Philadelphia Presbytery NCDs offer a glimpse of the PC(USA)’s future

“We sit down at our meetings and we have the world represented,” said Chris Edwards, a pastor who’s moderator of Philadelphia Presbytery’s New Church Development Committee, and who was a commissioner to this year’s General Assembly. Some of the change reflects the impact of immigration — new congregations are being initiated from the grassroots up by people who’ve moved to the United States from Korea, Pakistan, Ghana, Ethiopia and West Africa; some of whose families became Christian initially because of the hard work in those countries of Presbyterian missionaries.

And there often are significant patterns of growth and decline within communities as well. In Philadelphia, two of the immigrant groups are meeting in a building that formerly housed an urban church that had “dwindled down to almost nothing” before it folded altogether, said Rebecca Blackwell, an interim associate executive with the presbytery. In this case, the loss of the old has made blessed space for two fledgling groups of new arrivals to worship with their own customs and in the languages of their homelands.

Other congregations spring from particular passions or places. A Messianic Jewish group wants to blend “some of the great Christian traditions and some of the great Jewish traditions,” according to its prospective organizing pastor, Andrew Sparks, and hopes to hold its first worship service later this year. And two new congregations — including a lot of younger families — have been planted in growing parts of the outlying suburbs.

What’s making this kind of change happen? “I think vision and leadership are the keys,” said David Currie, pastor of The Anchor church, which held its first worship service in 1991, was chartered in 1996 and moved into its own building last year in suburban Bucks County north of Philadelphia, after years of worshiping at a community college, an elementary school gym and a renovated barn. (“I identify a lot with Moses leading the people through the wilderness,” Currie joked.)

“Of course, money is always an issue,” Currie added. “But money follows vision and leadership.”
But for that kind of change to occur, people also have to be open to new approaches — and accepting of others’ ideas of what Presbyterian churches can be like.

Kobina Ofosu-Donkoh, a 45-year-old father of two, started the United Ghanaian Community church on Dec. 25, 1995, along with his wife. They had come to Philadelphia to study, and over time realized that hundreds of people from Ghana were in the city. “Most of them didn’t go to church, even though they were Christian back in Ghana,” Ofosu-Donkoh said. “They didn’t feel comfortable in American churches because of the way we worship in Ghana” — a much more demonstrative, more outwardly joyous expression of faith than is seen in a typical Presbyterian church.

“We dance, we clap our hands, we jump, we shout, we pray together as one people, everybody praying aloud,” he said. People stand up and give testimony to what God has been doing in their lives, or ask for God’s guidance and mercy in confronting difficulties.

When they carry up the offering, “they break into a 10-minute dance routine . . . . It’s just a huge celebration of the joy of salvation,” Blackwell said. “We white folks just stand there.”

“We don’t consider time that much,” Ofosu-Donkoh said. “Sunday is for the Lord. We could spend three hours there without getting tired.” But when white Americans come to the church, “we see them looking at their watches.”

If their minds are open, however, Presbyterians from the U.S. often come to appreciate what they learn from Christians from other cultures — instructed by the fervor of their worship, the depth of their faith, their views of American culture and freedom and consumerism, and the wisdom they bring about the realities of life in other parts of the world. These new congregations, while they struggle with finances and many other getting-started questions, often bring gifts that leave an impact on both their city and on other congregations.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, for example, the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan in Philadelphia held a service of remembrance; initiated conversations with other Pakistanis, including Muslims; and helped the presbytery bring to city government the concerns of Pakistanis who were being harassed.

“That’s been a great gift to us, to say OK, we know somebody from that part of the world,” to have a better sense of the politics and the people of Muslim-dominated countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, Blackwell said. After the attacks, “the Christians in Pakistan were in very great jeopardy.” The PC(USA), for example, pulled out its mission co-workers. But Pakistani Presbyterians in Philadelphia had relatives who couldn’t leave and who were at risk. They do not take lightly the freedom they have in the U.S. to practice their Christian faith.

“There are many Christians behind bars” in Pakistan, said Shahbaz Khan, who leads the congregation and whose father was a Presbyterian minister in Pakistan. Here, “they are really happy, because they have no hindrance to their faith.”

The influence of Presbyterian missionaries in what’s now Pakistan has been strong — many Christians in Pakistan are Presbyterian, so when they come to this country, they naturally look to the PC(USA). That creates a demand for theologically educated leaders in the U.S. who speak Irdu. When Khan went to New York in 1993 to be pastor of a Pakistani church, the man who then was chair of that presbytery’s committee on ministry told him: “You are the answer to my prayers.”

Clifford Liu, who was born in Beijing and moved to Taiwan as a young child, became a Christian because two Presbyterian missionaries came to his village, knocked on his family’s door and invited them to church. “My father was tired of them, they knocked on our doors every day,” he said. So, to make the knocking stop, his father finally sent his son to church — where the boy learned about Jesus Christ and was baptized at age 14, much to his father’s consternation.

Liu later went to seminary and served a church in Taipei. He moved to the U.S. for graduate study — intending to return home when he finished — but ended up starting a Chinese-language Bible study in Philadelphia with a few other families, working as a computer engineer until it got off the ground. The fellowship grew, began meeting in space provided by a Lutheran church, and in time formally organized as a Presbyterian congregation. Now, three times a year, Liu leads mission trips back to China, using his contacts to arrange the necessary invitations and introducing American college students to Chinese students — working from the grassroots up, connecting with other Presbyterians who are involved in evangelism in China but lack his language skills.

