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(RNS) If I could wish you a Holy Lent, it would have two components: personal and communal.
At the personal level, it is time to focus on the basics: prayer, study and self-examination.
Prayer, or talking with God, can take many forms, from the formal to the spontaneous, from highly intentional to humble submission. The point isn't to do it right, but to give God the opening.
We gathered for worship at our 9:00 a.m. service on a recent Sunday morning. It was a special time--it would conclude with the baptism of a little baby. I welcomed the large contingent of family and friends who had joined us for worship, expressing to them my hope that the Scripture and sermon would speak to them on this special occasion. I would read from 1 Samuel 1, a tender passage about Hannah dedicating her son, Samuel, to the Lord.
However, instead of turning to chapter one of I Samuel, I unknowingly turned to chapter two. I began reading what I thought would be words of encouragement to the congregation and the family of the child to be baptized:
Recently one of church's most beloved elders passed away unexpectedly. We all were in a state of sadness and shock and wanted something to help remember Grace. When her daughter and I met at Grace's house to plan her memorial service we found the following list of resolutions that had been part of one of our Sunday bulletins stuck on her refrigerator with a magnet. Each time she opened the door she remembered the kind of person she wanted to be in Christ.
On February 9, I welcomed the New Wineskins gathering at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando on behalf of Central Florida Presbytery. As I read and thought about the gathering in advance of the day, I remembered that there have been many ways to be a Presbyterian in this country down through the generations. In the past three generations of my own family, there have been Presbyterian ministers in 5 denominations. Grandfather served as a missionary in India for the UPNA for 40 years. My father served in three denominations, the 'old' USA church, the UPC and the PCUS. I have served in the PCUS and the PC(USA). For us, the differences were matters of geography and history not controversy. Still, I was reminded that there have been lots of ways to be Presbyterian; lots of divisions, and, thanks be to God, several reunions.
This is the fascinating story of the life of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd), the late-eighteenth century member of the British Parliament whose life work was finally succeeding in getting a provision passed that banned the slave trade in Great Britain. (OK, so historically, it just moved to other places during the next century, like the Indies and the Americas, but it was still a heroic struggle.)
When people of faith think the war in Iraq is wrong, what's the right thing to do?
Some Presbyterians, grappling with that question, have decided it's time to take to the streets in public witness. They are planning to come to Washington D.C. on March 16 to participate in Christian Peace Witness for Iraq, https://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.cpw&item=cpw_main, an event that will involve worship at the National Cathedral and nonviolent civil disobedience outside the White House, possibly including arrests.
Let's be honest. While the vast majority of Americans presently oppose the Iraq War, most of those same Americans were being well represented when Congress voted its initial authorization for the use of military force against Iraq. Chilling reports of the use of chemical weapons against its own people, a cat-and-mouse game with U.N. weapons of mass destruction inspectors, and reports of exporting post-9-11 terrorism convinced many of us to support the efforts to depose Saddam Hussein.
Since then, the original intelligence reports have proven erroneous. Most allied nations have withdrawn their troops. The quick overthrow of the government has turned into a protracted civil war. We now find ourselves caught in a military quagmire.
Author's note: Denominational "downsizing" has continued with relentless persistence over the past 30 years due largely to changing views and practices of how Presbyterians ought to fund God's work in the church and the world. Periodic discussions have ensued about the various levels of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) governance and their optimum size and shape. The substance of the proposal that follows was first published in the Outlook in 1994. Much has happened in the church and the world since, but recent developments in the denomination have led to requests that the Outlook republish an updated version of the article. Perhaps the time is right for a new "big idea" that has potential to help us all re-imagine how authentically Presbyterian polity could be refashioned to serve the new needs of new times.
One of my treasures is a small volume titled, The Book of Church Order 1925, Revised Edition. This book is six inches high, three and one-half inches wide, and one-half inch thick, with big print and lots of white space. Our current Book of Order measures nine inches high, six inches wide, and is one inch thick, with much smaller print. Recognizing that the Book of Order had gotten somewhat cumbersome, the last two General Assemblies set into motion processes for shortening our current book and making it more user-friendly. The idea is to remove some of the material that is currently in the book and put that material in manuals to be used by groups such as committees on ministry, committees on preparation for ministry, and so forth.
We have always known that the seminaries related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are centers of theological depth for the preparation of a new generation of ministers and church leaders. We are discovering much more than that these days.
The expressed desire of some New Wineskins participants to leave the denomination is as old as the church itself. Case in point: the 1920's.
It would be pleasant to the ears to hear a lot less talk about leaving the PC(USA) than we have heard since last July! Enough already! Nearly everything I read about leaving concentrates on gatherings and meetings and votes and why other people are wrong and "we" are right. I have yet to read anything that establishes a scriptural basis for leaving any denomination.
Lent 3 ¢ Introduction
Jesus saying here about throwing the children's bread to the dogs has troubled readers over the centuries. Did our Lord really share the prejudices of his place and time, prejudices against foreigners, and against women? In my meditation I have tried to imagine how this all might have taken place, and how that amazing Syro-Phoenician woman could have had the sagacity and wit to come up with her winning response. Do read the Scripture passages first and note how Mark's version, although the earlier of the two, comes across more simply and intimately. Perhaps the secret lies in the tiny details that Mark includes, speaking of the woman's little daughter and adding that when she went home she found her cured little girl lying in bed, and the demon gone.
