- What is a FAQ?
FAQ is an acronym, or letters standing for, Frequently Asked
Questions. Often, they contain a list of questions that people are
often asking, and their respective answers. You will find FAQ's
all over the Internet, and sometimes in more contemporary locations.
The purpose of this FAQ is to inform people as to the nature of the
Higher - Fire mailing list and to provide assistance to those
already subscribed to the list.
- What is an Internet mailing list?
One of the very basic services of the Internet (and indeed, the
oldest and easiest to use) is e-mail. E-mail, short for electronic
mail, is a rapid means of communicating. You can send a message
accross the nation in a matter of minutes, seconds even.
In a mailing list, everyone writes mail and sends it to one address.
There, the "moderator" or list manager, reads the mail and approves
each piece, making sure that an irrelevant discussion about how to
make pickled bologna doesn't appear on a list speaking of race cars!
So, all you do is send your submission to the computer list
processor (called Listproc, in this case). Then, when it is
approved, it is sent out to all the people subscribed to the list.
This also happens when someone else sends mail. In this manner,
a discussion can be started, most always relavant to the subject
of the list.
- What is Higher - Fire?
Higher-Fire is a mailing list or discussion list for Oneness
Pentecostals.
- Ok, so who are Pentecostals and what is this "Oneness" thing?
Pentecostals is a "general" term used for those that have
received the Spirit of God in like fashion of the Apostles in the
book of Acts chapter two. A more common term for receiving the
Spirit of God, by Pentecostals, is receiving the Holy Ghost.
The key to receiving the Holy Ghost is the evidence that the
receiver of the Spirit will speak in an earthly language that they
previously had not known.
"Pentecostal" is what I'd call a "generic" term that includes
those that have been experienced the reception of the Holy Ghost.
In more recent years, with the advent of the modern charismatic
movement "Pentecostal" has also been used to label those
charismatics as well. For this reason, "Apostolic Pentecostal",
"Oneness Pentecostal", "Oneness Apostolic Pentecostal" or about
any combination thereof has been used by the more traditional
Pentecostals to assign a unique identity to the group that
believes in Holiness, Oneness of God, Infilling of the Spirit like
the Apostles, Baptism in Jesus name, & Repentence. Charismatics
don't necessarily hold to that those particular qualities described
above.
Though the differences are probably the result of history and
accident, there are some real differences between Pentecostals and
Charismatics in their theological perspective. Pentecostals
branched off of the Wesleyan "Holiness" movement of the early 20th
century. Thus, the soteriology (theology on salvation) is Arminian
-- that is, Pentecostals believe that a saint can backslide and
even lose their salvation. Even groups, such as the Assemblies of
God, that currently might not have what some would consider a strong
stance on holiness came from this heritage. Pentecostals often
accuse their "Charimaniac" friends of being "loosy-goosy" with
doctrine.
Charismatics, on the other hand, are generally (a) "Spirit filled"
offshoots within a larger denomination (for example, the largest
Charismatic congregations in some parts of Asia are Episcopalian!
Witness also the growing Charismatic Catholic movement) or (b) an
independent church, with a pastor which has no particular
denominational or other organizational affiliation. Charismatics
are typically Calvinists ("once- saved-always-saved"). Charimatics
often accuse their Pentecostal friends of being too uptight and
legalistic.
Both groups often use the phrase "full-gospel" to describe their
acceptance of Holy-Ghost-infilling and the operation of the gifts of
the Spirit. Pentecostals and Charismatics reject the idea that
gifts of the Spirit ended with the end of the "Apostolic Age" at the
turn of the first century A.D.
- Why did you take me off the list?
We probably did not take you off the list -- it's quite
possible you are having email difficulties of a technical nature.
Sometimes, the technical difficulty is bad enough that removal from
the list is warranted. Almost always, these problems are temporary
and you can be added back onto the list immediately. If you are
having technical problems, we try to inform you when we're taking
action, but almost always the nature of the problem is such that
you cannot receive email from the moderator. The most common
problem: somebody doesn't check their mail in a while and the
mailbox fills up. When this happens, mail to that person starts
"bouncing" back to the sender, i.e. the listprocessor at Prairienet.
The listprocessor complains rather loudly when this happens.
If you think you won't be reading email in a while, "POSTPONE" mail
from the H-F list (and any other list you might be on). Help with
this can be found at question number 3 in this section.
Another possibility: the listprocessor itself has gone down. Just
be patient.
Also, it could be that the moderators are physically unable to
respond to your mail at the time. Remember, all mail that comes
to Higher - Fire must first be read and approved by the moderators.
See the section entitled "Notes from the Moderators" for more info.
- Why are you deleting all of my messages?
If you've been blacklisted by the moderators, I would imagine
you would know about it. There are two more possible reasons:
- We never received your mail. This happens sometimes,
though we don't know why. Try sending again.
- We see your message and approve it. For some reason the message
doesn't get back to you. Check your mail settings by sending
email to listproc@prairienet.org with the message "SET
HIGHER-FIRE". If you see "NOACK" this means the listprocessor
is set up to not deliver messages to you if you are the author
of the message. For more information on this, see question
number 4 in this section.
