Think of it as that moment when the toboggan is perched at the top of the hill. One quick shove, and things in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) could quickly pick up speed -- maybe hitting some big bumps along the way. The big tree at the bottom: the General Assembly, due to meet in California for a week in June.
Between now and then, though, there's a lot of snow to navigate. Here's a quick look at the terrain.
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.
The opening session of this year's conference, the largest conference of its kind in memory, was led by the students along with Alex Evans, pastor of the Blacksburg Church, which is near the Tech campus. Evans set the tone for the evening's presentation with the words, "We are called to be a people of hope, and hope often comes from the deepest, hurting places."
MONTREAT, N.C. -- "We're just ordinary radicals," Shane Claiborne told 800 young adults gathered at the College Conference at Montreat Conference Center in western North Carolina on January 4. With unassuming anecdotes and lots of humor, he told the students that the world could use a few more ordinary radicals.
On the next day, Ishmael Beah, author of the best-selling A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, showcased for the students how a wrecked child's life has been turned from killer to humanitarian, thanks to the efforts of a few ordinary radicals.
Here's a little trivia question for you: What is the one sacramental promise that we make as members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)?
Answer: At each baptism the church is asked to promise to help guide, raise, and nurture the child (or adult) in the ways of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Working for years in business, I have been fascinated by the way we do "business" as a Church. No other organization would continue to lose more than 40,000 "customers" a year and not make major changes after two or three years. And yet the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) loses members at that rate and I find that most Presbyterians don't even notice.
In recent months, schism has become a matter of public debate. It was once an inchoate concern, as evidenced by the first recommendation of the Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity that called us to avoid division into separate denominations; it is now the topic of competing published articles.
It is not surprising that there is no resolution to the current debate, for the church was born and nurtured by schism. The early church believed itself a part of Judaism, divorcing itself from Judaism only in the face of persistent rejection by the Jewish community. Western Christianity, already divided from the Orthodox 500 years earlier, was riven by schism from attempts to reform the Roman Church. Though we cherish it, what we Protestants call the Reformation is more accurately described as a protestant schism. And no Protestant tradition has escaped schism, most particularly the Reformed Tradition, probably the most schismatic of them all. We Presbyterians have our own special history of division.
In identifying "Listening Church" as a key factor in determining congregation wellness, we are saying that clergy and lay leaders must make a commitment to listening to the actual questions members are asking.
That commitment, in turn, leads immediately to a second: a commitment to act on members' questions. Not just to hear them, but to respond to them, indeed to be guided by them.
LOUISVILLE -- Carl Mazza, the founder and leader of "Meeting Ground," a community-based ministry with the homeless and other marginalized people in Elkton, Md., is the third announced candidate to stand for moderator of the 218th General Assembly (2008), next summer in San Jose, Calif.
Mazza was endorsed on Jan. 18 by New Castle Presbytery, based in Newark, Del.
He joins Bill Teng of National Capital Presbytery and Bruce Reyes-Chow of San Francisco Presbytery as candidates to succeed Joan Gray of Atlanta, moderator of the 217th General Assembly (2006).
A memorial service for Jack Stotts, Presbyterian pastor, seminary president, and denominational leader, has been set for 3 p.m., Sunday, February 10 at the family's home church in Austin, Central Church. It is located at 200 E. Eight Street in Austin.
JEFFERSONVILLE, IND. -- The Presbyterian Foundation announced January 25 its receipt of a $1 million charitable gift from the Mark D. Hostetter and Alexander N. Habib Foundation. The gift establishes a permanent endowment fund to provide funding support for the camp and conference ministries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The Donald A. Hostetter Endowment Fund, established in January as a permanent endowment held by the Presbyterian Foundation, was created through the generous lead gift from the Mark D. Hostetter and Alexander N. Habib Foundation of Boston.
Jack Leven Stotts, professor of Christian ethics, president of McCormick Theological Seminary and, later, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and chair of the committee that wrote the Brief Statement of Faith that was added to the Book of Confessions in 1991, died of natural causes January 24, 2008 in Austin, Texas. He was 75 years old. Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Virginia, and their three children, Stuart, Anna, and Nancy.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Stotts earned his B.A. from Trinity University in 1954. He received his B.D. from McCormick Seminary in 1957, and his Ph.D. from Yale Divinity School in 1965. Stotts' ministry included serving as the first chaplain of the Sharpe Chapel at the University of Tulsa, a three-year pastorate in San Angelo, Texas, professor and president at McCormick Seminary, and president of Austin Seminary.
