Gardner Taylor inspires new generation of preachers

c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

RALEIGH, N.C. -- He's 88 years old and technically retired. But the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor still shows the preaching skills that have placed him on virtually every list of America's greatest contemporary preachers.

As a guest preacher in pulpits across the nation, Taylor continues to charm -- and enlighten -- worshippers as he has for more than six decades. But he says preaching is always a tenuous endeavor.

"It is quickly lost," he recently told the PBS show "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly." "It's uttered, heard, and sometimes lost. But it is the mystery of preaching that it survives, and that it has survived so much of our bad preaching."

By most accounts, little bad preaching can be traced to Taylor, who moved here after retirement.

Global scope, homeland churches: PC(USA) faces immigrant issues

ATLANTA  -- What does it mean for an established church, in which tradition is revered, to see the world changing all around it?

What can a mostly-white church do to be truly welcoming to those of other cultures and other colors -- to share power and faith with those who speak many languages and have their own ways of doing things?

Those are hard questions for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination that is more than 92 percent white and has been losing both numbers and influence for a long time. But some Presbyterians are exploring exactly those questions -- are excited about what could be and at the same time somewhat apprehensive about the challenges.

"There are all kinds of people from all over the world right here in small-town America, and we don't know how to deal with that," said Tracie Mayes Stewart, director of Christian education at First Church in Statesville, N.C.

Baylor Religion Survey explores Americans’ faith, practices

Used by permission

Conventional wisdom, backed by some research, has suggested that the United States is becoming a more secularized nation - one where the significance of religion is declining. But results released Sept. 11 from the Baylor University Religion Survey paint a different picture.

In 2004, the General Social Survey reported that 14.3 percent of the population had no religion, but by using a more detailed measure in the Baylor survey, researchers determined that only 10.8 percent of the population or approximately 10 million Americans are unaffiliated.

"We believe, and are going to argue, that it [the statistics] has more to do with how you ask about the religious connection than what it says about the commitment of the average American to their faith," said Kevin Dougherty, assistant professor of sociology and one of the Baylor Survey researchers.

Further PC(USA) funds found missing after audit; part of Golliher embezzlement

LOUISVILLE -- An internal audit has determined that Judy Golliher, the former treasurer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), took more money from the denomination than had first been detected when the PC(USA) fired her last summer for embezzlement.

The audit shows that, in addition to the $102,000 that a preliminary investigation showed was missing, $21,912 in unauthorized charges were run up on Golliher's corporate credit card, and $8,925 that was disbursed from General Assembly bank accounts cannot be documented or reconciled.

So the investigation concluded that Golliher misappropriated $132,837 from the PC(USA), according to an Audit Committee report to the General Assembly Council Sept. 29.

GAC seeks answers for MIJH&H queries on meeting mission and operational needs

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council made it clear Sept. 29 that it wants some questions answered about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s $40 million fundraising campaign -- significant questions, such as how many international missionaries the denomination actually is sending out and how much money is available to support them.

At the same time, the council does not want to signal that it's pulling back its support for the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign, which is raising money for new church development in the United States and for international mission work.

Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216^th General Assembly, said during the council's meeting in Kentucky that the denomination's primary story line needs to be "we want to lift mission up and are looking for ways to support that."

Ufford-Chase said he recognizes that the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is now "the public face of the General Assembly Council's commitment to mission" -- and that because of it, money has been raised for mission work that the denomination would not have otherwise had.

But the push for public accountability of the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is gaining steam because the campaign's leadership announced this week that they don't have enough unrestricted funds available to pay their operating expenses for 2007 -- they expect to run about $500,000 short.

Reconfiguring middle governing bodies “absolutely crucial,” Kirkpatrick tells GAC

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council has approved the broad outlines of a plan restructuring the national staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) -- condensing the national structure into six program areas.

The council also confirmed the appointment of Joey Bailey as the PC(USA)'s deputy director for shared services, responsible for information technology, finance, human resources and distribution.    

While it considers how the denomination's national staff should be organized and the impact of this year's $9.1 million downsizing, the council also is being pushed to confront a hard reality at the regional level: that some of the 173 presbyteries and 16 synods are experiencing significant financial distress. Some say the denomination needs to look hard, and quickly, at the current system of middle governing bodies, to ask whether it's feasible to continue the current configuration with funds in such short supply.

Hearts & Hands funding questions raised;
GAC to discuss further Sept. 29

LOUISVILLE -- After the news hit that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s major fundraising drive doesn't have enough unrestricted money to pay its operating costs for 2007, the question naturally came up: what to do about it?

And that dilemma is leading members of the General Assembly Council to ask other questions.

How successful has the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign really been? The General Assembly birthed the campaign in 2002, saying it wanted the PC(USA) to raise $40 million for church growth and redevelopment in the U.S., and for missionary work overseas. So far, the campaign has more than $25 million in pledges, most of it for new church development projects here in the U.S.

