Monthly Archives: October 2010

Celebrating The Reformation… And A Couple Of Important But Less-Known Players

The Protestant church likes to have a day they can nail down to celebrate the Reformation. (pun intended, as if you had to ask)  Today is that day commemorating Professor Martin Luther posting an invitation to debate some theological points on a public bulletin board.

But I keep reminding myself, and others, that the Protestant Reformation was a very complex movement and while our celebration today of a public challenge that was a very major event in the Reformation and the life of Martin Luther, it is one event among many remarkable ones.  Over at Reformation21 Carl Trueman has an interesting piece where he makes the case that maybe a better event to mark was the actual realization of a public academic debate on some of Martin Luther’s theses that occurred on April 26, 1518.  And Luther’s were not the first steps in the Reformation but the likes of Jan Hus and John Wycliffe preceded Luther by over a century.

Another part of the complex history are the individuals that surrounded Luther and critical roles they played.  We are commonly aware of fellow academics and reformers like Philipp Melancthon, but today I want to lift up two others without whom, I would argue, Luther would not have been as successful as he was.

Frederick III
[Wikimedia Commons]
Frederick III, Elector of Saxony
Frederick the Wise
(1463-1525)

I think it could be argued that without the help of Frederick, Martin Luther’s cause would have been lost, and maybe his life as well.  Frederick was Luther’s protector in the early years of the German Reformation.

His first move was to make sure that Luther got a hearing at home and he arranged to have Luther tried at the Diet of Worms rather than being extradited to Rome.

The second move was his having Luther kidnapped and put into protective custody in the Wartburg Castle after he was condemned by the Diet.

Frederick had little personal contact with Luther, and it is not clear from my reading how sympathetic Frederick was to Luther’s theological perspective (I have seen arguments both ways), but he had a concern for his subjects and used his diplomatic savvy to take care of Luther as one of his own.  It is widely recognized that Frederick was a fair and just ruler who avoided conflict, hence the the title “the Wise.”

Johann von Staupitz
Vicar general of the German Congregation of Augustinians
(ca. 1460 – 1524)

Where Frederick was Luther’s political protector, von Staupitz was Luther’s theological and ecclesiastical enabler.  Again, Luther probably could not have done what he did without the actions taken by von Staupitz.

Interestingly these also came in two different steps, but this time several years apart.  The first was his pastoral care and spiritual direction of Luther as a young monk under his care.  One time Luther spent six hours in confession to von Staupitz.  Counseling Luther in his spiritual desperation, it was von Staupitz that pointed him to the means of grace and the saving blood of Christ.  Beyond that, von Staupitz encouraged Luther to pursue an academic career, and we all know where that led.

The second action, taken several years later after the theological dispute arose, was von Staupitz releasing Luther from the Augustinian order.  This was one of the “it seemed like a good idea at the time” moves whose immediate consequence was a win-win.  Luther got more ecclesiastical independence and the good name of the order was no longer tied to a potential heretic.  Long term however, the “powers that be” would have preferred to have had control over Luther and von Staupitz did come under suspicion and accusation for aiding Luther.

 

Johann von Staupitz
[Wikimedia Commons ]

Ignatius Loyola
[Wikimedia Commons]
An Interesting Conjunction

One more interesting point to emphasize the complexity of the Reformation…

Based upon the historical timelines, it appears that the great reformer John Calvin overlapped with the great Counter-Reformer Ignatius of Loyola, at the Collège de Montaigu of the University of Paris.  This happened in 1528 as Ignatius was arriving and Calvin was about to depart.  There is no evidence that they met, or knew each other there, but it is interesting how the same school would produce two great minds on opposite sides of the Reformation.

John Calvin
[Wikimedia Commons]

So, a happy Reformation Day to you, if you are so inclined.  But in a larger sense take a moment to marvel at the sovereignty of God and how he uses many people with many different skills and talents, and for that matter different perspectives, to work out his purposes. Soli Deo gloria – To God Alone Be The Glory!

The 219th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church (USA) — Further Reflection On Not Business As Usual

Back in July following the meeting of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I commented here about the one item that really stuck out to me as a point where the Assembly diverged from the expectations of “business as usual.”  This item of business was in response to an overture from the Synod of South Atlantic to create a new non-geographic Korean language presbytery.