DALLAS -- It's not reasonable to expect a three-day meeting in Texas to spit out all the answers to how the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) ought to approach world mission. But the folks gathered here for a consultation on world mission Jan. 16-18 did have some pretty clear ideas about what's happening in the world that Presbyterians can't ignore -- changes sweeping the land, whether people have figured it out yet or not.
The bottom line: this is a time of tremendous change, in the PC(USA) and in the world. As Paul Pierson, a former missionary in Brazil and Portugal and senior professor of the history of mission and Latin American studies at Fuller Theological Seminary has written: "The changes in the worldwide church today are probably greater than those that took place during the sixteenth century Reformation. The transition today is analogous to the shift from the Jewish to the Gentile church in the first century."
Bruce Reyes-Chow, the founding pastor of Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco, is the second person to step forward as a candidate for moderator of the 218th General Assembly, having been endorsed by San Francisco Presbytery on Jan. 15.
Reyes-Chow, a California native and a graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, is the grandson of Filipino and Chinese immigrants. He describes himself on his blog -- and Reyes-Chow is an inveterate online guy -- as "pastor/geek/dad/follower of Christ."
An update that Victor Makari sent from the Middle East Council of Churches:
Dear All,
I was on the phone this morning with our colleague in Gaza Mr. Constantine Dabbagh, Executive Director of Near East Council of Churches and we exchanged for some time over the situation in the Gaza Strip.
From the description of the conditions in the Gaza Strip at the moment, I gather the following:
· It is very difficult for people to get bread. Bakeries that used to distribute bread regularly and fairly easily are unable to do so because of fuel shortage. Queues stand around a couple of blocks from bakeries in order to have a chance to get the daily bread staple which Palestinians cannot exist without it.
Jerusalem, 22 January (ENI)--Christian leaders in Jerusalem have condemned Israel's blockade of Gaza as an immoral act that violates international law.
'To deny children and civilians their necessary basic commodities are not the ways to security,' the heads of churches in Jerusalem and the Holy Land warned in a 22 January statement.
On the same day, Israel allowed a temporary easing of its blockade which has left large parts of the Palestinian territory, which also borders Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, without access to electricity. The closure by Israel of its border crossings with Gaza was intended to put pressure on Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets into southern Israel.
But, said the Christian leaders, 'This siege will not guarantee the end to rocket firing, but will only increase the bitterness and suffering and invite more revenge, while the innocents keep dying,'
Whew. They're back, and none too soon. The caucus-goers of Iowa and citizens of New Hampshire got back their late night voting guides just in time to decide who the national parties' candidates should be. After months of missing the daily counsel of Jay Leno, David Letterman, Bill Maher, and Conan O'Brien, not to mention the earlier evening advice of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and their peers, at least a few of these wise guides found their way back to TV just before those key votes were cast. The world is saved.
The issue of immigration reform continues to stymie politicians at the national level, and to be a matter of honest disagreement at the grassroots.
But in Oklahoma, the legislature has pushed through some of the toughest rules in the nation opposing illegal immigration, and some religious leaders are concerned about the impact the new law could have on their ministry with the poor and dispossessed. And even stricter legislation will be up for consideration in the state early in 2008.
(ENI) Geneva -- The leader of the Taizé community urged tens of thousands of young Christians from Europe, who gathered in Geneva at the New Year to organize "vigils of reconciliation," for unity between churches that are divided from each other.
"How can we be credible in speaking of a God of love if we remain separate?"
Brother Alois, prior of the ecumenical Taizé community said in his meditation at a televised prayer service on December 30 at Geneva's Palexpo exhibition center:
"It is up to you young people to take the initiative," said Brother Alois, who became the community's leader after the death in 2005 of its Swiss-born founder, Brother Roger.
When planning Vacation Bible School activities, Nicole Carmines decided it wasn't enough to require background checks on volunteers and to inspect photo IDs at child pickup time.
