The 350-or-so attendees at the Next Church conference here on Feb. 28-March 1 know pretty much what won’t come next. It won’t be a return to the 1950s, or a groundswell of folks beating on the church doors because they can’t get enough of rules and regulations and bickering. It won’t be a denomination that remains older and whiter than the rest of the nation yet miraculously expects to thrive.
One participant spoke bluntly of the denomination’s ongoing drift toward inconsequentiality.
“We are not losing people to other churches” that are more glamorous or trendy, said Scott Black Johnston, pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. “Our biggest competition is not the parish around the corner, but the New York Times and a nicely toasted sesame bagel.”
What’s a little fuzzier is what will come next.
The folks at this conference were mostly from the progressive to moderate side of the PC(USA). They talked about hope and risk, about good ideas and initiatives already percolating in the church and about the value of staying in fellowship with Presbyterians who are more politically and theologically conservative.
They also spoke of the importance of remaining unafraid, despite the church’s uncertain future.
Lewis Galloway spoke of one exemplar of this kind of courage, a schoolteacher elder in the first church he served as a pastor. Galloway said that week after week, the woman filled her station wagon with children from troubled families, brought them to church and demonstrated to them the power of grace and faith and love.
Presbyterians at this conference said what they want isn’t to save a denomination some see as crumbling but to listen and to follow where God leads. Joe Clifford, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Dallas, introduced the idea — gleaned from the book “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation,” by Steven Johnson — of “the adjacent possible.”
That’s the concept, chemistry, of all the molecular reactions possible through combinations of the molecules present in the planet’s development. Johnson described it as “a map of all the ways in which the present can reinvent itself.”
So what’s the “adjacent possible” for the PC(USA)? The Next Church organizers tried to focus the discussion around mission, vocation and connection, and to discuss best practices and good ideas, “so we will not leave overwhelmed,” as Agnes Norfleet, pastor of Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C., put it.
There was some criticism that this group was not diverse enough — that it tilted too heavily toward clergy, and that people of color, immigrants, elders, and young people were not adequately represented. Some Twitter commentators pointed out that not everyone can afford to travel cross-country to a conference held on weekdays — that technology might provide interactive ways for others to get involved. The group did include about 70 seminary students, whose travel costs were paid by a group of churches and seminaries, said Galloway, pastor of the host church for the conference, Second Presbyterian in Indianapolis.
At least two subtexts colored discussion at the conference.
Deathly ill? NOT!
One was that this conference was not organized in response to the letter released Feb. 7 by 45 large-church pastors who described the denomination as “deathly ill.” The Next Church conference was in planning long before the letter appeared. But there were periodic references here to that group of 45 evangelical pastors, most of whom serve large, affluent congregations and some of whom are considering leaving the PC(USA).
Repeatedly, Next Church attendees spoke of the value and importance of remaining in fellowship with those of differing views.
“The church has never been the church because we agree with one another,” said Tom Are Jr., pastor of Village Church in Prairie Village, Kansas. “The church has been the church because we love one another.”
During an open microphone session, one 26-year-old man described the young people he works with as passionate about justice and about places where faith comes to life.
“Let’s focus on how good we are, and where we are doing some things that are right,” he said.
Johnston, in his sermon, said he hears the pain of those who declare the PC(USA) to be “deathly ill” or North American Protestantism to be dying. But Johnston has another idea.
Maybe “God has sent us into exile,” Johnston said, because the denomination has spent most of the last 30 years “playing court politics” instead of caring for the most vulnerable.
At General Assembly, “we politicize everything,” he said, and “we have winners who declare God’s will has been done and losers who say God’s will has been thwarted.”
Presbyterians say “our methods are necessary because our goals are so lofty, but all we have really done is sell our souls,” Johnston said. “Young Americans have been taking note,” he said, and many have concluded that churches are hypocritical.
“Is it any wonder,” Johnston said, “that God has chosen this moment in time to shake us up?”
Ordaining gays and lesbians
There was also no overt focus at Next Church on the presbyteries’ vote on Amendment 10A, which would remove from the PC(USA)’s constitution the requirement that those ordained by the church practice fidelity if married or chastity if not.
That proposed amendment, passed by the 2010 General Assembly, needs the approval of a majority of the 173 presbyteries to take effect. In recent weeks, the push for approval has gained momentum, with a growing number of presbyteries switching from “no” votes in the past to “yes” this time around. Approval would end the church’s opposition to ordaining sexually active gays and lesbians.
Many at the conference support such a change, but they did not publicly celebrate the likelihood of achieving it. Instead, there was an effort to peer into the future and set a conciliatory tone.
Are said many at the conference were raised in a “Presbyterian ecosystem” of a different time, and that entire world has changed.
Ordination standards are important, “but we are not here to continue the conversation about ordination,” Are said. “There are other things we need to talk about.”
For years, Presbyterians have shown up wearing their team jerseys on the ordination issue, he said — and Next Church is asking Presbyterians to put those jerseys aside. Are said he saw that happen during the General Assembly’s discussion on the Middle East last summer.
As the debate progressed, he said, alliances shifted, and he found that people he had thought “were stupid and wrong and out to lunch — they’re on my team. And people who have been my friends for 15 years — they’re on the other team. I think that’s holy.”
Church in a new context
That was another focus of this discussion: the inevitability of continuing change.
As Are put it: “If you’ve got on your church sign ‘Come on in, we’re exactly what we used to be,’ that’s not a good thing.”
Like the early church, Presbyterians today need to figure out what from the past is essential and what can be let go, said Christine Chakoian, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Lake Forest, Ill.
And some argued that politics isn’t necessarily bad, that the PC(USA) should not be afraid to wade into struggles for justice — and that people want an authentic and courageous church.
“Call has to be about more than tapping people with the most free time,” said Andrew Foster Connors, pastor of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. Instead, he said, find out “what keeps them up at night? What are they angry about?”
Once identified, those passions should be put creatively to work, Connors said.
“People are hungry to be part of a church that really believes what it says about the Lordship of Jesus Christ … that is willing to risk itself publicly, that is willing to lose or suffer because we really believe that, in the shadow of the cross or the shadow of the empty tomb, there is nothing left to fear.”
