Betty Coble remembers exactly when she preached for the first time at Arcadia Church, where she has been a member for more than 50 years.
It was Easter Sunday, 1978. She was teaching Sunday school to the adults, when someone suggested, "Why don't you come out and preach?"
The church had no pastor. No one was scheduled to preach.
"This was a little country church, and nobody wanted to come," she said. That day, "the church was full of people" -- a crowd of about 30, compared to the usual 17 or 20.
She prayed, "Lord, you've got to give me something." She went out and preached the Sunday school lesson she'd prepared, "and it went really well. You never know."
Today Coble, at 85, is Arcadia's commissioned lay pastor.
How many hundreds of guest talks I have given in the past sixty years, I do not know. I do know that a great variety of folk have introduced me to some audience. I may be justified, therefore, in putting down a few educated suggestions about the best ways to open the door between a speaker and the spoken-to.
1. Open the door; don't stand in it for long. It's a temptation, for some introducers to display their talent for mastery of the speaker's curriculum vitae. I was once introduced to a high school audience with a recitation of all five pages of a c.v. I had sent ahead. It took me ten minutes, I am sure, to win back the attention of those students after the boredom of that introduction. I later composed a one-paragraph summary of my biography for future use to my introducers.
Recently I read again a folk story about a couple whose home was set amidst unbelievably beautiful surroundings. Four sparkling streams irrigated the land and danced across the rocks and flowed over the sand. Orchards and vineyards spangled the terraces. A menagerie roamed virgin forests and meadows. Birds fluttered from tree to tree.
The water was not polluted by the slime from dirty factories and the refuse of urban sprawl. The air was not polluted with carbon monoxide exhaled from thousands of automobile exhausts. The ground was not cluttered with beer cans, pop bottles, Styrofoam containers, and thousands of other items of trash and junk.
Theirs was a garden paradise. But the story does not end with, "They lived happily ever after."
I asked 5,000 readers what questions they would ask of God. Their responses undid me.
Not a single question about church doctrine or the inerrancy of Scripture. Only one question in 1,600 referred to gay bishops. Less than 1% mentioned church controversies of any kind.
Instead, people asked basic, down-to-earth questions, such as "Who are you, God?" "Where do you live?" "Will I ever get married?" "Why did my wife die so young?" "Will we ever have peace in this world?" "Where is heaven?" "Why do children suffer?" "Will I ever find someone to love me?"
These questions came from Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Lutherans. They came from laity and clergy.
If they are to have a vibrant future, many congregations need to focus special energy on young adults (ages 22-30).
Here's why:
· A balanced age mix is critical to the future stability of a congregation. The rising average age of mainline congregations -- currently estimated at 62 years old -- simply isn't a sustainable trend.
· A lively presence of young adults will keep the congregation current with the needs and trends that will shape future ministry.
· Through targeting young adults, congregations will embrace key principles like responsiveness to a changing market, seeing needs through others' eyes, need for broad diversity of offerings and nimbleness in changing design. This will keep the congregation open to new ideas. Or, said another way, it will prevent the congregation from simply growing older (rising average age) and losing touch with emerging constituencies.
· Young adults are difficult to reach through normal avenues.
When the two words small congregation are used, what picture comes into your mind? The answers to that question will be as varied as the people who answer it. For me it is a little church in the countryside that shared a pastor with an even smaller congregation. It was heated by coal and I, in my early rebellious years, put the stoker into the hot coal furnace and heated it red hot, then proceeded to burn my initials into the wooden boards of the coal bin. When the building was torn down I managed to find that board and I still have it.
Others will answer the question by identifying a certain pastor who connected with them in the midst of a boring VBS experience. One might point to a Sunday school teacher who really had bad theology but had a genuine love that hooked them on a vibrant faith. Someone else will describe a building with a steeple and bell or a cemetery surrounding the church building while others may say it was right across the street from a busy gas station.
Advance apologies to the tall steeple ministers of Word and Sacrament. You're not my vocational heroes. You're not my role models. Many of you preach with a prophet's passion and a poet's touch. Many of you exercise your office with the highest professional deportment and with amazing programmatic innovation. Many of you are generating world outreach mission efforts, are feeding the hungry, and are winning unbelievers to the faith. But you're not my heroes.
My heroes and role models are the pastors and, even more, the commissioned lay pastors (CLPs) serving small churches, a/k/a "wee kirks."
In fact, though I have spoken at numerous conferences and attended many more, my favorites have been the Wee Kirk conferences. I especially enjoy meal times when my toss of a good leading question will give me time to munch on my food while a pastor or CLP tells me her story. Invariably, I come away from such conferences humbled to the point of tears.
