t any significant tampering with the core Christian dogmatic understanding, the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed confessed by Catholic and Protestant alike. As a matter of fact, the Reformation emerging in the Protestant movement caused to happen what Luther had hoped would happen in the first place and that was a counter-Reformation in the Catholic Church, after which there wasn’t really any reason for the two to remain apart, but fortunately,   ©  Grand  Valley  State  University �You Can Never Go Home Richard A. Rhem Page 2   after 450 or so years, we did begin to talk to each other again and we’re on better relations now. But that intramural, inter-family conflict of the 16th century was hardly a crisis at all compared with the crisis of modernity, the modern period when we began to use our critical faculties, our reason, to ask questions about the reality of which we are a part. It had two dimensions, as I have been stressing these last weeks. There is the rise of the natural sciences through the exercise of the scientific method, inductive reasoning, observation, investigation, experimentation, actually looking at what is there, testing, experimenting, drawing conclusions, hypotheses, building models. The tremendous success of the natural sciences is the verification of the usefulness and legitimacy of that method of investigation. But the 17th century scientific revolution that continued apace was marked in the 18th century by the Enlightenment, that Age of Reason with which this nation was born, the Age of Reason which saw the autonomy of the human person coming from under the authoritarian claim of Church or Bible, the monarchies, the political arrangements, the throwing off of all authoritarian structures and the human being standing in his or her own light, guided by the light of human reason. That critical rationality continued to ferment until the whole of European culture and this nation, as well, the West, was marked by historical thinking, historical consciousness. Thought was now given to the origin of institutions and to dogmatic structures - how were they put together? The Bible - how did we get this canon? Who wrote what to whom, for what reason, what motivation, when, etc. Critical thinking issued in a sense of history, the historical method being just the common sense method in which we all operate in every other aspect of our lives, and that method came to expression in a thinker such as Ernst Troeltsch at the beginning of the 20th century. The end of the 19th century brought about the obvious conclusion that all of history is relative, that all of history is development, that history is process, that all of us who are a part of the historical process have no vantage point from which to climb in order to view it all and see it as God sees it, but rather, we’re all caught up in it. Ernst Troeltsch did not deny an absolute, but he did deny the possibility of any historical person or institution having a grasp of the absolute, for what we learned was that we all have but a relative glimpse of that absolute, and that our context, our time and our place in history shape the lens through which we view reality. Therefore, in the last decades of the 19th century, there arose the History of Religions School, the first scientific endeavor in the West to come to understand the nature of religion and to, with exposure to the other great world traditions, see that Christianity was not alone, but rather there were other great traditions that had deep spiritual authenticity and, therefore, it was impossible anymore to speak of the exclusivity of the Christian faith or the absoluteness of the Christian faith over against all other faiths. These were the problems, the issues with which Troeltsch wrestled. © Grand Valley State University �You Can Never Go Home Richard A. Rhem Page 3   The nineteenth century had been a century of intense theological conversation, debate, discussion, controversy, and European culture had blossomed into the magnificent thing that it was, literally, culturally, its music, its art, its theological investigations, its great universities. And then, of course, as the 20th century dawned, the first decade of this century brought the First World War. It was as though European culture had come under judgment, that it was tired, and there was a brilliant student who had the finest of European education, a young Swiss ordained pastor called to a little village in Switzerland; his name was Karl Barth, whom we know in retrospect. If you want to take the great leaps of theological minds you jump from St. Paul to St. Augustine to John Calvin to Karl Barth, the most influential, powerful theologian of the 20th century. He came to this little village church as a young ordinand, stood in the pulpit and, as he describes it himself, he had nothing to preach. With all of the brilliance of his education and of his mind and of his culture, of his heritage, he stood before the people with an open Bible and then had no message. He probably was reflective of that generation, that century that is described by A. N. Wilson in a recent book, God’s Funeral - the lost faith, the tiredness of the 19th century in its struggle to believe in the face of modernity. And then Karl Barth began to study, to wrestle, to pray. He had a friend in another village; they began to converse and communicate together, they struggled together with trying to have an understanding of this Christian faith, trying to find a voice into which to bring it to fresh expression. After ten years of that, he published in 1919 the Epistle to the Romans, which was like a bombshell on the European scene. Barth affirmed the godness of God. Barth affirmed the reality of revelation, that God speaks, that God speaks, that there is a word of God in the midst of the human situation. With great daring, with great power, with great joy and freedom, Barth turned the theological world upside down. He flew square in the face of modernity. Whereas Schleiermacher attempted to root religion in the human being and find a new authority, whereas Troeltsch recognized the historicity of Christian faith and its relativity, Barth just plain proclaimed the word of God in the midst of history, full of judgment, condemning all that was human, and then taking it all back with the gracious embrace of God. It was a message of the word of God. Barth is the one who formulated that rather neat understanding of the threefold word of God - the word in flesh, the word incarnate, John 1:14, “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And he said the word written, the Hebrew Scriptures were a word of anticipation, and the New Testament documents were a word of recollection, but it all centered in the word made flesh. There was revelation. There was the incarnation of God in the humanity of Jesus Christ, the word written, anticipating, recollecting, and then the word written becoming the occasion for this moment, the word preached. Barth made a very presumptuous, arrogant claim that the preached word is as much the word of God as the word written, as the word in flesh, that the word in © Grand Valley State University �You Can Never Go Home Richard A. Rhem Page 4   flesh pointed to by the word written continues to be pointed to by the word preached. Revelation continues to happen now and again, here and there, who knows when. When the breath of the Spirit blows, the word of the preacher becomes for this one or that one the very word of God. That was Barth. It must have been a lot like Jeremiah who understood the word of God as a hammer that breaks the rock and as a fire that consumes the chaff, an understanding of the word such as the writer to the Hebrews who said the word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword dividing the bone and marrow, discerning the very thoughts and intents of the human heart. The word of God. Who knows when it will sound? Who knows where it will strike? The fact is that God speaks and with daring and boldness and joy and freedom and power. Barth announced the infinite, eternal Creator of all has invaded our space and speaks, still judging and gracing. When I went to Europe in 1967 at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands, Karl Barth was within a year of his death. I wish I had hopped a train to go down and at least try to touch the hem of his garment. But my professor Berkhof was a good friend and colleague of Barth, so I got about as close as I could without having been there. And in 1968 (I still have the newspaper clipping with his picture and eulogy from the Leiden Daily), Karl Barth died. I went to a memorial service at Leiden where a professor of the theological faculty said, whatever future theology transpires, the theologian will never be able to go over Barth or under Barth or around Barth, but will have to go through Barth. In other words, before you can speak a word theologically, you had better understand the wrestling and the struggling of this giant who was used of God in such a powerful way. By the time I got to Europe, the students of Karl Barth were filling the chairs of theology in the prestigious universities of the continent, and the students of Barth were beginning to turn back to the questions that Barth had simply obliterated. The students of Barth who were now the professors of the universities were beginning to ask again the questions with which Ernst Troeltsch had wrestled because those questions were not invented, they were not a temporary incidental kind of thing, they were the questions that had arisen out of the modern, critical mentality, the critical rationality that was marking everything else in the whole world - those questions for a generation could be silenced by the wonderful, powerful, humorous, humane, brilliant voice of Barth. But his students had to revisit Troeltsch and Schleiermacher and go back again and face the questions of modernity, because if you don’t have the power, the daring, and the brilliance of a Barth simply to overpower, then you have to engage in dialogue and conversation and before long you have to deal again with the questions that are really the questions. So, when I got there, one of the first books I had to read was entitled The New Hermeneutic. I went to Berkhof after reading it for my appointment and he said, “How did it go,” and I said, “I have never read anything so difficult in © Grand Valley State University �You Can Never Go Home Richard A. Rhem Page 5   all my life.” The students of Barth and Rudolf Bultmann, a New Testament scholar, the students were now forming a movement that was called The New Quest of the Historical Jesus, and that new quest continues to this day. We’ve had John Dominic Crossan here, we’ve had Marcus Borg here, because the questions of modernity are the questions that all of us have to face, because our world, this fascinating world of which we are a part, is so other than the world in which our faith structures came to expression. They need a new voice; they need a translation. I went back to Europe, as you may remember, in 1994 when my old professor in his 80th year was celebrated at the University. He was in a nursing home at the time and I got a chance to spend an hour and a half with him at what I knew would be my last personal encounter. He was telling me about his younger days when Karl Barth was the coming rage in Europe. He told me about his professor who heard that Berkhof was coming under the influence of Barth and he took Berkhof aside and warned him about Barth, and Henk Berkhof laughed a bit and said, “I didn’t like that very much.” I said to him, “Henk, as I see you here now, I see you looking more to Barth than I remember.” He said, “Ja, maybe so.” I said, “You know, I feel so close to you and yet, I feel like we’re in a really tight circle together, but you’re looking one way and I’m looking the other.” He said, “Say that again.” I said, “Well, I see you looking back and I have to be honest, I’m looking this way.” He said, “That’s good. That’s right. You must always go beyond your teacher.” That’s a blessed teacher to have who encourages that. Hans Küng, in his Theology for the Third Millennium, concludes with a discussion of Karl Barth. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Barth. Barth wrote the introduction to his dissertation. Küng admired Barth very greatly and he wrote, “But, if he could do it over again, Karl Barth would begin all over again. This time he would do it on a historically, critically shaped foundation, different from that which he did in the early part of the century, because, you see, history moves and times are different and the context is different.” But, he had enough confidence in a Karl Barth to believe that if he could do it over again, he wouldn’t do it the same way because he wouldn’t be doing it in the same context, against the same fronts. He would have another word to say. © Grand Valley State University �You Can Never Go Home Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Someone gave me a copy this week of Forbes Magazine’s big issue No. 4. The theme of this one is “Convergence.” There is a multitude of literary, scientific, religious, all kinds of leading lights who write a page or six, but the theme of it all is Convergence, how everything is coming together and that the Internet on which we are only in the opening stages will continue to transform our reality into a global neighborhood such as even those who began to talk about globalization couldn’t have conceived. Edward O. Wilson, from Harvard, the biologist Nobel Prize winner, great scholar, writes one or two pages in which he suggests that everything finally will fold into biology and he says, as far as he’s concerned, even philosophy and religion will be explained eventually in terms of neuro-connections in the brain, brain science, and so forth. I read that stuff and I think, thank God I can read it without being afraid. I hear the angels’ words, “Fear not,” because if my religious experience is the consequence of some chemical reactions in my brain, then I would guess that it is consequence of some creative process of billions of years that has brought us to this point of conscious and self-transcendence, consciousness of the other, and then the question of the Other, and the Mystery of our existence. I refuse to live in any kind of denial of any kind of knowledge that is available anywhere and in any discipline. If I have to have my religion while closing my eyes or stopping my ears, that’s when I’ll give it up. But I don’t believe I have to give it up because one time, in the doldrums and the decadence of early twentieth-century European culture, there was one raised up whose voice rocked the earth with the declaration that God speaks, and that the word of God is a hammer that breaks the rock and the fire that consumes the chaff, that is sharper than a two-edged sword to discern the thoughts and intents of the human heart. Revelation isn’t over. The future - who can predict the fascinating development, the unfolding of this drama of which we are a part? Aren’t you glad you’re alive - to see it, to witness it, to participate in it? We can do it all with freedom and with joy, with confidence, always hearing the word of our Lord, “Be not afraid. Be not afraid.” Once, of course, your eyes are opened, you can never go home. Küng concludes his book, Theology for the Third Millennium, by saying we can’t go back to Augustine or Aquinas or Calvin or Schleiermacher or Barth. It’s always forward. References: Karl Barth. Epistle to the Romans. Oxford University Press, 1968. Hans Küng. Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View. Anchor, reprint edition, 19900. © Grand Valley State University � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7201c2f83f5a74cbe1c5a3f139a015c3.mp3 daef7b059640c7eb558e5b56e1ef4772 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXI Series Good News Then and Now Scripture Text Jeremiah 23:23-32, Hebrews 4:12-13, John 1:1-5, 10-14 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI References Karl Barth. Epistle to the Romans, 1968 Hans K Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19991010 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1999-10-10 Title A name given to the resource You Can Never Go Home Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Sound Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 10, 1999 entitled "You Can Never Go Home", as part of the series "Good News Then and Now", on the occasion of Pentecost XXI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 23:23-32, Hebrews 4:12-13, John 1:1-5, 10-14. Church Critical Thinking Modernity Revelation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f6c9d7442b0329a1599ff0235ca04423.pdf 90d977968c1498f6521b610cfaa0cb70 PDF Text Text The Vision Must Not Die An Article Reviewing the Vision of Arie R. Brouwer As Shown in His Writings by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought March 1994, pp. 11-13 On October 7,1993, the Rev. Dr. Arie R. Brouwer died after a ten-month struggle against cancer. His death was noted in the New York Times, recognizing the worldwide dimensions of his ministry. A brief memorial piece appeared in this journal in the December 1993 issue. With his passing the church has lost a significant leader, one of the most significant leaders in the last half of the century. This is true for his own denomination and true as well for the world church as it has come together in the ecumenical movement. Arie has died but the vision by which he lived must not die, a vision for “the unity and renewal of the Christian community as sign, instrument, and foretaste of the unity and renewal of the community of humankind and the whole creation.” Ours was a long-time friendship going back to college days. Our paths continued to cross though we journeyed in divergent directions, he holding the top executive posts in the Reformed Church in America and the ecumenical councils; I remaining essentially in one congregation. But over the last four years of his life we were able to spend meaningful time together and be in frequent communication. In a most remarkable way, from divergent paths, we discovered to our mutual delight that we shared a common faith, understanding, and vision for the church. I know of no one who worked more faithfully and consistently to implement that vision than Arie Brouwer. I know of no one who articulated it with greater clarity or passion. As tribute to him, out of my profound respect for the ministry he carried out, I want to lift up some aspects of his vision. The aspects I have selected reflect the areas about which we reflected together and about which he has written. While making no claim to present the full spectrum of his vision and passion, I am certain what follows is faithful to that vision and passion at its heart. © Grand Valley State University   �The Vision Must Not Die Richard A. Rhem Page 2   That the Church Be One Arie’s commitment to the ecumenical movement was unwavering to the end. Even following his resignation from the office of General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ he remained convinced that the only way into the future for the church lay in a movement toward unity. In an article that appeared in The Christian Century (Feb. 23, 1990) he raised the question Can the mainline find new life on the ecumenical way? He answered with a strong affirmative. He was well aware of the obstacles to a truly ecumenical Christian church. Indeed, he had faced them head-on, daring to confront entrenched power and vested interest that obstructed the way to renewal. In chapter 9 of his journal, dated June 11,1993, he entitled the entry “Unfinished Business—My Ecumenical Vocation.” He referred to some correspondence he had received that gave him occasion to speak positively of his own opportunity to use his positions of influence. He felt fortunate to be able to use that influence in order to empower the institutions he administered to serve their respective constituencies for the well being of the human community. He expressed the hope that “somewhere beyond the far horizon” there are church leaders in formation who will have “the will, wit and wisdom” to lead the church to the realization of the ecumenical vision. He recognized the present survival posture of the mainline denominations. Simply taking measures to survive, their leaders are distracted from the ecumenical vision, and the resources available to the councils are drained away. It is now widely recognized that the respective mainline denominations are in very serious trouble, their future in the present configuration in doubt. He wrote an appendix to that journal entry, cited above, which he entitled “A Few Notes on Ecumenical Immobility.” There he pointed to the fact that the ecumenical councils of churches, the main instruments of the ecumenical movement, are now almost completely captive to the churches. In The Christian Century, June 27July 4, 1990, Arie documented the resistance to restructuring he had encountered, listing the ecclesiological claims of the churches, the institutional interests of the denominations, economic control, and ideological alignments within the churches and the Council itself. Writing with the intimate knowledge of an insider, he contended: With the churches in control, it follows that most of the leading participants in most council meetings are either ecclesiastical bureaucrats or hierarchs, who are mostly prisoners of their positions. Real movement toward unity would render most of their present positions redundant. ... Very few bureaucrats, church bureaucrats included, are willing to put their positions at risk—even in the face of open violation of truth or justice, much less for the sake of a vision only dimly perceived. (Journal, 47) © Grand Valley State University �The Vision Must Not Die Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Confronted by such a sobering realization, Arie yet remained hopeful; his vision did not waver. If the present institutional framework of the Councils offered no possibility of renewal, then