Editor's Note: Before each General Assembly, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly shares what he considers to be the top ten issues coming to the assembly, based primarily on overtures that have been submitted and his travels and conversations with Presbyterians across the denomination. Here is Clifton Kirkpatrick's non-prioritized list for this year's assembly:
Can a disintegrating organization of Christian believers find a way to reverse its downward spiral? Our national leadership needs our help to find a way.
That downward spiral strikes a distinct resemblance to the deterioration of Main Street in many an American town. That hub of the community's commerce, with its pharmacy, supermarket, clothing, and shoe stores faded when developers built the shopping mall or Wal-Mart on the highway just outside town.
As we near the end of another school year, those of us in theological academia ready ourselves for Baccalaureate and Commencement exercises yielding yet another crop of pastors who will soon stand behind pulpit and table in churches all over the country. This will be my first opportunity as the new president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary to pass out diplomas and wish our graduating seniors well as they take on a new mantle of responsibility.
What will I be thinking as I shake their hands? I will be thinking about a line I said to our program staff at First Church, Dallas at the end of every staff meeting. It was, "Praise the Lord," to which they replied, "The Lord's name be praised." Then I always added a phrase from Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there." My reason for saying this line to 2006 graduates is that I've just come back to the academic world after 22 years of parish ministry in one congregation, and I know it's not easy being a pastor these days.
In many ways the church that today's graduates are heading into is not the same one I faced 33 years ago. The world is not the same either. As a result I want to encourage our soon-to-be clergy to "think outside the box" in two ways as they leave their places of learning.
The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity (PUP) has made seven recommendations to the 217th General Assembly (2006) meeting in Birmingham in June. The report as a whole is brilliant, subtle and balanced, and deserves careful study by commissioners to the General Assembly and by the church at large. The vote of this Assembly on the recommendations will have a profound effect on the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The heart of these recommendations is number 5, and this analysis and opinion will focus on it. Recommendation 5 proposes an Authoritative Interpretation of section G-6.0108 of the Book of Order. This section states the Church's understanding of our freedom of conscience within certain bounds. The authoritative interpretation reminds the Church of its Reformed tradition dating back to 1729 that establishes the principle of freedom of conscience within bounds and applies the test of adherence to essentials of Reformed faith and polity to those being examined for ordination as deacons, elders or ministers. In recent decades, the Church has applied the test of essentials primarily to matters of faith. The authoritative interpretation retrieves its use in matters of polity, meaning practice or behavior.
For years I have taught confirmands and officers-elect with some pride that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has a constitutional form of government. The constitutional rule of law is one of our denomination's greatest gifts. It is also in serious danger of being undermined if recommendation five of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church is adopted as written.
On the whole, the report is a first-rate product. It provides the church with clear guidance on matters of Christology and biblical authority. The Task Force worked hard to model for the church how to resolve differences while building Christian community. Even regarding ordination standards, task force members wisely turned to the historic methods Presbyterians have used to resolve such disagreements, set forth in the Adopting Act of 1729 and the reports of the Swearingen Commission of 1925. For all these, they should be commended. However, in applying these historic methods to our current context, the Task Force both violates the original intent of the documents and sets a dangerous constitutional precedent.
Starting a pastorate is extremely stressful. Sky-high expectations abound! At risk is much more than a job and financial security, but also the emotional and spiritual well being of a family and congregation.
Most pastors recall surprises as they discovered their congregation's unwritten rules. Early in my first pastorate I asked where the pulpit was typically located. I was told the interim pastor had moved it around, which I took to mean that I could as well. I was wrong. The pulpit belonged in the center of the chancel, as everyone knew. I'd been "had" in a game of "gotcha." In this case it only cost me a few credibility points. In my next pastorate, I served "communion wrong" for months before finally figuring out the "right way." I was a source of esoteric entertainment as "those in the know" chuckled at my awkward ways. Hey, I don't mind being a fool for Christ, but some mistakes can be very costly.
Enter clergy coaching.
Several years ago, in the early months of my new position as a seminary president after 23 years of parish ministry, my older daughter, then a ninth-grader, came home from school one afternoon and shared with me a conversation she had had that day with a teacher. In the midst of discussing something else, the teacher had startled her with the question, "What does your father do?" She told me she began to swell with pride as she answered, "My father is the new president of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary here in Austin." There was a pause, she said, after which the man asked, "What's a seminary?"
