BALTIMORE – Wilderness as a place to focus on God’s activity. Church leaders (and sometimes whole congregations losing people and resources) feeling the isolation of the desert. Testing and temptation in a parched land. The starkness of an undefined terrain leading sometimes to death — and sometimes to risk-taking and creativity. The 2018 NEXT Church national gathering had as its theme “The Desert in Bloom: Living, Dying and Rising in a Wilderness Church” — asking participants to consider, according to a description on the NEXT website, “how the church can embrace a wilderness identity in pursuit of the hope, resilience, clarity, and resurrection so often found there.” About 675 people – about half of them ministers, about a quarter congregational leaders and another quarter made up of educators, youth leaders, non-profit leaders and seminary students - attended the 2018 NEXT Church national conference Feb. 26-28 in Baltimore. NEXT describes itself as a “relational community of … [Read more...]

Baltimore — To be God’s people rising, get on the holy way. That was the message of closing worship for NEXT Church’s national gathering on Feb. 28. Continuing the conference theme “The Desert in Bloom, Living, Dying and Rising in a Wilderness Church” the final day’s emphasis was “living again.” Enacting the metaphor of wilderness wandering, worshippers were invited to “move to a new place, a new vista in this room, even if it just one seat away and stay there for the rest of the service … on your way pass the peace.” After a reading of Isaiah 35 (the text all conference preachers are using), Kathryn Johnston, pastor of Mechanicsburg Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania preached of getting on “the holy way” instead of “the holier-than-thou way.” Johnston recounted a story of traveling with her wife in a region of the country that does not give a “you are welcome here vibe” and having their van break down. With humor, Johnston shared how her anxiety about how she and her … [Read more...]

BALTIMORE – Be suspicious of praise. Jonathan L. Walton, a professor of Christian morals and the Pusey Minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard University, gave a keynote address on the final day Feb. 28 of the NEXT Church national gathering in Baltimore. Walton used that time to caution those in ministry to be wary about wanting or expecting praise, and to recognize that standing with those who are the most vulnerable – and taking on the systems that make them vulnerable – will inevitably give the critics voice and fuel. Look at Jesus. For many, Jesus’ incarnation is befuddling – the concept that he was both human and divine. Most ordinary Americans view Jesus “as some sort of superman,” Walton said. “He slips into the phone booth of the tomb, changes into his Easter suit and leaps into heaven in a single bound.” The account in the 4th chapter of Luke’s Gospel of Jesus launching his ministry includes in 15 short verses: the acclaim he received when he first spoke in the … [Read more...]

BALTIMORE — The desert is not a static or one-dimensional place – and a church in transition isn’t either. The theme of the 2018 NEXT Church national gathering, being held Feb. 26-28 in Baltimore, is “The Desert in Bloom: Living, Dying, and Rising in a Wilderness Church.” The evening worship service on Feb. 27 focused on “rising.” Following the conference motif, each worship service was designed to focus on a different word: living, dying, rising, living again. Soulful Revue, a men’s gospel group at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, sang “My City of Ruins,” a song by Bruce Springsteen with the words, “Young men on the corner, Like scattered leaves, The boarded up windows, The empty streets, My city of ruins … Come on, rise up!” The call to worship proclaimed: “And sometime dying is rising. … This is the death that we encounter in the parched, desert landscape that erupts with blossoms of magenta and yellow and crimson.” The prayer of … [Read more...]

BALTIMORE – The co-moderators of the 2016 General Assembly are calling Presbyterians to action – to take some risks, and to join with others working to knock down the structures supporting racism and poverty. “My personal dream would be that Presbyterians again would be known as troublemakers,” said Denise Anderson, who is one of the leaders in Maryland of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. “I want Presbyterians to be known for some radical stuff.” Anderson and her co-moderator, Jan Edmiston, want Presbyterians to get involved in the Poor People’s Campaign, which is led by William Barber II and Liz Theoharis and is linked to the 50th anniversary of the Poor People’s Campaign that Martin Luther King Jr. helped bring to attention in the 1960s. “This is not commemoration,” Anderson said, but an attempt to get a grassroots coalition of activists – including faith-based and community groups – working together on issues including systemic racism, poverty, … [Read more...]