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Movie Reviews

December Boys

        Anybody who's ever had a 'coming of age' summer will identify with this one.  There's an inherent sadness here, though, that assaults the viewer from the very first scene, as the Australian orphan boys are lined up, from oldest to youngest, looking so hopeful, and the prospective adoptive parents proceed slowly down the line, until they arrive at....a cute young one.  The rest of the boys, like losers in a beauty contest, are forced to feign gladness for the one who was chosen over the rest of them.  He is whisked off to his happily ever after, and they are left...with the nuns in the desolate Outback.

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Conservatives launch alternative to Episcopal Church

(RNS) As many as six Episcopal bishops and more than 200 Episcopal congregations have taken a first step toward forming a new alternative to the Episcopal Church that will unite conservatives irked by the church's liberal drift.

Meeting in Pittsburgh Sept. 25-28, the Common Cause Council of Bishops brought together nine North American splinter groups to lay the groundwork for a conservative counterpart to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

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Episcopal Bishops say no to gay blessings

(RNS) NEW ORLEANS -- Expressing their "passionate desire" to remain a full partner in the worldwide Anglican Communion, U.S. Episcopal bishops on Sept. 25 said they remain committed to not allowing more gay bishops and pledged not to authorize public blessings of same-sex unions.

The bishops, facing a Sept. 30 deadline from angry sister Anglican churches, said they had answered the demands made of them, but conservatives remain skeptical that the bishops' statement has much staying power.

The bishops condemned a move by African bishops to provide outside leadership for parishes that no longer accept the U.S. hierarchy. They endorsed a plan to appoint "Episcopal visitors" from within the church instead. "We call for an immediate end to diocesan incursions by uninvited bishops," the bishops said. "Such incursions imperil common prayer and long-established ecclesial principles of our Communion."

Movie Reviews

Interview With Amir Bar-Lev, Director of My Kid Could Paint, in theatres Oct. 19

What makes it a compelling mystery is that almost no way you add it up makes total sense, either if you assume she's a prodigy or the whole thing is a scam.  What's been interesting to me is that in the screenings, and the Q and A after wards, the audience has been divided about it, which makes for an interesting Q and A...I was attracted to this story because of the lack of standards in Modern Art.  Some 4-year-old is a prodigy?  According to who (m)?  But just because there are no objective standards doesn't mean you can't develop your own opinion.  So you have to engage in these paintings either way, which gives people an opportunity.

Editorials

Reaching the absent generation

Who's pulling in the young adults? Which churches are bucking the trends by actually attracting the absent generation to church? What are their secrets of success? 

On a recent visit to the Big Apple, I determined to visit a Presbyterian church widely known for bucking the trends. As a part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), it is affiliated with a denomination that bucks us. That's unfortunate. But so many New York friends have raved incessantly about the very un-PCA Redeemer Church that I had to visit. 

They did not meet my expectations. 

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Council to develop system for missions giving

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council approved -- with relatively little debate -- the report of the Mission Funding Task Force, which recommends that the council develop a funding system for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that recognizes the "equal worth" of money that's given with no strings attached and donations designated for particular uses.

The task force describes both as "faithful ways" to support the church.

The new approach is a recognition that donors will insist on having a say in how their money is spent, and a reflection of an evolving relationship in the denomination in which those at the grassroots are more directly involved in mission work.

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Is mission campaign morphing as it nears the finish line?

LOUISVILLE -- It's a question of what's in and what's out.

What's fair to count -- and what's not -- in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign?

With only about nine months remaining in the fundraising effort, a public debate has bubbled up about what the rules ought to be.

The General Assembly Council, meeting in Louisville Sept. 21, was being asked to approve changes in the parameters for the five year campaign, which is attempting to raise $40 million for church growth and international mission. So far, with the campaign scheduled to end when the General Assembly meets in June 2008, the campaign still has about $12.5 million left to go.

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Half of Katrina funds unspent, part of long-term planning

LOUISVILLE -- So far, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has taken in more than $24 million in cash donations for Hurricane Katrina relief and $112,000 in donated materials.

It has distributed 18,160 "immediate response kits" worth $340,000

It has provided 91,776 volunteer days of service -- volunteers who repaired 3,380 homes and rebuilt 565 houses. More than 31,350 volunteers have come to help.

But with an emphasis on being around to help for the long haul, sticking around to provide assistance after others may have gone home, it so far has spent only about $12 million, roughly half of what's been given. And that has some members of the General Assembly Council worried.

