Ordinances of the Kastonite Church

(This article is taken from the Church of Northshire Wiki as-is, and is the work of Katarynne.)

Overview
We, as Believers in God, and in the One True Faith, characterize our commitment to the principle of sacramentality, namely, the conviction that everything is capable of embodying and communicating the divine, that all reality has a "mysterious" dimension insofar as it is imbued with the hidden presence of God.

Just as God reaches us through the finite and visible, so we reach God through the finite and visible. The point at which this occurs is the point of ordinancial encounter. For Believers, the point of ordinancial encounter with God is the desire for amelioration.

The Church also plays an important ordinancial, or mediating role in salvation history. Just as celestial providence is the encounter with God, the Church is the encounter with grace - and ultimately - with God.

In the widest sense, the word ordinance applies to any finite reality through which the divine is percieved to be disclosed and communicated, and through which our human response to the divine assumes some shape, form and structure.

In a more specific sense, ordinances are those finite realities through wich God is communicated to the Church and through which the Church responds to God's self-communication.

Causes of Grace
The ordinances have been understood primarily as 'causes of grace'. Their function as 'signs of faith' was subordinated to concerns about causiality.

Ordinances cause grace insofar as they signify it. If they are not intelligible and effective signs, or symbols, then they are not effective causes.

Ordinances, therefore, are:


 * signs of faith


 * acts of worship


 * signs of the trueheartedness of the Church


 * signs of God's power

We teach, that the ordinances also cause grace for those that place no obstacle to it. It is not the personal merit of the recipient that causes grace received. At the same time, God does not force the human will.

We insist, therefore, on the "right disposition" of the recipient - i.e.' interior conversion, faith, devotion. The "fruitfulness" - as opposed to the mere "validity" - of the ordinances depends on this.

They (ordinances) do not cause grace in the sense that grace is otherwise unavailable. The offer of grace is already present to the world in God's original self-communication. The ordinances signify, celebrate, and effect what God is, in a sense, already doing everywhere and for all.

The recipient of the ordinances must be desposed properly (faith, conversion, devotion). If not, "the very act of celebrating" the ordinances may produce the proper disposition.

The ordinances, in a way, were instituted by God, just like the Faith was instituted by God. They have the origin of spirituality and the call of discipleship.

The Church of Northshire believes the ordinances to be "a rite in which God in uniquely active."

What is an ordinance?
Traditionally, the Church defines ordinances as "An outward sign of inward grace, a sacred and mysterious sign or ceremony, ordained by God, by which grace is conveyed to our souls."

I therefore define an ordinance as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." Examples of ordinances would be Induction and Confession.

We determine the existence of the ordinances through the first, and most important one reference by Duncan Senturus, Confession.

Therefore an ordinance is a religious rite which conveys divine grace, blessing, or sanctity upon the believer who participates in it, or a tangible symbol which represents an intangible reality.

As defined above, and example would be Induction in water, representing (and conveying) the grace of the gift of God's unending grace, the forgiveness of Sins, and membership into the Church.

Items used for the purprose of excercising the ordinances, or are in anyway related to religious function, are called vessels. We should come before such items with reverence and piety, as they serve a spiritual purpose.

The Properties of an Ordinance
All ordinances must have proper matter, form and intention.


 * Form - The form is the ordinancial sign, the veral and physical liturgical action.


 * Matter - The matter is the part of the ordinance to which something is done, the physical objects, e.g. the waters of Induction (although not all physical objects used in administering an ordinance are considered essential matter).


 * Intention - Intention means that the priest or minister must have the willful intention to do what the Church commands.

In these proper formats that the ordinances are made available to the congregation by the clergy.

The Ordinances
We, as Believers in God and all he has bestowed to us, designate to the Church, these following ordinances:
 * Confession
 * Induction
 * Holy Anointment
 * Holy Matrimony
 * Consecration
 * Ordination

All of these ordinances are sacred rituals designed for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment and support.