LOUISVILLE — “We are between eras.”
Or: “Are you willing to let Christ change your life?”
Those could be bumper stickers for the discussion Presbyterian leaders held Sept. 18-19 in Louisville, a joint gathering of presbytery and synod executives and members of the General Assembly Council.
These church leaders are looking for a way forward during a time of tremendous change — changes in leadership in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in technology, in the way Americans think about religion, in the way Christians in the U.S. relate to the rest of the world. The list could go on and on.
Sam Roberson, general presbyter of Charlotte Presbytery, was the guy who said “we are between eras” — but he was just one person describing what’s happening. Others suggested bumper stickers or text messages for the PC(USA) including “Presbyterian Church Finally Figures Out that God Really is In Charge.”
Joan Gray, moderator of the 217th General Assembly, said she’s noticed an undercurrent of “something that I like to think of as resurrection going on,” in small churches and presbyteries, “where people hit the wall on resources and they hit the wall on doing church the way they have always done it. At that point, they don’t give up,” but ask, “What is it that God wants us to be doing in this place?”
They start to explore that, “and in that adventure, resources appear,” Gray said. “I could tell you stories — it’s a wonderful thing to see. We should be telling those stories, because that is a way forward.”
Steve Yamaguchi, executive presbyter of Los Ranchos Presbytery, told of emerging technology that allows congregations to track economic and demographic changes around them, pointing by computer to a spot on the map and then generating a data picture of the folks who live there. He spoke of “giving the work back to the people” — providing tools and training in congregations to do the work they feel called to do, then getting out of the way.
And Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Council, posed this question. Assume that in 2010, just three years from now, the PC(USA) is “truly missional, connectional, faithful, and fruitful.” What do the General Assembly Council and middle governing bodies need to do now to make that happen?
This gathering is part of a continuing conversation between national church leaders and middle governing body executives about the challenges and opportunities facing the church.
Some of the talk was about what could be, what’s the vision, the hope for the future; or about practical first steps for getting there.
In early October, for example, the PC(USA) will sponsor a mission conference in Louisville, and that will be followed by “Mission Connection ’07,” in which Presbyterian missionaries will travel around the U.S., visiting churches to explain their work.
“We’ve been blown away by the response,” said Hunter Farrell, the PC(USA)’s new director of World Mission. So far 144 of the 173 presbyteries have asked for missionaries to come; some of the missionaries will speak in as many as 17 places in one week. “The demand is massive,” Farrell said. “We say, ‘Thank you.’ “
As they visit congregations, the missionaries will also make the case for Presbyterians to financially support international mission. The PC(USA) has sent each congregation a new DVD showing mission co-workers providing health care, education, and clean drinking water. “On good days and bad,” Farrell says on the video, “you are making a difference in the world.”
In world mission, people at the grassroots took over the work more than 20 years ago, Farrell said. Congregations regularly send people on short-term mission trips and have established international partnerships.
The mission conference in Louisville will be bracketed by meetings of “mission networks,” Presbyterians connected by their work in Nigeria or Peru or Thailand, for example. The denomination can support that work, Farrell said, by sharing “best practices” of what congregations have discovered works well (and what doesn’t work), and by presenting the needs and concerns of the international partner churches.
The national staff too is trying new ways of doing things — and the group spent some time voting, with paddles held high in the air, regarding the underpinnings of the communications strategy the PC(USA) is trying to craft.
Led by Karen Schmidt, deputy executive director for communications and funds development, the participants considered questions she said are vital for developing a “brand strategy” for the denomination.
Among them: Who’s the audience — pastors? People in the pews? People who don’t go to church?
And what are the goals of the strategy — for example, fostering trust, or increasing membership, or generating a better sense of connectedness?
Setri Nyomi, a pastor from Ghana and general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, preached Sept. 19 from I Peter, which describes believers as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”
Does that mean, Nyomi asked, that one group is exclusive, that “those who are not like us are not the chosen race?” Those are dangerous words, he said, in a world in which religion is used to foment hatred and violence.
He suggested instead that the church is called to service for all, in response to God’s grace.