another way must be found. That was part of his greatness. He recognized the historical imprisonment of church structures. He worked with a certain freedom as a church executive, freedom from the numbing paralysis that immobilizes lesser leaders who expend their energy shoring up outworn structures. In an article published in The Christian Century, he indicated that he was aware already a decade earlier that the dwindling away of national denominational program bureaucracies was inevitable and the trend irreversible. Not happy about it, he nevertheless neither went on the defensive nor threw up his hands in despair. Rather he plunged into the leadership of the conciliar movement with great energy and hope. The future he felt would lie in ecumenical relationship—the churches needed more than a new way of acting; they needed a new way of thinking, a new self-understanding. “Only thus,” he contended, “can they be set free from cultural captivity, ecclesiastical enchantment, institutional survivalism, traditional confessionalism and other ‘isms’ that bind them.” Arie gave this effort his best wisdom and strength of leadership but finally concluded renewal could not come as long as the present framework of the councils remained in place. Still he would not give up the vision; he sought yet another way. In the last months of his life he served as interim pastor of the Glen Rock Community Church in New Jersey. His excitement about returning to the parish, to preparation of liturgy and preaching was evident. Here he saw the arena for renewal for the whole church “from below.” The Ecumenical Congregation In his journal he spoke of his vision for an ecumenical congregation. He noted the number of congregations that have represented in their membership a plurality of diverse traditions and saw these concrete communities as an “interesting ecumenical opportunity.” If the diverse traditions could be consciously articulated in congregational life ... their particular contribution to the fullness of the Gospel (the tradition) recognized and affirmed and then integrated in a recognizable way into the life and worship, particularly the worship, of the congregation, then I believe we would create, yes create, congregations with a sturdiness and attractiveness that would give them a burst of new life, perhaps even ending the mainline malaise. (42) His focus turned to the local congregation, not as withdrawal from the ecumenical enterprise, but as the instrument through which to bring renewal to the whole church. He became convinced that the way forward in the ecumenical movement was to be found in a movement from below. He cites the example of the base communities of Latin America but sees it as a mistake simply to adopt © Grand Valley State University �The Vision Must Not Die Richard A. Rhem Page 4   that strategy. Rather, he contends, “we must create the forms for such movements from below appropriate to our own culture” (43). For the United States, he was convinced, the model was ecumenical congregations. He speaks of his first efforts at creating such a congregation, efforts cut short by his cancer. But his passion for the vision is evident as he writes, From such ecumenical congregations could, I believe, eventually grow a National Christian Council that could gradually transform the anachronistic and divisive denominational structures that are now stifling the ecumenical movement. Deprived of their determinative divisiveness, the denominations could serve a function in such a council much like that of the orders within the Roman Catholic Church. (43) In his recognition of the congregation as the instrument through which renewal would come to the whole church, Arie clung to his ecumenical vision but demonstrated again, as he had throughout his various executive leadership roles, his ability to let go of anachronistic structures and trust the Spirit to create new wineskins—and new wine. In his last work in a parish he was realizing a deep longing, “the longing to rearticulate my faith—not in an academic work of theology, but in song and sermon and liturgy—in precisely such an ecumenical congregation.” A Spirit-Seeking Tradition As he was gathering his writings and speeches from the decade of his ecumenical leadership, he found three themes recurring—elements of renewal that he stated thus in a speech he delivered at that time: A life-celebrating liturgy (worship and faith), A community-building structure (order and life and work), A Spirit-seeking tradition (theology, doctrine and dogma). When he was forced to lay down his work in the spring of 1993 he was deeply engaged in the first element, creating a life-celebrating liturgy. Much of his vocational life was given over to creating community-building structures, but that I must leave to others to record. Here let me lift up that third element of renewal —a Spirit-seeking tradition. Arie’s theological pilgrimage brought him to an ever-greater appreciation of the Spirit as the source of the living tradition of the church. His ecumenical encounter with orthodoxy impacted Arie deeply. In a lecture entitled “On Being Reformed in the Ecumenical Movement,” he quoted the Greek Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky who claimed that © Grand Valley State University �The Vision Must Not Die Richard A. Rhem Page 5   loyalty to tradition means not only concord with the past, but in a certain sense freedom from the past.... Tradition is the constant abiding of the Spirit, and not only the memory of words. Tradition is a charismatic, not an historical principle. (Bible, Church, Tradition, vol. 1, 80.) Arie admits that following the Spirit is a risky journey, a risk Reformed scholasticism did its best to reduce. He writes, The scholastics defended the deposit of the tradition but did not sustain the dynamic of the tradition. They stressed the testament of the Spirit, but neglected the testimony of the Spirit. They followed past confessions but did not lead in present confessing; they preserved the Reformed faith but did not pursue reforming the faith. (Ecumenical Testimony, 310f.) The tradition congealed, he points out, at the Great Synod of Dort (1618-1619), and immediately thereafter the Dutch delegates, meeting in a separate session, “froze the tradition solid,” declaring that the creeds were “in all things conformable to the Word of God.” The die was cast – ongoing theological inquiry was ruled out of bounds from that time forward. Arie describes the disastrous affect this absolutizing of an historically conditioned credal formulation has had on the church. It will not do, he claims, simply to chip away at the frozen forms. Rather, If we want the tradition to flow freely and clearly as the water of life for a thirsty world, we will need to thaw it out. (311) The lecture, delivered at Western Theological Seminary, was printed in this journal (October 1990) and three persons were invited to respond to it, one a Christian Reformed pastor-theologian. Dr. Clarence Boomsma, for whom Arie had profound respect. Boomsma was very affirming of the lecture but claimed that the place and authority of the Bible needed to be firmly established and, further, he maintained that the role of Scripture was “muted and unclear” in the discussion of both our Reformed tradition and the ecumenical movement. In response to that critique, Arie wrote that the place and role of Scripture was indeed a difference between them. I have long struggled with what I have come to think of as the fundamental irony of the Reformed tradition: While insisting that the Word of God written has been given to us by the Spirit, we have often made the Spirit captive to that Word. And this in the face of the Scripture’s own clear testimony that the Spirit cannot be bound. We can transcend the irony if we affirm that even as the Canons of Dort cannot bind the Word of God, so the canons of Scripture cannot bind the Spirit of God — The church is reformed by the Spirit of God and according to the Word of God. (Perspectives, Oct. 1990, 13.) © Grand Valley State University �The Vision Must Not Die Richard A. Rhem Page 6   For Arie, the sense of the Spirit as the source of the living tradition of the church was a growing edge. In Ecumenical Testimony he published an article that had appeared in The Reformed Journal in the mid-seventies under the title, “Worship in the Reformed Church in America.” He retitled it “A Life-Embracing Liturgy,” and in his introductory comments noted that if he were to write the article in 1991 he would write one key paragraph differently. I would not say, “The Word of God renews the Church,” but rather the Spirit of God. According to the Word, to be sure, but in the power of the Spirit, who is “The Lord and Giver of Life.” Already then I mostly thought that, but apparently not yet firmly enough to challenge the safety devices of Reformed scholasticism that have so long subjected the Spirit to the Word—especially the Word written. That subjugation I believe to be the major impediment to the renewal of the tradition. (Ecumenical Testimony, 226) In the end it was the renewal of the whole church for which Arie longed, and it was his conviction that the Reformed community was strategically positioned to spearhead such renewal through openness to the Spirit. Precisely because we have understood ourselves at our best as a reform movement in the one Church of Christ—not as something separate and apart—we are committed at the core of our being to a church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Our calling to reform the tradition then can be accomplished only by engaging the whole tradition of the whole church in its mission to the whole world. (Ecumenical Testimony, 313L) The Vision Must Not Die In the Foreword to Ecumenical Testimony, which Arie invited me to write, I expressed my profound respect and admiration for the leadership he had given to the church, noting that his solid rootedness in his own particular tradition combined with the breadth of exposure he experienced in the world church resulted in a clear-eyed view of the promise and peril of tradition. Deep formation in his Dutch Calvinist pietism and mysticism combined with an historical sense and the dynamism of the Spirit to create newness made him a rare visionary leader. Only God’s Spirit, “The Lord and giver of life,” can renew the church. That, Arie Brouwer knew well. Yet his sturdy Calvinist spirit understood that not as a passive acquiescence to the inexorable drift of historical trends and circumstances from which he could not escape. Trusting the Spirit, Arie acted, led, sought the will of God. Of God’s will he wrote, We seek it; we search it out with a passion. As we discover the will of God, we strive to do the will of God in order that in our doing what we know, we may learn what we do not know. (Ecumenical Testimony, 317) © Grand Valley State University �The Vision Must Not Die Richard A. Rhem Page 7   To lose such a leader is a very great loss. Arie was my friend. I miss him. But my grief is greater when I think of what the church and world have lost. However, he has left us a legacy of writings and sermons in which the vision shines forth. His life was fruitful, indeed, but if we would return to his words and open ourselves to the Spirit that animated his vision, his life may prove even more fruitful in his death. He would not be the first for whom that is true. Arie has died; the vision must not die. References: Arie R. Brouwer. Ecumenical Testimony (Historical Series of the Reformed Church in America). Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991. Arie R. Brouwer. Overcoming the Threat of Death: A Journal of One Christian’s Encounter With Cancer. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Arie R. Brouwer, Ecumenical Testimony, 1991, Overcoming the Threat of Death, 1994 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19940301 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1994-03-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Vision Must Not Die Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 1, 1994 entitled "The Vision Must Not Die", it appeared in Perspectives, pp. 11-13. Tags: Ecumenical, Church, Diversity, Liturgy, Spirit, Reformed Tradition, Nature of Scripture. Scripture references: Arie R. Brouwer, Ecumenical Testimony, 1991, Overcoming the Threat of Death, 1994. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Diversity Ecumenical Liturgy Nature of Scripture Reformed Tradition Spirit https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/98826b791b8335a577b40a24441d8d1f.pdf 4f89485f5759cb8a57dc7c293481ccdd PDF Text Text An Alternative To Church As Usual Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought September 1991, pp. 12-15 Our discussion went on for nearly two hours. The pain in ministry was expressed in example after example. Pastors—competent, committed, working hard, even loved and respected by the community—were nonetheless seeing little or no church growth; the traditional congregation in instance after instance was dying. I was one of only two pastors in the circle; the others served the church in the academy. Finally, the group leader turned to me and said, “In all of this discussion about the pain of ministry and grim prospects for the church, you’ve not said anything.” It was true; I had said nothing. I am not unaware of heartbreak, disillusionment, and despair in the ranks of clergy colleagues, frustration among laity, unrest in congregations, but the experience is foreign to me. I have had quite the opposite experience: delight in ministry; the joy of growth; a flourishing community rich in gifts, supportive, positive in spirit—making ministry for me a challenging, fulfilling vocation. Two decades of pastoral experience in the congregation I presently serve have seen the numbers multiply nearly five times over. The giving has grown proportionately, the site and facility expanded, and a large team is now engaged in creative ministry. Now, as I enter my fourth decade of pastoral ministry, I do so with greater zest, confidence, and joy than when ordaining hands set me aside for this task. I had listened and felt the hurt. I knew I had no answer, no formula for success, no quick fix to make the pain go away and turn it all around. Further, I, too, wonder about the future of the institutional forms of the church which, not only at the local level, but even more critically at the level of denominational structures, are experiencing sickness unto death. I felt disinclined to give some triumphalistic testimony of success in ministry. Someone suggested I write a piece explaining what people are fleeing when they come to Christ Community Church. I resist that idea lest it appear that large numbers have joined from other congregations, which really is not the case. Yet, © Grand Valley State University   �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 2   there are many among us who have fled the institutional church at some point; they have simply dropped out, despairing of finding an authentic spirituality and sensing that the church was a source of manipulation and coercion, imposing shame and reinforcing guilt, rather than offering release from it. They found the church to be ever so much like a dysfunctional family. Others have fled the reactionary posture of the church on contemporary issues, the slowness of the church to address matters of human sexuality, feminist concerns, and concerns for justice and peace. Weary of fighting, waging battles about questions on which contemporary society has reached a responsible consensus, some have left the church with bitterness and cynicism. Yet, eventually the hunger for spiritual reality sets them on a quest and many have found a home and kindred seekers in this community. We have welcomed many others who sense they had been cut off, rejected. The human situation is messy. At some point most folks color outside the lines; traditional expectations are shattered. And, too often, precisely at that point, the church is awkward, daring not to reach out and embrace lest it appear to sanction the life beyond the pale. If not in word, perhaps in body language, a person stained with grit picked up along the way senses he or she threatens accepted morality and the proper mode of behavior. I like to speak of Christ Community as “an alternative to church as usual.” Over and over again, witness is borne to the tangible experience of “something different.” To flesh out the ingredients that create the alternative is not an easy task, and I hesitate even to try, lest, defining too specifically, that elusive spirit be lost, becoming one more “formula for success.” What follows renders no formula, and what is proffered comes with the acknowledgment that Christ Community is fragile, flawed, and riddled with weaknesses. It is simply the story of a pastor and a congregation over two decades. The story actually begins in 1960 when I became the pastor of this congregation for the first time after seminary graduation. During those first four years of preaching and pastoral work, the theology with which I entered the ministry was tempered by concrete experience. Mary was a bright, lovely high school girl. She was one of those exceptions to the rule; her parents had nothing to do with the church, but she did—on her own. She was in worship, church school, and youth groups. She had a significant spiritual experience, was baptized, made a good confession. She was radiant and I was her spiritual guardian. For summer work, she left the community to join a friend whose mother was a strong Mormon. When she returned, she was in spiritual turmoil. I cited the Scriptures; she the Book of Mormon; two authorities and an impasse. I lost her and I was shattered. © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 3   In that experience, I came to see that my every claim was banked on the person’s accepting the authority of the Bible as the exclusive source of saving truth. Otherwise, I was stumped. The foundation of my theological system was beginning to crumble. Moving to a conservative congregation in the East, I began to research the nature of biblical authority. At that time, the Reformed Church cooperated in the publication of a new curriculum for church school, and it was introduced by study papers that dealt with the questions of Scripture’s normative function in the church and scriptural interpretation. I became convinced that my own understanding of biblical authority was untenable; if I were to continue to preach, I needed a new basis upon which to do it. Evangelical passion was possible for me only if it could be coupled with intellectual integrity. I needed to find “my gospel” or I knew I would never be able to preach with power and authority, with a note of authenticity. That was the existential quest that led me to pursue graduate study in the Netherlands. Hendrikus Berkhof, then professor of dogmatics at the University of Leiden, agreed to become my mentor in a doctoral program in which my major area was the history of dogma. Hearing my questions and sensing the nature of my quest, his first assignment for me was to read Barth’s Church Dogmatics, Vol. I.1-2, The Doctrine of the Word of God. I was amazed; Barth took the Scriptures seriously, as seriously as I had ever experienced. I thought to myself, one day conservative Christian thinkers will run to Barth for refuge, if ever they discover the dynamic of this great mind and heart. I read with a voracious appetite. Pages 522 and 523 of that volume lie open before me now, dog-eared, as much underlined as not, margins full of my jottings as I struggled to understand Barth. Barth writes, The Reformers’ doctrine of inspiration is an honoring of God, and of the free grace of God. The statement that the Bible is the Word of God is on this view no limitation, but an unfolding of the perception of the sovereignty in which the Word of God condescended to become flesh for us in Jesus Christ, and a human word in the witness of the prophets and apostles as witnesses to His incarnation. (p. 522) As the passion and vitality of the sixteenth-century Reformers’ experience was replaced by the second-hand experience of their spiritual heirs, there was an effort to establish certitude of faith through a high doctrine of inspiration. Barth contends that the statement “the Bible is the Word of God” was transformed from a statement about the free grace of God into a statement about the nature of the Bible “as exposed to human inquiry brought under human control.” Barth goes on to point out that the eventual historical investigation of the Bible in the Enlightenment period was simply a logical consequence of viewing the Bible as under human control rather than as available as the instrument of God’s © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 4   revelation by God’s free grace. He gives a thorough review of the history of the elevation of the doctrine of inspiration. I found myself in Barth’s description: But ever more clearly and definitely a certainty was sought and found quite different from the spiritual certainty which could satisfactorily have been reached on these lines, and which on these lines would have been recognized as the only certainty but also as real certainty. What was wanted was a tangible certainty and not a divine, a certainty of work and not solely of faith. In token of this change there arose the doctrine of inspiration of the high orthodoxy of the 17th century. (Ibid., p. 524) And the consequences? Should there be found even the minutest error in the Bible, then it is no longer wholly the Word of God, and the inviolability of its authority is destroyed. (Ibid.) Barth rejected the attempts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to make the Scriptures the object of historical investigation as one might investigate any literary piece, and he rejected, as well, the attack on the seventeenth-century’s supernaturalism. He insisted, We must attack it rather because its supernaturalism is not radical enough. The intention behind it [seventeenth-century supernaturalism] was ultimately only a