quote:Hello, My name is Alexandra Alter, and I’m a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. I’m working on an article about how many Christians are returning to and embracing the practice of confession. I hoped you might be able to tell me whether group confessions or something along those lines are taking place in home churches. If so, I would love to speak to some pastors about how the practice fits in to home church worship.
posted
We are taking pretty literally, "ONE to another"...
No group confession here, except for testimonies, but that would be past sin we've had victory over, not current sin being wrestled out.
Rather, individuals talk over their problems and concerns and pray together, one on one, checking back to see how it is going.
It's another way we are not being institutionally minded, but organically minded. There is no special meeting or contrived time when someone would say, "Okay, now let's hear about everybody's sin". It's much more likely that I would ask a friend if she needs anything at the feed store, and we'd drive there together, and on the way I'd say, "Now, about my anger at my husband..."
-------------------- You & Me and Jesus. We are enough!
posted
I'm struggling with an answer, but I can't be silent. The topic is fresh on my mind from a recent article I wrote on my blog, which touches this only tangentially -- confessing national sins.
I don't recommend public confession of personal sins for all the obvious reasons. I've had training and experience in pastoral counseling. Though I find myself outside the mainstream at many points, this is probably not one of them. There are specific issues which probably should climax in public confession if one sins against the group. Those are probably well known to mature Christians, and there is an established legacy of teaching on it.
However, I do recommend groups agree in confessing we have all sinned in certain ways. Indeed, with my Calvinist convictions, it becomes a necessary element in every group prayer/worship/study meeting. It is here I might raise the issue of national sins, or what the Bible refers to as "sins of our fathers." I suppose a large part of what alienated me from the institutional church was a blindness to our national sins, except for certain ones "those others" do.
Without a better context for the question, it's hard for me to say more.
Both Paul and Jesus longed to see forgiveness extended to others. Isaiah was certainly aware of those around him, guilty of national sins. Even some of the foreign kings mentioned in the Old Testament came to an awareness that national repentance was in order and overdue.
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, AND I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Isaiah 6:5
Certainly, the USA, having destroyed upwards of 40 million of her unborn, has some serious accounting to do with Almighty God.
No man is an island. No man lives or dies to himself.
posted
LA, you summed it up well, methinks. Confession for most of us is more of an organic, natural response which might occur at any time - in a meeting or on the phone.
Liberty in Christ, however, is broad and for those who might desire more formal confessions, I should not protest. Mankind does, I believe, have a sacerdotal tendency which can turn simple acts into rituals. When confession becomes too formal, you wind up with a priest, a confessor's booth, and one-sided confessing.
So, to answer the reporter's question as I see things, YES, "group confession" is an important part of who we are and what we do.
Please get your final replies in on this thread as I will be notifying the reporter tomorrow. Thanks.
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