In October, for example, Jeff Ritchie, assistant director of the Outreach Foundation — a Presbyterian evangelistic group — plans to travel to China with Liu. “He’s a Chinese speaker who has a real heart to serve,” Ritchie said. Liu’s passion for China is rippling out, touching the hearts of other Presbyterians in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

Dick Foster, a retired pastor who now works part time in older adult ministry at Lancaster church, has made three trips with Liu, preaching and teaching, working with seminarians and lay leaders. He and his wife now shoulder the cost of sending a Chinese girl to school; for $25 a month from a sponsor, a young girl, who wouldn’t otherwise have the chance, can get an education. Presbyterians from congregations where Foster has spoken about his travels with Liu also have taken on that challenge. Because of Liu, Foster now has a network of young Chinese friends, some of whom e-mail for advice and with questions about faith. One young woman wrote, “I don’t know anyone who has been a Christian for a while,” except for him.

Many of the immigrant pastors also are having an ecumenical impact in Philadelphia — working across the traditional divisions of religion, finding common ground, based on language and culture, with people whose faith experience is different from theirs. Liu, for example, has built close relationships with other Chinese pastors in the area. There are 18 Chinese language churches in the Philadelphia area, he said, from Southern Baptist to Mennonite, some conservative and some charismatic. He is the only Presbyterian.

When there’s a death in the Ghanaian community, the Presbyterians often conduct the funeral jointly with a Pentecostal congregation. The Pentecostals and the Presbyterians exchange pulpits and hold joint programs together, sometimes cooperating with an Apostolic church from Delaware as well.

Khan also is trying to cultivate communication with Muslim Pakistanis from Philadelphia — slowly building friendships and trust. “Our responsibility is to establish a friendship with them and a relationship with them, and then we share the gospel,” he said. “If the Holy Spirit wants them and God wants them, they will come . . . . My job is just sowing the seed.”

Each of these congregations brings its own distinctive challenges as well — they don’t always fit neatly and precisely into the PC(USA) model. For example, the Oromo group, from Ethiopia, crosses presbytery lines, so they’re exploring creative ways to share costs. Sometimes pastors who were trained in other countries must depart from their homes under complicated circumstances, which can mean losing all documentation regarding their ordination. Conservative cultures can be uncomfortable with the idea of ordaining women.
And many new congregations struggle financially. Immigrants often take on heavy loads — trying to learn English, working long hours at low-paying jobs and sending money home as often as they can to support their families. For some congregations the weekly collection can be sparse, not for lack of commitment, but because the money simply isn’t there.

Huge language barriers can exist. In some cases, congregations continue to bring in leaders who speak their language, making the transition to English proficiency either slowly or not at all.

There also can be complications when trying to plant new Anglo congregations. Currie’s church, for example, was built on land the presbytery acquired in 1964, anticipating an explosion of development — development that has occurred nearby, but not quite where the church is. The population is transient; many people leave after two or three years, usually to take a new job. “I joke about being pastor to the parade,” Currie said. And The Anchor church is trying to bring faith to people who haven’t found a home in a more traditional church.

The Anchor church offers a blended service, with some liturgical elements, a drama and dance ministry, and opportunities for the children to make music. “We’re higher church than a lot of folks are used to and we’re more spontaneous and open than a lot of folks are used to,” Currie said. Everyone is encouraged to be involved in small “harbor groups” that meet for Bible study and prayer support. The congregation draws “a lot of folks who’ve never connected with a church, at least not recently,” he said. “A lot of Catholic-Protestant marriages.”

For some new congregations, creating a niche is seen as part of the calling.The idea of a Messianic Jewish congregation has been controversial in the presbytery, although it has voted to proceed with the idea. Philadelphia Presbytery has a long history of work involving education about the Jewish heritage, through a program called Messiah Now Ministries, which has existed since the 1930s. But some in the presbytery would prefer dialogue with Jews, rather than outright evangelism.

Sparks — who grew up in a Jewish home but came to believe in his teens that Jesus is the Messiah — argues that many Jews are not affiliated with a synagogue and that “many of those are interested in spiritually exploring other options.” The rate of intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews is significant, and a messianic congregation, which would observe Jewish holidays (“We would show the messianic component of them,” Sparks said) and include Hebrew in the worship, provides a place for Christian-Jewish couples, “a spiritual home,” Sparks said.

Currie, of The Anchor, heads the subcommittee of the presbytery’s New Church Development Committee that’s working with the Messianic group. While the idea of a messianic congregation has provoked lots of debate, he said, it is consistent with the presbytery’s approach: that it is willing to work with groups that sense that God is calling them to form a congregation, and who want to reflect their own heritage and culture in their worship styles.

And it’s exactly that kind of openness, people say, that creates opportunities for new church developments to take root.

In Philadelphia, the presbytery leadership — going back for years to people no longer on staff — have kept “eyes open” to opportunities, particularly with immigrant or racial-ethnic groups, and have communicated an enthusiasm for new church development, so “it’s become part of our culture,” Blackwell said.
For established congregations who want to encourage new church development, “the best thing they can offer is hospitality,” she said; for example, offering space in which immigrant groups can meet and worship, or providing English-speaking Sunday school teachers to work with the children, who may know more English than some of the adults.