ATLANTA - Nanette Sawyer's congregation doesn't meet in a church.
"This ministry was the dream of the presbytery of Chicago," she said recently. The vision was to minister to people outside the church in an art-filled neighborhood in west Chicago, "people who would not come to church in any traditional kind of setting."
As the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continues to deal with its various struggles around its spiritual and physical health, a myriad of new terms are tossed about. No debate has been so paradoxically embraced and maligned as the seemingly ambiguous discourse around the "Postmodern" church. Often used alongside such terms as "Emergent," "Culturally Creative," "Bobo" and who knows how many others, this struggle with the church yields the usual debates around what is the Truth (Gospel, God, Church, etc.) and how a people of faith are supposed to faithfully claim and live out that Truth as we understand it.
A word that crops up frequently in the discussions around the Missional Church is the word liminal, or liminality. Liminality has to do with that disorienting whitewater experience between the known past and the yet-to-be and unknown future for which there are no patterns. That's where we are, that's what we are experiencing in the North American church at present -- and it can be a bit disorienting. Yet, we shouldn't really be all that surprised. We've been getting the prophetic warnings now for decades. But for (what I consider) a remarkable emerging generation of younger adults, it has provoked a creative quest having to do with the essence of the church.
Editor's Note: The following essay is the sixth in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA). This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."
The marks of the true Church become important when (a) the Christian community is deeply divided over issues of its peace, purity, and unity; (b) some members and congregations talk openly about separating from the denomination; and (c) the Church or denomination is reconfiguring its polity, The Book of Order. All of these dynamics are now in play for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The national board of That All May Freely Serve has named Lisa Larges to the position of Minister-Coordinator. The action was taken in anticipation of the August 2007 retirement of the Rev. Dr. Jane Spahr, who has served as the founding minister-director of TAMFS,
It would be pleasant to the ears to hear a lot less talk about leaving the PC(USA) than we have heard since last July! Enough already! Nearly everything I read about leaving concentrates on gatherings and meetings and votes and why other people are wrong and "we" are right. I have yet to read anything that establishes a scriptural basis for leaving any denomination.
The New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) has published their strategy document for encouraging congregations to seek dismissal from the PC(USA)[1], including a sample "Open Letter from the Session to the Congregation." The letter makes several claims regarding theology, biblical studies, and the polity of the PC(U.S.A.) that, as I read them, seem deeply problematic and inaccurate.
ATLANTA -- Here's a story from author Diana Butler Bass for all those people in mainline denominations who don't quite get the Emergent Church movement.
After Bass https://www.dianabutlerbass.com/ had published her book Christianity for the Rest of Us, she got a letter from one of her husband's relatives, 82-year-old Uncle David. He is one of eight active members of an 18-member congregation in a small town in Texas. (That this is a mainline church goes without saying.)
"We have tried everything to get new members," Uncle David wrote. "Results, zero. But we haven't tried changing our church or ourselves. We remain the frozen eight."
Sometimes it's hard to say exactly what Emergent is -- it's a way of thinking, an approach to Christianity that's dynamic and fluid and not hierarchical, built around words like relationship and authentic and postmodern. It means different things in different places.
Used with permission by Mennonite Central Committee (www.IranDelegation.org )
Tehran, Iran -- In the first meeting of its kind since the 1979 Islamic revolution, a group of Americans met with a sitting Iranian president in Iran Feb. 24.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), anticipating the New Wineskins Association of Churches meeting https://www.newwineconvo.com/ that will take place in Orlando Feb. 8 and 9, has sent a letter to pastors of Presbyterian churches warning that some congregations may be about to leave the PC(USA) but saying that "we are better followers of Jesus Christ when we stick together."
Lent 2 ¢ Introduction
Most of us today will find it difficult to identify with this demoniac, called Legion. He is surely one of the strangest characters in the gospel narratives. And his tale is told in surprising detail and at unusual length. Many of the man's symptoms seem to fit well with modern day accounts, but the ancient concept of demon possession is quite alien to our modern understanding of mental illness. And the whole business with the pigs, while strangely fascinating, is also quite bizarre. Yet I invite you, for a brief moment, to suspend your twenty-first century frame of mind and step back two thousand years to capture something of what this experience must have meant to one so desperately troubled, and in such crying need of deliverance.
Isn't it heartening to hear evangelical leaders, who represent some of the core constituents of the White House, speaking prophetically regarding environmental issues? They have spurred hope that significant policy changes could help turn the tide on environmental exploitation.
Presbyterians of deep memory know that these developments have been a long time in coming.
Perhaps it's the wacky winter -- northern towns with little snow, daffodils pushing their fragile stems up way too early.
Perhaps it's President George W. Bush, calling during his State of the Union Address for the United States to reduce its use of gasoline by 20 percent in the next decade.
Perhaps it's just time for people of faith to begin paying closer attention to environmental concerns.