single and in its own way very “naturalistic” postulate that the bible must offer us a divina et infallibilis historia; that it must not contain human error in any of its verses; that in all its parts and the totality of its words and letters as they are before us it must express divine truth in a form in which it can be established and understood; that under the human words it must speak to us the Word of God in such a way that we can at once hear and read it as such with the same obviousness and directness with which we can hear and read other human words.... The Bible was now grounded upon itself apart from the mystery of Christ and the Holy Ghost. It became a “paper Pope,” and unlike the living Pope in Rome it was wholly given up into the hands of its interpreters. It was no longer a free and spiritual force, but an instrument of human power. And in this form the Bible became so like the holy book of other religions, for which something similar had always been claimed, that the superiority of its claim could not be asserted in relation to them or to the many achievements of the human spirit generally.... The intention of establishing the authority of the Bible along these lines was to avoid historical relativism, but it opened up the way to it, and theology and Church did not hesitate for a moment to tread that way. In content the 17th century doctrine of inspiration asserted things which cannot be maintained in face of a serious reading and exposition of what the Bible itself says about itself, and in face of an honest appreciation of the facts of © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 5   its origin and tradition. Therefore the postulate on which 17th century man staked everything proved incapable of fulfillment (Ibid., pp. 525-26) I was reading my own spiritual biography; the existential pastoral experience that had exposed the vulnerability of my own theological position and triggered the serious search for a new basis for preaching and pastoral care led me to the discovery that I had fallen into the very pitfall against which Barth warned. I struggled. Berkhof watched me dangle. I wanted him to give me answers, to solve the mystery of biblical authority. He only smiled and let me keep working. He did tell me he, too, had walked the path I was on, but I would have to find my own way. He was not forthcoming with answers but was most helpful in aiding me to clarify the questions. I remember suggesting I should write my dissertation on this matter. I was convinced there would be little theological progress on any front if in the RCA we were not freed from a doctrine of inspiration that, for all the protestations, looked suspiciously like the seventeenth-century version Barth attributed to the orthodox who lost the vitality of faith by lusting for certainty they could control. He responded simply, “Do you realize what they will do to you?” My dissertation subject did not develop in the area of biblical authority, but I did come to an understanding that enabled me to remain under the authority of Scripture as Word of God while recognizing as well the human nature of that witness and the continuing work of God’s Spirit making the witness the Word of God here and now. Just as I was forging a new foundation for preaching and pastoral care, I experienced a personal crisis, a painful divorce and breakup of my family. It seemed my future ministry was in jeopardy just when I felt more strongly than ever the desire to engage in the ministry of the Word. Then the congregation I first served, which is the Spring Lake, Michigan, congregation I still serve, invited me to return, an act of grace and, for me, the greatest confirmation of my call to ministry I have ever experienced. Grace became a tangible human experience. Grace was incarnate in this people. They touched me and I knew the touch of God. They took me in, supported me in the care of my three small children, believed in me, and through them, I was healed. That took courage, for in 1971 that was a radical thing to do. That is where it all started, I believe, for my experience became a paradigm for the ministry of grace in this congregation. Two decades of exhilarating pastoral ministry have issued from a mediation of grace from people to pastor. The conjunction of intensive theological reflection and concrete human experience created the occasion for a congregation to become an alternative to church as usual. That combination continues to be fruitful as we strive to live into our name, Christ Community, a name we chose in © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 6   1971 to express a new vision and to create a new image. Newness did not come without cost, without a willingness to let go of congregational patterns which had grown and developed over 101 years of life in the Spring Lake community. The name change signaled a willingness to die to what had been, trusting the God of resurrection to create something new. A theological vision, hammered out of the dialogue with Scripture and concrete human experience, is at the center of our life. For me, human experience has driven me to theological reflection, and theological investigation has freed me to proclaim good news with evangelical passion and intellectual integrity. The vision that shapes us could not have evolved had I not come to a new understanding of Scripture, as indicated above. I believe Scripture is normative, God’s Spirit moving the human author to witness to the “happening” of God’s revelation. Scripture arises out of the history of Israel and Jesus, the locus God in freedom chose to unveil God’s eternal purpose for Creation, the “place” in which God’s grace has come to clear demonstration. But, the story goes on. Just as the biblical witness is the interpretation and reinterpretation in light of ongoing historical experience of living under the reign of God, so the church keeps alive the story of Israel and Jesus Christ, but must constantly re-frame the given story, casting it in new perspective, as it moves through history’s unfolding landscape. Any expression of Christian faith must be shaped through dialogue with that witness. The Bible is the inspired preaching of the community of faith, but preaching in the power of the Spirit is today, as well, Word of God. God’s revelation in Israel and Jesus is listened to in the context of concrete human experience. Revelation “happens” as Barth insisted, and it still happens. Traditionally, the Scriptures have been used in an authoritarian manner, laying the “then” over “now” in a prescriptive way. One preaches “correct beliefs” and is locked into specific practices of life and worship. We are seeking rather to experience God in concrete human experience illumined by Scripture so that our faith and our life connect. In preaching and teaching I have cultivated openness, affirmed diversity, and encouraged respect for a broad spectrum of opinion. A closed belief system disallows the possibility of a full human experience, which is always developing, to remain connected to one’s authentic spiritual perceptions—which cannot help but receive the impact of present experience. If an external rule holds absolute authority, then I cannot honestly evaluate my own concrete human experience. I have the answer before I can formulate the question. Where such biblicism is the rule, the gulf between “correct belief” and actual experience widens. Subscription to a doctrinal system that is absolutized forces compartmentalization of religious belief from everyday experience of the world and life. © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 7   If there is a center to the theological understanding that shapes our total existence as a people, it is the theology of grace. Out of the barrenness of Sarah’s womb (Gen. 11:30) God began a movement with particular focus in order to realize the universal purpose expressed in creation. A theology of creation embraces the covenant of grace initiated with Abraham, through whom God would bring grace to all nations. God’s electing love found expression in the covenant community, not to the exclusion of the many, but on behalf of the many. If I would point to one theological insight that has transformed my preaching and released me to embrace all who come and, consequently, has formed the mind and heart of this community, it is the universal extent of God’s grace. I will not argue universalism; I think when we come to “isms” we generally know too much; we become ideological. But that God’s grace is of far greater extent than it has been traditionally understood is a deep conviction and it has changed my ministry. The limits of grace can be debated. Christians differ. But that to which I witness regarding my own experience of ministry and the tone quality of the congregation cannot be denied. It is rooted in a theology of grace that takes historical shape in Israel and the church and embraces creation. A profound sense of God’s grace brings one a very great freedom, freedom from fear and defensiveness, freedom from the anxiety of what the future holds for human development, scientific discovery, or philosophical formulation. Grace brings freedom and creates openness. There are no questions we dare not ask, no perspectives we fear to bring to expression. The people have joined me in a pilgrimage of faith. There is no “Christ Community line.” They trust me and give me freedom to probe and test, and I give them freedom to agree or disagree. I have continued to do serious theological study and I offer classes in theology. For example, we have studied Berkhof’s Christian Faith, Küng’s On Being a Christian, Does God Exist?, and A Theology for the Third Millenium, along with David Tracy, Charles Davis, Edward Schillebeeckx, and many others. I always let the congregation know where I am investigating, what questions are pressing to me, and in which direction I am moving. We do theology together—indirectly. Out of concrete human experience, the stuff of our present experience of life in family, community, and world, we think theologically. The biblical story illumines experience, and experience elicits new light from the Scriptures. Our theology is not a static given; it is in process, an ongoing adventure of seeing our life in God’s light, a joyful and serious endeavor of discovering what it means to live before the face of God. By seeking to define and clarify the questions that move our human existence, rather than claiming to have answers, we give space for a broad spectrum of © Grand Valley State University �An Alternative to Church As Usual Richard A. Rhem Page 8   persons to join the journey. The openness of the community creates freedom to be open to any contemporary quest for meaning, for transcendence. Those who are empty and rootless are not impressed if handed a ready-made answer before their question is sensitively heard. The recent widespread interest in the work in mythology by Joseph Campbell, popularized by the interview with Bill Moyers and published under the title The Power of Myth, is just one example of the spiritual quest of multitudes who have given up on the institutional church as a place where their quest might be satisfied. What responsibility do we bear for their despair of finding in the church some clue to spiritual reality, to the experience of God? Secure in the grace of God, our faith is not fragile. When I encounter the defensiveness and fear so common in our churches today, I am amazed at the lack of confidence in the truth of biblical faith as though it need be protected from the challenge of new insights and angles of vision. God’s grace—before it, I am in awe, humbled, full of gratitude. I rest in it and feel a freedom to let God be God, to entrust my flawed self and fallible understanding to God s mercy. I don’t know why some experience anguish in ministry and I have known such joy. I know all is Grace; therefore boasting is excluded, but so is despair. There is enough pain in the church to go around, and simplistic solutions and pious clichés only deepen the woundedness. Our story is simply a story of trust, resting in the good and gracious God, letting go of yesterday’s formulations if they no longer connect with today’s experience; letting go of church structures that have outlived the purpose for which they were created. Maybe the truth is that the institutional church has to die. Maybe our pain stems from our desperate attempts to rescue structures which are warring against the larger purposes of the Sovereign One. Maybe our techniques and promotional schemes, our growth strategies and evangelism campaigns are human control measures borrowed from the marketing strategy of a consumer society. We may have to let the church die, but God is not dead. Reference: Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics, Vol. I.1-2, The Doctrine of the Word of God. First published 1957; T & T Clark Ltd., 1961. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol I, 1961. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19910902 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-09-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource An Alternative to Church as Usual Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on September 2, 1991 entitled "An Alternative to Church as Usual", it appeared in Perspectives, September 1991, pp. 18-21. Tags: Authority of Scripture, Faith Community, Church, Universal Grace, Inclusive, Spiritual Journey. Scripture references: Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol I, 1961.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Authority of Scripture Church Faith Community Inclusive Spiritual Journey Universal Grace https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e24c866d4fc8f971db1f98c6ef9feb68.pdf af35786b348ad742682d6dc8f6ba4f05 PDF Text Text An Intentional Ministry Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America April, 1990, pp. 11-13 The people of God are a pilgrim people, a people on the move within the stream of history following a call from beyond history. The institutional form and witness of this people on pilgrimage will be shaped at any given point on the church’s journey by the present historical context of its life and by the transcendent reference which provides its identity. The church as the people of God will be in a constant state of tension, needing always to reflect faithfully the intention of the One who calls it into being and needing always to be in touch with the contemporary world in which its mission is executed. The very nature of the church’s existence in history means that it is never finished with this task of finding its own shape. Faithfulness to the Lord of the church and insightful understanding of the time keep changes coming. In going about this task we must first recognize that, just as the landscape of the world through which we are passing is changing, so the nuances of our message and our institutional structures must be open to change, to development. We have the given of the scriptural witness to God’s revelation in Israel and in Jesus Christ, and that remains the norm by which our institutional forms and our witness are to be determined and judged. But our understanding of the biblical witness is not static; it is a growing, developing understanding. Movement through history corrects us at some points, expands our insight into the tradition at others, and demands of us an ongoing translation of the biblical proclamation. The movement of history calls forth new forms of institutional structure and new shapes of corporate life. The first requirement for the church that wishes to be faithful to its transcendent call and to be significantly engaged with the contemporary world is to hammer out an identity arising out of the intersection of the gospel and the present horizon. The search for that identity must be intentional and executed through a © Grand Valley State University   �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 2   serious wrestling with the biblical witness, with the cumulative store of the tradition, and with an in-depth understanding of contemporary society. At Christ Community Church we created an identity statement at the onset of the 1980s. We had begun the 1970s with an intentional posture and a clearly defined sense of identity and mission. We had experienced a genuine spiritual renewal and explosive growth. As the 1980s approached, a small group met over a period of months to reflect on where we were and what our context of ministry and the contemporary horizon were calling us to be. The box accompanying this article presents the essence of that statement. A decade later I can say that that statement indeed shaped us and, in large degree, expressed and formed the identity that our life was to become. A decade has passed, however, and neither we nor the world in which we carry out our ministry is the same. Position papers on various aspects of our corporate life and structure have been written in the meantime, but it is time for a major review as we enter the 1990s. The task now is to view the identity statement in light of the present state of the world and American society and, more specifically, the concrete setting of our ministry. Are there sociological trends or international developments or community concerns that will call for new emphasis, new structures, an adjustment of basic congregational posture? If the initial work on a congregational identity statement is carefully done, the basic document will probably not need to be altered, but the manner of its concrete application will change. What once was affirmed may even need to be opposed and vice versa. Let me illustrate. Habits of the Heart, a book by Robert Bellah et al. that appeared in 1985, was hailed as the most significant sociological analysis of American society to appear in decades. The title comes from Alexis de Toqueville, who studied American democracy and who in the 1830s published his Democracy in America. De Toqueville much admired what he observed here but warned of some aspects of our culture that disturbed him. He saw our individualism as potentially isolating Americans from one another. In Habits of the Heart the authors fear that this individualism may have grown cancerous. They wonder if the protective social shields remain by which a free society may sustain itself. They point to the flight of people to enclaves in which “self-interested individuals join together to maximize individual good.” The lifestyle enclave is a group of sympathetic people who spend their leisure time together in an atmosphere of acceptance, happiness, and love. In such a society the desire to be successful may tempt the church to forget its transcendent calling and to become simply one more enclave of like-minded individuals giving a spiritual legitimization to an essentially selfish existence. In a © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 3   recent national sampling of Roman Catholic opinion, the two things most desired were “personal and accessible priests” and “warmer, more personal parishes.” The authors comment, The salience of these needs for personal intimacy in American religious life suggests why the local church, like other voluntary communities, indeed like the contemporary family, is so fragile, requires so much energy to keep it going, and has so faint a hold on commitment when such needs are not met. In The Public Church, published in 1981, Martin Marty recognized the legitimate place of the church as community. He writes, “In the Church the possibility of mutual support and bonding, so needed in an impersonal world, lives on.” But he points out as well the weakness of the church’s voluntary character: “People are aware that they can choose a particular church, reject all churches, or switch between them should one or another inconvenience participants or challenge their cherished ways of life.” A 1978 Gallup poll reveals that 80 percent of Americans agreed that “an individual should arrive at his or her own religious beliefs independent of any churches or synagogues.” Yet, traditionally, it has been precisely the church or synagogue that formed religious beliefs. If the society to which we are called to witness in large measure sees the determination of religious beliefs as a personal responsibility and prerogative, is it any wonder that many mainline churches, which hold historical and corporate beliefs, are in trouble? How should we react? Will we succumb to the methods of a consumer society? Must the local congregations compete like so many religious supermarkets? Must the pastor become an entrepreneur of religion? Will the church forget its transcendent calling and prostitute itself by pandering to popular taste? Should we forget our identity statement and simply seek to discover what works, what brings success? The answer to these questions is a resounding no, but the temptation is strong and many have succumbed to it. It is not enough, however, to sit smugly by with declining membership, salving our wounds with the claim that we have been faithful. We live in a time of unprecedented spiritual hunger and openness to transcendence. There is an immense longing for God, for reality, and there is a widespread network of people engaged in a quest for a new world and the transformation of society. The label New Age has been given this amorphous movement, and within its ranks there is to be found a broad spectrum of beliefs and practices, some serious, some bizarre. Whatever variety of forms and beliefs may be manifested, one characteristic is shared: a large-scale rejection of the traditional, institutional forms of religion. Certainly it is naive to think we can simply do away with forms and structures. But here, too, we must not grow defensive and, with some panic, frantically shore © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 4   up the traditional forms we have inherited and now oversee. Why is so much of contemporary society spiritually hungry but largely without interest in the institutional church? To what extent are the criticisms valid? Is there some dismantling that needs