Presbyterians need to imagine possibilities, Hart tells leaders

LOUISVILLE -- Don't worry about suppressing the pain. No doubt, it's still circulating like a continuous loop of hurt in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

But think for a bit about possibilities. What could things look like in 2010, if Presbyterians could take a leap or three of faith and do things differently?

Now, "we go to GA (General Assembly) to solve our problems," and when the assembly goes home, "we continue to talk about the problem," Graham Hart, general presbyter for Peace River presbytery in Florida, said during a Sept. 27 session bringing together national and regional church leaders.

Instead, Hart encouraged people to spend some time in "appreciative inquiry" -- to imagine what could happen if Presbyterians focused on the positive, built on strengths, dared to take risks.

Gray challenges GAC to face questions and hopes for future

LOUISVILLE -- "Why do we need a denomination?"

That's the question Joan Gray, moderator of the 217^th General Assembly, put straight to the General Assembly Council on Sept. 27 -- in essence, asking leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) whether the denomination they serve is relevant anymore.

But Gray also spoke a word of hope -- contending that "living into that scary, anxious question may be one of the ways that God opens us to the new thing that God wants to do among us, whatever it is."

MIJHH update: Trust, stability of mission program affects giving; operating costs shortfall

LOUISVILLE -- Here's the good news, according to Jan Opdyke, director of a major fund-raising campaign for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Presbyterians are willing to give generously to support the mission work of the church. Missionaries are eager to serve -- "they're ready to get on a plane" if money can be found to send them, she said in an interview.

So far, more than $25 million has been pledged for the $40 million Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts and Hands campaign, with about three-quarters of that coming through partnerships with seven presbyteries, Opdyke told the General Assembly Council's Executive Committee Sept. 26. People are saying, "We love the church, we want to support it, we want to put new mission personnel in the field."

But that ties into the bad news: right now, there doesn't appear to be enough money to pay the campaign's operating expenses in 2007, because so much of the money being given to the campaign is being restricted by the donors for specific uses.

PFR Director Announces Resignation, Focuses on Family, Academics

In addition to the press release below from the PFR Board, also see this letter from Michael Walker. 

It is with genuine sadness that the Board of Directors of Presbyterians For Renewal announces Michael Walker's resignation as our Executive Director.  When PFR "called" Michael, we believed the work would not prevent him from having enough time with his young family or to complete his Ph.D. dissertation.  However, the state of the denomination is such that the last two years have been more demanding than we expected, and because of his deep commitment to the renewal efforts within the PC(USA), Michael met the challenge head on and has done a superb job leading and  representing PFR.  However, the time he has had to spend away from his family and his doctoral work has been greater than anyone could have anticipated.

The Bible

Editor's Note: The following essay is one 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."

These essays have cited the Bible regularly as source and norm for the substance of each essay. The time has come to discuss the Bible directly, especially how different people can get different meanings from the same text. The competing interpretations are enough to shake our confidence in the Bible as "our only rule of faith and obedience" (Westminster LC q. 3, Book of Confessions., 7.113). As a people of the Book, we cannot leave the field to the cynicism around, among, or within us. This essay covers how the Bible functions powerfully among us with the help of three circles: the Word and the words, Word and Spirit, the Word then and the Word now. My aim is to reaffirm some basic, Reformed views of the Bible and point a way beyond the roadblocks that beset us in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

Globalization and Reformed tenets: Sinclair lectures in Colombia

© 2006. Used by permission.

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia  --  The questions kept coming from the audience at the close of the Rev. John Sinclair's reflections on Reformed theology in the context of globalization, one of the opening lectures at the four-day celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia.

Sinclair, a former Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionary to Latin America and retired secretary of the church's Latin America Office, kept taking the questions, one-by-one and applying five tenets of the Reformed faith to his analysis.

Eugene Carson Blake: Stated clerk and Christian statesman

Eugene Carson Blake was born just one hundred years ago. As stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church, as well as chief executive of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Blake deserves a hearty "Happy Birthday" this year. 

He was born into the home of fundamentalist sympathizers in St. Louis, Mo., at a time when Presbyterians were engaged in the Fundamentalist-Modernist brawl. His family traced ancestry back to Scotland and Ireland. From these Presbyterian strongholds they sailed westward across the Atlantic to the new country, then to St. Louis, Mo. He grew up in the West Church.  Across town in South St. Louis, this author also matured.

Gray new parish associate at First Church Atlanta

The Rev. Joan Gray, Moderator of the 217^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has accepted the invitation of the Session to serve as a Parish Associate at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. 

At its meeting on August 15, the congregation's governing body invited Gray to work with the congregation, as her schedule permits, in the areas of worship leadership, officer training, spiritual formation, along with some teaching.  Dr. George B. Wirth, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, welcomed Gray enthusiastically.  'This relationship with Joan Gray will strengthen an already strong staff.  We are especially excited about the ways we can support her in her two years as Moderator and the ways in which her presence will make the world-wide witness of the Presbyterian Church more real to us."