I think most odds-makers would have considered this a routine item that would have flown through pretty much under the radar considering it was nearly unanimously recommended by the committee and how much other business the Assembly would be spending its time on.  However, two young Korean-American women pastors rose to speak against the item and when the vote was take it was soundly defeated (125-514) by the commissioners.

The first pastor to speak was the Rev. Theresa Cho from San Francisco and following the Assembly she posted a reflection on the meeting that included comments about this particular business item.  Today she has posted a follow-up titled “Both sides of the truth: Non-geographic presbyteries ” where she not only comments in more detail on the action at GA, but as the title suggests, points out that the defeat of the request has implications as well.  If the competing demands a denomination lives with in their non-geographic language presbyteries is of interest to you this is a must-read.  In fact, it is a great window into some aspects of racial-ethnic ministry in general.

The new article was prompted by deeper discussions around this overture and the related issues at a Pastor Theologian Consultation last week.  Rev. Cho writes about her situation and journey from GA to this Consultation.  Talking about her cultural background and the consultation she says:

At this consultation, I had the opportunity to be heard and to listen.As a 2nd generation, the younger doesn’t speak up to share differing opinions with the older. It is seen as disrespectful. At this consultation, I had the opportunity to speak up and to listen.

Then, regrading the contrast to GA she writes:

I’ll be honest, after GA, I had the luxury of going back to my wonderful life. I received the accolades of my colleagues and peers for having the courage to speak up. And although I did hear some of the “gossip” of the effects of how the defeat of overture 04-08 was impacting some of the Korean community, the only personal impact to me was hearing some of the difficult remarks being made to and about one of my colleagues and friend who also spoke against the overture. Besides that, I went back to my life, working in a non-Korean church where I am appreciated for my pastoral skills despite of my racial ethnicity, gender, and age.However, my time [at the consultation] shed a light on how what I intended to be life-giving actions were life-taking for another and vice versa.Throughout these discussions, I felt the extremes of both emotions: joy for speaking out and being heard and grief for knowing that it was at the expense of my parent’s generation; honor for being acknowledged as a voice that matters and shame for participating in “airing out the dirty laundry” and betraying my people; and empowered to know that a few voices can change a vote and powerless when it is perceived as disobedience and disrespect.

I will let you continue reading the article as she discusses the question “What is the real issue regarding non-geographic, Korean-language presbyteries?”  These are not easy issues but they are something any Presbyterian branch needs to consider in the light of modern cultural realities.  I encourage you to read Theresa’s whole article.

Church Of Scotland General Assembly 2011 Moderator Designate Announced

Today the Church of Scotland announced that the moderator designate for the next General Assembly will be the the Rev. David Arnott.

Following his training at St. Andrews University and the University of Edinburgh, Rev. Arnott served his probationary placement in Greenock and was ordained to Stobhill Parish Church in Gorebridge (now part of Gorebridge Parish Church ).  After six years there he was called to Netherlee Parish Church, Glasgow, and then Hope Park, St. Andrews. While in Glasgow he served two years as a part-time chaplain at Her Majesty’s Prison Barlinnie. (It is Scotland’s largest prison and a bit infamous, as noted in this article from 2000 about a reported closure that did not happen, but the prison was extensively renovated soon after.)

Rev. Arnott also has rendered extensive service to the Kirk.  As Convener of the Glasgow Presbytery Business Committee he helped restructure the presbytery’s committee structure. While in St. Andrews Presbytery he served as a chaplain to a hospital and two schools, in addition to presbytery service as the convener of two committees and the Moderator of Presbytery in 2007.  He also has extended service on various national church committees.

The Kirk press release gives more details and there is a BBC article and an AllMediaScotland release that both closely follow the official press release.   UPDATE: No sooner had I posted here than Davidkhr’s post appeared on his blog with a little reflection on whether this was the right choice for the church or a “safe” choice.

As we anticipate a General Assembly meeting with some controversial topics, the Rev. Arnott has both my congratulations on being selected as Moderator designate and my prayers for his skill and wisdom guiding the meeting and for his year visiting around the Kirk.

Musings On Middle Governing Bodies

Well, the Moderators have done their job and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has their Special Commission on Middle Governing Bodies.  There are 21 members of the commission and they look like a good bunch.  I know a couple of the members well and they are good choices for this work.  My prayers and best wishes are with all of you as you begin your work in two weeks.