The New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) has published their strategy document for encouraging congregations to seek dismissal from the PC(USA)[1], including a sample "Open Letter from the Session to the Congregation." The letter makes several claims regarding theology, biblical studies, and the polity of the PC(U.S.A.) that, as I read them, seem deeply problematic and inaccurate.
Ben Casey. Dr. Kildare. M*A*S*H. ER. St. Elsewhere. Scrubs. Grey's Anatomy. House. Which was or is your favorite medical show?
Right now, I like House. Yes, it's crude and crass. Emmy winner Hugh Laurie plays the part of a pain-killer-addicted, rude-bedside-mannered surgeon who says things out loud that no human should ever think. But I like the plot lines, even if they are predictable. A patient presenting strange symptoms gets run through a battery of tests and experimental treatments until, finally, a diagnosis is established, treatment gets administered, and she or he recovers.
ATLANTA -- Here's a story from author Diana Butler Bass for all those people in mainline denominations who don't quite get the Emergent Church movement.
After Bass https://www.dianabutlerbass.com/ had published her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, she got a letter from one of her husband's relatives, 82-year-old Uncle David. He is one of eight active members of an 18-member congregation in a small town in Texas. (That this is a mainline church goes without saying.)
"We have tried everything to get new members," Uncle David wrote. "Results, zero. But we haven't tried changing our church or ourselves. We remain the frozen eight."
Sometimes it's hard to say exactly what Emergent is -- it's a way of thinking, an approach to Christianity that's dynamic and fluid and not hierarchical, built around words like relationship and authentic and postmodern. It means different things in different places.
Thirty-six denominations and Christian organizations, representing more than 100 million Americans, gathered February 6-9 in Pasadena, California, for the meeting of Christian Churches Together (CCT).
CCT began in 2001 with a group of Christian leaders who "expressed a longing for an expanded Christian conversation in our nation." Six years later CCT claims the "broadest, most inclusive fellowship of Christian churches and traditions in the USA." CCT membership is open to all churches, Christian communities and organizations that adhere to its three basic tenants--belief in the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures; worship and serve the One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and those that seek ways to work together in order to present a more credible Christian witness in and to the world.
ORLANDO -- Saying the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is close to "utter ruin" and possibly extinction, the New Wineskins Association of Churches has laid the groundwork for a group of congregations to leave the denomination together, probably to join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC).
The association voted unanimously Feb. 9 to ask the EPC to create a new, non-geographic presbytery into which congregations leaving the PC(USA) would be admitted, for a period of five years. The EPC's General Assembly would have to approve such an idea in June, but "all indications are that we will step forward and begin a journey with you," Paul Heidebrecht, moderator of the EPC's General Assembly, told the New Wineskins.
ATLANTA - Nanette Sawyer's congregation doesn't meet in a church.
"This ministry was the dream of the presbytery of Chicago," she said recently. The vision was to minister to people outside the church in an art-filled neighborhood in west Chicago, "people who would not come to church in any traditional kind of setting."
As the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continues to deal with its various struggles around its spiritual and physical health, a myriad of new terms are tossed about. No debate has been so paradoxically embraced and maligned as the seemingly ambiguous discourse around the "Postmodern" church. Often used alongside such terms as "Emergent," "Culturally Creative," "Bobo" and who knows how many others, this struggle with the church yields the usual debates around what is the Truth (Gospel, God, Church, etc.) and how a people of faith are supposed to faithfully claim and live out that Truth as we understand it.
A word that crops up frequently in the discussions around the Missional Church is the word liminal, or liminality. Liminality has to do with that disorienting whitewater experience between the known past and the yet-to-be and unknown future for which there are no patterns. That's where we are, that's what we are experiencing in the North American church at present -- and it can be a bit disorienting. Yet, we shouldn't really be all that surprised. We've been getting the prophetic warnings now for decades. But for (what I consider) a remarkable emerging generation of younger adults, it has provoked a creative quest having to do with the essence of the church.
Editor's Note: The following essay is the sixth in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA). This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."
The marks of the true Church become important when (a) the Christian community is deeply divided over issues of its peace, purity, and unity; (b) some members and congregations talk openly about separating from the denomination; and (c) the Church or denomination is reconfiguring its polity, The Book of Order. All of these dynamics are now in play for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The national board of That All May Freely Serve has named Lisa Larges to the position of Minister-Coordinator. The action was taken in anticipation of the August 2007 retirement of the Rev. Dr. Jane Spahr, who has served as the founding minister-director of TAMFS,
Used with permission by Mennonite Central Committee (www.IranDelegation.org )
Tehran, Iran -- In the first meeting of its kind since the 1979 Islamic revolution, a group of Americans met with a sitting Iranian president in Iran Feb. 24.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), anticipating the New Wineskins Association of Churches meeting https://www.newwineconvo.com/ that will take place in Orlando Feb. 8 and 9, has sent a letter to pastors of Presbyterian churches warning that some congregations may be about to leave the PC(USA) but saying that "we are better followers of Jesus Christ when we stick together."
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