Kiskiminetas Presbytery, situated in a rural slice of western Pennsylvania, has 88 churches. Probably only 40 percent of them are served by a full-time minister.
Some are searching for a pastor "and are likely to look for years to find somebody, or they're permanently vacant," said Erin Cox-Holmes, the associate general presbyter. "We're representative of declining, small rural churches that are never going to have a pastor again."
Not, that is, if they have to attract a seminary-trained minister and find a way to pay that person a living wage. But many small Presbyterian churches are finding new life by utilizing commissioned lay pastors -- often people who already live in the area, have other means of support, and who feel called by God to preach and serve a church.
She grew up in southern California and became a nurse in Anchorage, where she met the man she'd later marry. She stayed in Alaska, raised three sons and welcomed seven grandchildren. After 37 years in nursing she "felt the call to drop that and go into ministry."
Now Heather Smith is the commissioned lay pastor at Kuukpik Church in the village of Nuiqsut. "We are about as far north as you can go in Alaska," she says, "and then you turn right."
Smith serves a congregation of 42 in a town of about 550. She started as a commissioned lay pastor doing pastoral care in her home congregation, Trinity Church in Anchorage. Then her husband grew ill and died, and she told David Dobler, who then led the Presbytery of the Yukon, that she felt called to work with native people.
Smaller churches can offer a pastor great opportunities for service/fulfillment, but lack the budget to pay well. Retired military men and women often take on second careers with a secure income from their retirement.
Does anyone see a potential for a mutual, God-given calling? My response is yes!
As I was finishing my Air Force career in Montgomery, Ala., I saw quaint towns where small churches scramble for ministers and pulpits stand vacant. Presbyterian churches had no full-time pastor due to their small sizes and budgets, and the financial expectations on these churches by the denomination.
Upon retirement in 2005, I returned to my home state, California, with the desire to attend San Francisco Theological Seminary near that city. As I explored northern California, I discovered a similar situation -- dozens of towns with unfilled Presbyterian pulpits in what is called the Northern parish of the Presbytery of the Redwoods.
Editor's Note: Harry Hassall, retired pastor and resident of Franklin, Tenn., has spearheaded the development of the Wee Kirk Conference ministry program that has been operating for nearly 30 years. Outlook editor Jack Haberer recently sat down with Mr. Hassall to talk about the support of wee kirks.
JH: When I met you about 20 years ago, you were serving as associate pastor in one of the largest churches in the PC(USA). Yet you have a heart for wee kirks. Tell us about that.
HH: Before going to Dallas, I had served 16 small churches, beginning with [the third week of] my first year at Centre College in Kentucky. ... That particular month I started working in McDonald Center in what was called the Knobs -- a patch of bad land in the beautiful blue grass area of central Kentucky. The people who lived there were poverty-stricken, ... doing subsistence farming, and suddenly this city boy -- I did grow up in Nashville, in a middle-size church of 500 or 600 ... found myself in a group of 20 people out in the country, hardly able to scratch a living. Through that experience I became a Knobby, that is, I began to see life from the perspective of a person who did not have adequate sources of income and living nor of church life.
From that point on I served other churches wherever I was. Even at Highland Park, I served two small churches utilizing two interns and my own self to minister and care for the people there. It's just been a part of me.
It is high time that the Book of Order has a unified, single chapter on the Commissioned Lay Pastor.
I say this because there is presently no such unified chapter and issues may arise that require constitutional guidance. Some say that the Book of Order is already too big, and it may be. That being said, since the use by the denomination of lay pastors seems to be on the increase, we could well have a better sense of direction about several matters.
At present, in the Book of Order, there is one brief section about these important church employees, (G-14.08000 and following.) The section on the minister of Word and Sacrament is familiar and extensive. It deals with the whole process of preparation from inquiry to ordination (G-6.0100 and G-14.0300 and following.) Educational requirements for the minister of Word and Sacrament are well laid out. Presbyteries have a Committee on Preparation for Ministry which, if well led and staffed, can guide the potential minister through the hoops, sometimes blazing, which lead to the final destination of readiness for a call.
From that point on, the Committee on Ministry takes over.
What's the difference between Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton? Policy positions aside, two things come to my mind. Only Clinton finished his second term as president. And only Clinton had James Carville serving as a political consultant.
When then-president Richard Nixon was accused of participating in unethical and illegal activities and a cover-up, he took cover under a cone of silence. He would not dignify his critics with an answer.
When Bill Clinton was accused of unethical and illegal activities and a cover-up, he unleashed the voice of his chief political consultant. Carville, the "Ragin' Cajun," believed that unanswered accusations will lead a skeptical populace to interpret that silence as an admission of guilt. Not only did he respond. He did so with force, often with counter-attacks, and almost always before the next news cycle.