This commission commencing its work, and the analysis I did last week, got me thinking about middle governing bodies and Presbyterian structure.  In particular I started wondering further about the size of presbyteries and where the PC(USA) falls in the spectrum.

After looking at some numbers I thought it would be a worthwhile thought exercise to consider the following option for reorganizing the PC(USA):

The presbyteries in the PC(USA) should be divided up so there are more, smaller presbyteries.

Oh, gosh, yes, this is counter-cultural and possibly counter-intuitive. The current thinking around the church is that with our declining membership we need to adjust our structure accordingly, combining presbyteries to keep them sustainable and eliminating parts of our structure. But this is only a thought experiment so stick with me for a few minutes.

What started me on this path were the following data.  Consider the following Presbyterian branches and their average presbytery sizes:

  Churches Presbyteries Churches/Presbytery
PC(USA)  10,657  173  61.6
 PC Taiwan  1208  20  60.4
 PCA  1740  79  22.0
 EPC  298  10  29.8
 PC Canada  952  45  21.2
 Church of Scotland  1200  43  27.9
 PC Ireland  550  19  28.9
Historic      
 PCUSA
Synod of New York
1888
 822  29  28.3

Now I don’t know if these data got your attention, but obviously they got me thinking.  At the present time the PC(USA) has presbyteries that are on average a bit more than twice as large as these other branches and as they have been historically.  That is not to say that these other branches have uniform size presbyteries — Edinburgh Presbytery has 81 congregations and in 1888 the Presbytery of New York had 52 churches.  But today the largest PC(USA) presbytery is Coastal Carolina with 188 churches, and there are twenty more larger than 100 churches.  The smallest current presbyteries in the PC(USA) are San Juan and Cimarron with 14 churches and there are five more with less than 20.

So if smaller presbyteries are more of the norm, what if the PC(USA) were to reorganize so that it has lots more smaller presbyteries?  If we chose a target average of 25 churches per presbytery that would mean about 426 presbyteries in the denomination.  (Yes, I just saw a bunch of you flinch.)

Now I have no idea if this is a worthwhile thing to do — after all, the discussion on all levels has been to combine smaller presbyteries to make them sustainable.  But let me continue this thought experiment for a few more minutes to explore the implications.

It is interesting to note how the PC(USA) and its predecessor branches got here.  Finding the 1888 records was in some ways providential because, as the report of the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church and the Practice of Governance, approved by the 205th General Assembly (1993), tells us (p. 18):

Until the late nineteenth century, the denomination was “a ‘constitutional confederacy’ of congregations loosely connected by relatively weak institutional structures and a broadly defined constitution.”

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the church became a corporate denomination.

It goes on to clarify that the “corporate denomination” is not necessarily a negative because it could deliver goods and services to congregations and devote resources to mission causes.  But then in the mid-1970’s there was a decentralization of the corporate structure (p. 22):

Twenty years ago [1973] major reorganizations took place in the predecessor denominations of the PC(USA). A basic principle of reorganization was that mission was done best by the governing body closest to the area of mission.

In the UPCUSA, this reorganization led to the development of large regional synods where there had been smaller synods generally following state boundaries. Presbyteries and synods had full-time executives and offices… Presbyteries and synods linked sessions and congregations with the General Assembly. The UPCUSA saw this interrelatedness as program and polity, demonstrating the oneness of the church.

This is the background to how the PC(USA) got to its current structure.  Now, this thought experiment is about changing the structure but I do not fully discuss how much the underlying model on which the current structure is based would need to be changed to fit the new model.  Probably the model would need to be changed, but maybe not.

As I said earlier, the conventional wisdom in the PC(USA) right now seems to be that we need to find combinations of presbyteries to keep them sustainable as they loose members and resources.  But what is it about the institution we need to sustain?  The word that keeps flying around the PC(USA) right now, and what the new Form of Government is supposed to encourage, is to be missional.  We also keep hearing that we should not be stuck in the old ways but to find new and innovative ways of doing things.  With that in mind let’s consider what a structure loaded with small presbyteries would bring.

