A few years back, I visited a prominent, moderate-to-progressive downtown church in Atlanta that shall go nameless. Now, at the time I was the pastor of a New Church Development, and the friend I was with introduced me as such to one of their elders.
"Well, welcome to our church. Is it different worshipping with us?" he wanted to know.
"Pardon me?" I said, with a confused look on my face.
"Is it different worshipping with Presbyterians?"
One of the major problems in modern congregations is discovering how to communicate effectively with members. If the pastor gives a sermon on Mother's Day, for example, about family life and ways for parents and children to grow together spiritually, chances are that many young parents will never hear it. They may be visiting their own families, attending the regional Junior High track meet or band festival, be at a picnic at the lake, or squeezing in time to get groceries and purchasing a new prom dress at the mall. On any given Sunday, it is unlikely that most churches will have more than 25 percent of the congregation in one place at one time.
One of the challenges for the modern church, therefore, is finding innovative ways to communicate outside of the Sunday service. In the case of Mother's Day a targeted mailing might be the answer. Instead of expecting parents to attend the service why not send the service to them? Acknowledging how busy they are, why not mail (or e-mail) a copy of the pastor's sermon on family life along with a reading list of recommended family devotional guides. Offer to give parents a free copy of the book they would like to use to foster discussion, prayer, and Scripture reading around their dinner table. Better yet, why not send them a DVD of the whole service or make a podcast available for downloading?
Which do you want first: the good news, the better news, or the bad news about e-mail newsletters?
Okay, the good news. An e-mail newsletter will save you a lot of money. No paper, no printing costs, no folding and stuffing, no postage, no competition in the mailbox with vendors who are sending mailers far more compelling than yours.
If that isn't enough inducement to drop the familiar printed-and-mailed newsletter, here's even better news: e-mail gets read. Most postal mail gets discarded before being read, including the church newsletter. Even though people are furious about spam, they do comb their e-mail for personal items. A well-designed e-mail newsletter can fit into that must-open niche.
by D. Mark Davis. Holy Conversations. The Pilgrim Press, 2007. ISBN 0829817395. Pb., 111 pp. $12.
Mark Davis in his book, Talking about Evangelism, addresses a vital issue in a creative way. As Presbyterians, we have never been very good at evangelism, especially in recent years. Mark uses personal experience and theological insight to offer concrete suggestions that speak well to our day.
Mark and I have followed similar paths in our faith journeys. Both of us came out of very fundamentalistic traditions that carried with them a clear cut way to do evangelism. He used it in talking to his favorite high school teacher: Mark had taken Evangelism 101 at the Christian college he attended and wanted to be sure Sam, his teacher, was saved. Sam responded, "Take your prayers, and your holier-than-thou attitude and get the hell out of my office. And don't bother coming back until you leave that crap at home."
The Board of Directors of the Foundation for Reformed Theology has appointed James C. Goodloe IV to serve as its executive director, beginning November 1. Based in Richmond, Va., where Goodloe resides, the Foundation provides funding, programming, and other resources "to renew the theology, ethos, social vision, and hope of the Reformed and Presbyterian community," their statement explains.
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."
"We get sweaty palms every time we hear 'essential tenets.'" If ever a line begged for explanation it was that one. Can it be that Joe Small, the Director of the Office of Theology, Worship and Education for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), doesn't believe in the core convictions of the church? Of what value could be the advice he gave to the Form of Government Task Force (as it met in Louisville on August 16-18), if he wouldn't state plainly our essentials?
Given that all ordinands -- elders, deacons, and ministers of Word and Sacrament -- declare that they "receive and adopt the essential tenets" of the church, it only stands to reason that we be able to articulate them.
Yet, the matter of defining and subscribing to essential tenets has been debated in our present and former denominations since the 18th century. Why has that been such a battleground for us? How can we vow to uphold the essential tenets yet refuse to delineate exactly which tenets are essential? And if we can't articulate clearly what we believe, how can we have any identity?
