Editor's note: Time to plan for the summer's upcoming Vacation Bible Schools! The Outlook provides overall plans in this article and an assessment of available curricula in the next.
For those of us who grew up in the church, the words "Vacation Bible School" have some very special memories. I remember looking forward to Vacation Bible School each summer. It was a week of fun, play, learning, and refreshments that always included butter cookies with a scalloped edge and a hole in the middle that just fit my index finger.
Christmas is just a few weeks behind us. So naturally, if you serve a congregation as a Christian educator or as Vacation Bible School director, the time is nigh to begin planning for the second most wonderful time of the year: Vacation Bible School 2007! Nine publishers consented to the Outlook's request to review their products. Here is a quick assessment of each. General observations of elements common to most, if not all, the VBS programs are followed by specific comments with regard to 1) Reformed compatibility, 2) small church adaptability, and 3) special features.
St. Jerome once said, "Small minds cannot grasp great subjects." In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) we can prove him wrong. Our Office of Theology, Worship and Education is directed by a small mind, and he grasps the greatest of subjects. Joe Small is his name, and--all punning aside--his appointment as that office's director means that the great subjects will continue to inform the future of the PC(USA).
'It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to return to her true home of brotherhood and peaceful pursuits. We cannot remain silent as our nation engages in one of history's most cruel and senseless wars. During these days of human travail, we must encourage creative dissenters. We need them because the thunder of their fearless voices will be the only sound stronger than the blasts of bombs and the clamor of war hysteria. Those of us who love peace must organize as effectively as war hawks. As they spread the propaganda of war, we must spread the propaganda of peace. '
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., February 27, 1967
This weekend around the USA and elsewhere, people will remember and give thanks for the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project and Professor of History at Stanford University has a web page with "Frequently Requested Documents and Audio Clips" that includes 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' (this famous letter was written to respond to a Presbyterian minister and other religious leaders who opposed King), March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (King's "I Have A Dream" speech given after Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake's speech), Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony and I've Been To The Mountaintop (King's last speech). I sent this web page to our congregation's members and friends in my weekly pastoral note to encourage people to read. The Nov/Dec 2005 issue of Church & Society looks at "Trusting the Nonviolence of Jesus Christ Today" from diverse Presbyterian perspectives; it is a fine print resource that also makes good reading for this holiday and other times.
Though I had grown up in the church and was very close to it, I met the Lord in a personal way at a Montreat Youth Conference in the summer of 1972. A faith that had been borrowed suddenly became owned. A Christ that I knew about suddenly became known. My encounter was less about what was said up front, but was caught from the contagious witness of other youth in the small group in which I was placed. Right in the back of Anderson Auditorium I prayed a prayer with members of that group that has changed my life.
-- Jim Singleton, pastor, First Church, Colorado Springs
My very first camp experience focused around producing "conversion experiences" on schedule by the Thursday evening worship service. That meant all of us needed to be manipulated--by a lot of fear about the devil, demons, and hell--into answering the altar call. Needless to say, this was not a camp sponsored by the Presbyterian Church! More positive were the years in which I attended Camp Manitoqua--a camp of the Reformed Church in America. I have happy memories of serious discussions about faith and the Christian life that I had with fellow campers and with many wonderful counselors, who showed me that you could be a "cool" person and still be very serious about living a life of piety. I learned that there was nothing in life--including sports, silly games, eating and drinking, annoying bugs, crushes on boys, the works!--that could not be combined with an awareness of oneself as living before God. That lesson has served me well long after my camping days were over.
-- Dawn DeVries, John Newton Thomas Professor of Systematic Theology, Union Theological Seminary-PSCE, Richmond, Va.
To convert or to covenant: that is the question.
American Protestantism travels via two different routes. Both aim for heaven. In most theological respects the groups confess compatible convictions. Both believe in the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Both depend upon the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the source of the grace that saves. Both count upon that grace to reconcile them to God, to empower faith within them toward God, and to mobilize them into service in the world created by God.
There are more than 140 camps and conference centers across the denomination. In its own way, each is seeking to serve the changing population found in the congregations of their judicatory. Whether the site serves a single congregation, a presbytery, a synod, or the entire denomination, many people consider these special locations "holy ground." While these places may have changed over the years, today's Presbyterian camps and conference centers are still a place where ministry is alive and well.
If you are anything like me, you are reading this article while sitting indoors. I can remember a day when the majority of my days were spent outdoors. When I was a child I would dig in my backyard in New Jersey, wander the tide pools on vacations in Florida, and celebrate the cold beauty of winter skiing in Pennsylvania. No matter where you grew up, I am sure you can remember being "kicked" out of the house to play with friends, which led to hours of imaginative play. The wonder of those experiences and the intimate contact with creation has a lasting impact on our psyche.