When the National Association of Evangelicals issued recently an "Urgent Call to Action," joining with a group of scientists to call for addressing environmental problems ranging from habitat destruction to global warming, that just added more momentum to what has becoming an increasingly hot issue.
We live in a time of great transition from a global economy based on non-renewable resources with their consequences of environmental devastation to some form of sustainable new order. This dilemma is forcing us to radically rethink all our ideologies, be they economic or theological.
Within such a context, President George W. Bush's recent State of the Union address to Congress falls behind the curve. It lacks any desperately needed correction and innovation and shows little awareness of humankind's largest challenge to be stewards of the Creation. We are "staying the course" on this titanic, indestructible ship of state, moving around the deck chairs as we bear directly toward glaciers in the night.
Throughout the nation, Presbyterians of all stripes are responding to God's call to restore and protect creation. The shape of the response varies greatly depending on the particular theological understandings and interests of the people in the congregation, as well as the local environmental challenges of the geographic area.
(RNS) A majority of U.S. adults say that the overall health of the nation's economy is dependent on how spiritual Americans are, a survey by the Gallup Organization shows.
PHILADELPHIA -- More than 1,000 Christian educators have unanimously endorsed an appeal to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leadership to create a mechanism for the ordination of church educators. The vote took place at the annual convention of the Association of Presbyterian Church Educators (APCE) held here Jan. 31 -- Feb. 3.
Outlook: How has your faith helped you in your whole journey?
JD: My faith has been central to me. From the very beginning, in Sudan, I was baptized when I was two years, or one year. And later, in the camp, when we formed into 93 groups, of about a thousand each, every group had a covenant box, like the people of Israel on their journey. And the box was in the middle of the gathering, and we would pray together every day, from 6 in the evening until 9 in the evening, singing songs to the Almighty in our native language, though in the camp they taught us English. Then, on Sundays, we would all gather together, outdoors, with just the fence around us, and worship the Lord. We are the Gentiles, not the Jews, and we believe that Jesus Christ is for all people.
More than 500,000 American teens nationwide will take part February 23 in World Vision's 30 Hour Famine, forsaking food for 30 hours to get a taste of what the world's poorest children and families face everyday.
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The sound of gunfire echoes in his head. The smell of gunpowder and flashing images of the dead haunt him like ghosts that can never be exorcised. He still hears the artillery pounding and the frightened children crying.
He could no longer bear to see his country plunged into the abyss of lawlessness.
When his paintbrush, and even his own fingers, would not obey his restless mind, Mohammad Mahredin, one of Iraq's pioneer contemporary artists, slowly and painfully abandoned hope of a sorrow-free Iraq and decided to bid farewell to his country.
.
All his friends would have understood if he had left her. She was unfaithful, wandering, adulterous--plain and simple, she was a whore. The children, who all bore his name, didn't all look very much like him. He was always having to go after her, always having to hunt her down in bars and strip joints and other men's houses. He was always having to bail her out of some mess or another--and, that wasn't cheap or easy. So, everyone would have understood if he had left her. Some would have even applauded. Some would have said, "Well, it's about time! She's been playing him for a fool for way too long!"
The Rev. Roger Harp, pastor at First Church, Grand Island, Neb., and former Synod Executive/Stated Clerk/Treasurer of the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic died tragically Sunday afternoon in a traffic accident on Interstate 80 while on his way to pick up his wife in Lincoln, Nebraska. His vehicle apparently crossed the median on the interstate and struck a westbound tractor trailer.
Roger served as Synod Executive/State Clerk/Treasurer at the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic (the Middle Governing Body of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A) from August, 2003 until December of 2006 when he began to feel led to "seek to conclude my ministry in a parish setting, if possible."
Lent is for listening.
A season of hushed voices and uncomfortable silences;
of hearing and overhearing ~
hearing the creak and groan of the church building;
overhearing the muffled cough, the stifled sigh ~
in worship, the silenced infant's cry.
Outside the oblivious, uncooperative, noisy world goes on,
white noise distracting.
Lent offers the church a time each year to consider the wondrous love of Jesus Christ and what it means to follow in his way. These resources (some specifically for Lent, others not) may prove useful for individuals and groups who read, pray, plan worship, and study during this season.
The Beatitudes for Today, by James C. Howell. WJKP, 2006. ISBN 0-664-22932-8. Pb., 124 pp. $14.95.
In 14 chapters, Howell reflects on what it means to be blessed in the way of Jesus Christ. His work considers not only what Jesus says, but also what he does not say, ever with an eye to the shape of God's blessing in real human lives. Includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter.
(Matthew 13:1-23. Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-15)
I never actually heard him speak that day,
although, over the next few months,
I listened to him many times.
It was the early springtime - don't you see? -
and I had spent the first part of that week
stumbling along behind my stubborn mule.
We were ploughing up a whole new section,
yes, that hillside that sits above the Sea of Galilee,
digging out and carting off old tree stumps,
roots and rocks and boulders,
preparing the virgin soil
to receive the precious seed.
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