I found this on another site.... I liked it, and thought I would share:
The Other Twenty-Seven Fundamentals
By Chris Blake
(June 9, 2003)
Fundamentally, pride is the first sin, the worst sin. Nothing on earth is so universally hated.
Yet many Seventh-day Adventists have not grasped one reason for Christ?s sacrifice?to make us humble and thus teachable. The core of humility is a genuine recognition of reality. Those who remain haughty and exclusive become unfit for the new earth; in essence, they have not accepted the Messiah?s sacrifice.
Walking humbly with God requires asking in clear, ringing tones for forgiveness. As a corporate body, our church has at times transgressed God?s will. The following prayer is an appeal for integrity and reformation.
Merciful God, forgive us.
1. Forgive us for ignoring, downplaying, and airbrushing our flaws and deficiencies when we should be transparently honest.
2. Forgive us for talking to ourselves, becoming absorbed in Adventist " triumphalism" while a dying world wanders into oblivion.
3. Forgive us for our morbid craving for controversy, for the resulting stupid, senseless disputes, and for those lives we have wrecked in the process.
4. Forgive us for not understanding that it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.
5. Forgive us for ever placing the word but after the phrase, "You are saved through Jesus Christ."
6. Forgive us for shrinking away from emotionalism until we have de facto diminished the role of the Holy Spirit.
7. Forgive us for prohibiting smoking and drinking in our schools more than we have prohibited meanness.
8. Forgive us for saying we renounce the world, and then acting like a panting puppy when the world tosses us some attention.
9. Forgive us for talking about you in place of experiencing you, for preferring the menu to the meal.
10. Forgive us for receiving mystery and imagination and wonder only to suction the life out until we are left with dates and how-to formulas and slogans.
11. Forgive us for believing that the Adventist Church posses all truth, so that we don?t need to learn from others, thus making ourselves inflexible, brittle, and narrow-minded.
12. Forgive us for emphasizing personal morality while overlooking wider social and organizational sins.
13. Forgive us for egregiously mistreating women and minorities.
14. Forgive us for making Sabbath mornings the most racially segregated hours of the week.
15. Forgive us for our paralyzing emphases on program and performance until our Sabbath schools and church services are as flat as road kill at rush hour.
16. Forgive us for contending that you value most the praise of words and music on Sabbath, when instead you value most the praise of selfless, loving acts during the week.
17. Forgive us for using institutional rigidness to crush hopeful creativity and helpful dissent.
18. Forgive us for placating church bullies, while our weaker brethren?our youth and young adults?leave, squashed and disillusioned and angry, never to return.
19. Forgive us for treating singles and public school students as second-class members.
20. Forgive us for officially encouraging individuality of thought but in actual practice rewarding unquestioning conformity.
21. Forgive us for confusing indoctrination with education, mistaking what to think for how to think.
22. Forgive us for suggesting that all movement to music is evil, when in fact some movement can build community, health, and innocent joy.
23. Forgive us for turning countless people away from you through willful insistence on peripheral matters of personal taste.
24. Forgive us for not showing our children that following you is the most creative, sensible, fearless, freeing, fun adventure in the world.
25. Forgive us for keeping close track of people coming in but not of the people going out.
26. Forgive us for succumbing to negativity and cynicism instead of living gratefully with defiant optimism.
27. Forgive us for not praying and loving more.
Help us to start afresh, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly, forever and ever.
We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.
© 2003 Spectrum/AAF
The Other Twenty-Seven Fundamentals
By Chris Blake
(June 9, 2003)
Fundamentally, pride is the first sin, the worst sin. Nothing on earth is so universally hated.
Yet many Seventh-day Adventists have not grasped one reason for Christ?s sacrifice?to make us humble and thus teachable. The core of humility is a genuine recognition of reality. Those who remain haughty and exclusive become unfit for the new earth; in essence, they have not accepted the Messiah?s sacrifice.
Walking humbly with God requires asking in clear, ringing tones for forgiveness. As a corporate body, our church has at times transgressed God?s will. The following prayer is an appeal for integrity and reformation.
Merciful God, forgive us.
1. Forgive us for ignoring, downplaying, and airbrushing our flaws and deficiencies when we should be transparently honest.
2. Forgive us for talking to ourselves, becoming absorbed in Adventist " triumphalism" while a dying world wanders into oblivion.
3. Forgive us for our morbid craving for controversy, for the resulting stupid, senseless disputes, and for those lives we have wrecked in the process.
4. Forgive us for not understanding that it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth.
5. Forgive us for ever placing the word but after the phrase, "You are saved through Jesus Christ."
6. Forgive us for shrinking away from emotionalism until we have de facto diminished the role of the Holy Spirit.
7. Forgive us for prohibiting smoking and drinking in our schools more than we have prohibited meanness.
8. Forgive us for saying we renounce the world, and then acting like a panting puppy when the world tosses us some attention.
9. Forgive us for talking about you in place of experiencing you, for preferring the menu to the meal.
10. Forgive us for receiving mystery and imagination and wonder only to suction the life out until we are left with dates and how-to formulas and slogans.
11. Forgive us for believing that the Adventist Church posses all truth, so that we don?t need to learn from others, thus making ourselves inflexible, brittle, and narrow-minded.
12. Forgive us for emphasizing personal morality while overlooking wider social and organizational sins.
13. Forgive us for egregiously mistreating women and minorities.
14. Forgive us for making Sabbath mornings the most racially segregated hours of the week.
15. Forgive us for our paralyzing emphases on program and performance until our Sabbath schools and church services are as flat as road kill at rush hour.
16. Forgive us for contending that you value most the praise of words and music on Sabbath, when instead you value most the praise of selfless, loving acts during the week.
17. Forgive us for using institutional rigidness to crush hopeful creativity and helpful dissent.
18. Forgive us for placating church bullies, while our weaker brethren?our youth and young adults?leave, squashed and disillusioned and angry, never to return.
19. Forgive us for treating singles and public school students as second-class members.
20. Forgive us for officially encouraging individuality of thought but in actual practice rewarding unquestioning conformity.
21. Forgive us for confusing indoctrination with education, mistaking what to think for how to think.
22. Forgive us for suggesting that all movement to music is evil, when in fact some movement can build community, health, and innocent joy.
23. Forgive us for turning countless people away from you through willful insistence on peripheral matters of personal taste.
24. Forgive us for not showing our children that following you is the most creative, sensible, fearless, freeing, fun adventure in the world.
25. Forgive us for keeping close track of people coming in but not of the people going out.
26. Forgive us for succumbing to negativity and cynicism instead of living gratefully with defiant optimism.
27. Forgive us for not praying and loving more.
Help us to start afresh, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly, forever and ever.
We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.
© 2003 Spectrum/AAF
Amen