The challenge was offered to our 230-member congregation on the Third Sunday of Advent. The goal was a special offering of $500 to give to the pastors of our mission partnership in Manipur, India. Since October, they have not accepted pay, instead focusing those funds on the mission outreach. Elder Kevin, chair of our Mission Committee, said that we could cut his ponytail if we achieved the goal. In the coffee hour following worship, the excitement grew as bidding took place. Kevin's hair was cut and sent to Locks of Love, and $900 was raised that day.
Happy New Year. Happy new magazine. Somewhat.
Actually the new year isn't all that new. The school year began a few months ago. Rosh Hashana landed a few weeks later. We don't generally maneuver life's biggest turning points on the January firsts of our years. We cross those intersections on wedding days, on birthing days, on graduation days--and when the children head off to college.
Then again, our pattern of making new year resolutions does hold forth the possibility that we can make some things new. We at The Outlook have resolved to do a few things in a new way. We are implementing a re-design in this new issue. A full size picture will now grace the cover. A more explanatory table of contents will join the masthead on page 3, followed by the editorial, and then the news and features. Practical information to enhance and empower effective ministry in your local church will appear regularly.
Since being elected moderator, I have experienced much grace as I have gone about the church. Presbyterians are gracious people. I have been on the receiving end of more graciousness and hospitality than I can shake a stick at. God also has been very gracious to give me the spiritual, mental, and physical gifts I have needed to enter into this work and be faithful. I have been delivered many times from anxiety, exhaustion, and frustration and given gifts of love, wisdom, and perseverance that I know did not come from me, but rather through me from Jesus, the Lord and head of the church. I believe that this provision for the task is a result of the prayers many have prayed and are praying for me as we go forward. Thank you from the depths of my heart!
Only eight proposed amendments to the Constitution have been sent to the presbyteries for ratification, but one of them, called Amendments A, is a revision of the entire Chapter XIV of the Book of Order. The amendments booklet has been mailed to presbyteries and is available online at www.pcusa.org/generalassembly/amend.htm
Chapter XIV has been rearranged, reworded and shortened for the proposed new version. The purpose is to simplify the language and provide presbyteries more flexibility in calling pastors, according to the rationale. Three separate handbooks for Committees on Ministry, Committees on Preparation for Ministry, and for certification processes for Certified Christian Educators already exist and presumably will be updated if these amendments pass.
Editor's Note: This is the final article in a three-part series presented at the New Wilmington Missionary Conference in July 2006.
In the first segment, we started to look at how The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman might have implications for our new patterns of missional involvement. The second part described some key events that have "flattened" our world and, in the process, should change our missiology.
I will conclude by giving three types of gentle pointers for future discussions and decisions. First, I suggest some "needs" we have. Then I will illustrate what some other mainline churches have done. Finally, I will suggest some questions that need to be answered.
Priorities for missional discussion: What does the missional endeavor need?
Need for innovation in vision and structures. Harold Kurtz, founding director of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship is right in that there must be specific sodalities (mission organizations) working with the umbrella modality (church) for mission to flourish. Kurtz quotes another great Presbyterian pioneer, Ralph Winter.
Recently I visited New Orleans for the first time. I had traveled to Gulfport, Mississippi for a church mission trip to help the Presbytery of Mississippi in Katrina rebuilding.
I arrived a day ahead of the team and decided to take the opportunity to visit the Big Easy. Not knowing where to go, I looked for familiar street names. I found my way to Canal Street, and then onto Bourbon Street, and into the French Quarter. As I drove through the French Quarter, looking at the homes and the architecture, I had the distinct feeling that I had been there before. Something about the place just seemed very familiar. I couldn't quite place what it was.
Editor's Note: This is the second article in a three-part series presented at the New Wilmington Missionary Conference in July 2006.
Last issue we started to look at how Thomas Friendman's "flat world" might have implications for our new patterns of missional involvement. Let me describe four of the ten "flatteners" that have changed our world and should change our missiology.
1. 11/9/89: "The New Age of Creativity: When the walls came down and the windows went up." The Berlin wall fell on 11/9. Friedman says, "I realized that the ordinary men and women of East Germany peacefully and persistently had taken matters into their own hands. This was 'their revolution'" (p. 51). "It tipped the balance of power across the world toward those advocating democratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance, and away from those advocating authoritarian rule with centrally planned economies." This meant greater freedom, more contact across borders, and it paved the way for common standards. It must be repeated because as Americans we seldom appreciate the transformation that 11/9 began. Openness, freedom and more democratic possibilities were created first in eastern Europe and then in all of the former Soviet countries, then in China and now in Vietnam, Laos and other countries.