What is the shape of good pastoral ministry, and how is it nourished for a lifetime? How can pastors develop and sustain vital ministry that nimbly navigates the shifting sands of the world in which we live and the wide-ranging expectations of congregations, while remaining steadfastly faithful to the Gospel? Pastors are expected to discern and respond appropriately to their congregation's particular culture, to shape their ministry in ways that fit the situation while remaining faithful to Jesus Christ. Negotiating emerging ministerial challenges gracefully and effectively requires of pastors the capacities to discern the real needs of the moment and to exercise whatever skills and manners are needed to meet those needs appropriately. Moreover, the will to learn and adopt these skills and manners requires that pastors bear the dispositions of eager learners and willing servants.
Seminaries hold baccalaureate services, Commencement ceremonies for 2005-06 summarized for the following seminaries:
Stewardship is a subject everyone in the church seems to think is extremely important, but in most churches it is the one aspect of ministry we do the poorest. All too frequently ministers blame the seminaries for failing to teach them how to develop a good stewardship program. Everyone tends to blame someone else--the seminaries, one of the governing bodies of the church, the ministers, members of the church--for being stingy.
Where does the blame belong?
If forty-one years in the ministry have taught me anything about stewardship it is this: people need to be taught the why, the how and the when of a healthy stewardship program.
Biblical scholar David Lull was discussing the Gospel passage in which Jesus tells a wealthy man asking the path to eternal life to sell all he has and give the money to the poor.
When the man walks away sad, according to the passage in Matthew, Jesus turns to his disciples and says, "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Lull suddenly looked up and asked the class at Yale Divinity School:
"Who is the rich man?"
In I Samuel 24 we read about a piece of cloth with a wonderful history and a powerful symbolism.
The chapter begins with the news that Saul has returned from fighting the Philistines. He is told that David and his men are hiding out in the wilderness of En-gedi. Saul has also been after David and wants to eliminate him from the kingdom. Saul immediately takes off for the wilderness of En-gedi with three thousand men. It is a large force, but it is not only the size the text wants us to notice. The reference to the men being from "all of Israel" is to suggest that Saul has support from all the people for his campaign against David and his followers.
by Thomas G. Long. Louisville: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22943-3. Pb., 267 pp., $24.95.
In the preface to this Second Edition, Tom Long writes that when he first wrote The Witness of Preaching in the late 1980s, he was attempting to do two things. First, he sought to provide a basic textbook on preaching that would be both accessible to new preachers and yet still helpful to experienced pastors. Second, he hoped "to create a textbook that was in direct conversation with other voices and opinions in the field of preaching" (p. ix).
It is easy to see that Long delivered on his first promise. The textbook immediately found its way into introductory preaching courses in divinity schools and seminaries of all types, and countless experienced preachers found renewed passion for their preaching after reading The Witness of Preaching. What made the original particularly helpful was its rich theology of proclamation that clearly gave life to the nuts and bolts of sermon crafting that Long espoused.
(PNS) Fifteen committees will process the business of the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in June, according to the Office of the General Assembly (OGA).
Committee leaders for the eight-day Assembly, which starts on June 15 in Birmingham, Ala., also were named recently by OGA and Moderator Rick Ufford-Chase. Each committee will have elected commissioners as moderator and vice-moderator, plus an appointed assistant and a parliamentarian/recorder.
The 534 commissioners -- 267 elders and 267 ministers -- will be randomly assigned to the 15 committees. Nearly every item of business before the Assembly will be processed by one of the committees, which will make recommendations to the full Assembly. The committees will meet all day on June 16 and 17, and on the afternoon of June 18 if necessary.
Some Assembly committees will be more closely watched than others.
The young woman told the story of her first call, as the associate pastor at a mid-sized church. She was learning a lot, starting to hit her stride, beginning to earn respect from the congregation. That's about when the senior pastor started showing -- sometimes in not-so-subtle ways -- that he didn't much appreciate her being in the limelight.
She began to wonder, "Is this really where God has called me to be?"
That experience, which the woman shared during a workshop recently, may not be all that unusual -- first calls often bring some jolts, some rough roads along with the thrills and adventures.
And now some serious work is being done to help first-call pastors deal with the bumps -- to put them in networks with mentors seasoned in the ministry and with peers who are also starting out; to give them a sounding board to figure out what's typical and what can't be tolerated; to help them develop spiritual disciplines that can last a lifetime.