The benefits of the smaller presbytery model that I see are that they are more flexible and potentially more connectional among the member congregations.  For some presbyteries there would be no change — they are already in the target range.  For others, particularly in metropolitan areas, there would be significant reorganization.  Maybe San Francisco would remain unchanged (78 churches) but presbyteries over 80 (arbitrarily chosen from the size of Edinburgh) would be divided so Greater Atlanta and National Capital would each be divided into two presbyteries with slightly more than 50 congregations in each one.  Something like this is done in Toronto by the PC Canada where they have an East Toronto and West Toronto Presbytery with 23 churches.  It would seem that with a smaller more compact presbytery groups could meet more frequently, there would be less business so meetings could include a greater part of education, fellowship or visioning, and the smaller size would help make them more attuned, flexible, and responsive to local needs.  In other words — less business, more focus, more flexibility in addressing mission needs.  Isn’t that what the nFOG is supposed to be all about?

There are a number of issues I could see going either way depending on your perspective.  One of these is the institutional infrastructure.  On the one hand there are presbyteries in the target size range now that sustain their paid staffing needs beyond the stated clerk.  On the other hand, this suggestion is partly modeled on the way that the PCUSA was before it became a “corporate church” so paid support and resource staff at the presbytery level beyond the stated clerk may not necessarily be a desired part of the new structure.

Another issue that could  be subjective regarding the benefits and outcome is whether this would decrease connectionalism between middle governing bodies.  The structure back in 1888 was described as a “constitutional confederacy.”  Depending on your ideas for the PC(USA) and what your goals for the new structure are, that looser affiliation could be viewed as either a positive or a negative.

The issues on the negative side are significant as well.  With 426 presbyteries there would be an increase in the ecclesiastical review necessary, including records review and polity consultation.  One would expect the number of judicial cases to remain constant.

OK, that is where my thought experiment brings me and I have to admit I’m not entirely sure I like it in that form.  I did not address synods and for today let me simply say that something like synods would be needed in this model for a variety of reasons, including the fact that judicial and records review for 426 presbyteries would overwhelm the General Assembly.  There could be the same number of synods, there could be more – I don’t think that part of it is important right at the moment.

Now the discussion currently circulating in the wider church is about what the appropriate size of a presbytery should be so that it is sustainable.  Let me ask it a different way – What is the appropriate size to be able to conduct the necessary mission?  Remember, mission is to be done by the governing body closest to the mission.  I am more than ready to acknowledge that a presbytery of 25 churches could be too small to carry out the mission needs they see in a region.  What about a larger grouping?

Let me suggest another grouping here — for the sake of this discussion let’s call it a “district.” (FYI – districts are a perfectly good Presbyterian concept for non-governing body groupings, although some branches use it for subdivisions within a presbytery and some use it for groupings of presbyteries.)

The district would not be a governing body, no commissioners would be sent to it, it would have none of the powers or responsibilities of a governing body.  A district would exist for the purpose of presbyteries mutually coming together to conduct mission or other business that requires a scale larger than a presbytery but smaller than a synod.  Groupings like this already operate, such as the Sierra Mission Partnership between three presbyteries in California and Nevada.

Beyond that I really wouldn’t specify anything for a district.  Maybe it would be a formal division, such as covering three present presbyteries, or maybe it would be ad hoc and formed of presbyteries interested in a specific mutual mission.  (That latter concept could actually lead to overlapping districts each based on a mission need.)  It might or might not have staff.  The essential point is that it would be a larger grouping to help presbyteries facilitate mission of mutual interest.

Now, I have some dear friends who are presbytery execs and I don’t want to put this in a negative light for them, so let me suggest that there are places in this thought experiment for denominational staff if it is phased out at the presbytery level.  As I indicated, the place for sharing resources would be at the synod or district level.  While not every district would need/want/afford one or more professionals, that would be a place that someone would be beneficial to coordinate, encourage and oversee the joint mission. That would be a place for resource staff.  The other thing that I would imagine happening under this scenario is the expansion of professionals shared between or across presbyteries much like Sierra Blanca and Santa Fe do now.  The positions would not be the same, but it is probably a safe bet that not too far into the future the current professional positions will be different one way or another — We just need to figure out how.

So there is one model or option: We turn the PC(USA) into a collection of smaller, flexible and more intimate presbyteries.  We give up the idea of economies of scale for more relational groups that can focus on specific ways to be missional as God is calling them.

Anyway, I just throw this out there after looking at presbytery sizes in other Presbyterian branches.  It is only one of the options.  I don’t know if this is the route God is calling us since that is the task of all of us joining together to seek the will of God.