The rest is history.
Law enforcement officers and their families make great church members. Police officers are passionate volunteers, generous with their time and money when they see a need, and genuinely care about people with problems. And, what church wouldn't want a law enforcement officer on their property committee to advise the church about security issues? Police officers have many gifts to offer local churches.
The problem is too many congregations don't understand the law enforcement culture enough to be welcoming of this special segment of society. Officers often report they don't feel welcome in many congregations. Small insensitivity issues are enough to keep officers away. One officer was asked to leave his gun at home, so he quit attending. Another couldn't face the glares of a church member he had arrested for domestic violence months before. Pastors who bash the government from the pulpit drive officers away.
Sessions cannot tailor the church to fit each member, but for prospective law enforcement officer/members, sensitivity issues can be overcome with a little education and willingness for the congregation to learn about the law enforcement culture.
I use the term "metrics" to describe the seventh key factor of Church Wellness.
I could as easily use words like "measurements" or "statistics" or "numbers." The point isn't the label, but the "test & measure" principles behind it:
"¢ we need to try out reasonably promising ideas
"¢ we need to measure the outcomes of what we do
"¢ we need to be guided by those outcomes, making our next decisions on the basis of what worked or didn't work.
So what's really gone on since the last General Assembly? What is the state of the PC(USA) today?
If ever there were an uncertain sound, yet a cacophony of competing interpretations, it is today. Some reassure while others remonstrate. Some warn of impending disasters, while many are enjoying sunny skies. Some fear we'll drop off the right edge of the planet. Others worry that we're falling off the left edge. How's a person to know?
This edition of the Outlook has been prepared to provide accurate and insightful reporting so informed leaders can really lead the church well in this season between the 2006 Birmingham General Assembly and the 2008 San Jose GA.
So where are we now?
A sea change has been reshaping our national office. The restructure of the General Assembly Council and the election of Linda Valentine as GAC executive director have drawn an influx of fresh eyes and voices into the mission agencies of the church (read article). A new vigor is flowing through those ministries.
An effective Web site is the heart of Communications Strategy.
To see how your church's Web site stacks up, try this simple method:
Open a search engine, type in the name of a church you admire, and open its Web site. Bookmark it. Find six or more, including your church's likely competition. Open your church's Web site.
Now click from one to the next. Scan it for five seconds -- the amount of time the normal Web user will give to a site's home page -- and then click to another.
Make note of your immediate reaction. First impressions are everything on the Web.
I Introduction
A. As a Church, our whole focus is to serve God by becoming the Body of Christ that reveals the kingdom of God that is among us (Luke 17: 21). As members of the Body, we are to find ways to maintain unity while integrating the different gifts of the Spirit in our individual and communal ministries (I Cor. 12: 12-31).
B. The reality is that while many in the Church are Christ-centered in their faith, human pride and sin lead all of us still to become self-centered. This self-centered pride often leads us to strive for power and control within the church. The battle for power can spread division throughout the church as the desire of certain individuals and groups to wield and maintain that power and influence within the Body becomes a stronger motivation than the desire to seek the will of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
C. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has adopted Robert's Rules of Order as its standard guide to practice in conducting its meetings. Robert's Rules of Order, while an effective program for conducting business and political meetings, is a wholly secular program. It is not a program that seeks to discern God's will. It was created by a military general as a way creating a standard procedure for debate in order to conduct meetings in a more effective and efficient manner. It is rooted in the desire to channel the human tendency to fight, rather than in the spiritual yearning and to seek God's truth and will.
D. The purpose of the following guide to discerning God's will as the Body of Christ is to offer a way of conducting meetings within the church -- within the Body -- that emphasizes seeking the will of God rather than the will of the people (as Robert's Rules of Order does); that emphasizes pastors and elders exercising spiritual leadership rather than temporal leadership; and that emphasizes discernment over debate.
After reading the final report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) of the Church, I was astounded. I never imagined that they would offer our heady, theology-obsessed denomination an emphasis on humble and prayerful discernment of God's will.
Those of us Presbyterians steeped in the Christian mystical, spiritual tradition have long recognized the glaring absence of an approach to church polity emphasizing humble, communal discernment. Our denomination has been trapped in a cycle of continual debate and disagreement over issues such as the definition of "Reformed," what the essential tenets of the church are, worship styles, ordination requirements, and scriptural interpretation. What has been missing is a willingness of people on both sides of the debates to sit down with their theological adversaries, and to humbly ask together what Christ is calling us all to do, and what the Spirit is leading us to do.
