Standing on the corner of Santa Ana Blvd. and Main Street, in downtown Santa Ana, Calif., you experience the sights, sounds, and faces of a microcosm of the American urban story.
On one side of Main Street sits First Church of Santa Ana, a downtown church celebrating this year its 125th anniversary. Considering it is in California, it is actually quite old. Once overflowing with members, more recently it is struggling to adapt to the city's changing demographics. Across Main Street, not a half block away, is the building that formerly housed Trinity United Church, the first United Presbyterian Church west of the Mississippi when it was founded in 1876.
In 1958, Trinity Church, like many downtown Presbyterian churches, left the city to move out of downtown, now in the midst of a sprawling suburbia. First Church remained.
Now, some 50 years later, the two churches are coming together in a partnership that may give hope to other struggling urban churches, and inspiration to their often resource-rich suburban counterparts.
Most of our church members know that the stated clerk is not just a guy with an eyeshade reviewing reports, though that part of the job was and is important. What makes the position so important is its leadership role, and that relates to the way the Clerk embodies and implements the Church's public witness. So we must look first at a definition of public witness, and then look at what current and past stated clerks have been doing.
By definition, public witness is a larger category than social witness and includes at least four main categories:
1. Influencing public opinion by presenting persuasive, credible, ethically-grounded stances;
2. Appealing to the faith and values of individuals, particularly in their church life;
3. Effecting specific policies, involving informed constituencies;
4. Exemplifying viable alternative visions grounded in the Gospel that contrast with the models of secular society, business, and government.
The Office of the General Assembly, focused in the elective office of the stated clerk, represents the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) internally and externally through a range of official and personal roles. Thus it relates to all four of the categories above. By virtue of its "church-wide," or General Assembly-based, election, the Clerk may be legitimately considered the highest elected continuing representative of the Church, carrying administrative duties well beyond those of Moderator, whose role is almost entirely symbolic.
The recent resignation of the director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Washington Office begs us to consider how that office should operate.
Some say it ought to close. Wrong answer. Many feel disgruntled over the kinds of efforts exerted there. However, to pull out of the nation's capital would send a signal about church-state relations that does not match our longstanding convictions. God calls us to provide a conscience to the nation, to utter the oft-unpopular prophetic word, to "speak truth to power." God calls us to lead leaders.
Some say we ought to proceed ahead as we have before. Wrong answer, too. Many applaud the office's efforts to broadcast faithful positions to the nation. But, we must ask some hard questions.
Have we been effective at promoting real change? Or, has predictability and a narrow focus diminished our clout?
Have we adapted our modi operandi to the rapidly-changing context -- where the political climate changes like the barometric pressure?
Are we utilizing 21st century communications media or are we stuck in the 1960s?
At least a few things do need to change in order to help our nation promote justice, morality, and mercy in the 21st century.
"The clock is running out very, very quickly. I am more pessimistic on the question of time running out than I've ever been."
-- U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt,), while on a visit to Jerusalem with Rep. Peter Welch (D.-Vt.)
I agree with the assessment of our Congressional leaders and applaud them for going to Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank. Reflecting on my three-week visit to the West Bank in May, I too discerned a sense of despairing hopelessness and apathy. Regretfully the delegation could not meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in person. But we saw the visible devastation caused by the Wall as it snakes its way mostly on Palestinian lands, cutting Palestinians off from Palestinians, creating apartheid-like Bantustans. As Shulamit Aloni, former member of Israel's Knesset, said recently, "Forty years of occupation has turned every Palestinian village into a detention camp. We are exercising apartheid."
Forty years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories was recently marked. In 36 of those years I have witnessed what occupation is, having conducted annual alternative pilgrimage tours, done fellowship study, and been involved in humanitarian projects in hospitals, clinics, and schools. I have seen the strangulation of Palestinian cultural, political, economic, religious and social life, and educational opportunity. Each year it gets worse. Remember, Palestinians are the occupied, not the occupiers; yet they are being punished. Their land is being confiscated for Israeli settlements and an intricate system of roads for settlers only (all contrary to Geneva Conventions).
Of all institutions, the church has both the opening and the obligation to make a personal response to people's needs. People endure anonymous and mechanical responses from other institutions. They expect more from a faith community.
With some exceptions, most church members will grant their church access to their lives. They will respond to personal visits, telephone calls, e-mail, and letters. In a need situation, they probably won't respond to a broadside invitation, such as, "If anyone needs a personal visit, call the church office."