It's the kind of news that shakes people to the core: 23 missionaries from a Presbyterian church in South Korea kidnapped by the Taliban along a highway in Afghanistan. The news of the abductions, the killings of two of the captives in July, and finally their release on the promise of no future Korean mission work in Afghanistan, have made the world increasingly aware of the role Korea plays in international evangelism.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)-related seminaries and other affiliated theological schools report the following news reports as they begin a new academic year:
Editor's note: A regular feature of the Outlook's annual theological education issue is a report on seminary life from the president of one of the seminaries associated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). This year we bring you insights from the president of San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Leadership is receiving renewed attention these days in vigorous and creative discussions taking place across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Influential voices throughout the denomination are increasingly pointing out the urgent need for seminaries to help the church to develop more resourceful, radical, and responsive patterns of ministry formation.
Reformed and Presbyterian Christians have always been "big" on the doctrine of providence. This is the Christian view that God is involved with the world and has not simply created the world and stepped back, leaving it to run on its own or by pure randomness. As they used to put it, "God is not an absentee landlord!"
Reformed folks have seen God's providence as having three parts.
· Preservation: God upholds the creation;
· Cooperation: God works with all created beings;
· Government: God guides all things toward the ultimate divine purposes.
But I suspect it is the last two of these parts we focus on most, if we think of God's "providence."
"During such times as these, the Book of Confessions keeps the PC(USA) centered in Jesus Christ .... The question remains whether the PC(USA) will honor its own, confessional heritage, recover its identity, and vigorously confess the gospel in our time."
New members come to churches in many ways, but the most common by far is visiting on a Sunday morning. If you want your church to grow, you need to think through every detail of receiving visitors on Sunday.
Here is a checklist to guide your planning...
A task force is recommending that Presbyterians Today, a magazine the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) publishes, be considered an "appropriate mission expense" and that it continue operation under the control of the General Assembly Council.
The future of Presbyterians Today has been somewhat uncertain -- as it was on the list of possible budget cuts during a major downsizing of the denomination's national staff and programs in the spring of 2006.
(PNS) In a reversal of a lower church court ruling, the Rev. Jane Adams Spahr has been found guilty of violating the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage by performing weddings for two lesbian couples.
The Synod of the Pacific's Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) ruled 6-2 that while the "lesbian evangelist" and longtime Presbyterian minister "acted with conscience and conviction," her actions were still at odds with the church's constitution.
HOUSTON -- Do evangelicals look forward to a hopeful future for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? For the approximately 125 pastors and other leaders at the 10th annual Gathering of Presbyterians, the opening addresses August 14 offered mixed messages, which is more positive than they have heard in years.
Like a student presenting her homework, the Coalition's executive director, Terry Schlossberg, launched the event by reciting to the attendees an outline of the tasks carried out to fulfill assignments last summer's attendees had urged upon the board.
First among the assignments was for the nearly two dozen renewal organizations to collaborate much more closely and even to consider merging. A major meeting convened last fall brought the organizations together for the first of a series of meetings. Some of those organizations are planning to leave the denomination, others are committed to stay, and others are living with a high level of uncertainty. Given the different strategies and skill sets working within the organizations a merger is not anticipated, she reported, "but we were, nonetheless, unified."
She enlarged that thought. "That was an important moment for us. We could see that the landscape had shifted and we realized that we needed each other more than ever."
LOUISVILLE -- While acknowledging that the first four chapters of the Book of Order are beloved by many in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Form of Government Task Force is recommending that the church replace those chapters with a new statement it has written called "The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity."
It could have gone a safer route, holding on to language in the church's constitution that in some quarters is already accepted and loved.
But "we do need to be bold," said task force co-moderator Sharon Davison, an elder from New York City. In what the task force is recommending, "we've basically turned the polity of the church on its head."
HOUSTON -- The second annual conference of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship held here August 16-18 reverberated with a passion for mission and hope for a bright future for the church's work in that mission. "Even though the Church has gone off-course numerous times in history, it has gone through key course corrections that put it back on course," reminded opening speaker, David Peterson, who also served as host to the three-day event. The pastor of Memorial Drive Church in Houston told the 850 guests to his city, "I believe that the Presbyterian Church is going through a course correction in these days."
Striking many of the themes introduced at its 2006 inaugural conference, the PGF extended an invitation to the participants to join their efforts to support such a course correction. Unlike last year's conference, though, this conference did not harp against -- in fact, it seldom even mentioned -- the problems swirling around its own denomination. Rather, it repeatedly lifted up an emerging, expanding vision for worldwide Christian endeavor.