to occur, some deaths in order that the new may spring forth? It is easier to raise the questions than to give the answers, but the questions must be heard. Let me point to one more mark of contemporary American society that demands our consideration as we determine our posture for the 1990s. In 1971 Dean Kelly wrote Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. I remember taking his book into the pulpit and declaring that if Kelly was right, Christ Community was in trouble because all the things that characterized the conservative church in his description were the things we had set ourselves against. He was right. Nearly two decades later, the socially conservative attitudes he foresaw have increased. There is a conservative tide which has about it a mean streak, an adversarial air that militates against the openness, freedom, and civility which the gospel of grace creates. Again here, if it is simply success in externals that we seek, we had better tailor our message to this conservative tide, exploiting people’s fears and dishing out simplistic answers to complex problems. But here is an instance in which the church must simply set itself against popular demand no matter what the cost. For God’s sake and for the sake of society’s health, the church needs to find a voice that is “both civil and committed,” to borrow a phrase from Martin Marty. The above discussion is illustrative of the kind of hard thinking, reflection, and wrestling that must characterize the church whether on the denominational, regional, or local level. And it must be done not simply because the turn of the calendar has brought us into the 1990s, but as an ongoing process. Only thus will we be intentional in our ministry, self-consciously faithful to the God who calls us into being and fully cognizant of the changing panorama of the society to which we bear witness and in which we live out concretely the life of the kingdom. Christ Community Identity Statement: Christ Community is theologically self-conscious; it is catholic, evangelical, and Reformed. It is firmly rooted in the historic Christian tradition: catholic in that it seeks to express the one, holy, and apostolic faith symbolized in the Apostles’ Creed; evangelical in that it believes that God’s supreme revelation and the good news of God’s grace appeared in Jesus Christ—“Our message is that God was making friends of all persons through Christ”; Reformed in that its articulation of the faith finds its authority in the Scriptures and is never finished, but rather needs constant reformation and new translation, that it may be understood afresh in every age. © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Believing in God’s eternal purposes of love for the whole created order, ours is a theology of grace. Grace is the heart of our theology, and this church is a community of persons who have received God’s grace in Christ and who extend that grace to one another in Jesus’ name. Believing in the sovereignty of God in the totality of the created order and in the lordship of Christ in the full range of human existence, we are seeking to bring the whole of life under the aegis of God’s gracious rule— fashioning here a center for creative Christian living, enabling a fully human existence. Consequently, we are committed to creating and maintaining here —A place where we live out the conviction that God’s cause is the human cause, where the quality of our lives is ever more enhanced and the fullest realization of our human potential is enabled. —A place where all persons can find a point of entry, experience unconditional grace and total acceptance whatever their history, wherever they find themselves on the spectrum of Christian experience; where those who are broken may find refuge and healing and those who are moving toward wholeness may experience Christ in their strength. —A place where the tone quality of grace creates a non-threatening atmosphere where all persons will be encouraged to live on the growing edge, stretching, probing, deepening knowledge and faith. —A place where we experience community, have a sense of belonging, find a home together; where the blending of traditions results in a rich and full expression of the Christian tradition and where the grace of God reconciles us into one body in which every barrier that separates and isolates persons is transcended. —A place where persons are motivated, discovered, affirmed, and equipped; their gifts identified and strengthened for mission, making tangible the grace of God locally and throughout the world. —A place where the majesty of God and the mystery of life is honored; where many answers remain elusive, but where life’s great questions are heard and acknowledged; where persons learn to live the questions and to enjoy the journey, resting in the all-embracing grace of God. —A place for the intersection of the Word of God and the world, of the Christian tradition and contemporary culture. © Grand Valley State University �An Intentional Ministry Richard A. Rhem Page 6   —A place where theological reflection happens in the setting of the Christian community where the ministry of grace is taking place. —A place where the Christian tradition is translated into the idiom of contemporary culture, giving it voice to speak meaningfully in the pluralistic society of our day. —A place where controversial issues—ethical, social, and political— find a forum for discussion enabling persons to understand the issues and to live out a faithful response as people of God. We must determine to be true to that which we believe God is calling us to be, whether that means harmony with the religio-cultural flow or not. We will adjust our program and mission with the dynamic movement of history, not in order necessarily to be successful in institutional terms, but in order to be faithful to what God is calling us to be and to be effective in mediating the grace of God to the world. Thus having a sense of who we are and a commitment to share the gospel in all of its dimensions, we will be open to the world and flexible in our life and mode of ministry in order to be instruments in God’s hand for the humanization of society to God’s glory. We commit ourselves to be alive and alert to what the movements and trends of society and church are. It will be incumbent upon us as well to evaluate ourselves annually as to the effectiveness of our ministry in terms of what we see happening in the world at large. A strong sense of identity and confidence in the grace that has set us free to be God’s servants will enable us to be open to our world and to enter vitally into dialogue with the world, being ready through engagement of world religions, political and economic ideologies, scientific and technological development, and the evolution of social customs and mores, to go back to the Scriptures, seeking new understanding in the light of new knowledge. In so doing, we will seek to translate the faith for our day, being faithful to God’s supreme witness, Jesus Christ. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19900401 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-04-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource An Intentional Ministry Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 2, 1990 entitled "An Intentional Ministry", it appeared in The Church Herald, pp. 11-13. Tags: Church, Journey of Faith, Community of Faith, Inclusive, Reformation, History of Faith. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Community of Faith History of Faith Inclusive Journey of Faith Reformation https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c1f6246e5641efc935677d34dc98c262.pdf b36fcca1b2b21c674c86307eb53569c9 PDF Text Text Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought May 1986, pp. 9-11 Karl Barth is the Twentieth Century's towering theological figure. His name calls to mind the massive Church Dogmatics, theological movements from the early dialectical theology to the later theology of the Word. We think of the great European universities, Gottingen, Bonn and Basle, where he taught. Yet, Karl Barth was at heart a preacher of the Word and the great theological renewal of which he was the primary catalyst and which reversed the tide of Nineteenth Century Liberalism had its roots in the local parish, in the pulpit, in the demanding task of preaching. Not while he was a Professor of Theology but while he was a village pastor in Safenwil in his native Switzerland did he ignite the fire that would sweep the continent and dominate the theological discussion of the West for decades to come. Indeed, when he had become a professor and published his first volume of dogmatics under the title Christian Dogmatics, he changed the title and began anew under the title Church Dogmatics, a significant sign of his recognition that theological reflection arises out of the Church and must be in the service of the proclamation of the Church. An early collection of addresses, The Word of God and the Word of Man, gives eloquent testimony to the fact that it was the setting of worship of the local congregation and the desperate need of the preacher for a word to speak that sent Karl Barth to Paul's letter to the Romans to wrestle anew with the Christian message. In 1922 Barth was invited to address a ministers’ meeting to give an introduction into an understanding of his theology. He was embarrassed to hear of his theology being spoken of so seriously. He said, ... I must frankly confess to you that what I might conceivably call "my theology" becomes, when I look at it closely, a single point, and that not, as one might demand, as the least qualification of a true theology, a © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 2 standpoint, but rather a mathematical point upon which one cannot stand - a viewpoint merely.”1 Barth claimed to have not yet even gotten to theology proper even though his commentary on Romans had sent shock waves through the theological world. He denied that he or his friends had any desire or intention of starting a new school of theology. Yet if a new movement was in formation, Barth insisted, ... that it did not come into being as a result of any desire of ours to form a school or to devise a system; it arose simply out of what we felt to be the "need and promises of Christian Preaching... " 2 Then Barth shared his own spiritual pilgrimage as a pastor. He had received the finest of European University training in theology. Yet he writes, ... Once in the ministry, I found myself growing away from these theological habits of thought and being forced back at every point more and more upon the specific minister's problem, the sermon. I sought to find my way between the problem of human life, on the one hand, and the content of the Bible on the other. As a minister I wanted to speak to the people in the infinite contradiction of their life, but to speak the no less infinite message of the Bible, which was as much of a riddle as life. Continuing in this autobiographical vein, Barth said, ... But it simply came about that the familiar situation of the minister on Saturday at his desk and on Sunday in his pulpit crystallized in my case into a marginal note to all theology, which finally assumed the voluminous form of a complete commentary upon the Epistle to the Romans. 4 The reception of that volume amazed him. As an obscure village pastor it was difficult to get the work published at all. A small firm in Bern risked the venture, publishing 1,000 copies of Der Romerbrief in 1919. So, contrary to the current climate of opinion, it was received with dismay in his own country, but the shattering experience of the World War in Germany caused its strange message to find resonance. In retrospect, Barth wrote of the stir he caused, As I look back upon my course, I seem to myself as one who, ascending the dark staircase of a church tower and trying to steady himself, reached for the bannister, but got hold of the bell rope instead. To his horror, he had then to listen to what the great bell had sounded over him and not over him alone. 5 But that was looking back. As he spoke to the pastor's conference in 1922, he was still in the early phase of his theological development in which ten years of pastoral ministry had engaged him. Barth declared that the critical situation created by the necessity of having to preach became to him an explanation of the character of all theology. He raises the question as to whether it would not be for © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 3 theology's good if it attempted to be nothing more than this knowledge of the quest and questioning of the Christian preacher, full of need and full of promise. ... Must not everything else result from this knowledge? 6 Stating simply where he was coming from, Barth said, ... I do not really come to you armed with a new and astonishing theology, but I want to make my place among you with a theology ... which consists simply in an understanding of and sympathy for the situation which every minister faces. ... If then I have not only a viewpoint, but something also of a standpoint, it is simply the familiar standpoint of the man in the pulpit. Before him lies the Bible, full of mystery; and before him are seated his more or less numerous hearers, also full of mystery....What now? asks the minister. If I could succeed in bringing acutely to your minds the whole content of that, "What now?," I should have won you not only to my standpoint, which indeed you occupy already, but also to my viewpoint, no matter what you might think of my theology. 7 The whole gigantic enterprise of Barth's long and fruitful career was the outworking of the standpoint of the pulpit. It is in the act of preaching that the Word of God encounters people where they live, where the Word engages the world. If the engagement is to prove fruitful, then the preacher must know both the Word and the world. In Barth's colorful expression, the preacher must preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Only then will the sermon "speak." Only then will the deeper longing of the people be met and the unspoken question of their lives be addressed. THE PRESENT HORIZON TO WHICH THE WORD IS SPOKEN It is in the congregation that the two constants of theological formulation come together: the message and the present horizon which is represented in the lives of the people. That present horizon must be understood by the preacher. It provides the approach, the access to the questions of the people. Barth speaks of the strange situation of Sunday morning. The strange building with its strange appointments, its ancient traditions, singing, praying to God! And then - "here is daring" he says, the preaching. Pervading the whole strange Sunday morning episode is a sense of expectancy because everything seems to point to the conviction that God is present. Yet the people come with expectancy not only, but also with the haunting question, "Is it true?" ... And so they reach, not knowing what they do, toward the unprecedented possibility of praying, of reading the Bible, of speaking, hearing, and singing of God. So they come to us, entering into the whole grotesque situation of Sunday morning which is only the expression of this possibility raised to a high power. 8 "Is it true?" That is the question beneath the surface that animates the people as they come to church. They may or may not be consciously cognizant of their © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 4 question and certainly they will not let on the seriousness of their quest even if they recognize it. People naturally do not shout it out, and least of all into the ears of us ministers. But let us not be deceived by their silence. Blood and tears, deepest despairs and highest hope, a passionate longing to lay hold of that which, or rather of him who overcomes the world because he is its Creator and Redeemer, its beginning and ending and Lord, a passionate longing to have the word spoken, the word which promises grace in judgment, life in death, and the beyond in the here and now, God's word... They expect us to understand them better than they understand themselves, and to take them more seriously than they take themselves. 9 It is with that profound sense of the longing of the people, of the deep question of their life that the preacher must approach the pulpit. The serious meaning of the situation in our churches is that the people want to hear the word, that is, the answer to the question by which, whether they know it or not, they are actually animated, Is it true? The situation on Sunday morning is related in the most literal sense to the end of history; it is eschatological, even from the viewpoint of the people, quite apart from the Bible. That is to say, when this situation arises, history, further history, is done with, and the ultimate desire of man, the desire for an ultimate event, now becomes authoritative. 10 Then Barth continues with words that must burn in the consciousness of every person on whom the call to preach is laid: ... If we do not understand this ultimate desire, if we do not take the people seriously (I repeat it, more seriously than they take themselves!) at the point of their life perplexity, we need not wonder if a majority of them, without becoming enemies of the Church, gradually learn to leave the Church to itself and us to the kind-hearted and timid. 11 Thus Karl Barth well understood that sensitivity to people, to their concrete existence lived out in the real world provides the present horizon which must be addressed - addressed not with a word of speculative philosophy or human cleverness of whatever sort but addressed by the Word of God. THE WORD Before the preacher on Sunday morning is the open Bible, the second pole, the other side of the equation. If it is imperative that the preacher have a great sensitivity to his people, it is equally necessary to grasp the message of the Word of God in order that that message may be translated into the idiom of the contemporary world. The Word of God must sound forth again. The preacher's task is to communicate the Everlasting Gospel so that the message comes through. That message is in the Bible but the message will be released only when that which occurred in concrete history and thus received a concrete shape and © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 5 sound is translated into the shape and sound that will "say" the same thing in a new historical situation. Barth had a profound confidence in the Word of God. The movement that he effected has been labeled the theology of the Word. With the open Bible before him, the preacher becomes the servant of the Word. We can never abandon the Bible ... because it has a somewhat uncanny way of bringing into the church situation its own new and tense and mighty (mightier!) expectancy. If the congregation brings to the Church the great question of human life and seeks an answer for it, the Bible contrariwise brings an answer, and seeks the question corresponding to this answer: it seeks questioning people who are eager to find and able to understand that its seeking of them is the very answer to their question. The thoughts of the Bible touch just those points where the negative factors in life preponderate, casting doubt over life's possibilities - the very points, that is, where on the human side we have the question arising, Is it true? ... where that last perplexed craving has seized him and leads him, let us say, to church. 12 And what happens when the perplexed person full of longing makes his way to church and is encountered by the Word? Barth answers: The Bible responds without ado to the man who has awakened to a consciousness of his condition and to whom certainty has everywhere begun to waver; and its way of answering him is to ask with him, in its own way - think of the forty-second Psalm, think of Job - Is it true? Is it true that there is in all things a meaning, a goal, and a God?13 The Bible takes the question of our life which drives us to church and gives it depth; shows us that the question beneath all the questions of our life is a question about God. And further Barth declares, ... as the Bible takes these questions, translating them into the inescapable question about God, one simply cannot ask or hear the "question" without hearing the answer. The person who says that the Bible leads us to where finally we hear only a great NO or see a great void, proves only that he has not yet been led thither. This NO is really YES. This judgment is grace. This condemnation is forgiveness. This death is life. This hell is heaven. This fearful God is a loving Father Who takes the prodigal in his arms. The crucified is the one risen from the dead. And the explanation of the cross as such is eternal life ... The question is the answer.14 When the question of our life is understood to be the question of God, then the question has become the answer; then the reality of a great grace fills the yearning void and stills the restless fear. But we are not yet finished. Every Christian sermon finds rootage in the Bible, the Bible that has the uncanny power, as Barth says, to bring the answer to the question which animates the human quest. But something critical must happen © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 6 in the process by which the words of the text become the Word which is heard in the words of proclamation. THE WORD PROCLAIMED IN THE SERMON The Word of God - what is it? Essentially it is the message of His redemptive grace through which He effects His purposes of salvation. Where do we find it? We find it in the Bible. The Bible is not God's Word in some static sense whereby we can say between these leather covers we have God’s Word. God's Word is always active, living, dynamic because it is God speaking. But the Bible is God's Word in the sense that for us, God speaks through and by means of this word written. The written words of the Bible are the reverberations of the Word of God which is the message of God's redemptive grace; or could I use the word "residue?" - the written words of Scripture are the residue of the "happening Word," and the connection between the Word and the words is the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God that illumined the Prophet's mind and heart. The Truth exploded in the person of the Prophet - who spoke the Truth to God's people and wrote the message so that the message could be communicated further. That Word, which "happened" to the Prophet and was then put into words, now becomes the occasion for the Word to happen again. Every message from a Christian pulpit is tied to a written word. Every message is an attempt to set free the Word that is in the words. At times we read the Bible and, closing it, realize that we know nothing of what we have read. But at other times we read a verse or chapter and feel its truth penetrate to our soul. What is the difference? Same book. Perhaps the same words. But when the Word happens, the words become the vehicle of the Spirit Who looses its meaning on us; the Word happens again. Sermons are that way. In fact, Karl Barth distinguished the Word written and the Word proclaimed as two forms of the Word. Again, sometimes the message strikes no fire, sets no cord of the heart vibrating. Sometimes in a message the Word happens. Having distinguished two forms of the Word, Barth added a third - the Word made flesh - Jesus, the Word incarnate. We read in the opening verses of Isaiah 61 how the prophet connects the agency of the Spirit with "the word of proclamation. