LOUISVILLE — With the challenge to “invest in the church we have not yet become,” leaders of presbyteries and synods are meeting with members of the General Assembly Council to think of ways to bring new life and vitality to a struggling denomination.
In June, the 217th General Assembly voted that, once a year, the General Assembly Council (representing the national church) and leaders of presbyteries and synods (representing the church at a regional level) should meet for prayer and discussion.
The planners of this first convocation, being held Sept. 26 and 27 in Kentucky, are using the slogan “A New Way for a New Day” — and in 24 hours of conversation they’re searching for a way forward from the difficulties so apparent in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Graham Hart, general presbyter for Peace River presbytery in Florida, used the idea of a labyrinth — of Presbyterians moving from a confusing, frustrating maze into a spiritually-enriching labyrinth.
He asked first whether the PC(USA) is in a maze or a labyrinth.
“Some of the conversations occurring within the PC(USA) in all governing bodies have a maze-like quality,” Hart wrote in a paper distributed at the meeting. “Leaders in the church are operating at crisis speed. The issues are many and complex: restructuring, funding, loss of members, congregations in crisis, sexual misconduct, staff cuts, etc. The result is that leadership at all levels of the church find themselves hot and tired. The dominant question is, ‘How can we find our way out of this maze?'”
During opening worship, Paul Hooker, the executive presbyter of St. Augustine presbytery, provided a message of hope. “God is not through with the Presbyterian church despite all the appearances to the contrary,” Hooker said.
Preaching from the 32nd chapter of Jeremiah, Hooker raised the idea of Presbyterians buying a field for the future — not knowing exactly what it will be used for, but being sure that God has a plan, even if the Babylonians are at the gate, even as Presbyterians practice “the ecclesiology of anxiety.”
Hooker challenged these leaders to build the church of the future, a church of humility, reconciliation and trust. “What does that church look like? Does it ordain gays and lesbians to office? I don’t have a clue,” he admitted.
But “what I do know is the future of this church belongs to God, not to any of us.”
Linda Valentine, the new executive director of the General Assembly Council, shared some of her vision for the denomination. She said leaders around the church have made it clear that they want a vision, a common sense of purpose, more trust. And “you want us to face the gruesome facts” about the PC(USA), Valentine said.
She spoke of her hopes for the PC(USA) — of wanting a vibrant and connected church, where people of faith work together across lines of geography and age and politics to feed the hungry and serve the poor, to bring the gospel to all God’s people.
To help accomplish that, Valentine is working to streamline the denomination’s bureaucracy. People want a responsive and accountable staff that “can be trusted to deliver on its promises” and be good stewards of the church’s resources, she said.
As she travels around the church, Valentine says she hears repeated a plea for better communication. People don’t know what the PC(USA) is doing well, she said, so “no wonder funds have declined” and there’s a serious problem with trust.
Valentine said she envisions the PC(USA) moving forward, “holding on to the good while being open to the new.”
