As a result of the Bible Translations presentation at church and the stunning realization that neither our local church nor the church denomination is going to establish where we are going and how we’ll know when we’ve arrived, I’ve been thinking about establishing an Endress Family Creed. First, I respect our leadership’s honesty and openness about their uncertainty of vision and identity. For example, they don’t have a pre-selected path for determining the ifs and whens of Bible translations, let alone a number of other forks in the proverbial road.
What stunned me, however, was my realization that they also don’t even have a framework for determining how such decisions will be made. So, I asked a friend of mine who left our church because of this lack of framework about what he’s found in his new denomination. Short answer, their leadership hasn’t articulated anything along those lines and it may be some time before they’d even begin to consider it.
I won’t give up yet, but it does cause me to wonder if any church, outside of the Catholic Church, has really developed a strong enough sense of identity to say, here’s who we are, and here’s who we aren’t. I thought I’d reach out to another friend who had gone that direction, but, nothing to report on regarding that conversation at this time.
That friend did refer to a talk by John D Martin. I can’t find the talk but the friend gave me enough context to briefly describe it below. Such a concept does exist, and I’m not completely off my rocker to be thinking that not only should this concept of framework guiding decision-making exist, but it is CRITICAL that it be built and used!
A framework for making decisions. Who am I? Who am I not? John D Martin apparently suggests an acronym, SCAR to channel decision-making:
Scriptures: Consider what the whole of the scriptures says–the principles, the commandments, and everything in between.
Christocentric: Consider what Jesus taught, particularly the sermon on the mount about the ways of the Kingdom of God.
Antiquity: Consider what the early church, the anabaptist movement, and all of the churches practiced and taught to determine what actually works
Real: Consider your current time and situation, sociology, etc in determining the finer points of things.
The Endress Family Creed is still in early formation stage, but I thought I’d brainstorm openly. I’m picturing a number of points in the framework:
- As a Christ-follower, we will do this and this
- As an Endress, we
- As a family that values our anabaptist heritage, we
- As a citizen of Stark County, we
- We value business ownership because
- We value travel, because…
- We value common experience and common language so we have mealtimes together, use the same Bible translation and hymnology, take trips together, sharpen each other by
The idea behind this is to actually provide some much-needed clarity to all people in an organization as to what framework is driving our decision-making and actions. Help me refine this concept. Do you know any family that has done this sort of thing and is successfully implementing it? Is it possible for a church with 100+ members and 200+ attendees to get here? Does it end up looking like a stilted brotherhood agreement?