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Creating and curating trustworthy resources for the church, the Presbyterian Outlook connects disciples of Jesus Christ through compelling and committed conversation for the proclamation of the Gospel.

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Love-giving Care

(Editor's note: This paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 was prepared for the memorial service of a 106-year-old retired registered nurse. It is one of 33 such paraphrases in the book, Love's Letters, A Poetic Book of Confessions (Library Lane Press, 2001).

Even if I speak in terms of Medicare or guardian angels, but do not offer caring with love, I am a ding-a-ling or a muted song.

And if I have the powers of a guardian and understand the mystery of each illness, and have knowledge of geriatrics, and even if I have such faith in quality care so as to remove mountains of anxiety, but do not show love, I am nothing.

If I give myself away in selfless service and if I wait on my patients hand and foot but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love, in caring for others, is patient and kind. Love does not envy other callings or boast of going the second mile. Love is never intrusive nor overbearing.

Seminary on a hill

I heard Tom Skinner preach twice. He preached a soul-stirring sermon at a 1972 Madison Square Garden "Jesus Joy" concert. He preached another soul-stirring sermon several months later at an evangelistic crusade in East Lansing. However, the second was an exact repeat of the first, leaving me wondering if he was a one-note-Tommy. Nevertheless, the preaching double play left in me a memorable vision for the church.

Skinner invited both audiences to wonder how the church should interface with the world. Should we aspire to positions of secular influence? He warned that the secular probably would influence us more than the reverse. Should we withdraw from the culture? The culture would withdraw from faith and justice. Instead, he cast a vision for the city on the hill, the church that would model the reign of God for others to desire and emulate.

Cincinnati Presbytery members implement more rigorous examinations of candidates

At the September 12, 2006 meeting of the Cincinnati Presbytery, three candidates were examined for ordination, David Zuidema, Nate Manzo and Thomas Emery. Moderator Rebecca Lindsay prefaced the examination by explaining how the examination process has changed since the adoption of the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. She referred to the General Assembly Stated Clerk Cliff Kirkpatrick's counsel during and after GA: With the PUP vote..."we have not altered the fundamentals; we have the same standards as before. The [PUP] report encourages a more pastoral approach to ordination and encourages our governing bodies to do a thorough work of examining people for office.' During Zuidema's examination, a commissioner declared the intention to ask the same related questions of all three candidates:

Search underway for GAC deputy; Interview team announced

LOUISVILLE -- The search process has begun to find the top programmatic deputy to new Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Council (GAC) Executive Director Linda Valentine.

The new position -- Deputy Executive Director for Witness -- was posted Aug. 23 and Valentine has announced a four-person "interview team" from around the PC(USA) to conduct the search. She says she expects interviews to be conducted during September and October and her new deputy to be in place by Nov. 1.

Stronger together: the work of the Association of Theological Schools

In a new book about the challenges of undergraduate education, Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College, writes, "The greater the university, the more intent it is on competitive success in the marketplace of faculty, students, and research money. And the less likely it is to talk seriously to students about their development into people of good character who will know that they owe something to society for the privileged education they have received."i

While theological schools are not in the same situation as large research universities with respect to the competition Lewis describes, educational institutions always face the challenge of identifying and remaining true to their core mission. Helping seminaries and divinity schools do this is one of the goals of the Association of Theological Schools of the United States and Canada (ATS).

Congratulations Class of 2006!

Abbreviations: Associate pastor -- a.p.; stated supply -- s.s.; director of Christian education -- d.c.e.; graduate study -- g.s.; clinical pastoral education -- c.p.e.; pastor -- p.; evangelist -- e.; pastoral intern -- p.i.; pastoral assistant -- p.a.; temporary supply -- t.s.

AUBURN/UNION

M. Div.

Robert Williams Birch; Christa Dawn Swenson; Sarah Segal McCaslin (M.Div. /M.S.S.W.); Shannon Farrand-Bernardin.

M.A.

Brian Cave, Erin Reese; Rebekah Sachiko-Walter.

Awards, prizes, and fellowships

Robert Williams Birch, The Traveling Fellowship for promise of contribution to theological knowledge; Sarah Segal McCaslin, the Maxwell Fellowship for promise of excellence in parish ministry; Christa Dawn Swenson, the Julius Thomas Hansen Award for a Senior relating Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics to Christian Ministry and Contemporary Society.

Large Tulsa church votes to leave PC(USA); polity, property questions raised

Kirk of the Hills Church, a 2,665-member congregation in Tulsa, Okla., has taken unusual steps to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).The Session and pastors took that action in a Session meeting of August 15 and the members endorsed that decision in a congregational meeting held August 30.

