Bethlen Almanac 2000 (Ligonier)
Cikkek - Articles
175, Chapter V, that the real dissertation begins. In this chapter, I explain the “project” and its practical application. Our first task was to inform the congregation about our theme and their task in this project. In a series of sermons for four Sundays, I explained to the congregation the issues of ethnicity: in the Bible, in church history, in the American- Hungarian church history, and in our own sociological context. The sermons were delivered both in Hungarian and English, a written outline was given out, and recorded tapes of the sermons were available. At each sermon a brief questionnaire sought out reactions from the listeners. After the presentation of the sermons, we established two small groups among church members, each containing seven members, evenly representing the worshipers from our Hungarian and English services. Each group met separately for two full evenings to formulate a model; while at a joint meeting the model was finalized. The model consisted of 20 articles: and a preamble-type of vision statement containing 6 additional articles. The total took up 5 pages when written in both languages. This was mailed to every church member. Then on a given Sunday we conducted an open forum, one in each language, on these articles; then on the following Sunday we conducted a joint bilingual open forum. At each meeting we utilized questionnaires to compile the responses of the participants. In the appendix you will find all the minutes and questionnaires for all the small group or open forum meetings, all in their original tongues (the Hungarian originals are also available in English). From a sociological point of view, this Appendix (about half of this 600-page long dissertation), is perhaps the most valuable and most interesting part of the document. In this, one may observe without any adornments, the behavior of members of an American-Hungarian Reformed church of considerable history (cc. 90 years old), at a stage of their decline, yet with some life energy in them. It is a study in itself how these people thought, talked and related to each other at the end of the 1990s. Chapter 6 is the most important. This is where I describe and explain the model. It was constructed by the active participation of the small groups and the open forums; nevertheless, it was I who formulated and wrote down the final version. The themes turned out to be too complicated to be finalized during those few short meetings. Yet, the participants had a major impact in formulating the final product. First, we draw up a Vision Statement consisting of 6 articles. This could be called a modem statement of faith. We attempted to use contemporary 236
