The Presbyterian Outlook

News and Articles from the The Presbyterian Outlook

Top Search/Contact Area

A legacy of impact: A college ministry program shapes future church leaders

by Leave a Comment

The alums are scattered across the country in various ministries, but if you ask them to talk about the genesis of the group that united them, they can talk for hours. And they all remember the music. John Williams, chaplain of Austin College, is nothing if not of a lover of good tunes. He typically has a tidbit or two to share about the artists he gleefully plays, but that is to be expected: Williams also loves fun facts, history and sharing his love of fun facts and history with as many people as possible. For the last quarter century, Williams has led the Austin College ACtivators, a group of students who plan and lead youth ministry events for young Presbyterians. The group began in 1995, early into Williams’ tenure as chaplain of Austin College, a Presbyterian-affiliated college in Sherman, Texas. Williams, searched for new ways to engage students and, in his words, “spread the good news about Austin College” to Presbyterians in Texas and beyond. “It was one of those happy … [Read more...]

Tagged With: college/YA

Stronger together: How two Presbyterian agencies negotiated a healthy merger

by Leave a Comment

A natural occurrence in the business world, mergers also happen with some regularity in faith communities. When two organizations – be they banks, nonprofits or congregations – find their relationship evolving into ever more cooperative processes, merging becomes a natural option. Sadly, this rarely happens amicably. After all, popular jargon connotes negative circumstances around mergers with phrases like “hostile takeover” or “absorption.” Perhaps you serve as an executive of a nonprofit organization or as a ruling elder or pastor of a congregation that is considering a merger. The situation is likely replete with emotion. Shared histories, culture and supervisory infrastructure are possibly at odds. But your circumstance is not without precedent. I am pleased to share the story of one merger that, while it presented unique challenges, has proven to be a unanimous success in the eyes of all stakeholders. As of January 1, 2018, Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services … [Read more...]

Social entrepreneurship + First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta = Mission transformation

by Leave a Comment

We’ve seen the creativity popping on TV’s “Shark Tank.” What inspiration might that lead to for churches? Here’s the short version. Not long ago, First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta took $250,000 and invited entrepreneurs from the community to make a pitch for a chunk of that money, in what it’s calling Epiphany. The applicants shaped their proposals over a series of months with coaching from members of the congregation in areas such as developing a business plan and building a budget. It was a new way for the congregation to think about mission — using a social entrepreneurship model that asks people from the community to present ideas for transformation, and breathes life into those possibilities using the talents and expertise of Presbyterians sitting in the pews. “We saw there were places we were not using all the resources entrusted to us,” said Rebekah LeMon, First Atlanta’s executive pastor, who has been in charge of shepherding the Epiphany process. “We saw … [Read more...]

Turning the Holy Spirit loose in our polity

by Leave a Comment

Over the past eight years, I have had the opportunity to work as a consultant with numerous congregations and presbyteries around the country, trying to help them face directly into the adaptive challenges all churches face. Each church presents a unique case based on factors like size, average age of its membership, financial resources and location. However, there are also a few basic issues with which all churches wrestle in common. One of these basic issues is a shift in our polity that took place many years ago, but into which we have not yet fully lived. Two stories will help illuminate this issue. Case study: Committee on Ministry I was asked by a presbytery to work with its Committee on Ministry. Like almost all Presbyterian leaders, the members of the COM knew they need to do things differently in the future than they had done in the past. Almost everyone across our denomination agrees things need to change; we just don’t know what those changes ought to be. These COM … [Read more...]

Call me by name: A lifetime of race and relationships

by Leave a Comment

The charge is armed robbery. The defendant’s lawyer declares at the outset that this is a case of mistaken identification. I had done everything I could to avoid being selected as a juror: my best Italian-wool suit, my French-cuffed shirt and my natty bowtie. Attire I had worn as a law professor to meetings with Wall Street lawyers before I retired. My outfit screams to the prosecutor, prompting him to ask the entire panel, “Have any of you ever been involved in a criminal case before?” I rehearse a response in my head so as not to appear too eager to avoid my civic duty. During my early career as a law professor, I served as the court-appointed lawyer for three different defendants’ appeals of their convictions. I plan to leave out the part about teaching criminal law for over a decade, unless the prosecutor asks. I remain silent during the jury selection process until the prosecutor asks if any of us knows other prospective jurors. My neighbor Lynn glances at me and volunteers … [Read more...]

Tagged With: race relations

“Late we come” — The Presbyterian Outlook and Southern Presbyterians on race

by Leave a Comment

Speaking at the March on Washington in August 1963, Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA), began with an apology to Martin Luther King Jr. and others gathered: “We come and late we come.” Blake, who had recently been arrested in a demonstration to integrate a Baltimore amusement park, spoke the truth. With notable exceptions – African Americans, some other people of color and numbers of prophetic whites – Presbyterians did come late to the struggle for civil rights for all Americans. Nationally, most Presbyterians may have come tardily to the movement, but they provided strong leadership from the early 1960s onward. They still do. Southern Presbyterians were, for the most part, the latest of the late. Representatives of the Presbyterian Church U.S. (PCUS) formed in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War in the South, failed even to endorse that March on Washington — the only so-called mainline denomination to demur. But change … [Read more...]

Tagged With: Outlook200 • race relations

CONTACT US: