Reformed and Presbyterian Christians have always been "big" on the doctrine of providence. This is the Christian view that God is involved with the world and has not simply created the world and stepped back, leaving it to run on its own or by pure randomness. As they used to put it, "God is not an absentee landlord!"
Reformed folks have seen God's providence as having three parts.
· Preservation: God upholds the creation;
· Cooperation: God works with all created beings;
· Government: God guides all things toward the ultimate divine purposes.
But I suspect it is the last two of these parts we focus on most, if we think of God's "providence."
"During such times as these, the Book of Confessions keeps the PC(USA) centered in Jesus Christ .... The question remains whether the PC(USA) will honor its own, confessional heritage, recover its identity, and vigorously confess the gospel in our time."
New members come to churches in many ways, but the most common by far is visiting on a Sunday morning. If you want your church to grow, you need to think through every detail of receiving visitors on Sunday.
Here is a checklist to guide your planning...
Every once in a while competitors turn into allies. This seems to be one of those times.
Voices all around the church are calling for a change of subject. Most of them are proposing the same subject. Indeed, many heretofore opponents now believe that the answer to our denomination's woes is for us to become a "missional church."
Attendance (125) at the Presbyterian Coalition's Gathering X was dwarfed by that of the second conference of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (800) -- and both groups seemed pleased about that (see pp. 8, 9). Could it be that the call to be missional is re-energizing conservative-evangelical-confessionalist Presbyterians?
The upcoming conference of the Witherspoon Society (Sept. 17-19) is dubbed as "A Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice." Could it be that the call to be missional is re-focusing progressive-liberal-activist Presbyterians?
The Swearingen Compromise has collapsed, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is struggling because of it.
When the General Assembly appointed the Swearingen Commission in 1925, it had been struggling with the Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy for decades. After Harry Emerson Fosdick preached his "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" sermon from the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1922, the controversy came before the General Assembly in 1923 and 1924 in the form of a proposal that the General Assembly direct the Presbytery of New York City to require Fosdick to conform to the theological standards of the Presbyterian Church. Fosdick resigned from the church in 1925, but the same issue returned to the 1925 Assembly because New York Presbytery had licensed two candidates who did not believe in the Virgin Birth. The appointment of the Swearingen Commission helped that Assembly avoid a significant rift.
In recent years, many have felt that the conversations occurring within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have had a maze-like quality. Leaders in the church are operating in crisis mode. The issues are complex: restructuring, loss of members, conflicted congregations, sexual misconduct, New Wineskins, and mission funding, among others. Mission co-workers, pastors, elders, the elected and called leadership in Middle Governing Body work and at the General Assembly Council are all searching for answers.
However, at a typical meeting of the church, whether at General Assembly or at a presbytery, we do not have the time to discern answers to the questions we are asking. Decisions must be made, and the urgent presses us on. Doing the same thing and expecting different results means we will keep losing members and nothing will change. In a time like this, how can we create spiritual practices, ongoing conversations, and learning communities that allow church leaders to walk, listen, talk, and pray together?
In 18 years of parish ministry and twelve years of church consulting, I have yet to meet a pastor or lay leader who didn't want to be effective. They want to do the job right. They want to have healthy churches. So often, however, they haven't been shown where to start and how to proceed.
One sign of this is a basic and thoroughly flawed paradigm that seems active in many churches: clergy ought to provide what they want to provide. If they feel called to promote a certain activity or educational pursuit or liturgical focus or pastoral emphasis, they have a right to do so.
I was in the elevator at the hospital in Rockford, Ill., taking the commuter from fourth floor to first floor. I had completed my visit, prayed with my patient, and was now on my way to the next visit at the next hospital.
In the elevator was one other person, a woman with a weary and weathered face that indicated that much life had been packed into her forty-something years. I gazed mostly at the floor as you do when it's just two of you in the elevator. But I also noticed that she seemed agitated, rocking back and forth on her feet, glancing this way and that, mumbling to herself.
