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Finding a way together: Scottish pastors visit N.C. churches

© 2006. Used by permission.

 

CHARLOTTE -- More than 140 Scots are part of a study week focusing on dilemmas facing congregations in both the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and celebrating the ties that bind the two denominations as a mother-church and her now-grown offspring.

Under way now in Charlotte, N.C., the week-long event is being financed and hosted by the city's four largest Presbyterian congregations, Myers Park, Covenant, First, and Sardis churches. The goal is to exchange both models for ministry and address common problems such as membership loss.

"Its really individual churches (doing this), rather than the church nationally," said Robin McAlpine, a pastor and a member of a commission within the Church of Scotland that is studying the future. " ... This is more of an informal arrangement to take ideas back into local congregations."

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Legendary Presbyterian parliamentarian Marianne Wolfe dies

LOUISVILLE * Marianne Wolfe, a Pittsburgh elder who was the preeminent parliamentarian in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), died Oct. 10 at her home in Cranberry Township, PA. She was 78.

Wolfe, a Professional Registered Parliamentarian from 1970 until her death, literally wrote the book on Presbyterian parliamentary law. Her published works included a teaching curriculum, Members Together (1976); Parliamentary Law for the Presbyterian Church (1983); The Elder (1991); and the chapter on polity in 1992's Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith.

In 2003, the PC(USA)'s Association of Stated Clerks named her the first winner of the C. Fred Jenkins Award for her contributions to the polity and parliamentary law of the denomination.

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New Jersey pastor donates kidney to parishioner

Richard L. "Rick" Oppelt has been pastor of Oak Tree Church in Edison, N.J., for more than 12 years, so he and his parishioners share a depth of knowledge and caring for each other.

However, when Oppelt heard that church member Carol Trapp, a type one diabetic for most of her life, needed a kidney transplant, his knowledge and caring faced a real test.

He already knew they shared the same blood type: O positive. While that is a good blood type for blood donations, it is not "universal" for organ recipients, Oppelt said. He decided to go through the testing to see if he was an organ donor match while others--family, donor banks--were tested and checked as well. Members of Mrs. Trapp's family did not match, but Rick Oppelt did.

While not simple, the decision seemed clear cut, he said. Research assured him that persons could live normally with one kidney. If a kidney donor in subsequent years needs a kidney, he or she is placed at the top of transplant waiting lists, he found. And Mrs. Trapp, with a less than 15 percent kidney function, faced an average five-year wait in New Jersey for a donor kidney, during which time she would be on dialysis.

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Sacramento Presbytery acts on property, scruples, per-capita giving issues

Sacramento Presbytery, in a vote that is catching the attention of folks around the country, has passed a resolution that apparently would allow congregations that wanted to leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to do so with their property.

It also voted not to grant any exceptions to the PC(USA)'s ordination standards, not to recognize any "scruples" involving individual conscience, and not to allow the presbytery to make up the difference if congregations withhold their per capita payments to protest policies of the national church.

The presbytery met for more than four hours on Sept. 9 in a specially-called meeting requested by three pastors and three elders, who presented four resolutions for the presbytery to consider. All four passed, including one that would allow congregations that want to leave the denomination to do so without forfeiting their property. That resolution -- approved by a 73-65 margin -- states that the presbytery "shall take no action to enforce any general trust interest" involving property of congregations within the presbytery.

What exactly this will mean in practice remains to be seen.

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Pastors need ministry, support, too; ways to help

Being a pastor isn't easy.

National studies show that while ministers often feel a sense of satisfaction from their work, they also feel the pressure of having too much to do, too little money, ambiguous expectations placed on them, and conflicted relationships in their congregations.

So some presbyteries, conscious of the difficulties of pastoral work, are trying different models of both providing pastoral support and of challenging ministers to do the best and most ambitious work possible.

In Pittsburgh Presbytery, Jim Mead's title is "pastor to presbytery" -- but that should not be interpreted as primarily a therapeutic or counseling role, Mead said in an interview. Instead, his emphasis is intentionally missional: encouraging pastors to be bold in mission, to take risks, to follow where God is calling them to go.

"The pastor to the presbytery's number one job is walking with pastors while they try to help their congregations walk with God in what God is doing," Mead said, or "asking pastors to do difficult things and to pay the price that comes with change."

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10 Minutes With … Jay Hein

c. 2006 Religion News Service

 

WASHINGTON -- On Aug. 21, Jay Hein became the third director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In his new role, the former think-tank president intends to continue toward President Bush's goal of giving religious groups equal access to federal funding for social services.

