Camp and conference centers in the PC(USA) continue to play a vital and expanding role in the denomination. They provide and support Christian education, disciple-making, young adult leadership, congregational support, retreats of all varieties, evangelism and outreach.
W ith dollars being hard to come by and congregations and presbyteries feeling the pinch, many Presbyterian camps and conference centers are in a season of re-evaluation. Some have closed, and some are reconfiguring to diversify and firm up their financial base.
T
he book was published 10 years ago. The traveling show — presenting full-day seminars on the subject by the authors Bill Easum and Dave Travis — circled the country around that time, too. And a big impact was made, if only by putting the title in front of the church: “Beyond the Box.”
You know about the front door, the one painted red. But you have three other doors as well. If you work all four doors, your church will grow and thrive.
Let’s take these doors one by one:
Don’t jump to conclusions. The Fellowship of Presbyterians has launched a new denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO), signaling yet another structural divide in the mainline Presbyterian Church family (see pp. 12-16). But it remains to be seen whether this will produce a split or just a splinter. That depends on us. All of us.
Genesis 37 begins the tragic and redemptive story of the children of Israel. In a few brief paragraphs, a vivid picture is painted of a family rife with conflict.
I motored my way from my home in Annandale, Va. out to the congregation I’d soon be serving part-time in Poolesville, Md. I had an 11 a.m. meeting scheduled with the clerk of session of the wee kirk there, to sign my first contract and talk about how things at Poolesville Presbyterian work.
It is not news that the Emergent Church Movement has been shaking up American Christians who identify themselves as evangelical.
Normally mature Christians do not wonder much in the new year if they kept the faith minimally enough in the past 12 months to get by. More likely, they feel guilty that they have failed to serve Christ with consistent commitment and worry more about the things left undone than what they did that offended God.
IN AN EARLIER COLUMN (4/10/11) I pointed out our denomination’s shocking lack of available pastoral calls, in comparison to the large numbers of pastors seeking calls. The column’s conclusion was a series of encouragements for entrepreneurial strategies to address the call shortage.
As a teaching elder, long in tooth and at the risk of being branded a heretic, I feel compelled to comment on what I perceive in reading, listening and generally observing the actions and rhetoric surrounding present activities within the PC(USA).
Maryland is thinking about letting gays and lesbians get married.
I blew it. Here I was up to my eyeballs co-editing two different letters of outreach to many of my disaffected friends in the PC(USA), promising to “sow seeds of grace, kindness, respect and cooperation in every possible way — all toward the end of us all serving as agents of reconciliation before the watching world, as Scripture requires of us.”
A century ago, the geographic center of Christianity was in Europe and North America.
First, a disclaimer: I am happily married to a person whose vocation is sociology of religion.
NOVEMBER 2008, GREEN ZONE,
BAGHDAD, IRAQ
Every day when my chaplain assistant and I drove around the Green Zone, we went by the 215 towers.
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