Ephesians 4:22, 23- Throw away your former way of living ... and put on the new person.
I read that in a certain Italian village on New Year's Eve that they don't dress up or go to festive parties. Rather as midnight nears, the street traffic disappears, the pedestrians go home, and the police take cover because they know what is about to happen. At the stroke of midnight, the windows of every village house open and with reckless abandon the citizens begin throwing away worn-out furniture, chipped glasses, cracked dishes, old clothes, old pots and pans, old shoes, and pictures of old boyfriends and girlfriends. All of those things that the people do not want to haul with them into the New Year go thrown out their windows onto the street below. There are times in our lives when we need to throw away some things. As New Year's Day approaches, I plan to throw away two things in hopes of a 'God-blessed year.'
What an exciting, uplifting, heartbreaking, feisty year it has been! Is it appropriate to diagnose the PC(USA)-in-2006 as the year of denominational-manic-depressive disorder? I can certainly assess it to have been--for this editor--the year of unsmooth sailing.
Just one year ago, this pastor stepped outside the pulpit to enter the world of writing and editing. He felt overwhelmed by the trust placed in him by the board of directors that knew that their Presbyterian Outlook had long provided the denomination a ballast for stability, a rudder for setting direction, and a set of sails to promote forward movement. He also felt terribly perplexed--and admitted so--that his writer-editor duties were overlapping his tenure as member of a controversial task force.
And out of the ground Yahweh God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9.)
As in all lands of the world, God made every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food to grow in Afghanistan. Among these trees God also planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Many streams of religious spirituality have flowed into this land, yet the fruit of the tree of life has generally been denied to its people. The policies and actions of its kings, warlords, and tribal chieftains who manipulated the power of the knowledge of good and evil for their own advantage reduced the quality and quantity of the life of the people they governed.
Looking at the birth stories in Matthew and Luke, Ken Bailey finds three startling revelations in the brief accounts of Joseph.
Ken Bailey shares how the original, intended audience of Jesus' birth story would have interpreted the text. This reading changes the traditional, Western nativity story.
In the darkness of Christmas morn I stand under the back porch roof, listening to the rain falling gently on the almost..
The answer to this question will vary in Presbyterian churches, and the way in which we respond reflects our most fundamental attitude toward outreach and evangelism. Almost every congregation desires church growth and sets it as a primary long-range goal, but sometimes our behavior prevents the very thing we say we seek.
I have a vivid memory from a Christmas Eve service when I was a boy in my home church. The pastor welcomed the congregation with words something like, "I want to wish many of you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, a joyous Easter, a pleasant Fourth of July, and a Happy Thanksgiving because I know that I will not be seeing most of you for another year!" Maybe, in Daniel Powter's words, he "had a bad day." However, even as a child I knew this attitude was unfeeling and insensitive, and as a pastor I have never even thought, much less said, such a thing during any service I have led.
Wahoo-oo! Barreling through the streets of Pasadena, lights flashing, sirens blaring, the cop driving the patrol car at full alert, radio crackling. Oh, it's go-o-ood! Hey, that's police chaplaincy.
We-e-ell, sometimes. Every now and then. Maybe. Kinda.
Police chaplaincy can be exciting, true. It can also be boring, dirty, disgusting, sometimes even dangerous.
History is not the story of those who "sense" there is a problem. We all sense that there are problems in governments, societies, and churches. Everyone knows it and everyone complains about it. History is marked by those who have the clarity to see when it is time to act, those who understand why we must act, and those who can then communicate how to act.
Very few Presbyterians are pleased with our denomination's involvement in global mission at present. Very few people are pleased to know that at one time we had more than 2,000 full-time missionaries serving in the world (1959) and now we have fewer than 240. This is not a matter of theology or ideology. This is a general frustration with the present missional and cultural context in which we find our churches and ourselves. The world's needs and the Gospel imperative both point to the obligation to move forward with greater innovation, participation, and creativity. This is not the time for a single prophetic leader to come forward and say, "This is the way." This is the time when all men and women of goodwill, committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, hold hands and say, "Come, let's all move forward together. Step in the river and let's go to the promised land of mission."
Last year, some megachurches got tongues flapping fast when they decided to cancel worship services on Christmas Day -- which happened to be Sunday morning.
This year, churches face another Christmas "what to do" decision, because Dec. 24 lands on a Sunday. So congregations big and small must decide whether to offer both Sunday morning worship and a full lineup of Christmas Eve services -- or whether that's just too much.
Some people want a traditional late-night Christmas Eve service, with a choir and communion and candlelight.
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