My pastor's radar picked up the signals: I can't stand it, can't stand it. I'm going to explode. I glanced up to see tears, not tears of sadness but of joy. "It's too much, too wonderful. It's incredible!" By now she was mumbling not only to herself, but to me.
Accurate measurements are critical to a congregation's wellbeing.
Numbers represent people. A change in membership count means the congregation is serving more or fewer people. A change in Sunday attendance means greater or lesser impact on people's lives. A change in non-Sunday participation means something is at home, or at work, or in how church matters to people.
In trying to understand such numbers, you are taking a big step in understanding your people and in understanding your congregation's effectiveness.
When's the last time you attended a presbytery meeting? I've attended about 30 in the past two years -- several for speaking engagements, several times to promote the Outlook. In the majority of cases, I've come away happily surprised.
The "feel" of such presbytery meetings has been more positive than I expected. Many of them exuded a spirit of collegiality and mutual support. For some, it has always been this way, but for others this is a new thing, a very new thing. What's going on?
Many a presbytery has transformed itself from a command-and-control regulatory body into a partnership-and-care missional body.
One mode of change has come as the role and, in some cases, the job title of the lead staff person was altered. After World War II, when churches were booming with growth, most presbyteries created the position of "Executive Presbyter," following the management model then used in corporations that also were booming. Recent decades have challenged the top-down model of corporate leadership, and presbyteries have been paying attention. The amended title, "General Presbyter", is now used in many presbyteries. Others have adopted more specific titles: "General missioner" (Tres Rios), "Teaching presbyter" (Lehigh), etc.
With or without the title change, many of these staff members are treating their role primarily as a calling to support ministers, elders, and churches entrusted to their care.
Editor's Note: A shortened version of this article appears in the September 3, 2007, print version of The Presbyterian Outlook.
Items in The Presbyterian Outlook over the past several months continue to suggest the need for a review of where we appear to be heading after the events of 2006 and some thoughts that might help to determine whether the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is headed in the right direction. The latest item was Leslie Scanlon's report on the activities of the Form of Government (FOG) Task Force in the June 25/July 2 issue. Two other items were in the May 14 issue. The first (p.13) was a plaintive cry by Ross B. Jackson to encourage everyday Presbyterians to make what he called some "root" changes (Making Disciples - What Presbyterians NEED to Read.) The second (p.32) was a letter from Dawson Watkins suggesting that positions taken by Louisville be better supported with facts. These gentlemen are obviously as concerned as I am about the dearth of biblical evidence offered for positions taken by both officials and laymen and women of the PC(USA).
"The Church reformed, ever to be reformed"1 has been a motto of "Reformed" churches since the 16th century. It recognizes that the church in every age must bow afresh to Jesus Christ as Lord of the Church. In our day, I believe that the Spirit of God is calling us to reform once again and it will happen only as we give fresh attention to the Word of God.
God's Story
So we begin with God's story. What is God doing in the world? What is God's purpose for the church?
From the time of the Fall, it was clear that God was on a mission. God was passionately involved. God pursued humanity. God never gave up.
Along the way God invited his people to join that mission. Israel was blessed to be a blessing -- called to be a light to the Gentiles and a witness to the nations. But mostly they hoarded their blessing and walled themselves off.
In the fullness of time, God slipped into history. Jesus was sent to fulfill God's mission. He brought reconciliation to the alienated, compassion to the deprived, and justice to the oppressed. Jesus died to free people from the shame, the guilt, and the eternal consequences of their sin. And Jesus was raised from the dead to guarantee hope and to shape a new community of followers in the world.
Every denomination handles the content of spiritual formation differently. No less diverse are practices within denominations. We can find many ways to pray, many ways to worship, many ways to read Scripture and to make our peace with God.
Unfortunately, various schools of thought have tended to proclaim their ways the best, indeed the only, ways to approach God. From that assertion have flowed endless bloodshed and, even now, extreme intolerance.
