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.
60 people instrumental in Presbyterian mission met in Texas and signed a covenant to work together in what they call a "new collaborative model of Presbyterian mission.
PASADENA, CA -- "How will we draw anyone else to us if we don't show them that there is some extraordinary power in Jesus Christ?" asked Barbara Wheeler, president of New York's Auburn Theological Seminary, at a public forum here sponsored in conjunction with Fuller Theological Seminary and hosted by Pasadena Presbyterian Church.
The forum -- entitled "Repairers of the Breach" -- was the latest in a series of public dialogs that Wheeler and Fuller President Richard Mouw have shared over the past seven years, coming together to discuss their differences, but perhaps more importantly to model the ability to come together in the midst of theological disagreement.
"I hope that both sides can build enough trust to learn and to do some good things together," Mouw said. "This mutual learning and cooperative doing requires both sides, or more accurately, all sides, since we don't divide evenly into two, to cultivate some important sensitivities."
Teri Peterson has learned the hard way.
The first year she gave up coffee for Lent, she went straight from the sunrise Easter Sunday service to Starbucks.
The second year, she went to Starbucks before the sunrise service and brought the coffee with her to the worship service on the beach.
At the time, "I lived in downtown Chicago, so I walked past a Starbucks every 50 yards," Peterson said. "I called it my personal wilderness -- it was brutal."
This year, Peterson -- now an associate pastor at Ridgefield-Crystal Lake Church in Illinois, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago -- is still figuring out how she observes Lent. She's not likely to give something up -- she figured out she spent more time those years thinking about coffee than about why she'd given up coffee.
The opening of the season of Lent is an appropriate moment in which to reflect on Jesus' discussion of financial gifts and prayer. It appears in a trilogy that includes fasting. With the lectionary, we will focus on the first two of this trilogy.
The amazing make up of this short list of pious acts strikes us first. Surprisingly, there is no mention of the temple or of its sacrifices. This passage is thus in the same tradition with Hosea 6:6 which reads, For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice. It is also in harmony with Stephen in Acts 7:48 where he affirms, The Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands (Acts 7:47).The stories in the Gospels are best understood as history theologically interpreted. There is history -- something happened. There is theological interpretation -- the Gospel authors were not mere recorders of the tradition but also commentators on the stories they passed on to their readers.
Many different approaches have been taken to the study of the temptations of Jesus. The stories themselves, like other Gospel stories, can be likened to three great diamonds that need to be examined and slowly turned in order to appreciate the beauty of the light reflected from their various facets. Very briefly, we ill look at a few options for interpretation.
Prominent evangelical leaders have called on media outlets to correct flaws in their presidential primary exit polls by asking only Republicans that question. The result is "pigeon-holing evangelicals as beholden to the Republican Party," according to their letter made public today.
LOUISVILLE -- All Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission personnel in Pakistan are reported safe after the latest bombing in Lahore, which killed at least 22 people and injured scores more today (Jan. 10).
Presidential contender Mike Huckabee, an ordained preacher in the Southern Baptist Convention, adores its theology. Born-again Jimmy Carter deplores it. Carter severed Southern Baptist ties in which he was raised because some leaders snarled like roaring lions at other Christians. Recruiting former president Bill Clinton, another Southern Baptist, Carter has cobbled together a coalition of Christians disgruntled with a denomination that keeps women in their place, strictly behind their men.
MONTREAT, N.C. -- If Hope* ... *has a voice, as the theme of the conference went, then 800 students attending the College Conference at Montreat in western North Carolina got to encounter as vivid an example as they might ever hear or see on January 5. 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 had been turned from killer to humanitarian, thanks to the efforts of a few ordinary radicals.
Beah delivered a plenary address in the morning and responded to questions in an afternoon session. In his address, he told his story in two chapters: his old life and his new life. They couldn't be more different. The old life took shape when a band of young rebels engaged in his nation's civil war arrived in his small Sierra Leone town. Soon this 12-year- old was far away from his home and parents, toting an AK-47, taking drugs (marijuana, amphetamines, and a toxic mix of cocaine and gunpowder), wandering around with a band of trained teen and pre-teen hoodlums. He cannot count the number of people he killed in the ensuing two years. He had become a brutal killing machine.
LOUISVILLE -- As I write this column, the Iowa caucuses are set to take place. What seems to be the longest Presidential campaign ever is about to enter an important stage as voters begin to make public their choice for the person who will fill the Oval Office next January.
As negative as I fear the campaign will most likely become before it's over, it pales drastically in comparison to other parts of the world that are also in election seasons.
The assassination of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto just days before a scheduled election is one heart-wrenching example. The violence has ended, according to PC(USA) mission coworkers Robert Johnson, Jr. and Marianne Vermeer, but the tension and uncertainty continue.
MONTREAT -- George F. Barber III announced today his resignation as president of the Montreat Conference Center effective February 15. He will be available for consultation through April 30.
In his resignation letter, Barber said that he and his wife, Wanda, "feel we have completed the chapter of leadership God intended us to bring here and are confident that it is time for us to move on. We are excited about the new phase and potential for our lives."
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.
VATICAN CITY -- Roman Catholic missionaries should aim to win souls and not restrict themselves to humanitarian good works, the Vatican said Dec. 14.
A new 19-page document, which was personally approved by Pope Benedict XVI, draws on a controversial Vatican declaration he issued in 2000 that asserted Catholics alone have "the fullness of the means of salvation."
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is investigating the finances of six prominent evangelical ministries, said Dec. 7 he doesn't plan to hold hearings on any individual ministry and hopes he won't have to subpoena any of them.
But in response to critics who wonder if his investigation into alleged lavish spending is too broad, Grassley said he simply expects tax-exempt ministries to follow the law.
"I think their fear is that we're going to get involved in doctrine, in the internal teachings of the church," said Grassley, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, in an interview. "That's none of my business.
Nusa Dua, Indonesia (ENI) -- The (Lutheran) Church of Sweden says it is to convene an interfaith climate summit in Uppsala, Sweden immediately before a United Nations climate change conference in Poland in 2008.
"On the basis of my experience here in Bali, I am all the more convinced this kind of initiative is absolutely urgent," the Rev. Henrik Grape, sustainable development officer at the Church of Sweden told Ecumenical News International, during the final stages of the December 3-14 UN climate change talks in Bali, Indonesia.
New York, (ENI) -- The former head of the United Methodist Church's main ecumenical and inter-religious agency says his recent dismissal was due to disagreements over the future direction the body should take.
"They didn't agree with my vision or my ability to bring it forward," Larry Pickens said of his December 5 dismissal as head of the denomination's General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, a post he had held since 2004.
Harare, (ENI) -- The United States government has honored Maxwell Kapachawo, the first Zimbabwean religious leader to publicly disclose his HIV-positive status through the use of radio and television, by conferring him with the "award for Breakers of Silence."
"Kapachawo's actions and interventions have significantly contributed to breaking the silence around HIV and AIDS in the Church," the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, James McGee, said while presenting the award to the 34-year-old pastor and others engaged in the fight against the pandemic.
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.
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