Author Archives: Jonathan Frymire

Jan 06 2015
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The "Why" Questions

The Purpose of the Church of God Movement

If you could capture in one sentence, “What is the purpose of the Church of God Movement?” what would it be?

Over the last half century there may be no question more important, with greater impact on the Church of God Movement, than this one. How we define our purpose carries implications for what we do, how we do it, and why we do it. With this one sentence comes a telos (end, purpose or goal) for the rest of the movement. A purpose statement is a powerful thing; it guides and directs where you go and how you get there. It informs why we exist and why our existence matters.

Well, now I feel completely inadequate to answer the question… Oh well, we press on.

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Oct 29 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Holiness Church: A Response

“I am continually struck by the idea that our understanding of holiness has become very worldly….” – Jen Carney

I love that line from Jen’s post about being a holiness church. I find the irony compelling; what was sacred and separated out has become profane and mixed in with everything else. How are we to understand holiness when our perception of holiness has been warped by the world? This ‘worldly holiness’ is an emphasis on purity, cleanliness, and sterilization against the dirty, tarnished, tainted parts of life. The more holy we become, the more we are required to remove ourselves from everyday life in our community. If we do not retreat from it, we will be risking our holiness. We could accidentally rub up against unholy things, activities or people and cause our fall from grace.

But isn’t this completely antithetical to the call of God? Continue reading →

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May 12 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Unity Church

That the Church should be one is not debated.  The Bible makes it pretty clear that God’s intention for the Church is oneness.  Jesus, in the garden before his betrayal, fervently prays that his followers will all be ONE (John 17:21).  Paul makes it pretty plain in his letters that all believers are baptized into ONE Church, part of ONE body (1 Cor. 12:12-31; Eph. 4:1-16).

But, while we do not doubt that the Church should be one, we seem to have a lot of questions and disagreements over how we get there, and what that looks like practically.  Well I can’t pretend to have all the answers, but I can throw out some food-for-thought and maybe encourage further discussion.

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Feb 25 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Gospel Church: A Response

A Gospel Church is definitely all that Shannon New Spangler talked about in the previous post.  She did an excellent job articulating the central importance of the Gospel message.  This is not an easy task, writing a blog post about these themes, especially as the primary poster.  Whole books could be written around any one of these themes, and we are trying to tackle them in a thousand words, give or take a couple hundred.  So we have to make choices about how much gets said on any given theme.  The advantage of the responder is that they get to pick up a thread that was not allowed to make it into the primary post.  Thank goodness; otherwise I’d have nothing else to say.

So, that being said, I’d like to take what Shannon said about A Gospel Church and the centrality of the gospel, and stretch it.  I absolutely agree that a gospel church has, at her core, the central message of Jesus Christ and his salvific work.  However, I would like to push us a little further in understanding how a gospel church proclaims the gospel.

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Feb 11 2014
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Our Stories

My Story: Believing or Belonging?

Do I belong to the Church of God because I believe, or do I believe because I belong to the Church of God?  I have always been in the Church of God.  Steeped in it actually.  My parents are both ordained Church of God pastors.  My Grandfather is a retired Church of God pastor.  My two brothers and I are all pastors in Church of God congregations.  I even went so far as to marry the daughter of a Church of God pastor, and her brother is also serving and working on his ordination in the Church of God (and he also married a Church of God PK).  All of my immediate family members, and their spouses, are all graduates of Anderson University/College/etc.  Family of God, indeed.

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