A good way to test this second case is by checking the H-F archives
on the web at:
http://www.higherfire.org
- I'm leaving for a little while, and I don't want to receive Higher -
fire letters until I get back. How do I stop the mail temporarily?
First, you may ask why you would want to postpone the mail from
Higher - Fire. The reason for this is simple: if you are gone for
a week, you could have literally hundreds of pieces of mail from
Higher - Fire alone!
To correct this, you need to send Listproc, the list computer,
the command to stop your mail. This is done in the same way that
you joined Higher - Fire: by sending Listproc the commands in the
body of a mail message. This message should be sent to
listproc@prairienet.org, and have the following text:
set higher-fire mail postpone. This will postpone
your mail for a time.
After you send this, wait about 5 - 10 minutes (usually much less)
and check your mail again. Listproc will send you mail confirming
your change.
You also have the option of receiving your mail in digest form.
Then, if you are gone for seven days, you will get seven pieces
of mail, and so on. For help on this, see question 5 in this
section.
- I'm back now, and I want to start my Higher - Fire mail again. How
do I do it? And what is this ACK NOACK thing?
Again, send a message to Listproc at the address
listproc@prairienet.org with the following text:
set higher-fire mail ack .
What this actually does is change your current mail settings,
specifically the acknowledgement option. It set's the mail to
NOACK, not acknowledging you. Lets say that you sent a submission
to Higher - Fire. When it is approved, it is sent out to all others
on the list. The acknowledgement option determines if you receive a
copy of your own submission when everyone else does. By default, or
standard setting, the Listproc is set to ACK, meaning that it will
send you a copy of your mail that you submitted. If you want, you
can stop this, be setting it to NOACK.
To change these options, send mail to listproc@prairienet.org
with the following text:
set higher-fire mail ACK/NOACK.
Thus, to set the Listproc to acknowledge mail you sent it,
you would type: set higher-fire mail ack.
Whenever you change an option, you should receive a message back
in about 5-10 minutes confirming your action. If you don't, wait
a while. Sometimes it takes a while. Also, there's a chance
you are already set on the option you tried to change.
For example, you may be set to NOACK, and try to re-instate your
mail by sending the message "set higher-fire mail noack". This,
of course, would change nothing and the Listproc will ignore it.
Simply send the message again, with "ack" instead of "noack".
- I don't like getting my Higher - Fire mail mixed up with the rest of
my mail. What should I do?
In Listproc terms, what you are asking for is a Digest. You can
think of it as a magazine of all the day's approved messages. It
is sent out once a day to all those members who have chosen this
as an option. The digest itself is one big (hurkin', huge,
garantuous, and otherwise BIG) piece of mail with all the writings
of everyone in it. This is a way that you can receive all your
mail at once, in one package.
To choose this option, send mail to listproc@prairienet.org
with the following text (without the quotes): "set higher-fire mail
digest". Again, you should receive a response confirming this in
about 5 - 10 minutes.
Another option is to learn about the filtering options on your
email software. Many email packages have a "filter" either
built-in or available as an add-on. Learning about these filters
is an FAQ in itself, but they allow you to seperate your incoming
mail into the various folders. To figure this out, consult your
program's manual or on-line helps.
- I just saw a message on Higher - Fire, that doesn't seem to apply to
anything. I thought that the moderators prevented that from
happening. What happened?
Around Higher - Fire, this has come to be known as "burping". For
reasons that the moderators would like to know, the Listproc
program will occasionally pull a message that was written months
ago and post it as a new message! As you can imagine, this creates
quite a stir on the list, and there have been many times that
people will begin to reply to these "burps"! Just ask around
Higher - Fire for some stories on burping, and it should keep you
laughing for some time!
- I have access to the full Internet (not just mail) and was wondering if
I could have access to Higher - Fire from there?
Yes, you can. First, you may wonder why you would want to do this.
If, for example, you were writing a paper on "hope", and wanted to
see what has been written on Higher - Fire on "hope", you could
search the archives from the Web page.
To do this, simply go to the following site:
http://www.higherfire.org
This also gives you a link to the UPC home page, by the way.
- Who are the moderators, and how can I contact them?
Their names are Tyler Nally, Richard Masoner, and Brian Berger.
To contact them, simply send them mail: their addresses are
tnally@iquest.net and richardm@cd.com, and BKBerger@ix.netcom.com
respectivly. If you are wondering which one to send the mail to,
pick one! They will take care of you nicely!
However, if one doesn't respond in a timely manner, it might be
a good idea to send the same letter to one of the others so that
you can get the help you need.
E-mail all three.
- I have a suggestion for this FAQ: where do I send it to?
This FAQ was originally written and maintained by Mark Kendrick.
Currently Mark is unavailable, so just email one of the moderators
at one of the e-mail addresses above.
They are open to any suggestion, comment, grumble, complaint,
and even a question for the FAQ, with or without the answer.
