Church mission projects are not uncommon. You can walk into almost any church in America, glance at its bulletin board, scan the church newsletter, or have a brief conversation with the pastor as you're walking out of the worship service and quickly find out the various projects it supports.
But not all mission projects are equal. Some demand an enormous amount of energy from the church while others actually give life and energy. Some appear wonderful to the casual observer but secretly inflict pain and stress on those in charge while other mission projects mysteriously seem to run themselves. Some projects that should have been buried years ago continue to be repaired and kept on life support at great
(RNS) Though college students' attendance at worship services declines, their interest in spiritual matters grows during their time on campus, a new UCLA study shows.
UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute compared the views of students who were freshmen in the fall of 2004 with the same students' thoughts in the spring of 2007, when they were juniors.
In the cacophony of issues before the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) today, there is one that has not been reviewed with sufficient care. And as the denomination finds its administrative clothes too big, this particular unsung cause will, with the grace of God, add healthy girth to the corpus ecclesial.
The neglected song whose sweet melody needs to be heard throughout the church, from the local congregations to the denominational headquarters, is the song of the diaconate.
(PNS) The Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA) is seeking nominations for four ministry awards that will be celebrated during the 218th General Assembly in San Jose, Calif. next June. Deadline for nominations is Feb. 15.
They include:
The Presbyterian Association for Community Transformation (PACT) Award recognizes a congregation that either through ecumenical or interfaith community ministry or a special project of the congregation, has been faithful and creative in its ministry to and with its community.
My formal service in the Christian community began during my first year in college. It included preaching, evangelistic outreach, and ministry to boys at risk on the streets of Philadelphia, Pa. In the intervening 44 years, I made an extensive study and assessment of young men engaged in turf wars in urban areas, the causes of civil strife, and most especially, the nature of conflict in the church. The following article, dedicated primarily to the Protestant sector of the church, summarizes some of my findings.
Identity
Individuals and groups of people acquire a core operational identity that is formed out of a variety of factors such as history, culture, ideology, experience, and personal characteristics. While conscious choice has a role in ultimately defining identity, most of it is absorbed long before we develop a critical awareness of who we are. For example, all Western Protestants are indelibly stamped with attitudes arising out of the Renaissance and the Reformation. Authority is couched firmly within an individual's perceptions and sensibilities, or, at most, within a particular constituency friendly to the individual.
The Ember Kenya Grandparents Empowerment Project is just what its name suggests: a grassroots effort to empower the grandparent caregivers of AIDS orphans to become self-sustaining for the sake of the children. This startup project in Funyula in the Busia District of west central Kenya near Lake Victoria intended to begin small and grow as it found funding to support further efforts. But the need was so great that the project's founders have had to rethink their strategy.
At first, the project was only a theory in the doctoral dissertation of Robert Barasa, who graduated in June 2006 from the Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. While he was a student, he and his family attended Northminster Church in Evanston. Barasa, an Anglican priest, had graduated from the Presbyterian-founded Near East School of Theology in Beirut, Lebanon, and received an International Fellowship for one year of study at McCormick Seminary in Chicago where he earned a Master of Arts in Theological Studies.
With the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776, the importation of Bibles to the colonies abruptly ceased, promising as Amos put it, a "famine of the Word of God." Presbyterian pastors Francis Allison and John Ewing of Philadelphia, with William Marshall of the Scots Presbyterian Church, petitioned Congress to insure the availability of the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments to the country. Bibles had been imported from Britain and Ireland. The church official considered the cost of the project, which was considerable, and persuaded the Continental Congress to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, and elsewhere. The British, it should be noted, took over Philadelphia; Presbyterian leaders had to flee in 1777.
Just before this, Robert Aitken, Presbyterian and Philadelphia printer, put out copies of the New Testament for use in the schools. This caught Congress' favorable attention. But it took this Presbyterian printer of Philadelphia to persuade the new United States Congress to do something about the situation. The petition read like this:
One thing you can say about Pope Benedict XVI: he really believes this stuff! The paper, "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church," proclaimed last June that all the world needs to hear, believe, and obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as articulated by the Roman Catholic Church.
Unlike megachurches that have forged strong ties to young adults, mainline Protestant congregations tend to struggle in responding to people in their 20s.
The problem isn't that they want to freeze out young adults. They just don't have practices that enable them to hear young adults and to respond to their unique needs and interests.
Here are some tips on how to improve your congregation's "hearing" what young adults are saying:
As Presbyterians celebrate the 100th anniversary of camp and conference ministry in 2008, one trend they're noticing is towards diversity. While there isn't any shortage of the traditional campfires and canoeing, there's also a move towards innovative programming that builds on the passions and strengths of particular locations.
At Calvin Center near Atlanta, for example, people who want to learn more about international mission work -- often in preparation for short-term mission trips -- come to its "Global Village," where they live in conditions designed to represent what they would find in Haiti, Nicaragua, Kenya, Palestine, or a barrio.
Peter Surgenor, 59, is a Presbyterian minister who's just been elected to a three-year term as president of the American Camp Association. He's executive director of the Holmes Presbyterian Camp & Conference Center in upstate New York, which is run by the presbyteries of Hudson River, Long Island, and New York City.
And he's a man who can trace the history of church camps from the time when volunteers did most of the work and donated most of the food to keep costs down, to an era when camps have become accustomed to multiple streams of income.
Editor's Note: In September 2007, Joel Winchip became the first executive director of the Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center Association. He recently sat down to talk with Outlook editor Jack Haberer about the state of Christian camping and about Joel's new role.