If it's not one pope, it's another.
Pope John XXIII's ecumenical initiatives shook my young faith to the core. Pope Benedict XVI's faith initiatives are shaking my adult ecumenism to the core.
Sister Catherina -- my beloved first grade teacher who, if she had told me my blue eyes were actually green, I would have believed her -- had warned us about Protestants. She said they don't go to the true church, and, she added with tears, they're all going to hell.
One year after hearing her say that, Pope John XXIII -- whose picture had been on the front wall, above the chalkboard, near the crucifix in Sister Catherina's classroom -- launched the Second Vatican Council. Three years into their work, the Council announced that those "infidel" Protestants now ought to be considered "separated brethren."
(NETTLETON 8.7.8.7 D "Come, Thou
Fount of Every Blessing," PH# 356)
Giving God, we pause and wonder:
What would happen if we tithed --
If we gave our gifts, Creator,
Hearts and hands all opened wide?
We might learn, by gladly sharing,
Not to trust in things we own
But to risk-- it's part of caring--
And to trust in you alone.
Churches worry constantly about leadership.
So much energy has been devoted to church leadership, in fact, that two unfortunate messages have been communicated.
One misguided message is that clergy need to be "fixed." Better attitudes, better diets, better health, better teamwork skills, better preaching -- on and on it goes, often under the guise of "clergy wellness," but with the underlying theme that if the church just had better clergy, all would be well.
This article originally appeared in the Tucson Citizen and was used by permission.
"Drug-smugglers have a patron saint? That's unbelievable!" my wife exclaimed.
I had just returned from a day in the desert searching for migrants in distress.
My colleagues in No More Deaths had come across three migrants on the trail and had shared food and water.
But while hiking one canyon, we discovered a shrine hidden in a deep alcove in the canyon wall. Inside the dark alcove was a 3-foot-wide poster of Jesús Malverde. Below the poster were candles and prayer cards bearing his image. We had stumbled into a shrine of the narco-saint of the borderlands.
Congress did not produce new immigration legislation. What are we Christians to do now?
Now that the political points no longer need to be made, we do well to reconsider the facts on the ground. Toward that end, Barbie and I visited the Mexican border ourselves. We accepted the invitation of former GA moderators, John Fife and Rick Ufford-Chase, to explore the Tucson sector, a 60-mile, south-to-north area above a 240 miles-long stretch of the border.
Encountering migrants and the Christian volunteers seeking to serve them, we heard about the cycles of migration that have crossed the border for hundreds of years. Seasons of planting and harvest, periods of major construction and other rhythms of labor have driven breadwinners to seek employment wherever available, and family ties have drawn them back home as soon and as often as possible.
What does it mean to be a Presbyterian today? According to statistical probabilities, a person labeled Presbyterian is likely to be white and rich. Only the Episcopalians and Unitarians rival our spending power.
"I'd rather burn out than rust out."
"I've just accepted another interim pastorate. I'm flunking retirement."
"There's no such thing as retiring from the service of the Lord."
"Where do you find retirement in the Bible?"
Church leaders -- pastors, elders, educators, and others -- blurt such lines often. Some of their comments reflect a genuine love of ministry and the physical constitution to sustain it. Other times their words reveal a restless soul adrift on what, from their vantage point, looks like dead calm waters. The final questioning quote bespeaks the need to use a Bible concordance.
David McFarlane remembers the first Board of Pensions retirement seminar he attended. He was chairing the Committee on Ministry for Western New York Presbytery, and one of his responsibilities was to encourage pastors nearing retirement age to attend the seminars.
So it was suggested that he go himself -- the argument being something like, "You'll never convince anybody to go unless you go yourself."
McFarlane, then in his 40s, did go. He and his wife, Ann, walked into the room, sat down next to an older couple and struck up a conversation. The older man said he was intending to retire in about three weeks. He had not said a word to his session. The couple was living in a manse, owned no home and had no idea where they would live. They had made no plans.