LOUISVILLE -- The work the Form of Government Task Force is doing to rewrite the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is "critical" in the life of the denomination, Joseph Small told the task force.
"You are clearly not simply saying, `Let's take this big, thick book of regulations and make it into a leaner, meaner document that will free people up for faithfulness in mission,' " Small said. "You're doing that, but you're doing more than that. This is a chance that comes along not even once a generation ... to make some significant advances in the church's understanding of who and what it is."
But Small, director of Theology, Worship and Education Ministries for the PC(USA), had some gentle cautions to offer the group as well during its meeting in Louisville Aug. 16-18. His advice, he stressed, is based not just on personal opinion, but grows out of discussions among his staff regarding drafts of the task force's work that have been publicly posted on the Internet.
Every once in a while competitors turn into allies. This seems to be one of those times.
Voices all around the church are calling for a change of subject. Most of them are proposing the same subject. Indeed, many heretofore opponents now believe that the answer to our denomination's woes is for us to become a "missional church."
Attendance (125) at the Presbyterian Coalition's Gathering X was dwarfed by that of the second conference of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship (800) -- and both groups seemed pleased about that (see pp. 8, 9). Could it be that the call to be missional is re-energizing conservative-evangelical-confessionalist Presbyterians?
The upcoming conference of the Witherspoon Society (Sept. 17-19) is dubbed as "A Witherspoon conference on global mission and justice." Could it be that the call to be missional is re-focusing progressive-liberal-activist Presbyterians?
The Swearingen Compromise has collapsed, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is struggling because of it.
When the General Assembly appointed the Swearingen Commission in 1925, it had been struggling with the Fundamentalist/Modernist Controversy for decades. After Harry Emerson Fosdick preached his "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" sermon from the pulpit of First Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1922, the controversy came before the General Assembly in 1923 and 1924 in the form of a proposal that the General Assembly direct the Presbytery of New York City to require Fosdick to conform to the theological standards of the Presbyterian Church. Fosdick resigned from the church in 1925, but the same issue returned to the 1925 Assembly because New York Presbytery had licensed two candidates who did not believe in the Virgin Birth. The appointment of the Swearingen Commission helped that Assembly avoid a significant rift.
In recent years, many have felt that the conversations occurring within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have had a maze-like quality. Leaders in the church are operating in crisis mode. The issues are complex: restructuring, loss of members, conflicted congregations, sexual misconduct, New Wineskins, and mission funding, among others. Mission co-workers, pastors, elders, the elected and called leadership in Middle Governing Body work and at the General Assembly Council are all searching for answers.
However, at a typical meeting of the church, whether at General Assembly or at a presbytery, we do not have the time to discern answers to the questions we are asking. Decisions must be made, and the urgent presses us on. Doing the same thing and expecting different results means we will keep losing members and nothing will change. In a time like this, how can we create spiritual practices, ongoing conversations, and learning communities that allow church leaders to walk, listen, talk, and pray together?
In 18 years of parish ministry and twelve years of church consulting, I have yet to meet a pastor or lay leader who didn't want to be effective. They want to do the job right. They want to have healthy churches. So often, however, they haven't been shown where to start and how to proceed.
One sign of this is a basic and thoroughly flawed paradigm that seems active in many churches: clergy ought to provide what they want to provide. If they feel called to promote a certain activity or educational pursuit or liturgical focus or pastoral emphasis, they have a right to do so.
I was in the elevator at the hospital in Rockford, Ill., taking the commuter from fourth floor to first floor. I had completed my visit, prayed with my patient, and was now on my way to the next visit at the next hospital.
In the elevator was one other person, a woman with a weary and weathered face that indicated that much life had been packed into her forty-something years. I gazed mostly at the floor as you do when it's just two of you in the elevator. But I also noticed that she seemed agitated, rocking back and forth on her feet, glancing this way and that, mumbling to herself.
My pastor's radar picked up the signals: I can't stand it, can't stand it. I'm going to explode. I glanced up to see tears, not tears of sadness but of joy. "It's too much, too wonderful. It's incredible!" By now she was mumbling not only to herself, but to me.
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