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Book Reviews

Summer reading 2007

 

The Presbyterian Outlook invited pastors and leaders from across the church to share with us their hopes for summer reading. Here are their responses:

 

Betty Meadows, general presbyter, Mid-Kentucky Presbytery:

Christianity for the Rest of Us, by Diana Butler Bass

 

Scott Black Johnston, pastor, Trinity Church, Atlanta, Ga.:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling

Portions of Calvin's Institutes (the 500th anniversary of his birth is approaching fast)

A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics by William Stacy Johnson

 

Voices

Where do we start in “Church Wellness?”

 

Energy will follow need and interest. So even though, from a practical standpoint, you could start anywhere and build toward a balanced program, your most pressing needs will be a reasonable starting point.

Many congregations, for example, are concerned about declining membership. Mainline Protestant denominations have been losing members steadily since 1964, when Baby Boomers began to graduate from high school. Partisans have used that decline as a weapon against whatever they didn't like. In fact, growth had come too easily in the two decades after World War II, and we just weren't geared up to retain current members and to recruit new members.

Uncategorized

OGA eliminates seven staff positions

LOUISVILLE -- The Office of the General Assembly -- feeling the same financial pressures that are stressing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) across the board -- has announced the elimination of seven positions.

The job cuts come in expectation that revenue from the denomination's per capita budget, which funds the Office of the General Assembly, will decline by about 5 percent next year.

Four people -- three senior administrative assistants and a document specialist -- lost their jobs in the downsizing. Two other staff members have voluntarily accepted separation agreements, and one vacant communications position is being cut.

Voices

20 Minutes with Nora Tubbs Tisdale

The Rev. Dr. Leonora (Nora) Tubbs Tisdale joined the Yale University Divinity School faculty in 2006 as the Clement-Muehl Professor of Homiletics. Before going to YDS, Dr. Tisdale served for four years as Consulting Theologian at the Fifth Avenue Church in New York City. She also served as Adjunct Faculty at Union Theological Seminary. Prior to that she taught Preaching and Worship at Princeton Theological Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (now Union-PSCE).  She began her ministry as co-pastor with her husband of an ecumenical parish of four churches in central Virginia. Dr. Tisdale is married to the Rev. Dr. W. Alfred Tisdale Jr., a Presbyterian minister. Outlook Editor Jack Haberer recently talked with her about the subject of preaching.

 

Editorials

The mystery of preaching the mystery

Why preach? 

Among all the different methods available for teaching, the lecture format may be the least effective. Brainstorming, research-and-report, experimentation-and-analysis, and other pedagogical methods promote more vivid impact than only the spoken word.

Among the different media available for communicating, the hotter media of television, movies, and the Web all provide multi-sensory data that instruct via the multiple intelligences, thereby increasing students' retention tenfold, twentyfold or better, over simply listening to a leader's monologue.

Uncategorized

Many reach out in Va. Tech tragedy because, “That’s what churches do”

 

Most Presbyterians were nowhere near Blacksburg, Va., on April 16, that darkest of days at Virginia Tech.

Others were right in the epicenter, and they will never forget -- like Alexander Evans, the pastor of Blacksburg Church, who was in his car driving to Montreat when he got a phone call telling him to turn around, come back, there was trouble. Evans, a police chaplain, spent that Monday in the emergency rooms of hospitals and then going to campus to stand with police officers who came out of Norris Hall, their faces reflecting the horror of what they had seen.

Later, Evans was asked to help notify the families of those who were killed.

Time after time, he went into a room with the brothers and sisters and parents of students, closed the door and told them what no family can ever prepare themselves to hear.

Voices

The miracle of preaching

Editor's note: "Preaching is what God does, and we have to learn and re-learn that" (William Willimon). Chris Brown, a student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, covered a three-part lecture series delivered by William Willimon at PTS on April 27 with the theme, "God's Activity in Preaching." The lectures, titled "The Miracle of Preaching: Preaching as God's Word," were presented as a part of the seminary's annual J. Hubert Henderson Conference on Church and Ministry.  Willimon, who is bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and author of nearly 60 books, spoke with natural humility and humor to the pastors, alumni, and seminarians in attendance. His message, however, contained a powerful challenge to preachers: "In order to be a preacher, you have to keep practicing miracle."