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the humble, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those in prison; ... The passage goes on; it is a message of grace and redemption - a beautiful, hopeful message; it is God's Word proclaimed in words by the prophet anointed by the Spirit - that is, authorized and authenticated by the Spirit - by God. © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 7 The words are familiar because they are the words Jesus selected to use as his text when he returned to his home synagogue in Nazareth. (See Luke 4:18-19). That was a tremendous claim that Jesus made and the hometown folks did not receive it kindly. They drove him out of town. Jesus was claiming the Spirit of God as His authentication and authorization and he was saying - in me today in your presence the salvation of God is present. Jesus used the words of the Bible to point to himself as the incarnation of the Word of God - the one Truth, the message of redemption and freedom. The Word of God is the message of a redeeming grace and a saving purpose. It finds expression through the power of the Spirit of God: –when the Spirit created Jesus ("conceived by the Holy Spirit"); –when the Spirit enlivens the written words of the Bible so that the Word happens; –when the words of Scripture find expression in the proclaimed word of the sermon and the Spirit drives home the Word behind the sermon and the written word from which it arises. Such is the Word of God. Behind the word preached, behind the word written, behind the word made flesh, is God, the God of grace and salvation. That powerful conception of the Living Word of God we owe to Barth and that dynamic and promising view of preaching we owe to him, as well. It was the task of preaching that drove Karl Barth to the Bible and it was out of that encounter that the theological renewal of our century arose. It was in the service of the Church that proclaims Jesus Christ that Karl Barth labored fruitfully throughout his life. His great legacy to the Church is the recognition that all theological reflection must arise from and be directed to need and promise of preaching. To the end of his life he preached. He was a regular preacher at the Basle jail. Asked why he went there when he could command the great pulpits of the world, he replied that if he preached in a cathedral people would come to hear Karl Barth; at the Basle jail they came to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. On New Year's Eve, 1962, he preached at the jail on the text, "My grace is enough." In beautiful simplicity he declared: My grace - that is myself: I for you, I as your Saviour in your place - I who set you free from sin, guilt, misery and death, all of which I have taken on myself and so away from you - I who show you the father and open up the path to him - I who let you hear the great Yes which he has spoken to you too, to you personally, from all eternity ... That is my grace. And this grace of mine is enough. It is what you really and truly need, and what you, moreover, may and must have. You can hold on to it, you can live by it. You can also die with it. It is enough for you just now, it will also be enough for you to all eternity. © Grand Valley State University �Karl Barth: Preaching and Theological Renewal Richard A. Rhem Page 8 ... But say it to him! He hears it and is glad to hear it from you. He expects nothing more from you and from me than that we should say it to him as "the echo of what he says to us: "Yes, your grace is enough." Amen.15 ENDNOTES 1 Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man. (New York: Harper and Row, Harper Torchbook Edition, 1957), p. 97F. 2 Ibid., p. 100. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., p. 101 5 Karl Barth, Forward to Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik. (Munohen, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1927). p. IX. 6 Karl Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man., p. 102. 7 Ibid., p. 103F. 8 Ibid., p. 108. 9 Ibid., p. 108F. 10 Ibid., p. 110. 11 Ibid., p. 110F. 12 Ibid., p. 116. 13 Ibid., p. 117. 14 Ibid., p. 120. 15 Karl Barth, Call For God. "New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 83F. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Barth, Karl, The Word of God and the Word of Man. New York: Harper and Row, 1957. Barth, Karl, Forward to Die Lejhr vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik. Mundien, Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1927. Barth, Karl, Call For God. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Karl Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man, 1957, Call For God, 1967, Forward to Die Lehr vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik, 1927. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19860501 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-05-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Preaching and Theological Renewal Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on May 1, 1986 entitled "Preaching and Theological Renewal", on the book Preaching and Theological Renewal, written by Karl Barth, it appeared in Perspectives, May, 1986, pp. 9-11. Tags: Preaching, Word of God, Theology, Meaning, Church, Grace. Scripture references: Karl Barth. The Word of God and the Word of Man, 1957, Call For God, 1967, Forward to Die Lehr vom Worte Gottes: Prolegomena zur Christlicken Dogmatik, 1927.. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Grace Meaning Preaching Theology Word of God https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a25b4beabe4a88ee7abdaa83888a8030.pdf 621082e18e9ee27ce2c90176e9f901cb PDF Text Text   The Faith of the Church: A Reformed Perspective on Its Historical Development, By M. Eugene Osterhaven (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1982) Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown With the publication of The Faith of the Church, Professor M. Eugene Osterhaven has given the Church and a generation of his students to whom he dedicates the work a lucid and concise manual of Christian theology in which he has immersed himself and which he has taught in a long and fruitful teaching ministry. His students will not fail to recognize their professor in the discussion of the Faith as it is here presented in its historical development from a Reformed perspective. Osterhaven defines theology as “the deliberate and careful consideration of the Christian faith.” Convinced of the necessity of theological reflection on the Faith of the Church, Osterhaven finds the norm of theology in the Scripture and its method in listening to the record of God's self-disclosure found therein. Systematizing is a necessary activity of the human mind which “seeks to relate whatever material is given it into an intelligible pattern” (p. 6), but theological reflection must not be understood as barren intellectualism, for the faith of the Church “comes out of the experience of God's people struggling to hear his Word in the context of life.” (p. 7) Following a discussion of method and approach, Professor Osterhaven deals with Christian doctrines in the order of their historical development beginning with “the Faith of Israel.” He deals with the doctrines of God, Jesus Christ, Scripture, Man, Sin and Grace, Hope and History, and Atonement. Then, reflecting his method of treating doctrine in its historical development, Osterhaven deals with the Reformation (“The Recovery of the Gospel”) and goes on to treat Justification by Faith, the Church and the Sacraments, giving an excellent treatment of the thinking of Luther and Calvin on these subjects. Chapters 13, 14 and 15 constitute an interesting and helpful discussion, which is not common to manuals of Christian doctrine. Osterhaven discusses Luther’s conception of “The Freedom of a Christian;” what he maintains is the key to Calvin's theology, “Order and the Holy Spirit;” and, “Experiential Christianity,” a © Grand Valley State University   �Eugene Osterhaven, Faith of the Church, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2   discussion of religious experience as it grew out of the Reformation and found expression in both the mysticism and activism of Dutch Pietism and Puritanism. Chapter 16 deals with “Eschatology: The Kingdom, The Spirit, and The End.” Osterhaven touched Eschatology earlier (Chapter 7) when discussing the thought of Augustine but he takes it up here again to acknowledge the theological development of the twentieth century in the face of the crisis of meaning brought on by the cataclysms of history which have been a part of our experience. Brief reference is made to Barth, Cullmann, and a more extended discussion of VanRuler and Pannenberg concerning the place of history in the design of God. Professor Osterhaven concludes this study with a chapter on “The Relevance of The Faith,” “to focus on the relevance in such a world of Christian theology and the faith of the Church” (p. 213). The author’s personal conviction is clear. There is only one remedy for this world’s ills: God himself in the person of Christ, God-become-flesh, who has effected redemption and opened the way to reconciliation and blessing. That faith, the message of salvation proclaimed by the apostles, and the theology which studies and articulates it are as relevant today as ever. (p. 213) Stressing the need for Christian foundations and understanding well theology's critical function – “...reflection on anything and everything from the point of view of the biblical revelation” (p. 217) – as well as theology’s universal nature, Professor Osterhaven calls the Church to its task so to articulate the Faith that it will “make possible the development of a true humanism.” (221f) Citing Pascal, Osterhaven closes with the strong conviction that the true humanism is “a view of man which sees him, though full of contradictions, as a creature made by and meant for God.” (p. 223) In being guided through the historical developments of the Faith of the Church, one is immediately impressed with the author's thorough knowledge and understanding of the material presented. This is no superficial survey of Christian doctrine, but rather a concise summary of the main lines of the faith made possible only by a life-long acquaintance with the material as well as a serious commitment to the truth of the Faith confirmed in deep Christian experience. The Christian Faith here portrayed is the classic Reformed understanding. If any criticism is to be offered, it is not for what is presented but for what is not acknowledged; there is little cognizance taken of the seriousness of the criticism of the Faith from within the Church through the sifting of the foundations by the critical biblical studies of the last two hundred years and from without the Church through the development of Post-Enlightenment thought, both philosophical and theological, and the growth of secularism. © Grand Valley State University �Eugene Osterhaven, Faith of the Church, Book Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3   The author calls us to the critique of modern culture and declares the relevance of the Faith for our contemporary situation. The Faith here presented provides the foundation for the task. One misses the wrenching that is involved in testing the faith by the fires of modern criticism whose seriousness does not come to expression. It remains for us to take the Christian foundations here so lucidly set forth and translate them into the language of contemporary culture that the ancient answers may continue to sound forth, demonstrating the relevance of which the author has no doubt. This is an excellent study which will be useful to the whole Church. It is a fitting capstone to a long and effective teaching career and the strongest confirmation of its truth is the life of the author, the life of a Christian man, deeply loved and deeply respected by all who have had the privilege of sitting at his feet and being shaped by his faith and life. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19820101 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-01-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource The Faith of the Church: A Reformed Perspective on Its Historical Development Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 1, 1982 entitled "The Faith of the Church: A Reformed Perspective on Its Historical Development", on the book The Faith of the Church: A Reformed Perspective on Its Historical Development, written by Eugene Osterhaven, it appeared in Church Herald. Tags: Faith, Church, Reformed, Theology. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Faith Reformed Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c98ed1ba14d80c16501702112864e9b8.pdf 5e8f57b3387a0f033e828d5486f103ce PDF Text Text All in the Family Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America October 17, 1975, pp. 14-15, 18 I remember how it used to be at Grandma's. The whole family was there—aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws. They were all there one time or another. Some of the clan came after the morning service for coffee while the kids were in Sunday school. Others made their weekly pilgrimage to the five-acre celery farm on Sunday afternoon. A few stopped after the evening service. (It made me a little jealous that some of my cousins got to stay with Grandma during that evening service. She peeled apples and cut them up into quarters. Sometimes she could peel a whole apple without lifting the knife or breaking the long ribbon of red peeling.) Grandma was always at the center of things. Grandpa was off to the side a bit in his favorite chair, pipe stand at hand and several cans of Prince Albert nearby. The air was tinged with blue because he alternated between pipe and cigar, and the cigar was finally deposited in the bowl of the pipe to draw out its last glowing ashes. The atmosphere was always the same—warm, familiar, comfortable. Grandma was there and so love and security were there. It was family. There was one source of tension, however. There was a mixed marriage to contend with. One of my aunts had gone off and married a Christian Reformed boy from a couple of farms up the road. She joined the Christian Reformed Church but was never really converted. She grumbled about it a lot. And from that union sprang several cousins. The Christian Reformed Church did a good job on them. They never seemed to know there was anything else. Well, we lived in reasonable peace over the years of my childhood. When Grandpa or Grandma had birthdays we all got together, and that was something else. Once in a while the peace was shattered — when, for example, we got talking about the Christian school or the upcoming Hope-Calvin game. Then the atmosphere was warm too; in fact, sometimes it even got hot. © Grand Valley State University   �All in the Family Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Those occasional sharp confrontations were gathered up into a larger bond that had the toughness of love. I knew, without anyone ever telling me, that we were really all one – one family. We could argue, raise our voices or grumble at each other, but we belonged together; we belonged to each other. Now many years later in the midst of my ministry I find myself on a “Joint Christian Reformed-Reformed Church Committee for Study of a Theology of Evangelism.” My experience on this committee has reminded me of my experiences as a child in a family that had “mixed marriages.” There was always a little rivalry, little points of tension, sometimes confrontation and sharply differing perspectives. But, there was also always that sense of family. We belong to each other and that which makes us one family is of far greater import than the things that separate us. There are many mysteries in life, but one of the greatest is how two churches with the same national origins, the same polity, liturgical tradition and confessional allegiance have been able to go their separate ways for over a century. Yet even such a long period of separate existence has not been able to erase from our corporate consciousness that we belong together, that we belong to each other. Both denominations in their respective Synods of 1973 adopted recommendations that a joint committee be formed. The committees of each church responsible for Inter-Church relationships had been working together in “concentrated dialogue” since 1969. This dialogue had issued in a formal meeting of the two churches in the fall of 1972. The experience of that event was reflected in a Conference Statement, which gave thanks to God “for the unity he gave us during our deliberations.” The Conference heartily endorsed the following recommendations and covenanted together to implement them. 1. That we recognize, reaffirm and publish the positions taken by our respective Inter-Church Relations Committees in 1966 and 1987, the substance of which is herewith submitted: a. Joint work on liturgy to explore common concerns, suggest and foster similar patterns of worship and liturgy in our two churches. b. Joint planning be used in church extension to avoid overlapping so that Kingdom resources and witness be used most effectively. c. The encouragement of local exchanges between churches including pulpit fellowship. d. Overseas mission efforts done in a cooperative manner whenever possible. © Grand Valley State University �All in the Family Richard A. Rhem Page 3   There was much more to the Conference Statement dealing with cooperative efforts on the denominational, classical and congregational levels and in the area of publication. The statement ended with an eloquent call to action, pleading, The mercies of God that what we have envisioned we, together with many others, may now bring into being so that his name may be glorified, his church may be made victorious and his people may rejoice in the blessings that flow from the unity we seek. Against this background the Joint Committee CRC/RCA for Study of Theology of Evangelism was born. Five members from each church were appointed and the first meeting was held in December of 1973. Two churches in the Reformed tradition must necessarily discuss theology in any coming together. Furthermore, there is wisdom in focusing on the imperative that rests upon the whole church, the sharing of the Gospel with all men. Unity arises not so much out of discussion of abstract principles as out of engagement in the execution of the mission of Jesus Christ. Evangelism, telling good news in a world of bad news, is a natural place to begin to search for our unity. Happily, we on the joint committee can testify that we sensed a warm fellowship in our common search for some word to speak together concerning the grace of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. The issue of our committee's work thus far is a Manifesto On Evangelism. That may seem to be a rather meager result. Yet, I think when the Manifesto is studied it will prove itself a carefully formulated and profoundly significant statement. In the preamble to the Manifesto, the committee acknowledged that it had narrowed its task to sharp focus, hoping to make a distinct contribution to current discussion from our Reformed perspective as well as lifting into prominence a theme which is central to the biblical revelation and strangely absent from much of the material on evangelism; that theme being the Kingdom of God. We were aware of other discussions on the theme of evangelism. We sensed a real struggle in the Christian community at two points: First, how are word and deed related in Christian witness? Is social action, born of Christian conviction, evangelism? Is evangelism oral testimony only, and are deeds of demonstrated Christian concern in connection with that testimony merely optional? But behind this tension lies a more fundamental concern. What is the word, the message, in evangelism? What is the message which deeds are to demonstrate? (Preamble to the Manifesto). It was the Committee's judgment that the historic Reformed accent on the Kingdom of God was a key to a meaningful solution to these questions. In various study papers prepared by members of the group the Kingdom theme surfaced again and again. Furthermore, we felt there was a lack of concern with the Kingdom idea in much contemporary discussion, although it is certainly a central © Grand Valley State University �All in the Family Richard A. Rhem Page 4   biblical motif. We opted to make a concise statement which expresses our unity in the understanding of our evangelistic task as well as the central theme of our proclamation in word and deed. The Manifesto itself