Clergy need to develop the habit of making pastoral calls other than hospital emergencies.
I was driving home on Interstate 84 just outside of Wendell, Idaho, where I was serving as a director of youth ministries. I was talking with a friend on my cell phone and he told me I needed to get a blog. "A what?" I asked. "A blog -- you know, a Weblog?" Although I was very computer-savvy at the time, I hadn't gotten involved in blogging. My friend eventually convinced me that I needed to get one, and so I went home and started my first blog and called it Pomomusings ("Pomo," at the time, was the trendy version of "postmodern," so it was going to be my musings about issues of church, culture, and postmodernism).
A blog, or Weblog, is basically a Web site that has constantly changing content. The Oxford American Dictionary defines a blog as "a Web site on which an individual or group of users produce on ongoing narrative." Instead of the more traditional, static Web sites we are used to (where the content remains the same), people constantly add new posts to their blogs and often update them daily -- producing an ongoing story or narrative of their lives or thoughts. On most blogs, not only can you go and read the posts, but you can also leave comments and get involved in conversations on the blog.
I used to think blogging was stupid. Who would want to read some random person's thoughts? Why would I want to read what is essentially an online journal?
This was my opinion about blogging until I created a blog for our church's "Theology on Tap" group and wrote my first post. Last October, I returned home to see the sun setting on the row houses behind our own. The trees and the rooftops looked as if they were on fire. I was so struck by the beauty that I grabbed my camera and found myself writing about the experience on the newly created blog. I wrote about a moment that stopped me short and pulled me out of my busy life. I wrote what I was thinking and feeling and pushed "publish." From that moment on, I was hooked on this crazy thing called blogging. I soon created a personal blog and celebrated my first blogiversary on October 26.
What brought about this change of heart? For me, blogging is about two things. It is about community and the discipline of taking notice.
Do we really meet people where they are, even if it is on Facebook?
Seems that over the past months I have heard a couple of interesting comments from some pastor-type colleagues in regards to the www.facebook.com hysteria:
"What's Facebook?"
"Are People REALLY using Facebook?"
"I had no idea how cool Facebook is."
So, is Facebook just the latest Internet fad? Could be. Does it really matter in the whole scheme of the cause of Christ? Probably not. Should all pastor-types at least look at it? Probably.
The days of families meeting at church -- the husband coming from work, the wife coming from home and bearing a casserole -- shaped church hospitality for many years. Those days have ended.
One thing is ongoing -- the need for hospitality. Jesus ate with people. Table fellowship was a primary venue for his teaching and touching.
How, then, does a congregation provide hospitality?
For those few congregations that have cooking staffs and ample budgets, the answer is easy; for everyone else, not so easy. Some order food to be delivered -- portable food such as pizza or salads. Some heat up large lasagnas purchased in bulk. Some tell people to bring a sandwich with them. For an upcoming class on a Wednesday night, I plan to put out bread, peanut butter and jelly, and to say clearly, "This isn't fine dining, it's taking off the edge of hunger so we can learn together." Some shift their gatherings to restaurants.
The world has changed. The old rules are out.
It was bad enough when the World Wide Web made it possible for the voices of peoples long silenced to broadcast their ideas -- crazy and eccentric as many of them are -- without having to raise thousands of dollars to self-publish or to convince an editor-publisher to invest the capital to do so. Standards of grammar and communication ethics went out the window.
Now it's worse. Web 2.0, the second generation of Web development, has turned every computer into a publishing house, an editorial department, a photography studio, and a movement rabble-rouser.
The world really is flat, as Thomas Friedman proclaimed in his book by that title.
For those of us who have held the privileged role of "editor" (the person who decides what news is "fit to print"), that privilege has disappeared.
For those of us who have held the privileged role of "preacher," (the person who tells the people what God's Word says and means), that privilege has disappeared, too.
So what happens when John Stuart posts his daily devotions on his blog, "Heaven's Highway"?
People write to him from India, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and South Africa.
Folks from his congregation say things like, "That's not what I believe," or "I never thought about that," and conversations begin.
And, as an added bonus, a teacher from a local high school is having students download his sermon podcasts. The students are preparing for an upcoming production of the musical "Brigadoon," and their teacher wants them to get it right.
"They're copying my accent," Stuart, pastor of Erin Church in Knoxville and a native of Scotland, said with pleasure.
There is no blueprint to Web 2.0, but the simple truth is this. Presbyterians -- like lots of other folks -- are using Web-based technology more and more. They find it freeing, a doorway to discipleship, a way to creatively meld words and music and images and ideas.
