(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.
The liturgical renewal movement produced significant changes to the worship patterns of Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant congregations during the last fifty years. For Presbyterians, increase in communion frequency, recovery of a fuller liturgical year, and the use of the Revised Common Lectionary all serve as major milestones on the road to a richer worship life. In the midst of fairly rapid changes in worship practice, a fuller theology and practice of baptism has remained elusive.
Ten years ago I moved from a different part of the country to northern New Jersey, within easy commuting distance of New York City. Needless to say, the context of ministry changed dramatically for me. New Jersey is one of the most diverse and densely populated states in the country. Formerly, an interfaith marriage meant a Roman Catholic and a Protestant. Now, there are many Christian-Jewish and Christian-Muslim marriages in the congregation. The local clergy association includes Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and others.
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:
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:
For the Presbyterian students at Virginia Tech, hope has found a voice that has quieted the lingering echoes of gunshots. Several of them -- survivors of last April's mass murder on their campus -- testified to their harrowing search for and discovery of hope with 800 fellow students at the College Conference at the Montreat Conference Center on January 3.
LOUISVILLE -- Responding to Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partners in the Middle East who are increasingly concerned with conditions in Gaza, General Assembly Stated ClerkClifton Kirkpatrick has issued a statement expressing "alarm" at "the worsening conditions affecting all of Gaza's inhabitants."
In addition to reiterating the PC(USA)'s condemnation of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and "provocative acts of retaliation" by Palestinian militants, Kirkpatrick expressed growing concern for the Christian minority in Gaza, which is frequently caught in the crossfire between Israel and Palestinian militants.
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.
Whenever expectations meet reality, questions are sure to follow.
Years ago my wife told my son that they were going to do something very special to get ready for Christmas. She pumped up his excitement. She told him they were going to have fun. As a consequence, he couldn't wait until the day came -- to make a gingerbread house. I walked in just as the project was being completed. He was sitting there with his head in his hands, bored to tears and asking his mother if they were having fun yet.
The situation in Kenya is getting worse, and we can help bring it to a quicker end. I know from past associations with Amnesty International that when the world's attention is directed to governments they listen, because too much is at stake for them to NOT listen when their actions are known and are being watched by many.
Dr. Robert Barasa, executive director of the Ember Kenya Grandparents Empowerment Project, says that in Funyula, where the Ember Project is located, he has been warned that the building in which the Ember offices are located is targeted for burning down because the landlord is Kikuyu. Also, all businesses are shut down and nobody can go out in public to work or to get food because the danger is too great. He says that people cannot get food and are in danger of starving.
"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.
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.
New York -- For the first time since the American Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, an entire diocese of the U.S. Episcopal (Anglican) Church has voted to leave the denomination.
The December 8 vote by the central California diocese of San Joaquin follows disagreement with the national church hierarchy, which in 2003 approved the consecration of V. Gene Robinson, a divorced man who lives in a same-sex relationship, as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church.
LOUISVILLE -- A non-profit organization related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has launched a Fair Trade Web site aimed at helping disadvantaged Peruvian artisans find a new marketplace for their goods and earn a sustainable wage in return.
The Partners for Just Trade (PJT) Web site makes it easy to purchase Peruvian handcrafts and other products online and educates consumers about the meaning of fair and just trade.
Mainline church decline is so well known in contemporary American parlance as to border on the cliché. But awareness does not always lead to response. Christian A Schwarz's, Natural Church Development (Churchsmart Resources: Carol Stream, Illinois, 7th edition, 2006) is one place congregations have turned in order to begin to address these issues of decline and growth in a practical, tangible, and measurable way.
What makes a church grow? More than that, is it okay to admit that you might want to know the answer?
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.
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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