{"id":269,"date":"2006-10-22T15:38:42","date_gmt":"2006-10-22T20:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marktime.org\/?p=269"},"modified":"2009-01-22T14:32:55","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T19:32:55","slug":"new-member-class-day-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marktime.org\/?p=269","title":{"rendered":"New Member Class – Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was also the first day of New Member Classes at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, NJ<\/a>.\u00a0 Classes are 9am to 10:30am and will continue on October 28 and November 4.\u00a0 These classes are run about 3 times a year.<\/p>\n

The classes are actually intended to explore membership and prepare you should you choose to join.\u00a0 It looks like most of the group is headed towards joining.<\/p>\n

There are about 20 people in this group.\u00a0 Yesterday, 14 of them were there (several spouses were off handling soccer duty).\u00a0 This was a very diverse group in terms of age and some other factors, though not racially.<\/p>\n

The format was remarkably similar to the Johnsonburg Reconnecting with Faith retreat.\u00a0 We all sat in a bit circle (well, oval – it was a big group) with the pastor and the Interim Associate for Pastoral Ministry (in this case Jill Cifelli) mixed in the group.\u00a0 Each of us were asked to introduce ourselves and talk about what we do during the day.\u00a0 Jill started, and because her daytime work is church-related we ended up with each person describing briefly their church search as well as their day job.\u00a0 Carolyn came with me and explained that she is a practicing Catholic (seems she’d get good at it at some point!) and was there to support me.<\/p>\n

After that, we watched the video Who Are We Presbyterians<\/a>?.\u00a0 This is a 20-minute video that does a good job of presenting the high points of Presbyterian faith and organization, though it does tend to concentrate a little too hard on diversity.<\/p>\n

Then we were asked to talk about what we saw in the video.\u00a0 A few people who are new to Presbyterianism stated that they really liked Salvation by Grace as compared to their prior church.\u00a0 A few group members brought up the liberal\/conservative divide (it wasn’t me, honest!) and we batted that around for a while.\u00a0 The jist of that discussion is that this church favors the open discussion of issues while staunchly defending freedom of conscience.\u00a0 The phrase used was “generous orthodoxy”.\u00a0 In short – we have people all over the spectrum and we LIKE that, and encourage people to speak their mind.\u00a0 Rigid control of belief within narrow confines is not required.\u00a0 Having said that, the church averages out to someplace between the middle and liberal end of the spectrum.\u00a0 Not quite far enough to be a More Light church, but certainly not at the conservative end.<\/p>\n

The one thing that people said over and over is that this church cares more for each person as a PERSON than they do about their particular ideology.\u00a0 People are not representatives of a theological or political position – they are PEOPLE who happen to have a personal theology and political opinion.\u00a0 At least 1\/2 of the group said that this was an important factor in their choice of Lawrenceville as a church home (and I’m in that list).<\/p>\n

One last similarity to the Johnsonburg retreat appeared.\u00a0 Carolyn put it best on the way home – “There are some hurt and angry people here.”\u00a0 This makes complete sense to me.\u00a0 You come to a church as a new adult member for one or more of a short list of reasons:<\/p>\n