So how did a church from Trussville, Alabama — a pretty typical Presbyterian congregation, fairly small, more one-tone than ethnically diverse — end up dedicated heart-and-soul to an impoverished village in Cambodia?
John Buckingham, a retired physician and elder from the church, calls it a miracle. Sovanna Thach, a Cambodian refugee who survived the killing fields and never intended to go back, said, "I don’t know how to describe it. It amazes me, amazes me ... The Lord, He never abandoned me."
When Ray Bakke describes the world, it’s unvarnished: here-and-now, not something from the past, not what’s comfortable and easy. And the gospel he presents strives to comfort the poor in urban ghettos around the world, not just affluent American whites.
Bakke, a world traveler and former inner-city pastor, paints pictures with statistics such as these:
If Joseph and Mary were to knock on the door tonight — ragged, weary, hungry strangers knocking on your door, asking for a place to sleep — what would you say? Would you open the door to people you did not know? Turn them away? Or would you be out shopping or racking up more time at work, so you wouldn’t even hear the knock?
Sometimes, the idea of evangelism — going out and talking to people about Jesus — is more than some Presbyterians can bear.
But Rob Eyman pastor of Whitworth Community church in Spokane, Wash., preached recently three sermons on the Great Commission, giving some simple ideas of what Christians who want to share their faith can do.
When it hit the news that Philadelphia presbytery was starting a new messianic congregation, some people were surprised that Presbyterians would do such a thing. Southern Baptists, maybe. But Presbyterians?
Some argued that Congregation Avodat Yisrael is using "deceptive tactics," as the Jewish Week newspaper put it, and may be trying to unfairly target Jews for conversion to Christianity.
WASHINGTON, D. C. — The plan is this. In 2006, the Covenant Network of Presbyterians will push again for another vote on the ordination standards of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — hoping to open the door fully to ordaining gays and lesbians.
That will be shortly after the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA) will have made its report, whatever that might turn out to be.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — They both walked to the microphone with some apprehension, needing to say uncomfortable things but also wanting to make a compelling case about the future — to say that Presbyterians who hammer each other over homosexuality would be doing themselves and even the world a favor by sticking it out together.
No longer facing the prospect of a hearing on charges of heresy and violating his ordination vows, W. Robert "Rob" Martin III was installed last month as pastor of First church in Palo Alto, Calif.
An investigating committee of Western North Carolina Presbytery declined to bring charges against Martin, whose move to California was put on hold over the summer while the charges — made by attorney Paul Rolf Jensen — were investigated. In the middle of the process, Martin asked the presbytery for vindication.
DALLAS — In 1869, after an excruciating 30 years of separation and spiritual division, the reconciled Presbyterians marched into the church in Pittsburgh two by two, arms locked, the Old School faithful holding onto their former opponents in the New School, with "welcomes, thanksgiving and tears."
It was the formal reunion after the bitter division in 1837.
DALLAS — Gary Demarest calls it an Abrahamic journey. God told Abraham and Sarah to leave their home; they didn’t know where they were going, but they had faith that God would go with them. Demarest is not too comfortable with that — he is a tall, deep-voiced, take-charge kind of guy. When he tells people he’s not sure where the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is going or what it will accomplish, "I hear people muttering, ‘What the hell kind of leader is that,’ " Demarest said.
DALLAS — It was a first draft, very preliminary, a piece of paper put on the table for discussion — but not for a vote. And the paper had to do, in part, with whether to vote or not to vote.
When there’s a big fight over something, when people feel strongly, but they’re also willing to listen to one another — really listen, not just to say they will — what’s the best way to make decisions?
RICHMOND — Baltimore Presbytery's investigation into heresy charges against an openly gay minister, Donald Stroud, was procedurally correct, according to an administrative review committee which reported to the Mid-Atlantic Synod Council here Friday afternoon (Oct. 17).
DALLAS — They waded into the water, but not up to their necks.
