A New Beginning

When I can, I attend mass on Saturday or Sunday evening so that I can go to Zarephath Christian Church on Sunday morning.  I go there for a lot of reasons.  Let's see.

1. I connect with God easily through contemporary praise and worship.
2. I enjoy seeing how Pastor Scott systematically teaches the members of ZCC on the basics of Christian belief.
3. I am energized by vision and hope for revival which is carried forward at ZCCC.
4. I learn more Catholic Teaching in one Sunday at Zarephath than I do from a whole month of Sunday masses at a typical Catholic mass.
5. I love hearing about all the ministries which are a part of ZCC: the children's ministry, the food pantry, the health clinic, the outreaches and missions in other countries, and tons of other stuff they do on a regular basis.

A couple of months ago, someone (Mike) was led by the Spirit to invite me to his Life Group.  ZCC has a lot of Life Groups, and now I am a part of one of them.  It is a very eclectic group of interesting individuals.  We pray together, learn together, read the Bible, sing together, and get to know one another.  It is an experience of basic Christian fellowship, which I haven't felt in decades, because catholic parishes do not seem to know how to do these kinds of things.  Of course, what is said there, stays there.  Confidentiality and all that.  So, that is all I have to say about that.

I have started to think that it is time to start talking about the House of Simon and Andrew.  I would like to use this blog to talk about some of my core convictions in the hopes of gathering to me some new or maybe old like-minded friends.  And, so I will post blog pieces here to flesh out different aspects of my thinking.

As I write these blog posts, I will take the key points from them and incorporate them into the pages that I will link to across the top of the blog website.  Right now, I have three links.  "About" talks about the purpose of the website and the whole idea of The House of Simon and Andrew.  "Beliefs" highlights the guiding beliefs and "Inference" highlights other ideas which flow from those beliefs, all of which will  hopefully plot a path for this future Lay Association of the Faithful.

I envision a future group with a canonical status of Lay Association of the Faithful according to the Code of Canon Law, named the House of Simon and Andrew.  The group would consist of individuals who prioritize above all seeking and nourishing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  This group would wholeheartedly submit to the authority of the Bible as God's Word.  Some members of the group would also, like me, read the Bible from the Heart of the Church, meaning that I accept the teaching role of the Catholic Church as the authentic interpreter of Scripture.  This group would seek the healing presence of Christ.  We would seek to develop and use our God given spiritual gifts for the building up of the Church, the body of Christ.  The group would promote Evangelization, Teaching, Discernment of Spiritual Gifts, Healing, and more, all focused towards the renewal of the Catholic parishes in my local area.  I will flesh this out more over time.