Despite the initiative's tendency to be controversial because of its location at the intersection of church and state, Hein is convinced of its purpose and hopes to see it have greater influence on the local and state level.

Hein stepped down as elder of his nondenominational church in an Indianapolis suburb, but he expects to eventually return to the area and resume his work with Sagamore Institute for Policy Research. RNS spoke with Hein, 41, about his plans at the White House.

Editorials

War, lies, and book publishing

We were setting the bar high when we Americans declared, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

That high bar motivates us to pursue honorable purposes in ethical ways. In recent days, as we have paused to remember with tears the horrors of 9/11, our American president has argued that the war on terror exempts us from some particular requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Many of us find such assertions beyond comprehension, beyond justification, beyond ethical defense. We feel embarrassed, ashamed, and angry.

Voices

Our tortured, war-torn conscience

What to make of Maher Arar? A Syrian-born computer engineer, now a naturalized citizen of Canada, an ordinary man with a wife and family, Arar was detained by American authorities on September 26, 2002, while changing flights at Kennedy Airport. Arar's infraction? He had a co-worker, who had a brother, who had connections to people whom officials suspected of having links to al-Qaeda. Based on this thin thread of suspicion and without being charged with any crime, Arar was taken from his family, put in chains, handed over to the government of Syria, and for ten months subjected to acts of extreme physical and mental torture. We now know that Arar was completely innocent.   

How could something like this happen? Why America's resort to torture?  Seasoned interrogators have long known that torture is a poor tactic to elicit reliable information. Under torture a person will say whatever his tormentors wish. In fact, a classic military text on interrogation, based on concrete experience gained during World War II, says that the best way to extract useful information is through kindness, not brutality.

Book Reviews

A brief review of The Christian Faith and The truth Behind 9/11

 

Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action by David Ray Griffin. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. ISBN 0-664-23117-9. Pb., 246 pp. $17.95.

 

reviewed by Christian T. Iosso

 

What does a rationalist do when so many irrational things are happening?

As David Ray Griffin summarizes them, we have a global warming crisis, continued nuclear proliferation, massive death by preventable poverty and growing social inequality in the United States, still the world's most militarily powerful nation and hence the most responsible for these trends. But why does the US government focus about 58% of our federal budget--inclusively calculated--on a unilateral militarism that alienates most of the world and blocks social progress? The reason given is the "war on terror," and the defining moment of that continues to be 9/11.

Editorials

Of conspiracies and evil

 

David Ray Griffin, professor emeritus of philosophy and theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, continues his series of books in which he argues that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were "false-flag" operations of individuals within the U.S. government to aid America's imperialistic advances into Afghanistan and Iraq and to spread U.S. power and influence around the world. 

Incorporating material from newly-released interviews as well as reviewing information he has previously published i, the first half of this book contains extensively footnoted material formed into a well-crafted argument against the official explanation of the 9/11 attacks given by the 9/11 Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Institute of Standards & Technology, and various independent media groups. Griffin sums up his argument in this portion by concluding that the evidence he cites is a "conclusive case" (p. 82) that the Bush administration willfully and purposefully committed an act of war against the population and territory of the United States in order to accomplish the goals of a number of its "neo-conservative" members: the absolute primacy of the United States as the unchallenged world power and the institution of a worldwide Pax Americana. 

Voices

Solitude: A place for your soul to come out

 

©Ruth Haley Barton, June 2005.

Used by permission.

 

"The soul is like a wild animal--tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently by the base of the tree, and fade into our surroundings, the wild animal we seek might put in an appearance."

-- Parker Palmer

 

I will never forget my first experience with extended solitude. It was a field trip, of sorts, that was part of a seminary class on spiritual formation; our class gathered at a nearby retreat center to spend the day under the guidance of our beloved professor. The morning was wonderful but, in some ways, very similar to what I had already been experiencing in shorter times of solitude. However, when lunchtime came, we were told that we would eat lunch in silence so as not to interrupt our attention to God by being pulled into social interaction.

Voices

The Virtue of Mark’s “Little People”: Part One

"Preach the gospel at all times," urged Francis of Assisi, adding, "if necessary, use words." And we may wonder that the truth he administers -- that actions preach louder, and better, than words -- doesn't paralyze proclamation altogether.

Still, the example of the canonical evangelists should nerve us to keep on. After all, if they knew and observed Francis' rule (and who can believe that they did?), then, by whatever calculus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John judged the necessity to be great. For, of words -- gratias Deo, such marvelous words! -- they used plenty.