 

Voices

Stepping out

 c. 2007 Religion News Service

 

 

c. 2007 Religion News Service

 

Big Sky, Mont. -- Go outside.

Sometime today, walk out into the fresh air and just be for a few minutes.

And look up. There, hopefully, you will find sky.

Sky is good and natural and sometimes, even on a cloudy, grouchy day, even if you catch just a peek of it between skyscrapers or by craning your neck from the bathroom window that faces the alley, really quite beautiful.

Marveling at creation is easy to do when you're sitting where I am now, in an Adirondack chair on the porch of a cabin in the mountains of Montana, listening to the rush of a spring-swollen river. I can hear the occasional cry of two hawks that have been chasing a smaller bird around the hills all afternoon. I'm in place called Big Sky, and it is aptly named. They filmed "A River Runs Through It" here. This is perhaps the most beautiful place on earth, or at least as much of it as I've seen thus far. All of western Montana is like God showing off: "Look what I can do! Look what I can do!"

Sometime today, walk out into the fresh air and just be for a few minutes.

And look up. There, hopefully, you will find sky.

Sky is good and natural and sometimes, even on a cloudy, grouchy day, even if you catch just a peek of it between skyscrapers or by craning your neck from the bathroom window that faces the alley, really quite beautiful.

Marveling at creation is easy to do when you're sitting where I am now, in an Adirondack chair on the porch of a cabin in the mountains of Montana, listening to the rush of a spring-swollen river. I can hear the occasional cry of two hawks that have been chasing a smaller bird around the hills all afternoon. I'm in place called Big Sky, and it is aptly named. They filmed "A River Runs Through It" here. This is perhaps the most beautiful place on earth, or at least as much of it as I've seen thus far. All of western Montana is like God showing off: "Look what I can do! Look what I can do!"

Voices

A “Best Practices” guide

 c. 2007 Religion News Service

 

 

 

I call our Church Wellness Project a "best practices guide to nurturing a healthy faith community."

The concept of "best practices" is widely accepted in many fields, but often is resisted in churches.

Briefly, the concept means that some methods and processes are better -- more effective, more productive, more likely to achieve desired ends -- than others.

In medicine, for example, complicated surgical procedures tend to follow widely accepted best practices. In sales, best practices include prompt response to inquiries, consistent follow-through on commitments, and tracking interactions with prospects and customers.

Uncategorized

Bannerman receives lifetime achievement award

Glenn Quince Bannerman has been honored by the steering committee of the 54th Annual Recreation Workshop as the first recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was created to honor those who have made significant contributions to the Annual Recreation Workshop (ARW), a non-profit organization that trains leaders from across the country and from many other nations in recreation ministry.  The Workshop is offered each May and is co-sponsored and hosted by the Montreat Conference Center.

Voices

Honoring Whose We Are

This month our congregation celebrated its 30th anniversary. We did so with a joyful banquet on Saturday night and a celebratory worship..

Uncategorized

Statement on church property, resources

After holding an extensive interview with Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick, reported in recent weeks on this Website and in the magazine, Outlook editor Jack Haberer, pressed Mr. Kirkpatrick to answer some of the particular questions that have arisen from Outlook's readers regarding the legal advice circulated by denominational leaders on the matter of church property disputes. Mr. Kirkpatrick met via conference call with the editor, along with Mark Tammen, Associate Stated Clerk for Constitutional Services, and Eric Graninger, General Counsel: Legal/Risk Services for the General Assembly Council. After discussing these matters, they agreed to prepare a detailed response to those questions. Here is that response

Over the past several months, some have expressed concern about two resources relating to church property that critics have called the 'Louisville Papers.' Others have expressed support for them. The first is a Polity Memorandum prepared by the Office of the General Assembly's Department of Constitutional Services, while the second is a Legal Memorandum prepared by the General Assembly Council's Office of Legal Services. (1) This statement comes to clarify the origin and timing of these resources.

