John L. Williams
Wipf and Stock, 164 pages
It’s almost as if this little jewel of a book has been hibernating during the season of Trump’s presidency and the devastating pandemic — lying in wait — to emerge at just the right moment for the well-being of a battered church.
“Old Man Dreaming” was given to me by a friend of the author who knew how relevant it is for churches beginning to reopen, and as congregations courageously come to grips with a heritage of White supremacy. Evacuating and understanding the past is painful and confusing, and many congregations are barely equipped to manage it. Imagining and planning to re-open after COVID-19 closures, not only in worship but in education and mission, can be confounding, especially with the threat of the Delta variant which requires re-thinking congregational life again — just when we thought we were “back to normal.” This short treatise is the perfect accompaniment for church governing bodies, for leaders and Sunday School classes. It is an invigorating read for anyone seriously concerned about the future of the church in an uncertain and conflicted age.
Williams begins by describing the recent history of governing committees at the local and regional levels and how they have relied upon secular visioning strategies. He then contrasts that with the possibility of Scripture-based visioning and describes, in summary, the biblically recorded visions of Abraham, Moses and the Prophets, finally demonstrating their use and fulfillment in Jesus, Peter and Paul. Along the way, he recounts the disappointment of a friend who tried to convince church leaders, who were embarking on a goal-setting/visioning process, to begin the procedure with the visions in Scripture. His friend was rebuffed. There was no interest in “wasting time with Scripture” when they had so little time to accomplish so much for the future of the church. As Dave Barry says, “I wish I were making this up.”
After 1968, when I began my ministry in the PCUS (aka Southern Church) until the time of my retirement in 2007 from the PC(USA), I participated in scores of revisioning and reorganizing events, disrupting the life of every presbytery twice in succession. How many times, O Lord, do we need to rearrange Presbyterian furniture? Rarely, if ever, were there references to Scripture or Confessions. Most meetings were the epitome of ecclesiastical boredom, except for fireworks around boundaries and finance.
Two exceptions occurred when I was able to engage serious theologians to lead session retreats. Elders who were lawyers, doctors and professional consultants participated in a visioning and planning process organized around a scriptural understanding of the role of church officers. The effect was to lift the burden of carrying the whole church from our shoulders and help us to begin to see ourselves, ministers and elders, as a community dependent upon God’s Word and Spirit. I recount those experiences as witness to the validity of John Williams’ plea for relying more on Holy Scripture and our historic creeds and confessions when envisioning our future.
For a hurting church, for a confused and foundering church, for an alert and active congregation which seeks the will of God for these endlessly disruptive times, for a divided congregation: “Old Man Dreaming” is a balm in Gilead and a transformative guide to faithful church governance and life.
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Benjamin Sparks is a retired Presbyterian pastor who lives in Richmond, Va.