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Global scope, homeland churches: PC(USA) faces immigrant issues

ATLANTA  -- What does it mean for an established church, in which tradition is revered, to see the world changing all around it?

What can a mostly-white church do to be truly welcoming to those of other cultures and other colors -- to share power and faith with those who speak many languages and have their own ways of doing things?

Those are hard questions for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination that is more than 92 percent white and has been losing both numbers and influence for a long time. But some Presbyterians are exploring exactly those questions -- are excited about what could be and at the same time somewhat apprehensive about the challenges.

"There are all kinds of people from all over the world right here in small-town America, and we don't know how to deal with that," said Tracie Mayes Stewart, director of Christian education at First Church in Statesville, N.C.

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Baylor Religion Survey explores Americans’ faith, practices

Used by permission

 

Conventional wisdom, backed by some research, has suggested that the United States is becoming a more secularized nation - one where the significance of religion is declining. But results released Sept. 11 from the Baylor University Religion Survey paint a different picture.

In 2004, the General Social Survey reported that 14.3 percent of the population had no religion, but by using a more detailed measure in the Baylor survey, researchers determined that only 10.8 percent of the population or approximately 10 million Americans are unaffiliated.

"We believe, and are going to argue, that it [the statistics] has more to do with how you ask about the religious connection than what it says about the commitment of the average American to their faith," said Kevin Dougherty, assistant professor of sociology and one of the Baylor Survey researchers.

Editorials

A heart for the pastor’s heart

I miss being a pastor. To be entrusted both by God and by a community of faith to represent and proclaim the gospel of our Lord is the most humbling and thrilling vocation I could imagine fulfilling. To have lived out that trust daily for 22 years was a joy.

I will never forget the thrill it was to pray with Ernie in his hospital room as his liver cancer was threatening to take his life. After years of resisting his wife's faith, he now sincerely affirmed Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, and welcomed Christ's presence into his life.

What fun it was to baptize the young, the old, men, women, and children. Never to be forgotten was the time I baptized baby Benjamin along with his 83-year-old grandfather Henry. Never to be forgotten (even though I have tried!) was that other time when I got counter-baptized by slimy, smelly, half-digested baby formula.

Voices

Corrosive criticism

Over the years of teaching seminarians and leading them later in continuing education seminars, I have come to realize that we have not prepared clergy to handle criticism.

Nothing seems to demoralize clergy more than personal and professional criticism. It hurts. It throws us off balance. It causes us to question our competence. Long after the initial sting there lingers a smoldering resentment that a parishioner could be so unloving, unjust, and unfair. This resentment grows and deepens in the absence of offsetting affirmation and praise. Often, too, the resentment festers when there is no one to talk to about the injustice except one's life partner who must also endure the insult and pain.

Voices

World-renowned preacher, seeking meaning, leaves church to teach

 

c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

 

Barbara Brown Taylor has been an Episcopal priest, a teacher, columnist, author and -- according to Baylor University -- one of the best preachers in the English-speaking world.

Her new book, Leaving Church (HarperSanFrancisco), describes her experience of burning out as the priest of a parish she had wanted very much to serve and then leaving not only the pastoral ministry but also many of her former beliefs.

"I wanted to be as close as I could to the Really Real," she said in an interview with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. "And I'll capitalize both of those R's, because God is a word that means different things to different people, but we might agree it's what is most real."

Voices

The clergy shortage: What it means for churches

c. 2006 Religion News Service

 

When church members describe their ideal pastor, they often prefer "a nice young man with a family," as one denominational official said. Nice young men and women do become pastors, but they are a minority in the pool of American clergy. I concentrate here on the word "young." Whether male or female, young clergy are in short supply.

In one sense, this is no surprise. For at least the past 25 years, an increasing percentage of seminary students have been second-career students; that is, they have worked in at least one other occupation prior to seminary.

Voices

The hardest task for a minister

The hardest task for a minister is being the former pastor, especially if you were beloved by many.

While pastor of the church, you were invited in for the most intimate and special events in people's lives--baptisms, weddings, illnesses, death. Not only were you honored by being trusted to share in those times, you were needed by individuals and families during those marker happenings in their lives. You formed deep and lasting friendships with people in your congregation.

Leaving the pastorate within that congregation means leaving all those meaningful connections behind. That can be painful, difficult, and lonely. But just as a family doctor does not continue to prescribe or perform surgery on former patients after retiring or moving to another community, so a minister is no longer a pastor to those who used to be his/her parishioners.