The Polity Memorandum and the Legal Memorandum were created as resources enabling presbyteries to better understand and work with these processes. Presbyteries are in no manner compelled to use these documents. They are simply advisory and, hopefully, helpful. (2) While some may believe that the Legal Memo presents matters in rather stark terms, this simply reflects the legal process and terminology of secular litigation, where decisions are made by attorneys and judges (for whom Presbyterianism may be wholly foreign) under strict rules of evidence and procedure. The Legal Memo is a practical introduction to civil litigation, to assist presbyteries when they find themselves in such circumstances, but is by no means intended to encourage recourse to that forum.

Uncategorized

Montreat Church: Presbytery votes to divide into two congregations

MONTREAT -- In a historic meeting April 24, the Presbytery of Western North Carolina voted 185 to 69 to divide the Montreat Presbyterian Church into "those who want to go" and "those who want to stay" in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  

The Montreat church will be divided into two congregations. Those wishing to remain in the denomination will retain the present name. Those wishing to leave will be dismissed as a congregation to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Wading through more than four hours of political quagmire with amended and substitute motions, the entire Revised Recommended Decision before Presbytery was adopted.

Editorials

Anger gone nuclear

Anger is to humanity what nuclear energy is to electricity. Powerful and creative. Volatile and dangerous.

God created anger, and for good reason. Anger stirs social workers to rescue abused children from violent parents. Anger provokes prophets to expose exploiting power brokers. Anger compels the courageous to break chains of injustice. Anger confronts religious hypocrites and drives moneychangers out of temples.

Then again, evil hijacks anger for destructive pur­poses. It batters spouses and children. It unleashes the privileged against the powerless--and vice versa. It propagates hatred. It murders innocents. It morphs into resentment, escalates into bitterness, depresses into isolation, and explodes into carnage.

We have witnessed what happens when anger goes nuclear. 9-11. Columbine. Ted Bundy. The recent shooting rampage at Virginia Tech provided its own commentary in the form of a video made by the shooter. It showcased rage's demonic darkness.

Few of us will ever descend into the pit of wickedness as did that student, but every one of us experiences anger. 

Uncategorized

Step up and help: Presbyterians donate gifts, time, prayers to troops in Iraq

 

It often starts with one person -- one Presbyterian who thinks, "There must be something I can do."

At McDowell Church in McDowell, Va., a tiny congregation of about 50 members, that someone was retired artist and photographer Diane Stein. She wanted to find a way to support the men and women serving with the American military in Iraq.

For Stein, the war has definitely hit home: earlier, her granddaughter lost her fiancé in the conflict. Two hours be­fore he was killed, the fiancé e­mailed to say, "'Don't worry about me, baby, I'll be home.' ... But he never came home," Stein said. "These are our fam­ily members, our people."

So Stein started looking on the In­ternet for ways she could help support the troops, and came across the Web site www.anysoldier.com , which lists contact information for troops serving in the war and supplies they need.

Uncategorized

Princeton professor receives 2007 Murray-Tutu book prize

The Andrew Murray­ - Desmond Tutu Prize for the Best Christian and Theo­logical Book by a South African in any official language of South Africa, will be awarded for the first time in 2007. The recipient is J. Wentzel van Huyssteen for his book, Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology, published by Wm. B. Eerd­mans Publishing Company in the Unit­ed States.

Uncategorized

Elizabeth Kiss installed as president of Agnes Scott

Elizabeth Kiss was installed as the eighth president of Agnes Scott Col­lege on April 20 at the school in De­catur, Ga.

In her installation address, she af­firmed the value of women's education in a time when women hold majority in the nation's coeducational institutions. "Decatur Female Seminary was estab­lished in the context of a south still reeling from the economic and social crisis of the Civil War," Kiss said, refer­ring to the college's original name. "Col. George Washington Scott, the Rev. Frank Gaines and the other founders were determined to elevate their community and convinced that the education of young women was key to this task.