An unprecedented process

The withdrawal actions followed an unprecedented process of dissolving the church and reincorporating as "Kirk of the Hills Corporation, an independent congregational church, built on Presbyterian structure and Reformed theology." The two pastors, Tom Gray and Wayne Hardy, resigned from affiliation with the PC(USA)--renouncing jurisdiction--and were then "hired by the Kirk of the Hills Corporation as co-pastors of the church," as stated in the Kirk's press release.

The Session anticipates "...reuniting with the faithful Presbyterian church by seeking admission into the Evangelical Presbyterian Church."

When questioned about their irregular separation efforts, Gray responded that the denominational leadership provoked them to take such actions. On his personal blog he explains, "We realize that we are not doing the process as set out in the Book of Order. This has been intentional. Also, we know that we have no assurance of retaining our property in this ordeal. The basic avaricious and punitive attitude of the denomination doesn't breed confidence."

Who pays? Seminarians are borrowing more than ever

What does a seminary education cost?

Full time attendance at a theological school is expensive. A visit to the Web sites of two Presbyterian seminaries reveals that a single student living in the Princeton Theological Seminary dorm will probably spend about $25,400, excluding health insurance, during the academic year. Students with dependents face steeper charges. The estimated expenses for married San Francisco Theological Seminary students with two or more dependents, depending on childcare costs, easily exceed $40,000.

These and other student budgets aren't lavish. They often include lower-than-market rent for housing provided by the seminary, and they do not include "extras" like dance lessons or sports camp for children. Ominously, in typical cases, nothing is budgeted for savings to fund children's college expenses, adults' retirement, or unforeseen emergencies.

What is God calling the next generation of pastors
to do to faithfully serve the church in the future?

Editor's Note: This article was first presented at the Montreat Conference "The Hope of the Church: Celebrating Common Ground" July 5-8, 2006.

By the grace of God, the next generation of pastors will serve the church as passionate/compassionate believers of the Christian gospel. Surely this is one of the warmest and most profound pastoral blessings of an education offered by all of our Presbyterian seminaries. Surely this is the passionate and teaching legacy of our seminaries: at our best, Presbyterians are thinking people with warm hearts.

Why? Because our people in the pews long for pastors who passionately/compassionately believe what they preach and teach. Indeed, from a parishioner's viewpoint, one of the most priceless affirmations a preacher can receive is: "I can tell you really believe what you preach." That is, our congregations deeply yearn to call good pastors who will articulate with passion the belief that Jesus Christ is incomparably the most significant event in the history of the human race; that Jesus is God's own heart of flesh who crawled into the cradle of Bethlehem and who climbed onto the cross of Golgotha; that Jesus, in the words of Joseph Sittler, "comes to us in the world where we are, where we have been, and where we are going. ..."; that Jesus is the risen Lord and Savior of all times and all places; that to know God now in Jesus Christ is to know God forever.

2006-7 academic year opens for theological schools

Presbyterian and affiliated theological schools are beginning academic year 2006-7 with opening convocations, new faculty members and/or programs, and other noteworthy events.

A more excellent way

One year ago, while reading through Isaiah in prayer, I saw a vision that has haunted me throughout this difficult year. As I read Isaiah 10 and 11 in The Message, the Lord brought to my mind an incident that had happened years before.

When I lived up in Sylvania, Ohio ("Tree City, USA"), I used to walk, talk, and pray with my arborist reunion group brother in the woods around a Franciscan convent/college. One day in early spring, we had just prayed and were heading to our cars when the air was shattered by an explosive CRACK. We looked, and saw a beautiful tree under which we had just walked break in half, and fall. How could a perfectly healthy-looking tree fall so catastrophically, I asked my friend.

He told me that trees grow from the outside, but their structure is the heartwood--the inside. We walked over to the tree, and saw that the heartwood had rotted out of the trunk. Green and alive, the tree was vulnerable to the next gust of wind. One small breath, and it failed, and fell--not because it was dead, but because it was hollow.

I have been struggling with this vision, and the verses of Isaiah from which it sprang:

Sacramento Presbytery acts on property, scruples, per-capita giving issues

Sacramento Presbytery, in a vote that is catching the attention of folks around the country, has passed a resolution that apparently would allow congregations that wanted to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do so with their property.

It also voted not to grant any exceptions to the PC(USA)'s ordination standards, not to recognize any "scruples" involving individual conscience, and not to allow the presbytery to make up the difference if congregations withhold their per capita payments to protest policies of the national church.