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Nyomi addresses council, governing body executives

LOUISVILLE -- God's assurances in 1 Peter that believers are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation" are dangerous words if they are misconstrued, World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) General Secretary Setri Nyomi told a gathering of General Assembly Council members and middle governing body executives here Sept. 17.

"In the dangerous world in which we find ourselves, claiming these words as proof that we are right and those who disagree with us are wrong can be very dangerous," Nyomi said. "Such a reading has too often led to hatred, violence and war."

Voices

Tribal Church: Ministering to the missing generation

Last Sunday morning, we studied the Lord's Prayer, and we never made it past the first word. Those simple three letters, O-u-r, in the prayer that Jesus taught us invoked a half-an-hour discussion on community and our spiritual lives. Because the nature of community is shifting radically in our culture, we had a great deal to talk about. A man in his forties seemed puzzled when he said, "I work with people who are under thirty, and they think of cyberspace as a real place. They think of chat rooms as actual rooms and people who meet on the Internet as friends."

"Yes," I smiled. "I've married couples who had a long Internet relationships before they ever met face-to-face."

Voices

Serving our young adults

Many Presbyterian churches are developing programs to serve young adults.  Many are investing in young adult coordinators in order to help grow their church.

 

However, there is another reason for churches to focus on young adults -- the critical needs of the early young adult population in our nation. 

 

The violence at Virginia Tech last April perpetrated by a disturbed young adult is a tragedy beyond belief. It calls attention to the challenges faced by an often overlooked age group.

 

While American society has appropriately focused on the needs of teenagers in recent years, we should not lose sight of the needs of young adults as well.

Voices

Help! I am a youth advisor!

Whether you are a new or a veteran youth fellowship advisor, you might benefit from considering a fresh perspective on ministry with teenagers ages 11 through 18.

 

Pray for the youth and their leaders

Several years ago when the church I served needed youth fellowship advisors, I asked renowned youth ministry expert and Columbia Theological Seminary associate professor Rodger Nishioka, "How do you recruit youth advisors?" I expected him to give a complex formula for training and nurturing advisors. Instead, he answered simply, "You pray for them."

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Emergent churches seek new ways to worship, serve

Emergent worship folks in the Presbyterian church are trying to figure out where to go from here -- along the way taking the temperature of people interested in the emergent life, and planning more conversations.

A new book -- An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, including some essays written by Presbyterians -- attempts to lay out aspects of emergent thinking. There's ongoing conversation about where and how missional and emergent approaches converge and diverge.

And a tantalizing question asked at a July emergent gathering in San Francisco, according to Karen Sloan, a Presbyterian who's the author of Flirting with Monasticism: Finding God on Ancient Paths and who's been helping to organize some of these events, was: "What is presbymergent's agenda?" and does it intend to change the church?

Voices

Youth, trust and prayer

Do teenagers pray? Absolutely. But will they talk about prayer? Will they pray together in public? If not, what can youth workers do to encourage meaningful group prayers?

Trying to do effective events with prayer is one of the great challenges of youth ministry. We have had some success breaking down the Lord's Prayer and having the youths re-write it, segment by segment, in their own words. Some young people have shared, years later, how meaningful an activity this was. But this was, more or less, an intellectual exercise. What about the spiritual side of prayer?

Voices

Two different Conversations

Within our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) there are two different conversations happening simultaneously. But these conversations are not talking with each other. The reality of these two different conversations popped up in my mind as I read through the March 5, 2007 issue of The Presbyterian Outlook.

One may be called the orthodox conversation. This has a lot to do with the institutional disease of our Church. In the Outlook this conversation was highlighted in the article A time to act: NW vote begins movement toward EPC. The New Wineskins is a consortium of about 150 congregations working together for the renewal of the Church with a specific ideal of theological orthodoxy in view. Several of the New Wineskins congregations are negotiating with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The EPC is a small Presbyterian denomination -- about 200 congregations and 70,000 members -- formed in 1981 when a number of our congregations broke with the northern stream of our Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The New Wineskins folks are so disgruntled with our PC(USA) that they are either (1) advocating comprehensive reform within our church or (2) expecting to leave our denomination and possibly join the EPC.

Book Reviews

Welcoming Children: A Practical Theology of Childhood

An educator colleague of mine once related her frustration at her congregation's resistance to welcoming children into worship. One Sunday, as the children were leaving after the children's sermon, an usher remarked, only slightly under his breath, "NOW we can worship!" It's enough to make one weep. This compelling book represents Joyce Mercer's search, as she puts it, for a child-affirming theology and for a church that truly welcomes, cares for, and advocates for children. 