is divided into three sections: The proclamation of the Kingdom, the signs of the Kingdom and the imperative of the Kingdom. The opening paragraph evidences the inclusiveness of the Kingdom theme, which allows it to overcome the false antithesis between word and deed which has so long plagued the church. We share the newly expressed concern of believers everywhere to understand the nature of evangelism and its place in our total task. We deplore our own tendencies in thought and action to separate Gospel proclamation from compassionate ministry. We believe that both are rightly understood only in the light of the Bible's pervasive theme—the Kingdom of God. Strong proclamation of good news is immediately affirmed in the first section and that section is concluded with the statement “that all ‘evangelizing’ in the New Testament sense of the term includes the joyous proclamation of God's saving rule, together with the call to repent and believe the Gospel.” But the Manifesto continues in the second section, “the proclamation of God's Kingdom rule brings with it the reality proclaimed,” and after a discussion of what that entails specifically, we go on to affirm that all evangelizing in the New Testament sense of the term is accompanied by the signs of God’s Kingdom among his people and springs from their active concern for the full deliverance and restoration of all to whom the Gospel is addressed. The final section of the Manifesto deals with the imperative placed upon us in light of the Kingdom that has come in Jesus Christ for we testify to our conviction that “the Gospel of the Kingdom brings the only hope for lost mankind.” In our committee deliberations it was obvious that we were not all at the same place. It was obvious, too, that both churches were at different points, spoke out of differing contexts and had to speak to differing expectations and concerns. It was most interesting to observe, however, that differences of opinion did not always follow denominational lines. And perhaps the greatest realization to arise out of our study and discussion together was the fundamental unity that is ours both in our understanding of the Gospel and in the high sense of urgency in making it known to all men. The most significant feature of our joint committee is the fact that we are meeting each other, studying and praying together, enjoying table fellowship together and coming to appreciate each other. The results of such coming together have already been significant in terms of personal relationships established and © Grand Valley State University �All in the Family Richard A. Rhem Page 5   mutual respect and trust that have developed. This has led us to recognize each other and the importance of working together in cooperative ventures, the utilizing of the resources of our respective churches to the greatest possible advantage and the seeking of a common purpose, the furtherance of God’s Kingdom in the world. The removal of distrust, suspicion and a spirit of competition inevitably results when we come together and place ourselves at the disposal of the Lord of the Church for the execution of his mission. We are not bothered by our separate denominational existences. Our energies need not be swallowed up in trying to merge two denominational structures. Rather we are open together to the Spirit’s leading, seeking ways in which we may bear effective witness to the Christ who has made us together a part of his Body. In the light of this challenging mission that unites us, we have a new recognition of the fact that we belong together, we belong to each other, because together we belong to him. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19751017 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1975-10-17 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource All in the Family Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 17, 1975 entitled "All in the Family", it appeared in The Church Herald, pp. 14-15, 18. Tags: Church, Reformed, Ecumenical, Team Ministry. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Ecumenical Reformed Team Ministry https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc864ccbef36ac2a85efc0d55d2f76bf.pdf c63018e70d94a903da880350327a1d3f PDF Text Text Let’s Close Half Our Churches Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in The Church Herald The Magazine of the Reformed Church in America November 10, 1973, pp. 11-12 Sound Radical? Perhaps. But perhaps it's time for radical surgery on the church in order to bring it to health and vitality, able effectively to carry out its mission of reconciliation. We have too many congregations doing their own thing, building their own buildings, paying their own overhead and offering their own programs to the community in competition with too many other congregations doing the same thing. If there was a day for church extension (and I'm sure there was) now is the time for church deletion. We are not here to see how many new Reformed congregations we can build. We are not here to preserve the identity of congregations, even though they have outlived their mission. We are not being called to maintain a church merely for the convenience of a few who refuse to make an adjustment in the pattern of their church life. These are hard words, but we need hard words. Too long we have argued against change and new structures and modes of church life on the basis of sentiment, nostalgia, or obstinacy, cloaking our real feelings with pious arguments which no one dared to attack. The day when we could afford that kind of luxury is past. We are not only failing to dent contemporary secular culture, we are not even keeping up with the exploding world population. The challenge of the day calls for radical streamlining of the Body of Christ. This will come to roost effectively by concentrating not on the multiplication of congregations, but on the re-grouping of the people of God into effective communities of worship, fellowship, and ministry. What’s involved? The willingness to die in order to live - a sound gospel principal (John 12:24-26). Jesus’ words are addressed to individuals, but they are not without relevance to congregations as well. If it is really our primary aim to bring Christ to the nation, then we must be willing to put all else on the line. © Grand Valley State University   �Let’s Close Half Our Churches Richard A. Rhem Page 2   The successful church will be the church that is a many-splendored thing – able to approach our culture from various angles with a wide variety of opportunities which will appeal to a wide spectrum of interests and needs. This can only be accomplished by a team ministry that offers specialization in several spheres. In most areas the traditional pattern of congregational life which remained practically unchanged for over half a century is no longer effective in accomplishing the mission of the church. We can no longer take for granted the loyal, almost automatic response to the traditional church program. People will not necessarily be there just because there is a meeting. Nor ought we attempt to coerce people through guilt or fear. The old loyalty to which once we could appeal and the family and community pressures which held a congregation together, whether or not there was a creative ministry that was meeting people at their point of need, can no longer be counted on and we ought not to regret that loss. We are now in a position to allow the winds of the Spirit to shape us into new forms of church life and ministry that will elicit the free response of people who make up our largely secular culture. But the task is demanding and will require the special gifts and specialized training of the professional ministry, as well as the commitment of the total Christian community. I believe the key to building successful churches lies in the development of a team ministry that can recruit, train, and motivate the Body of Christ to carry out its ministry in the world. Paul conceived of the pastor as one who equipped God’s people for doing the work of ministry. The congregation can no longer be understood as the recipient of ministry carried out by a trained professional who becomes their private chaplain, but rather must be viewed as the instrument of ministry in the total cultural setting of which it is a part. This is not a new idea, but what is being demonstrated in various places throughout the church today is that effective recruitment and training issuing in effective ministry and church growth can take place more readily where there is a team of professionals that can utilize their specialized gifts for the building of the whole Body. Team ministry offers several advantages over the single-pastor organization. First, it allows for the most efficient and effective use of the professionally trained ministry. Team ministry allows a person to exercise his best gifts in an area for which he is especially fitted. Many men with fine gifts and dedication flounder when they must carry the total program of a congregation’s life and witness. When the leadership is frustrated, the whole program gets bogged down and everything is done with mediocrity. We cannot allow the Lord’s work to be done with mediocrity. Let the one gifted in administration, administer; the one gifted in counseling, counsel; the one gifted in education, educate. Then each area of the church’s life will receive the leadership of a specialist and the total program will have upon it the mark of excellence. © Grand Valley State University �Let’s Close Half Our Churches Richard A. Rhem Page 3   With a team ministry a wide spectrum of ministries can be inaugurated: small groups, singles’ ministry, youth ministry, ministry to the aging, etc. There is a vast reservoir of willing volunteer labor in the church but it must be tapped, equipped and channeled into meaningful service. With a staff of trained professionals to administer, lay-participation increases. With a multiplication of ministry comes the increased usage of facilities. Church buildings have traditionally been our poorest examples of Christian stewardship large sanctuaries and beautiful educational units used very few hours per week. With a team ministry and a wide spectrum of ministries, the facilities will be in use seven days a week. When a congregation can offer a wide-ranging program appealing to a wide spectrum of interests and meeting the needs of the whole person, it will grow, and as it grows it will be able to support a growing mission to its community and world. Every congregation has a certain given overhead, but why should each little group of one hundred or two hundred families duplicate each other in building facilities, administrative costs and ministerial service? Why can we not fill the sanctuary three times on Sunday morning as well as once? What difference does it make if we develop two or three different congregations on the same locations? Instead of three costly buildings, there will be one. Instead of three ministers trying to do everything and succeeding with only some things, and doing nothing with excellence, could not three men join together, each doing well for the congregation what he is especially gifted to do. And finally, the benefit of team ministry will be experienced in the mutual support the team members are able to give to each other. When one is alone trying to do too many things, succeeding in only some, and being frustrated in others, the ministry can become a very depressing business. But when there is a team working together, each one is released to exercise his best gifts, and finds in his colleagues support and affirmation which enables him to function more effectively and find fulfillment and satisfaction in his vocation. Let us build the kingdom, not through the multiplication of congregations, but through the building of multi-staff congregations, which can then become effective communities of Christian worship and ministry. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19731110 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1973-11-10 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Let's Close Half Our Churches Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Church School Herald Journal Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 10, 1973 entitled "Let's Close Half Our Churches", it appeared in The Church Herald, pp. 11-12. Tags: Church, Reformed, Community of Faith, Team Ministry. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Church Community of Faith Reformed Team Ministry https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fd4ea468a3c982088b6737a8adc36965.mp3 74ea8539af528b0831507fe49a248058 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3284061f7b835bf50960a1aeb1abf3b1.pdf 2734ca89220379f74e4098385a713f22 PDF Text Text Marks of Leadership From the series: On the Threshold of the Third Millennium Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Epiphany III, January 24, 1993 Transcription of the spoken sermon Of Issachar, those who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” I Chronicles 12:32 The gifts we possess differ as they are allotted to us by God’s grace, and must be exercised accordingly. Romans 12:6 ...among you, whoever wants to be first must be your servant ... Mark 10:43 Well, it’s been quite a week hasn’t it? No matter what your political party, I think you couldn’t help but get caught up in some of the excitement. After all, everyone loves newness and as our new president said, “the mystery of renewal” is something in which I think we all want to participate. The movement of change was so obvious from one generation to another, detectible in the musical sounds. Mr. Bryson, wanting to reflect that which happened in the nation’s capitol invited the president to be with us this morning to play his saxophone. But the president was busy, but we have Christopher! It’s been a fun week, a great week, and it is so nice that it coincides with the newness in our lives at the top of the year and the newness that is a part of our life together as Christ Community. I have been looking forward to this time to celebrate it together with you and with these who have now been commissioned to their respective ministries. It is always wonderful to have a new beginning, and I believe that we are at an important watershed in our life together. Coinciding as it does with the events of this past week, we can say, “These are our times. Let us embrace them.” And we can say with the poet, Maya Angelou on inauguration day, that this is a time to sense the pulse of this new day, to look out into our sisters’ eyes and a brother’s face and to the country and “to say, simply, very simply, with hope ‘Good Morning.’” That’s where we are together. And as we implement our new leadership arrangement in this congregation, I want to begin by thinking with you and with those who have been commissioned to their respective ministries about the marks of leadership. © Grand Valley State University   �The Marks of Leadership Richard A. Rhem Page 2   Those marks of leadership become clear, I think, in the three lessons that were read this morning. In the Old Testament lesson the delegations came to David in order to give their loyalty to him. Their request was that he be king over all of Israel. You will remember from your Old Testament history that Israel’s first king was Saul. Saul came to a tragic end but, as it was assumed, as it is always assumed, the royal houses perpetuate themselves. And so there were those leaders around King Saul who sought to establish his son as king. Yet, down south, was the Robin Hood of Israel, young David, with a band of bandits around him, who had such charisma and who had gained such fame in the land. For seven years the two tribes of the south said to David, “You are our king.” But the old monarchy was perpetuated in the north, and the nation was being torn apart with civil strife and civil war. Finally, the leaders of the north could see that the future lay with David and that obviously the blessing of God was not on the House of Saul. If Israel was to find its place in the sun, then certainly it had to make David king over all the tribes. And so the leaders came first, then delegations from each of the tribes. I singled out the delegation from the Tribe of Issachar because they are characterized according to what I would like to suggest as the first mark of leadership for the Church of Christ. They are characterized as those who had an “understanding of the times” to know what Israel had to do. They were visionary. They were far-sighted. They were practical. They were pragmatic. They were wise. From this, I would like to suggest the first mark of leadership is a holy worldliness. When I was growing up, worldliness was a great thing to avoid. It was the great sin. But I am using that word in the sense of the people from Issachar who had an understanding of the time. The Church too often has been characterized by people who have been devoted, dedicated, serious, sincere, but lacking sometimes that sense of where the movement of history was going. Where was the cutting edge? And what had to be done today in order to capture tomorrow? The men of Issachar were the kind of leaders who were able to see the handwriting on the wall. They were able to look into the horizon and see what was breaking, and they were able to position Israel in order that it might, under David, realize its golden age. It never had another age like the age of David. Their choice, their decision was confirmed in the prosperity of the nation under this great king. We need in the Church a kind of holy worldliness – that is, set apart for God, but worldly, wise in the ways of the world. Far too often in the Church we have had sincerity and piety, but not always visionary leadership and the strength and giftedness of that leading. When I think back, over thirty years now, to when I first came to this congregation in 1960, I can tell you what at that time was a surefire formula for being elected to congregational office. You had to be male, on the young side, and promising. You had to come to church in the morning. You had to come to church © Grand Valley State University �The Marks of Leadership Richard A. Rhem Page 3   in the evening. You had to teach a Sunday School class of irrepressible, impossible young sixth graders. (Laughter) Maybe you’d have to take a stint at being Sunday School superintendent. Then we always elected officers in November and, along about September when family night began and midweek prayer meeting began, if you would show up on Wednesday night, and if you could catch your voice and croak out a prayer, I can assure you you would be deacon the next election. (Laughter) Then, if you served a term or two or three as deacon responsibly, if you grayed a bit or balded a bit, you could become an elder. Understand, I salute all of those who have served 120 some years in this place because it was always recognized that leadership was nothing if it was not rooted in devotion to Christ and loyalty to the church, but in all honesty I want to say that there was also, too often, a resistance to the strong leader who was making a mark in business, industry, the professions. There was almost a resistance to bringing such a person on board the governing body of the church. Rather, the church became the place of authority for those of adequate piety. But, all over this country still to this day, there are good and sincere people leading the church who lack leadership quality, who lack a sense of where things are going and where the church has to position itself if it would capture the future. Not so the men of Issachar. They said, “This civil war is destroying the nation. The House of Saul has got to go. David is our leader.” They had an understanding of the times, to know what Israel had to do. We need people who are visionary, creative, daring, able to negotiate the passages of the structures of our society in order to make the Church of Jesus Christ a viable institution that has power and thrust, that has integrity, spirituality, but a kind of far seeing vision that will enable us to execute the mission of Jesus Christ in a fast changing world, in an amazing world on the edge of the third millennium. That giftedness is the gift of the Holy Spirit. I think that’s where there was a lack in the past. We identified the gifts of the Holy Spirit with the “more spiritual aspects of ministry” - someone who could lead in prayer, teach a class, make a pastoral call. These are important, necessary spiritual gifts for the nurture of the body. Paul uses the image of the body of Christ as an image for the Church, and in two or three or four different places in his letters he lists various gifts of the spirit, always making the point however that all gifts come from one spirit. They are not to be exercised for selfaggrandizement, but for the common good and that all of the gifts, no matter how they manifest themselves, have not only a common origin in Spirit, but also a common dignity in value. All of the lists are not the same. I chose Romans 12 today because there is one important distinction in the list in Romans 12. In the 7th verse it speaks about a gift of service. Maybe a more careful translation would be practical service, or in the New English Bible you will find that gift translated as the gift of administration. Now I take it for granted that the leadership of the church will include people gifted in prayer and spiritual © Grand Valley State University �The Marks of Leadership Richard A. Rhem Page 4   devotion, and loyalty and dedication, and Christian life, but what has not always been understood is that the “worldly” gift of administration is also a gift of the Holy Spirit. So I want to say that the second mark of leadership is that it is in its diversity gifted by the Spirit for the common good. That’s why this morning, in order to act out what we believe regarding marks of leadership, we have had elders and deacons, and boards of trustees and operations council all mixed up. They said to me, “In what order should we march in?” I said, “It