OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

A new journal of interest to our readers is Paraclete Journal, 4439 Glenway Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45205, sub rate 6.00 per annum. A quarterly publication, it is edited by Grant Edwards and is sponsored by the Conference on Spiritual Renewal. While the paper might be called “Charismatic,” it offers a balanced view, and its staff and writers include “Campbellites,” at least in background, such as, beside the editor, Don Finto, Jim Bevis, Tom Smith, and Bob Yawberg. Since these brethren need to be heard for the important contribution they can make toward our renewal, we welcome this new publication and wish it well.

As a follow-up to the Joplin unity meet of Christian Church and Church of Christ ministers, the Garnett Road Church of Christ is Tulsa hosted a similar gathering, adjacent in time to the Tulsa Workshop, which these days is the largest annual gathering of Church of Christ folk in the world. It was held in Garnett Road’s new facility, seating 4,000 and was cordially and beautifully conducted. Some of our readers who attended both gatherings saw the Tulsa effort as more open, more purposive, and more candid, with about 40 from each side. Except for one minister from Dallas, no one tried to do a “job” on the others, and we received excellent reports on the contributions of Rubel Shelly, Reuel Lemmons, Bill Humble, and especially Richard Rogers from Churches of Christ, as well as Seth Wilson and James North from Christian Churches. These meetings are apparently taking hold, for one is also scheduled July 7-9 at Pepperdine University.

These gatherings are evolving into area meetings, such as one in April at Dallas Christian College, which attracted some 60 from the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Jon Jones of Richland Hills Church of Christ addressed the group and an excellent spirit prevailed.

Even more significant in terms of fellowship between churches of Christ and Christian Churches is that they are now cooperating in feeding the starving masses in Ethiopia. Christian Churches are raising $1,000,000 for the mission conducted by the White’s Ferry Rd Church of Christ in Monroe, La., which has already sent several millions in aid to Ethiopia. The program will be ongoing with the two denominations cooperating.

It might be added that the Christian Churches are also now working with the highly successful World Bible School, started by Jimmie Lovell and carried on by Churches of Christ. Some 5,000 to 7,000 members of Christian Churches lend a hand in sending materials to students all over the world and then receiving and grading their work. I could also tell of a few instances where Christian Church ministers are invited into Church of Christ pulpits, but I don’t want to lay too much on you at one time!

The Christian Churches will hold their Texas Christian Convention this year in Longview, Nov. 14-15. For info write Bernie Ayers, Central Christian Church, 1615 Judson Rd., Longview, Tx. 75601.

The Park Avenue Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in New York City, which soon celebrates its 175th anniversary, is probably the oldest Campbellite church in the nation. I recently read a sermon preached by its minister, John Wade Payne, in which he tells the story of how one of their couples shared its faith with Larry and Gwen Mellon, from one of the nation’s wealthiest families. The Mellons were baptized into the ancient faith in that church and went on (both of them) to study medicine and at last went to Haiti where they founded a hospital in a neglected area. In the same sermon the minister recounted several recent adventures into Christian unity by his church, one being his testimony to a Catholic High School of “our deeply held longing for the oneness of God’s people for the sake of the unity of the world.” He reported that the students, all boys, responded as if they really cared.

I recently attended an ordination service for elders and deacons at the College Parkway Church of Christ in Lewisville, Texas, a non-Sunday School church. Gene Shelburne of Amarillo, the ordaining minister, and I discussed how strange it is that while in our Movement our people have always ordained, from the time Thomas Campbell ordained his son Alexander to the ministry until today in Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ, the non-Sunday School churches are about the only ones among non-instrument Churches of Christ that ordain their officers. One would be hard put to find a single minister or elder among “mainline” Churches of Christ that was ordained. When one becomes an elder (by being selected, often by other elders!) we do little more than announce that fact, and one becomes a minister by going to college (maybe) and being hired by a church. This is an oddity since ordination is scriptural.