In the beginning, there was Gutenberg. Those privileged few who owned the printing presses printed the text, while everyone else merely read it. To be sure, copies of a text might be circulated among friends, discussed around the dinner table, or used to prop up a short table leg, but the text itself remained static. Any underlined passages or notes in the margin remained isolated from the general public, existing solely in that copy of the text.
The beginning of the Internet (what we'll call "Web 1.0") was much the same. A limited few who had the technical or financial resources to do so created Web sites. The World Wide Web quickly developed into a great source of information, but not really a means of self-expression or conversation for the masses.
For those who can deny the malls,
and flying footballs on the screen,
there lies, tucked in between the feasting
and those first December days,
a blessed intermission, several hours,
at least, when nothing must be done,
My name is Bruce and I am a blogger!
Group response: "Hi, Bruce!"
There I said it, I am an unapologetic blogger. And not just any blogger, but I am a blogger that also happens to be a quickly aging Presbyterian pastor who is probably not as cool or hip as I once thought I was ;-) Please don't hold any of this against me.
As one of those folks whose age allows me to bridge the gap between knowing a time without the Internet -- gasp! - and experiencing online social networking as a natural part of my life, I feel like I not only have lived the great technological transition of the world, but have been transformed in the midst of it all. THANK YOU, JESUS!
Staying on top of the technological curve in ministry can eventually drive one crazy, but it is also one of the most effective tools in communicating with and connecting those in your congregation. With this in mind, one of the very first tasks that I set about in the summer of 2002 when I became the college director at Bel Air Church in Los Angeles, Calif., was to hire a professional Web designer to create a very attractive and interactive Web site. I was expecting this new Web site to bridge the gap for us in communication and connection within our community. We created pages for them to upload their artwork and photography, and we created a forums section where various issues could be raised and discussed for anyone who desired to enter the conversation. Since both my students and I were controlling this content, users weren't returning to the same static site that they had grown used to in the past. But having an attractive and interactive Web site in hopes to communicate and connect people was just not enough, and it is certainly not enough today.
Believers behaving badly. How many news items must we read to get the point that believers can behave really badly? From ministers' deviancies to treasurers' embezzlements; from denominations' internecine skirmishes to nations' religious persecutions; from cult groups' mass suicides for God to zealots' suicide bombings for Allah; the portrayal of faith on screen and in print has become ugly.
No wonder "Christianity's image [is] taking a turn for the worse," according to the Barna Group and a story in the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 13, 2007). "A decade ago, an overwhelming majority of non-Christians, including people between the ages 16 and 29, were 'favorably' disposed toward Christianity's role in society. But today, just 16% of non-Christians in that age group had a 'good impression' of the religion ... "
No wonder that outspoken atheism is growing in popularity again.
c. 2007 Religion News Service
Before I was a journalist, I was an actor.
Briefly, a semester or so ahead of my debut in the pages of the Wheaton College student newspaper, I became a member of its theater company, a group known simply as "Workout."
The company performed in the Arena Theater, a simple black box that was transformed miraculously into imaginative sets for various productions. Long since I walked its stage, that theater remains a sacred space for me. I was transformed inside its walls, touched by grace and the hand of God in a way I've rarely felt elsewhere.
What happened in Workout was wonderfully creative and deeply spiritual, no matter what material we were working with. I learned as much about faith and doubt, forgiveness and trust, holiness and wounded wholeness from a raucous production of "The Man Who Came to Dinner" as I did from a magical adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's novel "A Wrinkle in Time."
Ethiopia shall stretch forth
its hands to God.
Psalm 68:31
Why does this Ethiopian come among us?
Ethiopian Moses, 3
References about Ethiopia and Ethiopians, like the ones above, are sprinkled throughout biblical and extra-biblical writings. Most of us are familiar with Luke's story of the Ethiopian eunuch (a treasurer of a queen of Meroë) who confessed his faith and was baptized after his encounter with the evangelist Philip (Acts 8:26-40). New Testament interpreters generally view this passage as a fulfillment of Acts 1:8, which declares Christianity is to extend to the ends of the world. Yet after the dramatic conversion experience of the Ethiopian, we hear nothing more from him, the Queen whom he represented, or the other people who may have witnessed this encounter. And though the biblical text says Christianity is to extend to the ends of the world, we who teach and research the New Testament have no readily available (or accessible) path to the world of the Ethiopians.
Ever wonder why church members seem to complain all the time?