Book Reviews

What Presbyterians NEED to read

For the past few months, I have been conducting a very unscientific survey among PWPAs  (Persons With a Pres­byterian Affiliation). I think I've talked with around a hundred folks. I asked: "What does it mean to be a Presbyter­ian today?" The most frequent re­sponse is a glazing over of the eyes, a couple of mumbles, followed by, "Gee, I wish I knew." I often have followed this up by asking, "Then why do you stay?" The most frequent response? "I don't know. (Sigh) I just don't know." 

Lately, I've been asking a third ques­tion of people who seem receptive: "How would you describe being a Christian these days?" Puzzled looks and slow, rueful headshakes are very common. "You got me. I don't know how to describe that. (Pause.) Y'know, I don't think about it all that much."

Admittedly it is an unscientific sam­ple, but thinking back over the years it rings way too true. Folks like this are not simply missing a denominational identity, they are missing a core Christ­ian identity as well. For these folks, "faith" is a series of very blurry, abstract concepts that have nothing to do with "real life." Church is strictly an "if con­venient" proposition that has to do with social contacts and "feeling good" more than anything else.

Book Reviews

The best sellers

Christian book top sellers for late 2006 and early 2007 from the following publishers:

  • Abingdon Press/United Methodist Publishing
  • Augsburg Publishing/ Fortress Press
  • Ave Marie Press
  • Bethany House Publishing
  • InterVarsity Press
  • Paraclete Press
  • Zondervan

 

Book Reviews

Letters to New Pastors

 

by Michael Jinkins. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006. ISBN 0­8028­2751­9. Pb., 186 pp. $15.

 

For almost five years we were privi­leged to be in a program developed by the Office of Theology and Worship entitled "Excellence from the Start." The design of the program was to put new pastors in groups of seven or eight under the leadership of experienced pastor/mentors. Groups met twice a year for theological reflection on min­istry in light of assigned readings.

Book Reviews

Beyond the burning bus: The Civil Rights Revolution in a Southern Town

by Phil Noble. Montgomery: New­South, 2003. ISBN 1­58838­120­X. Hb., 168 pp. $24.95

 

Growing up in north Alabama, I vividly remember riding in the back seat of my father's Mercury and hearing him and a friend of his, an insurance salesman from Cullman, talk with some pride about the fact that Cullman, Ala., did not have any African­-American resi­dents. My father's friend said he called on one elderly woman regularly in Cullman who had a small arsenal in a bedroom in the back of her house which was ready to be used by several men in that small town to intimidate any African-­American who thought to try moving into the city limits. The conversation between my father and this man was filled with the kind of racial epithets that I routinely heard in my childhood. This was 1978.

Book Reviews

The HarperCollins Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version

(fully revised and updated), by the Society of Biblical Literature, Harold W. Attridge, general editor. Harper­Collins, 2006. ISBN 0­06­078685­X. Hb., 2272 pp. $44.95.

 

In these days of hit­or­miss Hollywood sequels, one picks up a "revised and up­dated" work in fear and trembling. The new edition may fail to rise to the level of the original. Something of the essen­tial character of the original may be re­moved or replaced in an effort to make the new edition somehow "better." 

Such fears are unfounded here.

I was a seminary student when the first edition of The HarperCollins Study Bible came out in 1993, and have found it to be an indispensable tool both in the classroom and in the church. As a student, I realized that it reflected well the insights and interpretive methods of the biblical scholars whose works were among my seminary readings (much as the Oxford Annotated RSV did for previous generations). As a pastor, I have found it to be a useful way to bring the fruit of current biblical scholarship into Bible studies without having to lug around numerous volumes of commen­tary. The pages of my original edition are underlined, dog­eared, torn, worn, and crumpled; alas, one section has even fallen out. I hope my copy of this new edition will be similarly worn in a few years--except for loose section!

Voices

Church Wellness: An introduction

 CW Newsletter logo.jpg

 

I am delighted to be joining you for a weekly look at "Church Wellness."

In this column, we will consider the best practices for doing the basics of nurturing healthy churches. I have no axes to grind, no denominational or doctrinal "shoulds" to pursue. My only aim is to help your congregations be as healthy as they can be. That means fo­cusing on the key factors affecting church health:

·         Membership development

·         Leadership development

·         Communications strategy

·         Spiritual development

·         Young Adults ministry

·         Listening church

·         Metrics

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