Digging Into Presbyterian Statistics — PC(USA) Presbytery Growth Rates

Well, I see that the U.N. Secretary General has declared that today, October 20, is the first Worldwide Statistics Day.  Now, I am not sure if that is a recognition of worldwide statistics, or a worldwide recognition of statistics, but I am only too happy to add my contribution in the spirit of the latter interpretation.

As regular readers are aware I am a bit, OK a lot, of a PresbyGeek or PresbyNerd when it comes to denominational statistics.  And I have the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office of Research Services to thank as by “enabler.”  If you are not aware, they put out a daily Tweet with some tidbit or factoid of information.  I sometimes think that what they tweet is superficial or incomplete, but just like I do the best I can with Presbyterian History in 140 characters, they do the best that they can in that space as well.

Back about three weeks ago they put out the following tweet –

Membership increased in 2009 in 13 presbyteries. Does that include yours? http://bit.ly/cxn1mn #pcusa

That factoid got me wondering about what growth rates were long-term, and not just for 2009.

So, time to dig out some data.  Presbytery size for 2008 and 2009 came from the annual Comparative Research reports, Table 4.  The oldest edition of Table 4 that I am aware of is 1996, so turning to the trusty WayBack Machine, that data is also available.  So all of that was fed into a spreadsheet and the annualized growth rate over the 13 year period 1996-2009 was calculated along with the annual rate for 2009.

Now, looking at the data, two presbyteries (Atlantic Korean-American, Eastern Korean) were excluded because they were formed after 1996 so there is not a long-term growth rate for them over the same time period as the other presbyteries.  Two more presbyteries were seen as significant outliers and removed from the analysis as well.  In the long-term growth category Midwest Hanmi had a growth rate of 4.4%, over twice the growth rate of its next closest presbytery.  In the short-term column San Joaquin dismissed several churches in 2009 and so had a growth rate of -24.3%, ten percentage points higher than the next closest presbytery.  The concern was that when the correlation was calculated these significant outliers would leverage the correlation result.

So what do we get for these 169 presbyteries?  Here are the descriptive statistics:

  Annualized
Long-term
2009
Short-term
Mean -1.7%  -3.0%
 Median -1.9%  -2.6%
 St. Dev.  0.8  2.4

As you can see there is generally good agreement in each distribution between the mean and median.  Between the two distributions the mean and median are significantly lower and the standard deviation of the short-term is significantly higher indicating a much broader distribution.  Visually, here are the two distributions.  Both horizontal and vertical axes are scaled the same to facilitate direct comparison of the charts.

The broader nature of the short-term distribution is now apparent but without other short-term distributions to compare it to drawing specific conclusions from this is a bit more challenging.  If fluctuations have a random nature to them stacking multiple broad annual distributions to produce the long-term distribution will generally result in a decrease in the standard deviation.

The left-ward shift in the distribution, or higher rate of decline, is statistically significant, and whether this represents a one-time higher decline or the end-member of a trend towards increasing rate of decline can not be told from this graph alone, my previous analysis of the decline rates suggests the latter.

But my main interest is in a comparison of short-term and long-term rates and particularly looking at specific presbyteries.  So, here is the graph of the correlation of short-term versus long-term growth rates.

As you can see there is noticeable scatter in the data but a general positive trend.  However, with an R-squared correlation coefficient of 0.14 the correlation is not strong.  With a slope of >1 there is the suggestion that for all presbyteries the short-term rate is of greater magnitude than the long-term rate.

But here is what I really wanted to get at:  The Research Services tweet pointed out that in 2009 13 presbyteries increased in size. (And the three with the largest percentage membership increases were excluded from this analysis as described above.) Over the long-term the membership has increased in five presbyteries (Charleston-Atlantic, Middle Tennessee, Northwest, Seattle, and the excluded Midwest Hanmi).  Of those, only Northwest (Puerto Rico) and Midwest Hanmi have shown an increase in membership over both the 13 year long-term and 2009 short-term periods.  In fact, it was probably not necessary to exclude Midwest Hanmi since for a long-term growth rate of 4.4%, the trend-line calculated above predicts a short-term rate of 6.0%, reasonably close to the actual of 5.4%.  The leverage would not have been too great.