JH: What is the current state of Presbyterian camp and conference ministry?
JW: It's going to be a big year for camp and conference centers in our denomination. We'll be celebrating 100 years of Presbyterian camp and conference ministry, so it's a great time to look back on how this ministry has touched our lives through the history of the Presbyterian Church.
Just a half-hour's ride from the concrete and steel of New York City, Stony Point Conference Center welcomes Presbyterians to the Hudson River Valley. But its serene appearance shrouds a season of turmoil as it struggles to formulate a future for significant mission.
This orb that drew us far across the ancient dark,
whose radiance was, at times, a comfort,
other times, it seemed, a mocking challenge,
What began two years ago as a simple notion -- replace an aging play structure at Westminster Woods Camp & Conference Center in Occidental, Calif. -- became an unprecedented venture that reunited, redefined, and reinvigorated the community of the camp's supporters.
After raising more than $100,000 for a new, one-of-a-kind playground, kids, teens, young adults, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents came to The Woods in last October for a five-day build process that was both energizing and exhausting. Through hard rain, fog, cool evenings and colder mornings, the roughly 300-person volunteer brigade persevered and created a unique play structure that will be a centerpiece of the camp's ministry for years to come.
One of the most densely packed New Testament texts is the feeding of the 5,000 that appears (Mk 6:34-46) just after the murder of John the Baptist. The larger setting of the story is clearly one of the "Markan sandwiches." The Twelve are sent out, John is murdered and suddenly the twelve return to Jesus. The mission is brought to an abrupt end as they return at once for consultation. The entire countryside is in an uproar with people "coming and going" (v. 31) from "all the towns" (v. 33) in the province. Only here in the entire New Testament do we read the phrase "coming and going." Everyone wants to know: What does Jesus have to say about the murder of his cousin and what is he planning to do about it? They are not even able to eat (v. 31). Making an astute decision, Jesus tells his disciples, Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while (v. 31). It is time to regroup and reflect on their next move.
As you contemplate tomorrow, you need to keep in mind two cultural phenomena that will shape your future: time and gasoline prices.
Sunday ministries tend to be time-insensitive because people will travel an hour to church. That hour isn't available on weekdays, however. With every adult in the household working long hours, travel-to-church time tends to shrink to 30 minutes or less.
"Have you ever seen it done well?" This was the reply that came to some of my concerns about contemporary worship. The questioner had a good point. There is a tremendous difference between worship that is led poorly and worship that is led well. Perhaps at least some of my concerns had more to do with sloppiness than with substance.
The following eight quality characteristics make up the Natural Church Development model outlined in the book by Christian A. Schwarz, Natural Church Development. After completing a series of surveys, a church is evaluated on each of these characteristics in order to provide a portrait of church health.
Empowering Leadership
"¢ Leaders of growing churches invest the majority of their time in discipleship, delegation, and multiplication.
Gift-oriented Ministry
"¢ The role of church leadership is to help its members to identify their gifts and to integrate them into appropriate ministries.
Have you set your hopes, your resolutions, your plans for 2008?
My hopes are much as they were each year I served in the pastorate. I hope for our church that in this new year ...
"¢ we will shout from housetops the gospel for the salvation of the world God so loves;
"¢ we will love God earnestly and love neighbors sacrificially;
"¢ we will promote justice and ethics near and far;
"¢ we will minister locally and internationally to and with young and old, friends and strangers, citizens and immigrants, red, yellow, black, brown, and white; and
"¢ we will find the ties that bind us together to be stronger than the force fields that would pull us apart.
As an executive presbyter I am very aware of how much parish pastors do for others on a daily basis. I was in the parish myself for 22 years, so I understand the stress and strain on both pastors and their families. What I also know all too well is how often many are under-valued, taken for granted, or at the worst, devalued as doing little more than preaching on Sundays. Those of us in ministry have encountered a few colleagues who are lazy and slide by with doing as little as possible, but as a whole, ministers in the parish are oftentimes under-appreciated, underpaid, and forgotten until there is a crisis and they are desperately needed. I don't mean to imply that no one ever says "thank you," or shows some form of kind affection.
The confirmation of recently sworn in Attorney General Michael Mukasey gathered opposition at one point because he refused to condemn waterboarding as a form of torture. His refusal is curious, because to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture is like conceding that the sun rises in the east. After World War II, Japanese soldiers who practiced it were prosecuted as war criminals.
The primary issue of purity before the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at this time is how we are to be faithful Christians now and into the future. Three points: (1) The purity of the Church comes from Jesus Christ. (2) The dilemma we are in comes from a clash of epochs as well as a clash of poles, right and left. (3) PC(USA) identity, resources, and actions point us to a third way out of our dilemma.
Preparing a sermon for peers and other preachers has been a nerve-wracking experience. I couldn't help remembering the advice we gave each other in seminary: "Keep it short, make it good, and watch your pronouns." Choosing the text, however, wasn't particularly difficult. I ran across this text several years ago and it hooked me. Since then it's been a favorite and I preach it whenever I get the chance.
(PNS) "I wish I could send them home with some small thing, even a piece of soap." These were the words of a pastor in the Cameroon, West Africa. He was telling our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) delegation visiting Cameroon about the support group his congregation sponsors for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The support group is a lifeline for people who are often ostracized because of their disease. The pastor reminds them often that they are loved by God. However, it hurts his soul to have to send these people away with nothing in their hands to remind them of God's love and the church's care.
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