Welcome to the Host
Committee page
for the Plymouth meeting of the
NACCC in June of 2008.
The purpose of this page is to place
a marker in your mind and in your
calendar to prompt you to join us here in Massachusetts to
examine pathways of the past insofar as they inform our own walk with
Christ. Many people's emphasis on history and tradition in
Congregationalism resembles sentimentality. We believe that there is no
room for sentimentality at the foot of the cross. As Congregationalists
who live in the footsteps of the Saints, we desire to rediscover a
greater, richer sense of devoutness, holiness and purpose in our
lives as we seek to bring Christ to the world, and the world to Christ.
The 2008 Annual Meeting in Plymouth is being designed to assist us in
just that purpose. Please prayerfully consider your attendance. Thank
you.
-The
Massachusetts
Association of Congregational Christian Churches.
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Rediscover
Pilgrimage |
We
are people who live in changing times but
believe in the unchanging truth of the Bible. We arrive in new places
and find
God’s familiar blessings. We look to the pathways of the past to blaze
the
thoroughfares of tomorrow. We rediscover the footprints of the Saints
to inform
our own wanderings. The New
World is
tomorrow. The pilgrimage is today.
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Rediscover
the Cambridge Platform |
A congregational church is by the
institution of
Christ a part of the militant visible church, consisting of a company
of saints
by calling, united into one body by a holy covenant, for the public
worship of
God, and the mutual edification of one another in the fellowship of the
Lord
Jesus; [a company which walks in blameless obedience to the Word, so
that in
charitable discretion they may be accounted saints by calling.
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Rediscover Mission |
| In
1620, an ordinary cargo ship was emptied
of its commonplace wares and transformed by extraordinary people into a
vessel of vision, delivering a people of faith to a new world. Almost
400 years later, “living” vessels will gather in Plymouth
with a chance to experience a similar transformation – to leave
indifference at the dock and to take on the very same faith for
delivery to a wider world. |
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Rediscover Grace |
| The year
1620 brought two
radically different cultures together in an encounter that is of epic
proportion. The Indigenous People on the American continent and the
Europeans on the Mayflower lived-out a fragile and mutually beneficial
relationship for some five decades. Sadly, the relationship
deteriorated over time, resulting in bloodshed, atrocity, and death,
inflicting deep wounds that have never healed. This
grieves us because it grieves God. Our desire is
to rediscover grace, to stop the downward spiral of injustice and
hostility, and to
build bridges of reconciliation through the power of forgiveness. Our
hope is to find a renewed sense of oneness in our identity as God’s own
people and together to share the wholeness and holiness of God in the
Shalom
of Christ. |
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Rediscover Your Course... |
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.
.We hold it to be the mission of the Church to
proclaim the gospel to all mankind exalting the worship of the one true
God and laboring for the progress of knowledge, the promotion of
justice, the
reign of peace, and the realization of human brotherhood. Depending, as
did our
fathers, upon the continued guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into
all
truth, we work and pray for the transformation of the world into the
kingdom of God.
. .
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Moderator: the Rev.
Dr. William Fillebrown, Chiltonville, Congregational Church,
Plymouth, Massachusetts
Congregational
Lecturer: the Rev. Phil Jackson, 1st Congregational Church of
Yarmouthport, Massachusetts
Bible Lecturer:
the Rev. Dr. David C. Fisher, Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims,
Brooklyn, New York
Host Committee
Chair, Mr. Chuck Kantner, 1st Congregational Church, Rochester,
Massachusetts
June 21-24, 2008, Plymouth, Massachusetts