I think it's because they feel powerless in at least part of their lives, and church is a safe place to deal with that powerlessness. If your boss is a brute, then complain about something at church. Pass along the aggravation.
"The compelling purpose of Presbyterian College, as a church-related college, is to develop within the framework of Christian faith the mental, physical, moral, and spiritual capacities of each student in preparation for a lifetime of personal and vocational fulfillment and responsible contribution to our democratic society and the world community."
In case you're in doubt, this is the mission statement of Presbyterian College. It is the simplest and most authoritative description of our common task as a college of the Presbyterian Church.
Without saying so directly, it places us in the long tradition of liberal education that goes back to fifth-century Athens. While this tradition has changed in many ways, there are still recognizable continuities.
It began with a wrong turn in a familiar city, and the daily privilege I have in dropping my children off to school every morning.
The "it" to which I am referring is the progression of my thinking about the role of church-related higher education in America, particularly church-related higher education in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Many may not know the history of our denomination in America; a history that is long and committed to easing the burden of "the least of these" in our country and in our world. We focused on two specific forms of outreach: healthcare and education. With the exception of the many congregation-related community clinics in places like the Eastminster Church in Pittsburgh, Pa., or the weekly foot care clinic for seniors at the Queen Anne Church in Seattle, Wash., much of our church-related healthcare ministry has been subsumed by larger corporate entities. The name may still remain the same as is best exemplified by the plethora of Presbyterian hospitals that exist across the country, but the economics are much more complicated and the mission is understandably different. Quality healthcare is expensive, bureaucratic, requires a great deal of research and investment and, with but a few remarkable exceptions, is now an industry that has outgrown one denomination's ability to provide those services well.
Editor's Note: This article is based on President William P. Robinson's fall 2007 convocation address at Whitworth University.
I would like to comment on three aspects of community life at Whitworth -- rules, responsibility, and respect. I didn't alliterate these characteristics on purpose, although I can see where you might think that someone coming from a family of Bonnie, Bill, Brenna, Ben, and Bailley is into alliterations. Not true. My motto is Always Avoid Alliterations.
Rules. Rules are necessary and good. We can't live without them. Whether we are talking about the laws of nature or the laws of community, we suffer when we disobey them. However, rules are not as smart as values. For that reason, the most effective organizations and the most satisfying communities are driven by shared values, not by rules. Good judgment and faithfulness to community values will lead ....
Speakers at scholar lecture events on many college campuses often are greeted by a sea of empty seats. Not so at Roberts Wesleyan College in 1976. Chapel attendance was mandatory four days each week, so guest scholar Arthur Holmes got to play to a packed house each day.
Then again, packed doesn't necessarily equal enthusiastic. Holmes was introduced as a philosophy professor from a rival college. Two strikes against him.
The dean introducing him also mentioned that he was a Presbyterian. Third strike. This bastion of hearts-strangely-warmed Wesleyans had honed their anti-Calvinism argumentation skills. We religion-and-philosophy majors specialized in crafting such debates. We listened with polite skepticism, at least at the beginning.
Editor's Note: This essay won the 2007 Outlook Church-College Partnership Award open to graduating seniors invited to write on the topic, "How my education at a PC(USA)-related college has equipped me for significant service and leadership." The winner received a $1,000 prize. Information for the 2008 contest is available on page 32.
... and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God (Micah 6:8).
Such are the words chiseled into the lintel of the Lyon Business and Economics Building at Lyon College, the college where I invested myself -- my time, my money, my heart -- these past four years. This simple yet powerful passage was the first thing I read on the Lyon campus as an entering freshman, and will be one of the last things I read when I depart as a graduated alumna. I have had many memories at Lyon and shared in its many famous traditions -- our rich Scottish heritage, our Spring Break mission trips, our close ties to the surrounding community. I have danced the Scottish fling, floated the Buffalo, taken class after class after class, and yet as I prepare to don my graduation regalia, spending what little time I have left reflecting on what four years at this institution have meant, this passage from Micah keeps entering my mind. I consider this passage the fullness of what it means to attend a PC(USA)-related college, what it means to attend Lyon College, and to go forth as a servant-leader walking humbly with our God.
Many congregations emphasize giving in the fall months and during the holidays. Here are some factors to consider when your church talks about finances, budgets, and contributions.
· Giving follows membership. A decline in membership will be followed one to two years later by a decline in pledging. An increase in membership will lead to an increase in giving. The best stewardship program is a major commitment to membership development.
· People give for many reasons, some discernible, some not known even to the giver.
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