doesn’t matter, you’re all mixed up.” They said, “You can say that again!” (Laughter) We used the same oil and the same words, the same commissioning because, in the diversity of these gifts and the diversity of these people, we have a common source of spiritual power in the Spirit of God, and a common place in which to exercise the gift. In all of its diversity it is still one ministry. It used to be that we ordained elders and deacons and we constituted various committees to do stuff - no more! We are seeking now people with specific gifts for specific ministries, recognizing that, in all of that diversity, there is a commonality of spiritual empowerment for the common good of this institution that needs to be prayed over, that needs to be healed, that needs to have financial finessing, that needs to have visionary strategic planning – all of this, the wholeness of the body, demanding a diversity of gifted persons. We are recognizing that baptism is our ordination, that ministry is shared, and that what we need to do is appoint people whose gifts we recognize to execute these ministries. The Church isn’t a democracy. The Church isn’t a republican form of government. The Church has nothing to do with winners and losers. Jesus, on the way to Jerusalem with the shadow of death looming over him, shares with his disciples what is in store for him. And James and John come and they say, “Jesus, when you come in your glory, could we sit on your right and left hands?” Talk about insensitivity! Jesus knows the only glory he is going to get is the glory of martyrdom. Talk about misunderstanding! The other disciples got involved too; they were indignant with James and John, but what made them angry was not that James and John wanted to be number one and number two, but the fact that James and John thought of it first! And so you have the feuding and dissension. You have the desire for power and position, for pomp and circumstance, and Jesus had to gather them all and say, “Look, it’s not that way. It is that way out in the world. It is that way in Washington. It is that way in probably every other institution and organization of which you are a part, but it’s not that way in the Church.” He said, “The Gentiles have great men lording it over them, but it shall not be thus with you. The one who would be great must be the servant of all.” And that, I believe, brings us to the third mark of leadership: humble servanthood. Jesus is our model. He says, “I have come not to be served, but to serve.” Dear friends, what we have done in this congregation is a radical restructuring. I don’t even dare tell the Reformed Church in America what we’ve done, because we’ve turned © Grand Valley State University �The Marks of Leadership Richard A. Rhem Page 5   their constitution upside down. But then, that’s not the first time. Constitutions of organizations are frantic attempts to get down on paper what has already happened in the life of a living organization. I say that with some fear and trembling in the presence of the Judge (Judge Post), but there is a real sense in which our situation is like that of the nation. As President Clinton said in his inaugural address, “Thomas Jefferson long since recognized that, in order for America to meet its future, it would have to change much,” and he said, “We change not for the sake of change, but in order to preserve the ideals of the nation.” And so, while we must always be in dialogue with the past, it’s like the Constitution of the United States. It stands so that we must always come up against it, but we must also continue to interpret it in the ongoing life of the nation. And so, here too, we saying what we are doing is more biblical, more reflective of this institution which has a ministry function that is classically thought of as spiritual, and a management function that needs to be thought of as ministry. In order that the institution may be well positioned, strong and vital, moving into the future, able to execute the mission of Christ, we are so structured now that we can move with facility and agility. We can look into the future on the edge of the third millennium and say, “These are our times. Let us embrace them.” We are able to look into the eyes of our sister and into the face of our brother, and to our country, and our faith community, and simply, very simply with hope say, “Good morning…Good morning.” © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Epiphany III Series On the Threshold of the Third Millennium Scripture Text I Chronicles 12:32, Romans 12:6, Mark 10:43 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19930124 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993-01-24 Title A name given to the resource Marks of Leadership Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on January 24, 1993 entitled "Marks of Leadership", as part of the series "On the Threshold of the Third Millennium", on the occasion of Epiphany III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: I Chronicles 12:32, Romans 12:6, Mark 10:43. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Church Community of Faith Holy Spirit Servanthood https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ca4aefcf978a1672a77c9a56d34d3172.mp3 193b754dea9ae232be2c4ebef8d57e38 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a08e728c9a3a7c7c52846f80d75597f3.pdf fa0483f0fd753c11e9fef7dc23cf0b20 PDF Text Text One Church, One World – Always in Transition World Wide Communion Text: Jeremiah 1:9-10; Acts 5:39 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Pentecost XVII, October 4, 1992 Transcription of the spoken sermon ...I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Jeremiah 1:910 ...if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them - in that case you may even be found fighting against God! Acts 5:39 Time Magazine comes to my rescue again. This is a special issue, fall of 1992 – “Beyond the Year 2000 - What to Expect in the New Millennium.” It is a very interesting issue, which deals with some futuring prognostication of where things will be in century 21. It reminds us that we are in the stream of history. Our lives are enmeshed in history, and there is no way we can extricate ourselves from it. We are moving toward century 21 - one day at a time. And, as that hinge point of history comes about, we will celebrate not only the entrance of a new year and a new decade, but a new century and a new millennium. We are in the tide of history and we will move with it - whether we wish to or not. I remember a couple of decades ago a popular song that expresses our human resistance to the inevitability of change and movement. The words went something like this: Make the world go away. Take it off my shoulders. Say the things you used to say, and make the world go away.” We imagine that the Golden Age is behind us. We delude ourselves with the thought that in a former day things were neater, finer, manageable, somehow together. In the midst of the ambiguity and the chaos of our present existence, we long for someone to make the “world go away.” For someone to “say the things they used to say.” But to no avail, for we move in history - whether we wish to or not. And how does one keep one’s balance? How does one keep a sense of who one is? And to whom one belongs? And what one is called to be and to do? In this inexorable movement of history, open-ended toward the future, how do you find your way? Well, let me suggest that, because we are enmeshed in history, we must be immersed in ritual. I have been hammering away at that - the sacramental © Grand Valley State University   �One Church, One World, in Transition Richard A. Rhem Page 2   character of the church. Last week I said that it is the experience of worship that is the medium of traditioning. And don't you think I was excited to have my prejudices confirmed when I read the article entitled “Kingdoms to Come,” by Richard Osling? He is the Religious Editor of Time who prognosticates about the future of religion 100 years hence. Of course, he is imagining, making a guess how it will be. And we will probably not be around in order to see whether he was right. But listen to this paragraph: Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy with their emphasis on ritual are well suited to a world in which few people bother to read. Theology is a dying art. School children are ignorant of the Bible and hence the rest of their spiritual heritage. The Post Literate Era has been especially difficult for Protestantism which depended so heavily on rationalism and reading. Although old style Protestants are shrinking in numbers, they retain outsized influence because so many of them remain book readers and are thus, inevitably, leaders of the economic ruling class on all continents. He is saying what I said last week that – in the case of the Roman Catholic Church under oppression in Eastern Europe - it was that implicit faith, it was that spiritual formation at the core of a person that only comes through immersion in ritual, in the worship that becomes mindless because it is so much a part of our depths. It is that that enables us to maintain the tradition and to keep the tradition alive. Now, I will qualify to say that I am not going to stop thinking or reading or preaching. I don't think one has to do one or the other. I will acknowledge also that ritual can become mindless in the sense of empty, thoughtless, meaningless, and that it can be a manipulative tool. But I will come back to my thesis that I have been sharing with you more and more over the last year or two, and especially in the last months, that it is the sacramental character of the Church ritual – that acts out what we believe, that will allow us, in the midst of the rush of history's inexorable movement, a sense of identity. It can enable us to know who we are and give us a vehicle by which to tradition the rising generation in their enmeshment in history. We need the immersion in ritual in order to continue to be who we are. Now I will also say that the only way that it is possible, in the stream of history, to remain the same is to continue to change. To do the same things, we must do things differently. The thing I love about this congregation is the openness to make those changes as time moves and as history unfolds. In order to do the same thing, a willingness to do things differently. There is more on the fork of this congregation this morning than most churches could handle in a decade. In a few moments we will ordain our Eucharistic celebrants, a new class that has been called and trained and equipped to share the sacrament with you. I can remember the day that the idea dawned on us (not knowing at the time that there were other traditions that had been doing it for a long time!). Colette and I were © Grand Valley State University �One Church, One World, in Transition Richard A. Rhem Page 3   talking about the children. We so wanted them to be receptive to the tradition of weekly Eucharist. Yet the 8:30 a.m. service wasn't really doing it. Parents didn't often attend that service with their children. There was a realization that if it was really going to happen for them it needed to happen in their Worship Centers. In order for that to happen, their teachers would need to be prepared. And suddenly the idea just dawned in a moment of insight. Intuitively we knew that it was right. The consistory approved it and we have tested it for a year. Now they have given us unanimous approval to continue. So again this morning we will ordain a new group of people whose life will be in a special way committed to the sacraments of the church. And as the eucharist liturgy is experienced this morning, the children remain here, in order that they may connect what we do here with what they do in their Worship Centers weekly, in order that when they come to their own years of discretion and adulthood and responsibility, they will have been exposed there and here, to the power and meaning of sacrament in the midst of worship. Traditioning them in the context of worship where the heart, the being, is open to all and to the wonder of God. Not a rational, intellectual, pedagogical, didactic attack on them week after week, but the invitation to come and to worship. To hear the story, yes, but to hear the story in a way that brings it into their present experience - moves them at their deepest level. If you want one more reason to congratulate yourselves on a morning like this where we do these innovative things, come at 11:30 when a new form of governance will be suggested to you. In order that this large and dynamic institution may continue to do the same things it has always done, it is going to have to do things differently. It is always incumbent upon us to move with history's flow and in order to do the same thing we must keep on changing. We hate it. Often we resist it. There is something in us which would love to have all the loose ends tied up. The Word of God has always been addressed to those who would absolutize that which is only relative. To make absolute something which is only temporary is to fall into idolatry. The prophets had always to come to Israel. God said to Jeremiah, “Speak to my people.” Jeremiah said, “Not me.” God said, “Yes, you. I touch your lips. Now go and uproot, pull down, destroy.” The Word of God destroy? The Word of God uprooting? The Word of God pulling down? Yes. Pulling down our idols. Shattering our systems, our comfortable ways of being and doing. The Word of God always comes as a word of judgment in order that grace may come. In order that that word may also plant and build. A classic instance of how God's people always block themselves against the newness of God's spirit is the fact that the Jewish authorities rejected the Messiah and crucified the Lord of Glory. Oh I wish there had been enough Gamaliel's around. In the wake of the resurrection Jerusalem was being turned upside down. With apostolic witness, Gamaliel said to the Sanhedrin, “Look, why are you so overwrought? Why do you © Grand Valley State University �One Church, One World, in Transition Richard A. Rhem Page 4   feel so self-important that the whole world is somehow or other in your hands? Remember Thadeus? Well he was quite a number, but he didn't last long. Do you remember Judas, the Galilean? He had a thing going but it came to nothing.” Gamaliel said, “My friends, if this thing is of human origin it will fail, but if it is of God, you'll not be able to overthrow it. And you might even find yourself fighting God.” Oh, that there might have been more Gamaliel's in the history of the Church when the Church fell into idolatry, making absolute what is only relative, wanting something to be eternal which was only for a certain time. Oh that the wisdom of Gamaliel might prevail in the Church as it negotiates the future and moves toward century 21. There is a way that we can remain faithful and solid and certain in the midst of all the uncertainty. But it is not the risky word of the preacher. It is bread and cup, and water and oil: concrete vehicles of Grace that will allow us to negotiate uncharted waters, to take on any storm, to face any confusion, and to be able to say, “Nevertheless, this bread and this cup speak to me of God's forever neverending love.” These sacraments nurture deep within us a fundamental trust, an implicit trust - in God, in God's Grace, in God's presence with us, in God's Spirit, shattering our forms and renewing our lives: bread, cup, water, oil: sacramental signs which point to God's foundational love deep down in things. So that we can know, come what may, that all will be well - and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. Trust God. Eat. Drink. Trust. All will be well. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XVII Series Worldwide Communion Scripture Text Jeremiah 1:9-10, Acts 5: 39 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19921004 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1992-10-04 Title A name given to the resource One Church, One World - Always in Transition Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 4, 1992 entitled "One Church, One World - Always in Transition", as part of the series "Worldwide Communion", on the occasion of Pentecost XVII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Jeremiah 1:9-10, Acts 5: 39. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives All Will Be Well Church Ritual Sacrament Tradition https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bccf3d6a9c37cd7364ae826df9cc1275.mp3 80624b66a00644682c92881e99099d44 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1118591ba638b4963b67cddb346225a9.pdf 31a6244d82748b69d98f223e6166b06d PDF Text Text Leadership With a Difference Text: Joel 2: 28; Mark 10:43-44 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan June 28, 1987 Transcription of the spoken sermon …I will pour out my spirit on all humankind; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men see visions. Joel 2:28 …whoever wants to be great must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the willing slave of all. Mark 10:43-44 I haven't had any of the Consistory newly organized last week come up to me and ask to sit on my right hand or on my left. No, there's not too much problem in the Church with people aspiring to leadership openly, and maybe the problem that James and John had with which they confronted Jesus is a problem of a former day. Yet, I hardly think so. Leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ is leadership with a difference. It is leadership that is characterized by power to rather than power over. It's just the difference in the preposition. In fact, it's the difference between, but it's all the difference in the world, the world and the Kingdom of God. Leadership in the Kingdom of God is the power to enable others to find the highest fulfillment in their human existence. It is the power to give one's life on behalf of another; it is to give one's life and gifts and energies for that greater goal for the Kingdom of God. It is the opposite of worldly power, which is power over, the power by which one dominates another, the power by which one climbs the ladder of success, the power often characterized by blind ambition. Leadership in the Church is a tricky business, because it walks that tightrope between the energy and the vision that is necessary in order that the Church may move forward, and a dominating kind of authority and power that enforces will on another or on an institution for personal ends and according to personal prerogatives. Leadership in the Church is a tricky business, because it is always steering its way between those two possibilities. © Grand Valley State University   �Leadership With a Difference Richard A. Rhem Page 2   What is true for the leaders of the Church is really true for all of us in the posture of our Christian lives, for we are really all called to leadership in the world to the extent that we are all called to be the servants of Jesus Christ in the world, and therefore we are all called to exercise the power to rather than the power over. James and John came to Jesus and asked for the positions of privilege in the coming Kingdom of glory. They said, in effect, "Jesus, when you become number one, we would like to be numbers two and three." If you look at this little incident and trace it in the other Gospels, you will find that in Luke's Gospel it is set at the Last Supper. Even in Mark's Gospel there is the announcement of the forthcoming passion. One can see that the Gospel writers had a literary sense by which to enforce their point; here you have Jesus beginning to feel the weight of the Cross, which was the consequence of the way of his life, that inevitable end because of the manner of his living, reaching out to them, beginning to share that burden with them, breaking bread with them. In that context, James and John ask, "Could we have the places of privilege in your forthcoming Kingdom?" Talk about a lack of sensitivity. Talk about inappropriateness. They didn't even hear Jesus. They had no sense for what he was beginning to undergo. They had no understanding whatsoever about the news that he was breaking to them. In the context in which he announces his own passion and his forthcoming death, they want to sit on his right hand and on his left! And boy, were the rest of the Consistory members ticked with that! Of course, the reason they were ticked was that James and John got in line first. If you read the ninth chapter of Mark's Gospel, you will find that as "they were going along the way, they were all talking about who would be greatest among them.” Mark shows us the dullness, the misunderstanding, the ignorance of the disciples throughout his Gospel, and there is probably no place at which they appeared more insensitive, or their response was more inappropriate than at this moment. Jesus just said to them, "Look, what I am about is not what you are about in every other relationship, every other connection, every other involvement in an institution in your life. What I am about is service." The model he set forth was his own life. