Our church membership class
Karin & I have begun a three-week Sunday School class to become official members of our church.
The first session dealt with the church’s history, which was recounted by one of our oldest congregants.
Some tidbits:
(1) Long ago, it was disputed whether to call our congregation a “Community Church” or a “Missionary Church.” The latter name was chosen because it referred to our denomination, and, at the time, the congregants were keen to distinguish themselves from Baptists, Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.
(The other people in our membership class agreed that nowadays, churchgoers don’t care about those distinctions.)
(2) Also, the church used to be called “Faith Chapel.” But “chapel” made the church seem too small, and “faith” was dropped because one of the main donors, whose name was Faith, didn’t want people to think the church was named for her.
(3) The church used to have a parsonage. But then an especially long-tenured pastor decided to live elsewhere – his family had grown too large for that house, someone recalled – and so the parsonage was rented out and, later, sold.
This week, our “homework” is to watch this video about our denomination:
The first session dealt with the church’s history, which was recounted by one of our oldest congregants.
Some tidbits:
(1) Long ago, it was disputed whether to call our congregation a “Community Church” or a “Missionary Church.” The latter name was chosen because it referred to our denomination, and, at the time, the congregants were keen to distinguish themselves from Baptists, Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.
(The other people in our membership class agreed that nowadays, churchgoers don’t care about those distinctions.)
(2) Also, the church used to be called “Faith Chapel.” But “chapel” made the church seem too small, and “faith” was dropped because one of the main donors, whose name was Faith, didn’t want people to think the church was named for her.
(3) The church used to have a parsonage. But then an especially long-tenured pastor decided to live elsewhere – his family had grown too large for that house, someone recalled – and so the parsonage was rented out and, later, sold.
This week, our “homework” is to watch this video about our denomination: