Adrian Cole

Core Beliefs

Most of you are aware that in the fall we did a congregational survey called Reveal. The purpose of the survey is to give us some insight as to where we are as a congregation and individuals regarding some key factors. One set of those factors are “Spiritual Beliefs and Attitudes.” I have used two or three of these in sermons the last few weeks. Let me list them for you:

1. Salvation by Grace
2. Trinity
3. Personal God
4. Christ is First
5. Authority of the Bible
6. Identity in Christ
7. Stewardship
8. Giving Away My Life

These eight key spiritual beliefs and attitudes are listed or ranked by there importance. In other words “Salvation by Grace” would have a higher value in the general Christian community than “Personal God”, etc. The ranking would vary some depending on a particular religious group. The Catholics would have a somewhat different opinion about what constitutes “salvation”. Most all Protestant groups would consider “Salvation by Grace” number one.
New Covenant as a community comes out this way:

1. Salvation by Grace 51%
2. Trinity 82%
3. Personal God 63%
4. Christ is First 56%
5. Authority of the Bible 38%
6. Identity in Christ 43%
7. Stewardship 31%
8. Giving Away My Life 19%

We will be talking more about these outcomes over the next few months.

Changing Habits

In my devotional time this morning the following was the reflective reading after the scripture readings from the Psalms and book of Acts. I thought it was meaningful and thought you might find meaning it in as well.

 

"We seldom get rid of an evil merely by understanding its causes… and for all our insight, obstinate habits do not disappear until replaced by other habits. But habits are won only by exercise, and appropriate education is the sole means to this end. The patient must be drawn out of himself into other paths, which is the true meaning of "education," and this can only be achieved by an educative will…

 

…no amount of confession and no amount of explaining can make the crooked plant grow straight; it must be trained upon the trellis of the norm by the gardener's art."

 

-From "The Practice of Psychotherapy" by Carl G. Jung

By the way the reading is taken from "A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants" by Rueben Job and Norman Shawchuck.