Book Reviews

Clergy Burnout: Recovering from the 70-Hour Work Week … and Other Self-Defeating Practices

 

by Fred Lehr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8006-3763-1. Pb., 147 pp.  $18.

 

On a recent day, three committees of the presbytery I serve met at the same time. As meetings broke up, the young woman on the Committee on Representation and I headed down to my office to get information about college scholarships for her. On the way we were stopped at least five times by people who just wanted to say a word to the presbytery executive. Finally, when we were alone, as I apologized for the delay, she, a preacher's daughter like me, said, "Oh, Paige, it's fine, really. It was just like being with my dad after church. I know how it is. We have learned to wait 'til we get home if we need his attention for something." 

It was an instant bond between us, two women forty years apart in age who realized instantly that we had grown up to love the Presbyterian Church and our fathers, patiently waiting our turn while they served the flock.

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Gardner Taylor inspires new generation of preachers

c. 2006 Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

   

RALEIGH, N.C. -- He's 88 years old and technically retired. But the Rev. Gardner C. Taylor still shows the preaching skills that have placed him on virtually every list of America's greatest contemporary preachers.

As a guest preacher in pulpits across the nation, Taylor continues to charm -- and enlighten -- worshippers as he has for more than six decades. But he says preaching is always a tenuous endeavor.

"It is quickly lost," he recently told the PBS show "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly." "It's uttered, heard, and sometimes lost. But it is the mystery of preaching that it survives, and that it has survived so much of our bad preaching."

By most accounts, little bad preaching can be traced to Taylor, who moved here after retirement.

Voices

11 principles for congregational stewardship

Biblical stewardship is a many-sided, multi-dimensional discipline, a lesson I learned during 25 years working with rural, town, suburban, and urban congregations in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania. If employed, they potentially will bring forward the gifts necessary for vibrant ministry within the congregation and vital mission to the world.  

 

1. Stewardship announces that everything we are and have belongs to God. It is an antidote to the power of avarice and consumerism. It guards against the idolatry of things, from being possessed by our possessions. Members are managers, not owners, of all the Creator has entrusted to them. The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it (Psalm 24:1).

2. Stewardship's first and final standard is Jesus Christ. A faithful response is not measured by what the member(s) gave last year or what our neighbor might give. The life, death, resurrection, and promised coming again of Jesus Christ are stewardship's only sure standard and measure. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus ... who emptied himself (Philippians 2:5).

Voices

Staying away

I remember David Steele's thoughts when he retired from his pastorate. In his inimitable way he spoke of a beloved parishioner who was sick, and of the strong pull to go and see him, so that the member's needs would be met. After some consideration, and probably a bit of prayer, Steele made the wise decision to stay put, and not to visit this fellow. Others would have to do the task.

He stayed away.

Steele faced the concern that many retired ministers do. A long pastorate is filled with relationships built over time. They are deep and meaningful. Some of these pastoral relationships become friendships. And, yes, some of these friendships endure over time.

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GAC seeks answers for MIJH&H queries on meeting mission and operational needs

LOUISVILLE -- The General Assembly Council made it clear Sept. 29 that it wants some questions answered about the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s $40 million fundraising campaign -- significant questions, such as how many international missionaries the denomination actually is sending out and how much money is available to support them.

At the same time, the council does not want to signal that it's pulling back its support for the Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands campaign, which is raising money for new church development in the United States and for international mission work.

Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, said during the council's meeting in Kentucky that the denomination's primary story line needs to be "we want to lift mission up and are looking for ways to support that."

Ufford-Chase said he recognizes that the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is now "the public face of the General Assembly Council's commitment to mission" -- and that because of it, money has been raised for mission work that the denomination would not have otherwise had.

But the push for public accountability of the Joining Hearts & Hands campaign is gaining steam because the campaign's leadership announced this week that they don't have enough unrestricted funds available to pay their operating expenses for 2007 -- they expect to run about $500,000 short.

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Further PC(USA) funds found missing after audit; part of Golliher embezzlement

LOUISVILLE -- An internal audit has determined that Judy Golliher, the former treasurer of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), took more money from the denomination than had first been detected when the PC(USA) fired her last summer for embezzlement.

The audit shows that, in addition to the $102,000 that a preliminary investigation showed was missing, $21,912 in unauthorized charges were run up on Golliher's corporate credit card, and $8,925 that was disbursed from General Assembly bank accounts cannot be documented or reconciled.

So the investigation concluded that Golliher misappropriated $132,837 from the PC(USA), according to an Audit Committee report to the General Assembly Council Sept. 29.

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