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Leadership in the Kingdom is leadership with a difference. It is the power to give one's life away; it is the opportunity to lay down one's life in the service of the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ on behalf of one's brothers and sisters. It's no wonder we're confused in the Church because, especially we, who have imbibed into the pores of our being the American way, we who respond so strongly to the call to self-realization and who treasure the freedom to become whatever may enter our minds to become, find it so jolting to run up against the characterization of leadership in the Kingdom of God. © Grand Valley State University �Leadership With a Difference Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Of course, one can be just as bad on the other side. One can be a martyr, an insipid, passive nobody who doesn't assert his will or her desire or her gifts at all, and then the Church is also at a dead standstill. There was a day in the Church in which people were brought into office on the basis of their piety, and I would submit to you that piety is one good consideration, but it's not everything. There was a time in this congregation many years ago, a hundred or so, when I was first here, when you could predict who would be elected to the office of Deacon, which was that lowly office by which you moved up to the office of Elder. The way you did it was to move out of teaching Sunday School to becoming the Superintendent of the Sunday School, and then you had also to start coming to the evening worship and if you wanted to be a shoo-in, you came to midweek prayer meeting, and if you wanted to make it this Fall, you even prayed out loud! Now, I submit to you that those are all fine qualities, and piety is important. Christian life and faith are critical. But the Church for too long was long on piety and short on leadership with energy, with vitality, with vision. There is nothing wrong in the Church with those who have a vision. The men of Issachar, one of the Northern tribes of Israel, feeling that union with David over all of Israel was the direction Israel must go, are characterized in the Book of Chronicles as people who had an understanding of their times and knew what Israel had to do. The Church is still too much characterized by leadership without vision, without a knowledge of the world and therefore without a knowledge of what the Church ought to be doing. I said to one of the most visionary young men of this community yesterday, "I'd like to sit down with you and ask you what we ought to be doing in terms of what this community is becoming." He looked at me like, "What do you mean? The Church never gets in where the action is." He's right! We've always come kicking and screaming into the Kingdom, always the guardians of the rear action, the conservative bastion of everything that is obsolete. There's nothing wrong with vision, energy, vitality, and a passion for the Kingdom of God. But, it needs always to be a passion for the Kingdom of God. Joel, the Old Testament prophet, said there's going to come a day when the Spirit will be poured out on your sons and your daughters, and your old men will see visions and your young men will dream dreams. It's not incidental that visions and dreams are lifted up as that which is to characterize the leadership of the people of God in the world, for what we are about, people, is not something that can be shaped up in worldly-wise terms, according to some rational formula of success. What we are, as the people of God, is a people that must be open to the Spirit of God so that, somehow or other, in a dream or in a vision, the truth may grip us and we may be thereby energized to realize that dream and to become the concretization of the Kingdom of God in the midst of the world - a world that is characterized by blind ambition and ruthless rise to power. There we must be as © Grand Valley State University �Leadership With a Difference Richard A. Rhem Page 4   passionate, as urgent, as farseeing, as devoted and as committed leadership, always before the face of God, always in the service of Jesus, always knowing that there is involved in leadership a cross, a dying, a suffering, but always knowing, also, that beyond the cross there is the glory of that Kingdom that shall not fail. We are involved as a people of God in the most exciting, absolutely the most important, the most remarkable movement on the face of the earth. So, my dear friends, Elders and Deacons, pastors and all God's people - let us lead with energy, with a vision borne of the Spirit, with total commitment, not to overpower, not to impose our fancy on another, but with a power to give our lives away to the glory of Jesus. Amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost III Scripture Text Joel 2:28, Mark 10:43-44 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19870628 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-06-28 Title A name given to the resource Leadership With a Difference - An Installation Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on June 28, 1987 entitled "Leadership With a Difference - An Installation", on the occasion of Pentecost III, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Joel 2:28, Mark 10:43-44. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Church Community of Faith Servanthood https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b39004c23efa1ab63999a07309a027a5.mp3 229a873e44188bf9fbea76d02a18574d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4aa5fe1cae2dc6d1f68967de1953087e.pdf 3f5f16e2bd3711c690ed0448fc8bfb05 PDF Text Text Peter: Rocky From the sermon series: No Stained Glass Saints Text: Matthew 16: 18, 23 Richard A. Rhem Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan November 16, 1986 Transcription of the spoken sermon ... you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. Matthew 16:18 ... He... said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men." Matthew 16:23 Peter is either an Apostle made for this series, or this series is made for Peter, I'm not sure which. But, if the series hadn't come along, it would have had to be invented in order to do justice to Peter, in order to get Peter before us as a saint who was not exactly made of stained glass. Peter, the Disciple about whom the most is spoken in the Gospels, the one who is not only most spoken of, but the one who speaks the most, the one who speaks over and over again, sometimes magnificently and sometimes miserably – Peter who had many faults and failings, but one of which was not that he was "Mr. Cool." Peter was the person who was pretty open. He had a difficult time disguising what was going on in the inside of his mind and heart. Peter was a man who spoke before he thought, but never maliciously, always sincerely, always in exuberance, with enthusiasm. He had many faults, but one of them was not that he lacked passion. He was in many ways blundering, but he was in all ways lovable. And his sins, which were many, were covered, because he loved much. And in the end, the faith that Jesus placed in him was more than vindicated by this unstable man who became solid as a rock: Peter, the Apostle. I was amused this week thinking about Peter. The Christian Church has done a marvelous job about being contentious about things that don't really matter, and I was reflecting on the old Protestant and Catholic debate about the role of Peter. I have stood in St. Peter's in Rome and I have seen etched in marble in large letters the name of Peter. And then the succeeding names, all of those who have occupied the chair of Peter in Rome. I know, as good Roman Catholic historians know today, that there are some gaps in those early centuries. I also know, as the © Grand Valley State University   �Peter: Rocky Richard A. Rhem Page 2   best of the Roman historians and theologians know, that to project back from the twentieth century or the sixteenth century or the thirteenth century the conception of the papacy, to project it back into the first century and to invest Peter with it is a fruitless and futile exercise which has little value. And yet, I've shared with you before that I was impressed and I was moved standing before that list and seeing the name of Peter and knowing that, even if every name in those early generations could not be verified as having held the recognized primacy in the Roman Church, nonetheless, the very fact that I was standing there in the twentieth century in the greatest basilica in the world was an indication of the continuity of the Christian tradition that had indeed come down to us from Jesus Christ, who said to Peter, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." I was amused and laughed to myself about how ridiculous we have been over the centuries in the Church with all of the battles we have fought. As a matter of fact, it probably would have been to the Protestants' advantage to admit that Peter was the first Pope because it would have been the best argument in the world against infallibility, which was not an early Church doctrine, but one that came on only subsequently in later centuries as a means of buttressing the authority of the Church. Peter was the first Pope. At least Peter had the preeminence in the apostolic band. There's no doubt about that. In every listing of the Disciples, in the Gospels, they are in different order, with two exceptions. Peter is always named first; Judas is always named last. Peter did have a kind of investiture by Jesus. I suppose that it was somewhat because of his natural endowments. He was a leader but, beyond that, it was because Jesus had tapped him and called him and claimed him and commissioned him to be at the head of that apostolic band. He had a kind of preeminence among his peers and his equals in the early band of disciples. So, Jesus chose a reed in order to make him into a rock. Peter. Rocky. His way was rocky. He often rocked the boat, and he stumbled a good many times along the way. His way was rocky, but he became solid as a rock, I suppose, through the insight of Jesus who named him Rock before he was solid, who named him in order to enable him to live into his name. The Quaker Elton Trueblood is responsible for this understanding of Rock, or Peter, as a nickname. I've shared it with you before, but it's too good not to keep sharing over the years, and maybe some of you haven't heard it. So, let me tell you what really happened when Jesus called Peter, Peter. You have to understand, first of all, that there's no record anywhere of anyone being called Peter before the time of Jesus. It was not a name. The Rock. Jesus called him Rock. Now, his name was Simon, and when Jesus really meant business with him, he addressed him as Simon Bar Jonah. “Bar” meant "son of." Jonah would be our word for John. Peter's father's name was John, and John named Peter Simon. © Grand Valley State University �Peter: Rocky Richard A. Rhem Page 3   So, Jesus was really giving to Simon a new name. Not seriously in the sense of rechristening him, but he was giving him a nickname, a nickname which often picks out a characteristic of a person, and when a nickname is really expressive of something that is so intrinsic to that person that you can't think of that person ever again without the name, then you've done a good job of naming. Jesus called Simon, who was the son of John, Rock or, as we would say, Rocky. Now, he was the son of John, but the son of John has come down to us as a last name - Johnson. Johnson is not really a last name, a label of some sort that derives from any other place than from the fact that the person so named was a son of John and with the inversion it became Johnson, and so what Jesus was saying to Simon was, " From now on you'll be Rocky Johnson." And that's true. Rocky Johnson. Simon Bar Jonah, Simon Son of John, Rocky Johnson. The Church is built on Rocky Johnson! And I agree with the Church in Rome. I think he was the first Pope. The first pope was Rocky Johnson! What a great joke! What a sense of humor has the Almighty! What a needle to discourage all of the pomp and seriousness and self-importance of the Church over the centuries when you think of the fact that Jesus gave preeminence to a person upon whom he said he would found the Church, a person no less than Rocky Johnson! Now, when you think of all of the self-importance of all of the church leaders, popes and priests and bishops and preachers and even an elder and a deacon or two, when you think of all of our presumption, all of our pompousness, our pomposity and all of the ceremony – how we take ourselves seriously in this world as though finally God and Truth and existence itself depended upon the likes of us serious-minded individuals. Whenever you get to thinking that – whenever you get to thinking that it all rests on you, whenever you get to thinking that you carry the whole world on your shoulders, then remember that Jesus said, "I'll put the whole business on the shoulders of Rocky Johnson!" And think of Peter and then realize that the first thing that you've got to do is laugh at yourself. And the second thing is to get on with the job with good courage. Because, if God could do something with Peter, my, what he could do with you! Simon Peter. We call him Simon Peter now, but Simon, son of John, Rocky Johnson, was the one who was spokesman for the apostolic band and who gave that great confession to the question of Jesus, "Who do you say that I am?", "You are the Christ, you are the Messiah." The Messiah. We really should translate that Messiah, not use the Greek word Christ, because what Peter was saying is, "You are the one toward whom the whole Old Testament points. You are the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You are the great David's greater Son. You are the Anointed One, the one anointed with the spirit, the breath, the life, the power of God. You are the Son of the living God." And Jesus blessed Peter for that, and acknowledged that it wasn't something that Peter came to because he had some great intellect or some great ingenuity, some great intuitive sense, but it was because Almighty God had made it known to him. And then he went on to say, "You are Rocky, and on you I will build my Church." © Grand Valley State University �Peter: Rocky Richard A. Rhem Page 4   And we went on and read another paragraph and we found that, as Jesus began to prepare his disciples for the inevitability of that which lay before him, speaking about his entry into Jerusalem and his death, Peter said, "Not so, Lord." Peter, once again, as exuberant in his protest this time as he was enthusiastic about his confession just a little bit before, said, "It won't happen to you. Lord. It just couldn't possibly happen to you. Not while I'm here!" The enthusiasm, the lack of cool, the confidence and overconfidence in his own power and stability – all of that coming out of Peter, protesting against that which Jesus was saying, refusing really to hear that difficult word. He says, "It won't happen as long as I'm around, to which Jesus had to say the most severe word he said to anyone – "Get behind me, Satan. You're not on God's side, you're on man's side." And so it was that the first Pope not only was given a great declaration of blessing by Jesus, but also was given hell by Jesus. That's the kind of saints that make up the Church of Jesus Christ. Up one minute and down the next. Filled with inspiration and speaking out of revelation one minute, and the next minute so filled with their own self-preoccupation and their own designs and destiny that they can't hear the Lord speak, and therefore go contrary to Him and can actually be spoken of as being on the side of the Evil One. Peter, in all of his boasting, was doing it really out of the beautiful quality of his love. There were other disciples who didn't say anything to what Jesus was saying. And that's not to their credit. Peter at least responded, but he responded out of his own limited insight, his own twisted vision of things, this first Pope of the Christian Church. Jesus had to say to him on another occasion when Peter said," If it takes going all the way to death, it won't happen to you," Jesus warned him that before the cock would crow twice, he would deny the Lord three times. And you know the story: Peter following Jesus after his arrest, after an aborted attempt to protect Jesus by the drawing of his sword, warming himself by the fire in the courtyard of the High Priest, denying to chambermaids that he had any knowledge at all of Jesus. One wonders how all of those things can coexist in the heart of one man. How one can be so firm and clear in one's declaration of faith one moment and so miserable in one's denial to the extent that he cursed, saying, "I don't know the man"? Was he like Falstaff, only running to protect himself to return and fight another day? I think that's probably being too kind to Peter. I think that Peter was that kind of person that is made up of light and shadow, of light and darkness. He had a light side and a shadow side. He was a mixed bag; he was filled with equivocation and ambiguity; he had a great love; he had a great devotion; he had a great loyalty. He was fearful, he was afraid, he was chicken! He was as inconsistent and unstable and unreliable and unpredictable as I am! And all four of the Gospels record that miserable denial. One of them, only Luke, tells us that when Peter denied the third time and the cocks marked the rising of the sun, Jesus looked at Peter. They all tell us that Peter went out and wept bitterly. © Grand Valley State University �Peter: Rocky Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Have you ever had to look into the eyes of Jesus and turn and weep bitterly? It's not a fun experience, because in that moment one knows that one has not only denied one's Lord, one has denied the truth, one has denied oneself, one has defeated the best that is in one, and one's hopes and ideals and dreams and aspirations come crashing down in a moment, and all one can do at such a moment is to weep bitterly. It is interesting that in Mark's account of the Resurrection, Jesus encounters the women and says, "Go and tell my brethren, and Peter." Isn't that just like Jesus? Go and tell my brethren, and Peter. Be sure you tell Peter. Tell the rest, but just in case you might think that Peter is now an exception, set aside to be isolated, to be judged and condemned, let me tell you, you be sure and tell Peter. And then, of course, there's the scene after Easter when the disciples are out fishing. Peter was still eating his heart out. In the 21st chapter of John where it begins, Peter says, "I'm going to go fishing." When you're really hurting, when you're really distraught and confused, the best thing to do is to do the thing you do best, to go back to the old, familiar routine. Peter said, "I'm going to go fishing." And Jesus came and made a charcoal fire on the beach and prepared breakfast. And in that encounter post-Easter, he caught Peter's eye and he said, "Do you love me?" Peter said, "Yes, I love you." And he said, "Feed my sheep." And he said a second time, "Peter, do you love me," and Peter said, "Yes, I love you." He said, "Feed my lambs." And he said to him a third time, "Peter, do you love me," and Peter was distressed because he said to him a third time and he said, "Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you." He said, "Feed my sheep." (I just want you to know that we're even now. Three times you denied me, three times I make you tell me what I know is true. You love me.) Unpredictable, unstable, unreliable, irresponsible, compulsive, wonderful, enthusiastic, passionate, blundering idiot, Peter, first Pope, Rocky Johnson. Judas denied his Lord and he went out and he hanged himself. Have you ever thought of hanging yourself? If you have ever gone out and wept bitterly, then you have had the thought in your mind and in your heart that it would be easier to end it all? A judge did that in Detroit this week. Many years of respect, reputation, no doubt quality service, then exposed and he shot himself. So did Judas. Suicide is probably the ultimate action of wounded pride. When I finally come full turn and see who I really am, that's difficult enough to take. But, when everybody else knows it too, it's almost easier just to be done with it all. Judas hanged himself after betraying his Lord. Peter wept. He had all of the same inclinations and all of the same feeling and all of the same self-accusation and all of the same pain, but he caught Jesus' eye, and instead of killing himself, instead of giving up on himself, instead of selling short the grace of God, he came back once more. Rocky Johnson. Alexander White, the great Scottish preacher with fruitful imagination, has us imagine Peter climbing into the pulpit to preach the funeral sermon of Judas. © Grand Valley State University �Peter: Rocky Richard A. Rhem Page 6   What do you think might have been his text? What do you think might have been his plea, his cry to those who gathered in the wake of Judas? Might he not have said to that gathered audience, "Judas quit too soon. He gave up on God and so he gave up on himself. But don't ever give up on God, for His grace is greater than all our sins. No matter how deep you have fallen, how badly you have failed, how dark the night, how deep the pain – grace greater than all our sins can transform us and make us new again." Rocky Johnson. Let him be a sign to us that the Church is founded on the possibility of a second chance, of a new lease on life, of beginning all over again! And then, with Rocky Johnson, maybe we, too, will come to the point where someone will say, "Speak no more in his name," and we'll be able to say with calm confidence and deep assurance, "You'll have to judge for yourself whether it is right to obey God or man. But, as for me, I cannot but speak the things that I have seen and heard. Jesus Christ whom you crucified, God raised up. And he's made me new. Blessed be His holy name." Amen and amen. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Sound A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds. Event Pentecost XXVI Series No Stained Glass Saints Scripture Text Matthew 16:18, 23 Location The location of the interview Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01_RA-0-19861116 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-11-16 Title A name given to the resource Peter: Rocky Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Sermons Relation A related resource Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/ Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Description An account of the resource A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on November 16, 1986 entitled "Peter: Rocky", as part of the series "No Stained Glass Saints", on the occasion of Pentecost XXVI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Matthew 16:18, 23. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives Apostle Peter Church Followers of Jesus Transforming Grace