Editor's Note: Linda Valentine was elected executive director of the General Assembly Council at the 217th General Assembly, held in Birmingham, Ala., in June 2006. Outlook Editor Jack Haberer recently sat down with her to reflect on her first year in this leadership role.
JH: You're coming up on your first anniversary in the role of executive director of the GAC. First the easy question: What have you enjoyed most about this new calling?
LV: The people. Just meeting people all around the church. Seeing the breadth and depth of mission activity that we're engaged in. Truly you sense that this is bigger than any one congregation or any one presbytery.
JH: The obvious second question: What has been difficult or disappointing?
LV: There's so much to do. There's so much opportunity. Choosing the right ones to pursue. I continue to be disappointed, as so many of us are, with the ... contentiousness in the denomination that is distracting. Some of it is important. But there's so much positive going on that giving equal or more attention to that is a continual challenge.
When the General Assembly closed up shop in Birmingham last summer, there was a whole lot of shaking going on -- mostly from folks not too happy about the report on the Trinity or another from the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
But now, a year later, the quaking seems to have subsided, at least in some spots on the map. Some presbyteries are reporting relatively little tumult related to the theological task force report, with none of their congregations having initiated steps to leave the PC(USA).
While that may be true, there certainly have been some high-profile cases of churches heading off for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) -- among them, Kirk of the Hills in Tulsa; Signal Mountain (Tenn.) Church; and most recently, the Memorial Church in Pittsburgh. A June 3 congregational meeting produced a vote of 951 to 93, to join other New Wineskins churches in a transitional non-geographic presbytery, in anticipation of ultimate affiliation with the EPC.
"The Trinity: God's Love Overflowing," a report received by the 217th General Assembly, has sparked considerable discussion. I find this encouraging. When a church is eager to engage in vigorous conversation about a core Christian doctrine, it signals to all its members: theology really does matter.
The primary aim of this report is to help our church renew its faith in the triune God by "reclaiming the doctrine of the Trinity in theology, worship, and life" (66-67). Trinitarian doctrine contains good and joyful news. It identifies the God of the gospel as "the triune God who in loving freedom seeks and saves us, reconciles and renews us, and draw us into loving relationships that reflect the eternal oneness of God" (79-80). Far from offering either a novel or an exhaustive exposition of Trinitarian doctrine, the report focuses on the good news that this doctrine enshrines and, most decidedly, on its practical significance.
Can practicing homosexuals now be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?
The short answer is "No." The more complicated answer is "Maybe."
What has been the Presbyterian Church's rule about ordaining practicing homosexuals?
The current law of the PC(USA) says:
Those who are called to this office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the Confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.
This is section G [for Government] 6.0106b of the Book of Order, part of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This section, sometimes called Amendment B by its opponents, was adopted by the General Assembly and a majority of presbyteries in 1997. For a decade it has withstood repeated challenges.
The Rev. Cliff Kirkpatrick and the Rev. Jack Haberer recently met to discuss "some of the pressing issues" facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). During their hour-long conversation, Kirkpatrick stated, "Some of the conflict we've had -- I know it's not the only issue -- things like [concerns about] the Trinity paper are really based on a misunderstanding of what the General Assembly did. So we're seeking to reach out that way." (The Presbyterian Outlook issue of 4/9/07. Cf also issues 4/16/07 and 4/30/07).
If these concerns truly are the result of simple misunderstanding, then clarifying the issue should be an effortless task and easily dismissed. However, the 217th General Assembly, while receiving, "The Trinity: God's Love Overflowing" without approving it, commended it to the church for study and use in worship. Additionally, the Rev. Charles Wiley of the Office of Theology and Worship has admitted that the triad "Mother, Child, and Womb" fails the paper's own criteria and is gravely flawed in two respects. (Letters, The Laymen Online 2/14/2007). First, as he explains, it has a weak scriptural foundation. Secondly, mixing the two "personal" images, mother and child, with the "functional" womb is fatal to good Trinitarian theology.
Recognizing that it's something of a hard sell to convince folks that it's a terrific idea to rewrite the denomination's constitution, the Form of Government Task Force of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) is planning its strategy for communicating to a broader audience the gist of its complicated work.
Questions people are asking include: "Who formed the task force?" and "Why do we need a new Book of Order? Doesn't the PC(USA) have more important issues" to deal with, said task force co-moderator Sharon Davison, who's an elder from New York City.
A draft introduction to the Revised Form of Government the task force is proposing states that "we have asked two core questions throughout this work: Who does God call the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be (the identity of the church)? and What does God call the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do (the polity of the church)?"
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