ST. LOUIS – It was a question-and-answer session with two of the big guys in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – J. Herbert Nelson, the denomination’s stated clerk, and Frank Spencer, president of the Board of Pensions – both of them literally tall men with a breadth of responsibilities. For more than an hour Oct. 16 at the Mid Council Leaders Gathering, they answered questions posed by Brian Ellison, the associate stated clerk of the Synod of Mid America (and, in another part of his work life, a host at the public radio station KCUR in Kansas City). Ellison suggested some of the questions; others came from the crowd. Here’s a bit of what they riffed on. Recent changes. “The idea that Louisville” – where the PC(USA) has its national offices – “is the center of the church has shifted,” Nelson said. “I am not a stay-at-home clerk” – he’s made about 120 trips around the church, learning from Presbyterians in their own contexts. The Board of Pensions has moved from saying, … [Read more...]

ST. LOUIS – The Board of Pensions is looking at ways to “bend the curves” – to help more congregations be able to afford to hire ministers, to stimulate demand for creative ministry and to give more ministers access to health and pensions benefits. “We want more people to hire more ministers” and “we want them to have benefits,” Frank Spencer, the president of the Board of Pensions, told a plenary session of the Mid Council Leaders Gathering on Oct. 16. “To do that, we’re going to have to change behavior” across the church, Spencer said. And “we are going to be explicit about exploring gender equity.” He made it clear he wants the PC(USA) as a whole to work on these issues – at all levels, from small congregations to mid councils. “We’ve got to start talking together about how do we craft solutions,” he said during a workshop session. “We can’t say ‘that’s the Board of Pensions’ problem,’ and everybody else does their own thing.” Spencer said the Board of Pensions will … [Read more...]

ST. LOUIS – In late September, the World Communion of Reformed Churches convened a mediation session to try to ease the rancor and build a less fractured relationship between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. At the heart of that difficult relationship: the reality that the PC(USA) has dismissed 303 congregations to ECO representing 121,383 members, over the last five years, including some of the largest churches in the denomination. Those departures to ECO represent just over half (52 percent) of all the dismissals during that time period; another 43 percent went to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. And other congregations left without waiting to be formally dismissed by their presbyteries. Many of those departures came after the PC(USA) voted to allow its ministers to perform same-sex marriages and to allow gay and lesbian pastors with partners to serve PC(USA) churches. Some of those departures have been relatively … [Read more...]