Reaching the next generation of Presbyterians

How will we reach the next generation of Presbyterians? As we strive to grow our congregations and get the attention of younger families and singles, it may be time to look at how we tell our story.

Today, almost every household has a personal computer. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project April 2006 report (www.pewinternet.org), more than 147 million Americans (73%) are Internet users. Ipods, cell phones, e-mail and blogs have become a way of life for most of our younger generation. Yet so often we only offer our sermons on cassette tapes and our announcements on flyers. Are we missing an opportunity to connect with the under thirty segment of our population?

Working the details

God is at work. The devil is in the details.

"The world is littered with statistics, and the average person is bombarded with five statistics a day," says the BBC Web site. They footnote that claim with, "This is an example of a made-up statistic."

It was in that spirit that Mark Twain popularized that great quote, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."

We at the Outlook have been combing through studies of the Church -- Presbyterian and beyond--asking what statistics might we publish that would rise above that cynical analysis, and would, in fact, help our readers better serve the greater purposes of God?

The answer: lots. Studies upon studies. Page limitations forced us to leave out many other reports we wanted to include.

“Something happened here”: PGF challenged to move into mission future

ATLANTA -- Think of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as a lemon-colored rotary phone in a cell-phone world.

Useful in its time. Not working too well now.

That was the image that Vic Pentz, senior pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian church in Atlanta, used to kick off the first-ever gathering of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (www.presbyterianglobalfellowship.org) -- an entity that he acknowledged is brand-new, is still taking shape, that no one is exactly sure how to describe.

But more than 800 people from 42 states came to this meeting at Peachtree August 17-19 -- ready for something different, wanting to "move beyond the old model of mission, which is simply sending great gobs of money from the West to the rest," Pentz told the opening night gathering.

So he thunked down the yellow rotary phone on the pulpit -- and there it stayed, a visual clue as to what's not working with the PC(USA).

Understanding the history of mainline Protestant decline

c. 2006 Religion News Service

In a city (Houston) where bigger is expected and megachurches abound, I took frustrated leaders of three small Episcopal parishes and one Methodist church back to 1964.

That's the year membership in the Episcopal Church peaked and a four-decade decline began. Other mainline Protestant denominations sagged, too.

"What happened in 1964?" I asked in a church wellness seminar. Answers came flying. "Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan.'" "Vietnam." "Bra-burning." "Martin Luther King." "The Ford Mustang." All actual events, but not the biggest event of 1964 affecting church membership. Neither was the early rumbling of liturgical change or emergence of women in church leadership.

"What happened in 1964," I told them, "was that post-war Baby Boomers began to graduate from high school. They left home and many parents lost their main reason for attending church." I added: "We didn't give them other reasons to stay." We went one decade not even acknowledging their absence and then two decades blaming their absence on whatever we didn't like.

A religious and demographic profile of Presbyterians

The following are excerpts of a study developed by the Presbyterian Panel, analyzing the members, ordained elders, and ordained ministers of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).It reflects responses from more than 3,500 individuals, sampled in fall 2005. A more complete analysis can be found at www.pcusa.org/research/panel .

The Millennial Effect: Winded Thoroughbreds?

From 1990-2003, 5 percent of our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s 11,000+ churches grew by net one member. In the years 2001-2005, that number slumped to less than 1 percent demonstrated growth in worship attendance and membership.

To put that in other terms, 70 percent of our fastest growing churches in the 1990's have lurched into decline in membership and/or worship attendance. The slide proved remarkably omnipresent, as though a field of thoroughbreds suddenly pulled up winded.

What follows are my early ruminations on this millennial effect. Perhaps no single factor accounts for this dispiriting downturn among even vanguard churches, but together they may help explain the phenomenon.

Presbyterian Church of Colombia 150th anniversary celebrated

Â© 2006. Used by permission.

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia -- A nearly four-hour worship service closed a four-day celebration here of the 150^th anniversary of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (PCC), a denomination with a strong reputation for offering education to the poor and of upholding the human rights of the country's most disadvantaged.

The PPC has approximately 12,000 members in 50 churches organized into three presbyteries.

Under way from Aug. 10-14, Monday night's closing service also marked the 50^th anniversary of the Association of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches of Latin America (APRAL), a council that relates to the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) in Geneva, Switzerland, an organization that represents 280 Reformed churches in 107 countries.

The night wrapped up a week of Reformed hoopla.

Non-statistical congregational analysis

Recently every congregation should have received the report from the General Assembly entitled Statistics, January 1-December 31, 2005 (for a fee of $10). In it records from every Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) church can be found concerning the number of active members, gains and losses in membership, officer information, and financial receipts and expenditures. Using these figures as a basis, the General Assembly can look for denominational trends on membership changes, pledging, giving to mission causes in and out of the Presbyterian church, and investments and endowments.

Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that these numbers do not tell us everything we want to know about the nature and vitality of the local church. How do you understand the statistics from your own congregation? How do you evaluate whether or not your church is alive and filled with the Holy Spirit? Which graphs tell you that you are growing or on a downward slide to the point of no return?

FACTs about personal religious practice: Meeting evangelicals halfway

One of those end-of-the-millennium polls found that 52 percent of all Americans pray every day and that 56 percent report that someone in their family usually says grace at family meals (Hargrove and Stempel, www.shns.com ). Is it merely a coincidence that the Faith Communities Today (FACT2000) national survey of congregations conducted at about the same time found that 51 percent of all U.S. congregations gave "a great deal" of emphasis to personal devotional practices in their preaching and teaching and that 54 percent of U.S. congregations gave "a great deal" or "quite a bit" of emphasis to family devotions? Or, does this provide striking evidence that what we do in our congregations does make a difference?

Assuming the latter, then the FACT2000 survey also suggests that old-line Protestants are less likely than persons from other faith groups to pray every day, are less likely to engage in family devotions, and indeed are less likely to engage in any of the home or personal religious practices mentioned in the FACT2000 study.

Myths and facts about evangelism and church growth

The U.S. Congregational Life Survey takes a look at what works in the areas of evangelism and church growth. Responses from fast-growing churches debunk common myths. Used with permission.

Why some Protestant ministers are leaving local church ministry

It is widely felt that too many ministers are leaving local church ministry today, and often for preventable reasons.

As part of the Pulpit and Pew Project at Duke Divinity School we were commissioned to gather new data on why this is happening. We carried out a large study in 2002 and 2003, and we published Pastors in Transition in 2005 (Eerdmans Press). Here we summarize some findings.

We studied five denominations: Assemblies of God, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Presbyterian (U.S.A.), and United Methodist. We defined the target group:

"We are interested in everyone who was ordained in the past, who served in parish ministry full-time or part-time, and within the last eight years has left parish ministry in either of two ways: (1) left parish ministry for non-parish ministries recognized by their ordinations, especially hospital chaplaincies, military chaplaincies, campus ministers, teachers, and professors; or (2) left church ministry entirely. We will not study (1) persons temporarily without a job who are now actively seeking a parish ministry job, (2) persons who have retired or who have moved from full-time to part-time parish ministry, and (3) persons who left the parish to take denominational jobs such as presbytery staff or district superintendent."

We aimed for a random sample of about 200 from each denomination. Each denomination helped with sampling and mailing. No names were asked. Questionnaires went out in spring 2002, and the response rates varied from 19 percent in the Assemblies of God to 54 percent in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Presbyterian response rate was 38 percent. The numbers of cases were: Assemblies of God, 174; ELCA Lutheran, 291; Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 106; Presbyterian, 173; and United Methodist, 219. Later we interviewed 90 of the former pastors by phone.

Interfaith worship, cooperation has increased among congregations

Interfaith activity among faith communities has more than tripled since 2000, according to the latest national survey of U.S. faith communities.

The survey, sponsored by the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, found that slightly more than two in 10 (22.3%) congregations reported participating in an interfaith worship service in the past year. Nearly four in 10 (37.5%) congregations reported joining in interfaith community service activities.

These figures are from Faith Communities Today 2005 (FACT2005) survey of 884 randomly sampled congregations of all faith traditions in the United States. The survey updates results from a survey taken in 2000, before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Ufford-Chase joining anti-war march Sept. 26

Posted Sunday, September 3rd on Rick's weblog: https://what-i-see.blogspot.com/2006/09/sisters-and-brothers-i-have-written.html

Sisters and Brothers,

I have written and spoken often about my conviction that our witness as people of faith should, wherever possible, be a positive one. What we as followers of Jesus are for is far more compelling than what we are against, and we must accept the challenge to live out Jesus' absurd conviction that we are most secure, and most right with God, when we love our enemies.

It is that desire to be a witness for Christ that has led me to become a reservist with Christian Peacemaker Teams. It is what has compelled me to be involved in the work of trying to save the lives of folks who are dying in the desert. It was what compelled me to become the Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship with the hope of creating a corps of Presbyterians who will offer nonviolent accompaniment wherever sisters and brothers in our partner churches are at risk around the world.

Though I remain firm in that core commitment to offer positive, Christ-centered, alternatives to violence, I also believe that there are times when evil is so strong, and so interwoven into the fabric of our culture, that God demands that we rise up in protest.

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