Well, lots more could be done with this but that is enough for Worldwide Statistics Day.  If you looked carefully at the spreadsheet you can see that what I really prepared it for was my own tracking of the presbytery voting trends in the next few months.  In particular, I am very interested to see how the votes on the three big issues, the Belhar Confession, the new Form of Government, and Amendment 10-A correlate, or don’t as the case may be.  You are welcome to check back but I don’t intend it to be the “up to the minute latest and greatest source of news.”  I’ll probably update it weekly with what I can find and it will be my base for further statistical analysis.  If you are interested in that feel free to follow along.  Stay tuned…

Young People And The Church — Another Interesting And Informative Study

As my regular readers are aware one of my interests and concerns is for the future of the church, especially as it relates to youth in the church and keeping them involved in the church.  Part of my interest of course is because my household is a bit of a focus group, research study, or test bed for youth in the church.  At the present time I have one who has left the mainline for an evangelical church, one who seems to be finding a home in the confessional leanings of the mainline, and one who is trying to find their way between those two.  I do however count myself fortunate that all three of my children are involved in active congregations.

So it was with much interest that I listened to the October 3rd edition of the White Horse Inn where host Michael Horton interviewed Kenda Creasy Dean, Methodist Elder and Princeton Theological Seminary professor, on her new book Almost Christian: What the faith of our teenagers is telling the American Church.  I have added this to my list of books to acquire (easy) and read (got to figure where in the queue to place it).  In the interview there was a ton of great information drawn from the National Study of Youth and Religion project and published in the book.  While a lot of the interview, and probably the book as well, was about the faith and beliefs of teenagers and “moralistic therapeutic deism”, what was of most interest to me was the discussion about the study’s findings related to what did, and did not, make youth stick with the church as they got older.  For all of the details on the nature of the teenagers’ faith, including the great description of it as “benign whateverism,” I encourage you to listen to all 33 minutes of the interview.

So, here are a couple of the quotes I found most informative, hopefully not too out of context  (listen to the interview for that), and cited statistics from Prof. Dean (not necessarily in order and somewhat edited from conversational language to written form):

[Talking about teens with highly devoted faiths] Four things stood out
for me: One was that they had what I call “a peculiar God story.” They
had a God story that was distinct to their community’s understanding of
the world. They were able to articulate that God story… The second
thing that they had was a community of faith that mattered to them
deeply and they felt like they belonged… The family sense was extended
to faith communities, and they also felt like they belonged spiritually
though. It wasn’t just a social connection, they really felt cosmically
connected to God in their congregations… The third thing was that
they had a sense of, I call it a sense of vocation, a sense of purpose, a
divinely inspired purpose maybe. A sense that God had put them here for
a reason and that reason was to help participate in God’s plan for the
world in some way. And the last thing, and this is really striking, is
that these particular kids, the highly devoted kids in the study, had
markedly higher levels of hope than anybody else.

The young people who have highly devoted faiths, that’s the 8% of the
kids in the study who actually did find faith as a pivot point around
which they organized their lives in explicit ways, had much stronger
connections to adults in their communities of faith, and to adults in
general, than their peers who did not have highly devoted faiths.  I
also think its true that we really tend to overestimate the amount of
time that young people are spending in congregations, even if they are
active in a congregation, they are likely to be around members of the
congregation an hour or two a week. And we overestimate the difference
that hour or two makes in their lives — they don’t actually have enough
time to form deep connections.  And over and over again studies show
that pastors think that people come to church because of the pastor or
because of their interest in deepening their faith or whatever.  Most
lay people say they come to church because of the relationships.

One of the interesting things about the longitudinal studies, one of the
findings was that the most significant factor in whether a young
person’s faith weathers the transition from high school to the young
adult years is the religiosity of parents while they were teenagers.

The interview has a great extended discussion about the use of the catechism and how it was intended for use within the household, even to the point of posting it on the dining room wall and discussing it around the dinner table.  Prof. Dean makes two interesting points about this beyond the value for teaching the faith.  The first is that it is being done in the household setting.  The second is that the catechism provides youth, and all of us for that matter, with a language to talk about our faith.  She points out that in the study most teenagers “have very, very few language resources when it comes to faith.”

Prof. Dean is an engaging speaker and produces a couple of good lines to make you smile:

What we haven’t been able to do very well is to tell the Christian story, or to teach the Christian story, in a way that it looks like it matters in this world of competing narratives…  [I]t means that young people need to be in contact with folks whose lives are demonstrably different because of their faith.  Because just hearing about it is like hearing Cinderella, and Cinderella doesn’t really make a difference about the way we live our lives — it’s a story we tell.  And for a lot of young people that’s the way they experience their encounter with the Christian story as well.