"We were just stunned," McFarlane said. "My glory, three weeks away ... I said, 'No matter what else we do, we won't do that.' "
Now, after many years and after retiring themselves, the McFarlanes are among a number of "consultant couples" who speak at retirement seminars sponsored by the Board of Pensions. They don't offer advice; in other words, they don't tell people what to do. But they do walk people through questions they're likely to encounter as they consider retirement -- questions such as where to live and how to use their time when they step aside from the pulpit. They try to help them envision what, for them, retirement might be like.
For years, a church's declining membership concerned its leaders. Their solution -- a youth ministry. After several years, the church pastor acknowledged that the effort invested to attract young families was not working. The pastor's conclusion was simple and refreshing: "I have been telling the session that perhaps it's time to be who we are, a church for older adults."
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been facing similar changes and its response has paralleled that of many of its local churches. However, the General Assembly's Older Adult Ministries Office indicates the changes facing our denomination are a reflection of the nation as a whole.
The lengthening of the average human lifespan is one of the remarkable achievements of the 20th century. In 1900, life expectancy was only 47, but over those 100 years, it rose to 75 for men and 78 for women. The percentage of older persons in our global society is growing and expected to nearly double between 1990 and 2030.This trend is no less apparent here in the United States and is especially noticeable within our own congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), where the average age of worshipers is 58 -- and rising. For every worshiper under the age of 25, there are more than six worshipers over the age of 65, which account for 35% of all Presbyterians.
-- Older Adult Ministries Office
For some persons, retiring from public work fulfills a nearly life-long dream. Retirement brings opportunities, perhaps long-delayed, for travel, relaxing, spending more quality time with friends and family, increasing one's involvement in church and community life, and indulging established interests while cultivating new ones. I recall a former parishioner saying to me, "I retired early, ten years ago, and haven't looked back once!" For persons so inclined, retirement often brings a new lease on life.
For others, retirement may prompt a different experience. Even if it brings a measure of excitement over opportunities for new experiences and relief from the daily grind of working life, retiring may also issue a deep sense of loss. Perhaps this feeling of loss involves the changes in one's former routines. The loss may derive from less contact with valued colleagues and work-related acquaintances. Maybe one's sense of loss revolves around modifications in lifestyle that are required for most people with a retirement income. Frequently, a sense of loss centers on uncertainty about one's identity, sense of purpose, and feelings of accomplishment that have long been linked with one's labors.
Editor's Note: When O. Benjamin Sparks (no stranger to Outlook readers) retired as pastor of Second Church in Richmond, Va., last May, he and his wife, Annette, received a number of tributes and honors for their years of service. For almost two years, Ben served concurrently as Second Pres pastor and interim editor of the Outlook. At the church's celebration for the Sparkses, T. Hartley Hall IV of Asheville, N.C., offered this observation.
The Presbyterian Book of Order has always, and quite properly so, suggested that in the process of being installed into a new work, the minister should endure a brief "charge" appropriate to the nature of the new tasks that he/she is assuming. And for this to be properly done, the presbytery attempts to enlist the services of a colleague who is at least reasonably competent, and intelligent, and insightful, dedicated, articulate, even winsome and inspiring -- along with all sorts of other admirable ministerial traits. This we all know.
Today, however, marks the inauguration of a seismic liturgical shift in the long history of American Presbyterianism in that the Unseen Powers of Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Va., have determined that at the culmination of his ministry here, The Reverend Doctor O. Benjamin Sparks, having once received a charge, should now get a "discharge" from these labors; that Ben should hear a reasonably brief personal and/or theological word that could perhaps mollify his abandonment of a lifetime of familiar sabbatic labors, and then (possibly) encourage him as he sails off into uncharted waters, towards the terra incognita of ecclesial retirement.
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