{"id":196,"date":"2015-06-12T21:22:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T21:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/?p=196"},"modified":"2015-06-12T21:23:32","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T21:23:32","slug":"general-synod-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/?p=196","title":{"rendered":"General Synod &#8211; Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During the morning Plenary, in addition to the General Secretaries report we had several report from race councils. \u00a0The African American\/Black Council report mentioned Ferguson and other recent events and made several recommendations for an appropriate RCA response. \u00a0Similar reports were made by the Pan Asian council and the Hispanic Council. \u00a0I was saddened by comments made during the Hispanic report that a number of churches were considering leaving the RCA unless the Synod made a definitive statement taking a strong Biblical position that homosexuality is inherently sinful.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/486\/18120548764_ba35da4270_z.jpg\" alt=\"plenary\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The President&#8217;s report was given during the afternoon session. \u00a0Although he touched on a number of topics, the main topic turned out to be &#8221; What is the church going to do about homosexuality?&#8221; \u00a0The President pointed out that the RCA&#8217;s position is clear and has always been a strict Biblical interpretation that a homosexual life-style is sinful. \u00a0He made a proposal that we convene a commission to consider a change in the RCA&#8217;s position next spring and until that report was in that we refrain from:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ordaining homosexuals<\/li>\n<li>performing gay weddings<\/li>\n<li>leaving the denomination<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After his report, we were given a short time to discuss the issue with ou table mates, with each of us answering two questions about the proposal:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>what do we find challenging<\/li>\n<li>what do we find encouraging<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>It was an interesting discussion. \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Later in the afternoon we were introduced to a number of church planters for the RCA. \u00a0The ones I found most interesting, and all of them were dynamic individuals, was a black couple that specialized in planting churches in high-drug traffic urban areas in places such as Kalamazoo and Detroit.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/303\/18119238474_b634007cbf.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_0044\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the morning Plenary, in addition to the General Secretaries report we had several report from race councils. \u00a0The African American\/Black Council report mentioned Ferguson and other recent events and made several recommendations for an appropriate RCA response. \u00a0Similar reports were made by the Pan Asian council and the Hispanic Council. \u00a0I was saddened by &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/?p=196\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-oldsaratoga","post-196","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/old-saratoga.rcachurches.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}