1
12
2
-
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/5ed849daff585919ae0770822a3e0e8c.pdf
47b593e3bbe46cf0b7fc7dcab77532b1
PDF Text
Text
The Seasons of Our Lives
Editorial by
Richard A. Rhem
Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Published in
Perspectives
A Journal of Reformed Thought
December 1988
Perhaps the most frequently heard expression this month will be “Merry
Christmas and a happy New Year.” The order is dictated by the fact that
Christmas is celebrated on December 25, followed one week later by ushering in
of the new year. We speak of the period we are entering as the holidays. Holiday
is derived from “holy-day.” The definition of holy-day is a day set aside for
religious observance, but the dictionary notes that the derivative form, holiday, is
now usually restricted to the sense of “day of recreation.” In our popular
expression we combine a holy-day and a holiday. Although Christmas has been
co-opted by the world at large and transformed into a holiday, it still retains its
spiritual connection; it is still a holy-day. New Year’s Day, however, is a purely
secular observance of the beginning of the new calendar year, a calendar year
whose beginning and ending are quite arbitrarily set signifying nothing beyond
the regular cycle of 365 days.
It is not so with the calendar kept by the church. Although no one would argue for
the exactitude of the specific date designated for Christmas, December 25;
nonetheless it does point to a concrete event within our space and time—the birth
of Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnation of the Word of God. So it is with the days
that mark the critical moments in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of
our Lord and the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The Christian
calendar keeps before us the landmarks along the path of redemption wrought in
our history in Jesus Christ, and the annual observance of holy days gives a
rhythm to our Christian existence, rehearsing for us the events which ground our
hope.
There is an increasing use of the Christian year in Reformed congregations. This
value of such observance is being increasingly felt. As we are regularly involved in
the drama of redemption, we are caused to remember what God has done and are
stimulated to hope for what God will yet do.
© Grand Valley State University
�The Seasons of Our Lives
Editorial by Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
The religious observance of holy days is deeply rooted in the Old Testament
community of faith. Sabbath observance was the weekly celebration of God’s
work of creation (Exodus 20:8-11) and gracious redemption (Deut. 5:12-15). The
feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Weeks, and Tabernacles punctuated the
ordinary existence of God’s people with the dimension of eternity.
The Christian church moved naturally to the observance of the first day of the
week as the Lord’s Day, a weekly festival of Easter, and gradually the feast days of
the Christian calendar took shape. This was a natural development because the
redeeming God had moved into our historical reality, supremely in the Word
made flesh.
The observance of the Christian calendar gives shape and meaning to our
existence and a framework for our corporate worship. Lessons, preaching,
hymns, and liturgy whose themes are determined by the Christian year tie us to
the central realities of Christian existence. Our spiritual formation is
fundamentally shaped by the rhythm of the life of the worshiping community,
and the growing observance of the Christian year is a source of great enrichment
to the experience of worship.
Religious observance is not a means of salvation; rather, it is an instrument by
which we are reminded of a salvation which has been effected beyond us, for us,
freely given to us in Jesus Christ, eliciting from us grateful worship of the eternal
God whose redeeming grace has come to expression within our history.
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’s satire in which Screwtape, a senior devil,
gives his nephew, Wormwood, a junior devil, an advanced correspondence course
on how to corrupt human souls, Screwtape recommends that Wormwood work
on Christians’ “horror of the Same Old Thing.” But, he acknowledges God’s
wisdom in that all the same:
He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He
has continued to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has
made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He
gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so
that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an
immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they
change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before.
In his Letters to Malcolm, Lewis wrote:
It is well to have specifically holy places, and things and days, for, without
these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and “big with
God” will soon dwindle into a mere sentiment.
Religious observance is not an end in itself but can be a powerful instrument for
the personal and corporate appropriation of the good news that was announced
© Grand Valley State University
�The Seasons of Our Lives
Editorial by Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
at the Savior’s birth. Our observances always fall short of giving adequate
expression to the mystery of God’s grace, yet pointing beyond themselves, they
give us a glimpse of the grandeur and glory of the grace of the God of our
salvation. There are those moments in our corporate worship when the glory
breaks through and we are lost in wonder, love, and praise.
May Advent well-kept issue in a Christmas observance filled with the glory of God
bringing the water of life to our often arid lives.
© 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-4-19881201
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1988-12-01
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Title
A name given to the resource
The Seasons of Our Lives
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
Editorial created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on December 1, 1988 entitled "The Seasons of Our Lives", it appeared in Perspectives, December 1988, p. 3. Tags: Advent, Liturgical Year, Worship, Faith Community.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Advent
Faith Community
Liturgical Year
Worship