For the first time, after meeting for nearly two years, the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) began to talk directly about theology and homosexuality — not by offering their own views, but by analyzing pieces from six authors whose work they critiqued by examining the tools those writers used to reach the conclusions they did.
Kirk Johnston’s congregation decided years ago that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gets it wrong way too often, and that it couldn’t trust the denomination to make good choices about what it funds. So the congregation, First church of Paola, Kan., stopped sending money. Since the controversy over the Reimagining Conference a decade ago, it has withheld the part of its per capita payment that goes to the PC(USA) offices in Louisville, and has used that money instead to fund mission programs that the Paola church selects.
PORTLAND — It sounds like a success story now: a young, growing, multicultural congregation in Los Angeles that’s reaching all kinds of people for Jesus.
But there was a time in that Mosaic ministry when people were so upset, when there was so much change and conflict, that Erwin McManus couldn’t sleep and he gained 30 pounds and his right eye twitched uncontrollably for a year from the stress.
PORTLAND — Think of Neapolitan ice cream. A stripe of outrage (an old evangelical specialty). A stripe of good news (always a pleasure). A stripe of intense confusion.
Three flavors side by side, ending up all mixed together. That’s pretty much the taste of the Presbyterian Coalition’s recent national gathering here Oct. 6-8, where everything got talked about, from leaving the denomination to godly visions, and nothing got decided.
PORTLAND — Bob Howard used to think the right thing to do was to stick around, to try to change the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from within. Now he thinks that’s wrong, that it’s time to admit that the denomination can’t be fixed, that the wide Presbyterian family can never agree about theology and that it’s time to split it up. He calls it "gracious separation."
MONTREAT, N.C. — Moving quickly and with great waving of orange and blue cards, the General Assembly Council polished up its lists of "key areas of focus" on which it wants the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to concentrate its work over the next two years.
"So what is the answer, Lucy?" is the response I receive when folks learn I spent a three-month sabbatical (Winter 2003) at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville exploring this topic with Marcia Clark Myers of Churchwide Personnel Services and Jack Marcum of Research Services. The answer: "Both!"
Before addressing the issues surrounding the availability of clergy, one must first look at the number of congregations and members to be served. The statistics are somewhat startling.
MONTREAT, N.C. — The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) needs to do a better selling job to convince congregations to give money to the denomination with no strings attached — and to make the case that it causes problems when 70 percent of the money comes in with restrictions on how it can be spent.
MONTREAT, N.C. — Near the close of its meeting here Saturday, the General Assembly Council received a presentation regarding the PC(USA)’s response to the recommendations of the Independent Committee of Inquiry, which investigated allegations of physical and sexual abuse involving the children of missionaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and determined there is "overwhelming" evidence that one charismatic, well-respected Presbyterian missionary, who is now dead, sexually abused at least 22 girls and women over nearly a 40-year period, both in Africa and in the United States, from 1946 through 1985.
MONTREAT, N.C. — The hope is that by the time they leave this weekend, the General Assembly Council will have set some priorities around which the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) budget for 2005 and 2006 will be built.
The details of the budget won’t come until next year — including decisions, if it comes to that, of what jobs and programs might need to be cut.
MONTREAT, N.C. — One of the jobs the General Assembly Council has at its September meeting is to start working on priorities for the two-year budget, the budget for 2005 and 2006, which must be approved by the General Assembly in Richmond next summer. As part of that process, council members spent some time talking in small groups about their dreams for what the denomination might look like in 10 years.
MONTREAT, N.C. — Faced with a blast of criticism and the possibility that angry Presbyterians might stop giving money to the denomination altogether, John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council, said he wants the council to delay acting on a proposal to start assessing a 5 percent administrative fee for restricted donations given to the denomination.
Editor's Note — This report was prepared by the Office of Theological Education of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Recent economic events have had a major impact on Presbyterian theological institutions. Many seminaries have been affected by falling markets, because they are heavily dependent on endowment and other invested assets. As President Thomas Gillespie of Princeton Seminary explains, "Endowment plays a more critical role in theological education than it does in the funding of colleges and universities, which are largely tuition driven."
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