[Talking about parents letting children “chose for themselves”] Well the
way we let them chose for themselves for a couple of generations was to
just sort of assume that when they got old enough we might expose them
to religion but we wouldn’t actually teach them anything because we want
them to be free to chose for themselves.  And the interesting thing is
we don’t have that confidence when it comes to Algebra, but somehow when
it comes to faith we just sort of thought it would emerge when the time
is right.

And a finding that runs counter to many mainline churches I know and to Prof. Dean’s expectations:

[Talking about vocation and social justice and mainline youth being less likely to associate moral responsibility with following Jesus Christ.] There may be less living it out, but there is certainly less living it out and connecting it to your faith.  And as a mainline Protestant this finding horrified me — this is like “oh man, how have we missed this?” But I think one of the reasons is mainline Protestants… we tend to shy away from any kind of God language whatsoever. Well, the effect of that is, you might be the most socially active congregation in the world but if you never connected it to your faith young people obviously assume it’s because you are nice people.  We go on these mission trips where we never talk about God because we are nice people, not because we are Christian and this is how Christ called us to treat one another. In fact one of the findings in the longitudinal study is that when it comes down to it the practices that matter in helping faith endure past the high school years prayer and reading the Bible matter a lot.  Going on mission trips don’t make a bit of difference.

Kenda Creasy Dean has a lot to say about how youth and young adults get integrated into the church — in fact one of the chapters in her book is titled “Mormon Envy.”  This integration of young people is something I have also come to appreciate about the LDS church.  The LDS communities have several features that make them particularly good at passing on their faith.  For more on this I would point you to a Beliefnet blog Flunking Sainthood and their comments on Dean’s book.  Here are a couple of relevant quotes from the interview:

What Mormons have that other communities have not really looked at as intentionally is faithful parents.  It’s one of the most striking findings from the study is how closely young peoples’ faith mirrors their parents’ faith.  As you know, families are the most important faith community if you’re part of the Church of Latter Day Saints. But parents are hugely influential as conduits of faith in Mormon families.  That tends to be less true for example, I’m a mainline Protestant, for mainline Protestants a common scenario would be that parents will think faith is important but they don’t have enough faith formation themselves to have any confidence at handing it on to their children themselves.  So, they take their kids to church to “get them done” by the professionals who can hand on faith in their stead.  Well, that turns out not be be as effective as when it is passed on in the context of a family community.

I think a lot of Protestants tend to think, and I tend to think this way myself, “my kids didn’t get this while they were in high school, but there is plenty of time, they’ll get it eventually.” … Mormon urgency doesn’t allow for that.

Based on my experience and previous reading these are the quotes that really resonated with me from an interview that was full of interesting data and interpretation.  And one of the things that I very much appreciated was Prof. Dean’s acknowledgement of the number of times where the data surprised her.

What is the message for the church?  For me it is a validation that we need to invite the youth to be active members of the church, not just attending services and youth group on Sunday, but encouraging them to be active in some area of ministry in the congregation where they build relationships across generations, we can challenge them to do something, and through their activity they can not just hear, but participate in the God story of the congregation.  Secondly, we need to communicate to parents how important a role they play — that they can not leave the religious education of their kids to the church but they have to be the primary educators.  And then the church has to give them the tools to do that.

If you want more on-line there is an excerpt from the book available and another interview on Patheos.

To close, here is a quote Prof. Dean gave from Tony Campolo –

We are not going to lose this generation because we ask too much, we are going to lose them because we ask too little.

Addendum: Now, here is an interesting parallel that arose yesterday in our church’s education hour.  My friend Scott was teaching a class based on Albert Raboteau‘s book Slave Religion.  After discussing how slave owners used Christianity as a justification for having slaves but then kept the religion from them someone asked the obvious question, “why would a slave convert to Christianity if it justified their oppression?”  Scott summarized the answer from Raboteau (p. 244-246) as 1) The Bible provided a language to talk to God, 2) they saw the parallel of their situation to the story of Israel in bondage in Egypt and their liberation, and 3) it provided hope for the future, particularly regarding eternity.  I was struck by how these three paralleled Dean’s points about the highly devoted youth — How the Israel story for the slaves is part of their God story that is distinct to the community’s understanding of the world.  How they both find the distinctive of hope and eschatological vision.  And while there is not really a parallel in Dean’s four central characteristics of devoted teens to the language point, it does correspond to how the highly devoted teens have acquired the language to talk about God.  Another distinctive of later Slave Religion that was mentioned but not included in this list was the high-level community structure and participatory worship, especially regarding singing. I was struck by how these characteristics of, shall I say, devoted Christianity are similar across cultural contexts.

