new church life: september/october 2017
How to Be Led by the Lord
The Rev. Daniel W. Goodenough then gave the final worship service on being
willing to follow the Lord’s leading. We need His light and wisdom. Much is
taught about His leading, but it is not just a doctrine but something leaders
need to practice personally, work on and think about, so we will be not only
reformed in the rational but in our natural as well.
Dan offered five suggestions:
1. Follow the directions, one of which is certainly to shun evils as sins.
2. Pray to the Lord Jesus Christ, asking for help in letting Him lead and
asking for light to understand from His point of view.
3. Think about being led by the Lord, and what it means in the details,
otherwise we will be led by other people and other concepts. Reading
the Word and reflecting on it is part of the fourth law of Divine
providence about being led by the Lord. It is also useful to see the
world as His creation and to reflect on our place in it – in earthly
nature – and as sheep in His pasture.
4. Focus on benefitting others in honest and faithful acts of good will
in one’s office and with whomever one has dealings; this is “charity
itself.”
5. Maintain a healthy, optimistic, affirmative, friendly, spiritual attitude.
It is also useful to ask others what it means to them to be led by the Lord
for our own reflection. It is important to be led by Him because He created us.
Dan closed with this verse: “For truly the Lord is God; it is He who has made
us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”
(Psalm 100:3)
Making Clergy-General Church Board-Academy Board Connections
Members of the boards of both the General Church and Academy joined us
for lunch, followed by two afternoon sessions in an exercise designed by Mr.
Arthur Edwin “Ned” Uber III and the Rev. Grant H. Odhner.
Ned explained that the main purpose of these sessions was to make
connections between members of the clergy and the two boards. People were
to form groups of four with one board member per group, choose a leader,
recorder and reporter and discuss a prepared question. When the whole group
reassembled, reporters gave a brief summary from each group. Ned took notes
on these reports on his computer which were projected for all to see and later
distributed to the boards and clergy.
The first question involved opportunities and challenges for the church
in the 2020s. The process repeated after a short break, but with entirely new
groups which would discuss what the central offices of the General Church
could do in response to one item from the previous discussion, chosen by each
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