For Christopher Crotwell, a Columbia Theological Seminary graduate who's pastor of New Providence Church in Raphine, Va., the Company of New Pastors "allowed me to fill a hole I wasn't sure how I was going to fill" after graduation.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Beth Pyles, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams group that suffered the loss of member Tom Fox in Iraq, recently described her spiritual journey at a workshop during the Presbytery of West Virginia's annual Festival of Faith educational event.
The decision to join CPT was "mostly spiritual, partly political," acknowledges Pyles, who set aside a 22-year legal career in Parkersburg, W.Va. to attend Princeton Theological Seminary. It was spiritual because "we follow a Savior who was killed for the greater good for the greater number. We are a people who do not follow a cause, we follow a person," she said. It was political because "what we're doing in Iraq is problematic," Pyles stated.
William Sloane Coffin. James E. Andrews. Both gone. After spending a lifetime on a mission, they joined the Church Triumphant, leaving big shoes to be filled.
Coffin and Andrews each embodied a particular kind of churchmanship.
Bill Coffin was the activist: a chaplain and pulpiteer who stirred the masses to take action against what he declared to be the evils of the day. Many disagreed with his diagnoses. What he called a "disastrous cult of power" others cast as an international "police action." While others spoke of the force of law, he warned of the law of force. He provoked much rage. He also provoked action by those he persuaded with his arguments.
Editor's Note: This essay is Part 2 in a series aimed at giving a voice to the center in the current theological debate within the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.
The General Assembly's Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church has called us to the task of theological dialogue, and its report has given us a lead in starting the discussion. We might be tempted merely to re-polarize around this report, as some have done. A more constructive response is to reconfigure the issues with which we are dealing, and press forward--together.
by Wendy Farley. Louisville, KY: WJKP, 2005. ISBN 0-664-22976-X. Pb., 208 pp., $19.95.
On the back of Wendy Farley's new book, The Wounding and Healing of Desire, the brief description of her project uses appropriate descriptive language like "inspiring" and "passionate" to invite the reader into this beautiful work. The description ends by calling Farley's book a "theological memoir." If this categorization entices you to pick it up and read it, then I am happy with the choice of genre the publisher made. As a theologian, however, I find the description unsatisfying even as I grope for an alternative way to capture what Farley has accomplished. Indeed this book does pour forth from an intimate integrity that connects her experience with the way she constructs theology. Her project, however, is more ontological than it is a narrative of or theological reflection on her life.
by David L Goetz. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN-13-978-0-06-075670-3 Hb., 214 pp., $23.95.
The inspiration behind this new book is fascinating. Author David L. Goetz asks whether or not life in the suburbs is harmful to a living faith. As an answer, he claims it can be, but with the deliberate method he delineates in this book it does not have to be.
We recognize the concerns he raises: that showiness and barrenness are the suburbia stereotype. In the lovely bedroom communities of America, it can appear that the inhabitants are more worried about orderly landscaping than they are the landscape of the soul. Such a message is intriguing to me and would be to many clergy. If you serve a congregation in which a large number of your members are suburbanites, the question is there, even if unasked: In the hectic pace and everyday diversions of the suburbs, is it possible for people to discern, to have a word with and have a word from the Living God?
by Robert W. Jenson. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, John Knox Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8042-3117-6. 106 pp, $24.95
"It may be," says the author, "that the chief purpose of a commentary on (the Song of Songs) is not to provide interpretation but to provoke it" (p. 12). In this masterful commentary, Robert Jenson does both.
From the author's engaging preface, through a most informative introduction that makes one eager to read on, and throughout the commentary, Jenson leads the reader on an extraordinary adventure in the study of Scripture.
(RNS) The head of Canada's Anglican Church is trying to reassure the country's Jewish community that his church has no plans to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
(RNS) A minister who was forced to step down from the top executive post in the Christian Reformed Church last year because of alleged inappropriate conduct has been reinstated to active ministry.
LOUISVILLE -- General Assembly Council Executive Director John Detterick today (May 2) formally released the names of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) national staff employees who have lost their jobs in the "reduction in force" needed to reduce the 2007-2008 General Assembly mission budget by $9.15 million.
Seventy-five employees lost their jobs May 1, the largest single layoff at the Presbyterian Center since 1993, when 140 jobs were eliminated.
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