In our consumerist economy nearly every aspect of life has been commodified. A faith community can find it difficult to resist the "market construction of childhood," one that emphasizes forming children to be responsible consumers of what society has to offer. Mercer suggests that even religious discourse gets caught up in the language of the market. Think of the prevalence of the phrase "target demographics" in our discussion about church transformation and outreach. Our understanding of the needs of childhood, the purpose of the church, the role of a community of faith are all threatened by a market-driven culture that often includes, Mercer argues, an insensitivity to the poor, to those who cannot effectively be consumers.

Voices

When sincere isn’t enough

If you want to reach, welcome and serve young adults, you will need to do some things quite differently. Being friendly and sincere won't be enough.

 

Five specific areas need addressing:

 

1. On-line tools to engage and to build community:

·         Web site -- have a good one, comparable to the best sites that young adults use and consider normal. Ask young adults which sites they are visiting -- the list changes constantly -- and see how your current site measures up.

·         Be prepared to communicate electronically -- e-mail, instant messaging, blogs -- not by postal mail or meetings.

Voices

A new hymnal?

By action of the General Assembly, we Presbyterians have been promised a new hymnbook by the year 2014. This announcement has produced a groundswell of popular indifference to the project, setting the stage for a publishing blunder of semi-epic proportions, if what is produced turns out to be yet another paper-and-ink creation in the venerable tradition of Johannes Gutenberg. Even the prospect of a companion e-hymnal, suitable for projection on a screen or on the wall of your sanctuary, will not prevent a classic case of the wrong product at the wrong time.

Consider how far we have come since the introduction of our present blue hymnbook in 1990. Think of how many people are now getting their daily news not from a printed page but from a screen. Given the current pace of technology, it is more probable than possible that the church in 2014 will have neither books nor paper bulletins in the pews.

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Christian leaders welcome Muslim letter urging cooperation

Geneva/Rome, 15 October (ENI)--The head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, has welcomed an open letter by 138 Muslim scholars urging Christians and Muslims to seek common ground and he has said the Geneva-based WCC is ready to help

    'It is significant in that it is signed by such a large group of Muslim leaders and scholars from around the world, which makes it unprecedented,' WCC general secretary Kobia said in 15 October comments to Ecumenical News International. 'Such a rare unity of purpose gives great hope as to what people of faith can achieve together.'

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Council reviews provisions of draft governance task force report

LOUISVILLE -- In what could be a preview of what to expect at next summer's General Assembly, the General Assembly Council heard a summary of the recommendations of the Form of Government Task Force during its meeting Sept. 18-21. And, not surprisingly, the council members had both praise for the task force's hard work -- and some questions and concerns.

The Form of Government Task Force has been meeting for a little more than a year with a gargantuan task: to rewrite the Book of Order of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to make it more concise, more flexible, more theologically grounded.

The task force is posting its work online (www.pcusa.org/formofgovernment /), asking for comments and suggestions from Presbyterians while there's still time to make revisions. And it's offering video clips of task force members responding to frequently-asked questions.

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Council moves to create separate disaster assistance corporation

LOUISVILLE -- Acknowledging the need to adapt to new patterns of charitable giving in the United States, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s General Assembly Council voted in September to separately incorporate Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).

A "very limited, related and dependent" PDA corporation will be able to accept employer matching funds for employee gifts, as well as government and foundation grants, many of which are currently not available to church agencies.

The incorporation would also give PDA higher visibility, as it would be included on published lists of non-profit charities that exclude church groups.

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Islamic scholars seek ‘common ground’ with Christian leaders

Geneva, 11 October (ENI)--More than 130 Muslim scholars have said in a letter to Christian leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI and the head of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Samuel Kobia, that world peace depends on cooperation between Christianity and Islam.

         'Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake,' the 138 signatories state in the letter made public on 11 October.

         The letter is also addressed to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I and other Orthodox church leaders, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the leaders of world groupings of Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed Christians.

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Peace still a distant dream in Darfur

Nyala, Sudan, 10 October (ENI)--The killing in late September of 10 peacekeepers from the African Union in Sudan's volatile western region of Darfur is the most dramatic and publicized example of a steady decline in security during the last six months, and one that threatens humanitarian efforts championed by a wide spectrum of international faith-based groups and coalitions.

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