So she decided to hire two uniformed police officers to stay on church premises for the entire week. Excessive? Carmines doesn't think so.
"We constantly hear comments about extra measures that we go through," said Carmines, Vacation Bible School director at Concordia Lutheran Church in San Antonio, Texas. She says parents are grateful for the precautions -- which include everything from ID tags to a walkie-talkie network. Seven years ago, 650 elementary school-aged students signed up for Concordia's Vacation Bible School. VBS enrollment this June broke the 1,300 mark, and she believes the staff's diligent security is one of the biggest reasons.
2008 Vacation Bible School planning is underway. Publishers of VBS curricula give the following synopses of available material.
Concordia Publishing
Join our Friendship Trek, a hike through the Bible to meet Jesus, our Forever Friend.
Kids find faith, fun, and friends at Friendship Trek! Bullying, inclusion and social skills are hot issues for kids. Friendship Trek kids encounter the incredible love of Jesus, our Forever Friend, and practice friendship skills in a daily Good Friend Challenge.
Kids explore five friend-filled Bible stories about Jesus. They follow Jesus as He reaches out to a new friend named Matthew. They go along as a centurion's friends ask Jesus to heal the man's servant. They traipse to the temple as Jesus heals a blind friend, then go to Bethany to see Jesus raise his friend Lazarus from the dead. Finally, they huddle in a locked room on Easter night to witness the ultimate love Jesus showed by giving His life for His friends.
Jesus is the greatest friend of all!
Those of us above a certain age remember well the 80s movie "Dirty Dancing." If above 40 at the time, you had to decide whether to allow your teen-ager to see it. If under 20, it was a "rite of passage" to see a movie with a title designed to provoke your parents' censorship genes.
Many small churches are thriving today because they share ministry, mission, and/or leadership with other small churches. Once a model for the rural church, shared ministry is becoming an effective approach for urban and suburban congregations as well.
In late July, a Consultation on Shared Ministry, sponsored by the Synod of the Northeast, Auburn Theological Seminary, and the Mission at the Eastward, was held in Farmington, Maine.
Many Presbyterian congregations find themselves in changing neighborhoods, with aging members, declining membership and attendance, and with facilities they can no longer manage. Many are closing their doors, or at least wringing their hands looking for that "special pastor" to come in and turn things around, One such congregation found a new life by giving theirs up. This is part of their remarkable story.
I was called to Shiloh Bethany Church in November 2004 to become their half-time pastor for redevelopment and transformation. By that time, Shiloh was a very small congregation, with a membership of around 50 and average attendance around 25. Most of the members were more than 70 years old.
Shiloh Presbyterian Church was founded in 1884, and Bethany Community Church in about 1886 -- they merged in the 1920s.
With Lent approaching, the time is ideal for providing instruction on the classic spiritual disciplines and to show possible ways and examples from life.
In addition, congregations should offer opportunities to act, such as mission work and prayer vigils.
Doing and learning need to go hand in hand. Otherwise, the doing loses its foundation, or the learning becomes sterile and precious.
The point isn't to promote a single way, but several ways that work together to promote spiritual wellbeing.
GENEVA(ENI)-- Pope Benedict XVI and the Rev. Samuel Kobia, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, will meet in Rome on 25 January, at a ceremony to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The WCC said in a statement on 21 January that Kobia will meet the Pope in a private audience along with members of the Joint Working Group of the Roman Catholic Church and the WCC, during a yearly working group meeting in Rome from 21-26 January.
Geneva, 17 January (ENI)--Believers in many parts of the world are preparing for the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which this year marks the 100th anniversary of an initiative to promote unity between Christians of different traditions. The week of prayer for 2008 is using the theme 'Pray without ceasing', a Biblical verse from St Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:17).
The week offers local churches and congregations belonging to different Christian traditions, an opportunity to exchange prayers, or to join together for prayer for prayer and worship. In many parts of the world the week is marked from 18 to 25 January, but in some places in the southern hemisphere, another time is used, such as the period of Pentecost.
© Copyright 2026 The Presbyterian Outlook. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement. Website by Web Publisher PRO