A “Glimmer Of Hope” For Presbyterian Mutual Society Savers

The amount of “chatter” regarding a possible solution to the collapse of the Presbyterian Mutual Society in Northern Ireland (NI) has increased dramatically in the last few days and there are signs that an announcement could be just days away.

For more details on this continuing saga you should check out a previous post, but since last Spring and the Special Assembly meeting to consider the situation the biggest relevant development has probably been the change in the British Government.  In fact, in a post last week the Rev. Stafford Carson, the former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland who has been staying close to the situation, talks about the visit of the Deputy Prime Minister and his comment “the new government is very mindful of the need to resolve the serious
hardship faced by members of the Presbyterian Mutual Society.”  Now in the past couple of days there have been very positive signs of a resolution.  While details are not known, Rev. Carson says

The Ministerial Working Group charged with resolving the PMS crisis met yesterday and the Secretary of State said that significant progress was made.

The Northern Ireland Members at Westminster continued to exert pressure at PMQs in the House today. It seems as though everyone is working towards an announcement being made next week. Could it be that the end is near for this long-running saga? We have had a number of false dawns before, and we hope and pray that a “just and fair resolution” will be forthcoming next week.

In addition to Rev. Carson this has been picked up by the NI media including the BBC, Belfast Newsletter, and the Irish Times.  But there are concerns about whether this will be a full rescue of savers or only partial restoration of their deposits, a sentiment expressed by an article from 4NI.

So we will have to wait for details to see how the promise and prospect of a “just and fair resolution” plays out.  But if nothing else, this is some of the best news that the savers have had since this two-year old saga began.  As usual, stay tuned… 

All Churches Great And Small — Congregation Size Distribution And Changes In The PC(USA)

I have been poking around with some data for a little bit now and I think it might be time for some of it to be discussed here…

One of the things that has interested me recently in the vast multitude of data that that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) office of Research Services puts out is the size distributions of congregations.  Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that I have been looking at it is because in my professional work with earthquakes there is a very well-established and useful relationship for magnitude distribution of quakes.  I have found that a similar, though proportionately different, relationship seems to hold for congregation size distribution in churches.  More on the details of that another time, but here I want to take a first look at congregation size in the PC(USA) over time.

As I said, Research Services puts out a whole bunch of information about the church every year and for this post I want to focus on two particular data sets — Table 2: Distribution of PC(USA) Congregations by Membership Size and Synod (2009 data ) and Table 6: Fifteen Largest PC(USA) Congregations Based on Membership Size (2009 data ).

Unfortunately, with the revamped PC(USA) web site it appears that a lot of this older data is no longer on-line from the church, but thanks to the Internet Archive and the Way Back Machine we can get data back to 1994. The equivalent of Table 6 is there, while Table 2 goes back to 1995.

First, as usual, a couple of technical notes about the data.  Concerning Table 2:  1) For my own purposes it would be helpful to have the distributions reported in equal size ranges (e.g. 0-50, 51-100,… 301-350, etc.) rather than the uneven ones in the table (0-50, 51-100, … 301-500…). (They are pretty evenly spaced on a logrithmic scale which does work well for some of my calculations.)  2) It is interesting that the largest range used is >1600 when going to >2000 would correspond to the usual definition of a megachurch.  But it is also important to note that the PC(USA) tables are based on membership while the megachurch definition is based on worship attendance.

Now, I have taken the sixteen available annual reports for Table 6 and put together a spreadsheet covering 1994-2009. For those years when a church was not one of the top fifteen there is no entry in the rank column for that year and the membership number is taken from the on-line statistical report for that church.  Since that is only a 10 year report numbers were directly reported for 1999-2009 and 1998 was calculated from the 1999 membership and the gains and losses reported that year.  Those numbers are not included before 1998.  And yes, I did graph up all the data but most of the lines are so tightly clustered that I did not think it added anything to include here.  At a future date I may present it as groups of churches and include graphs of the subsets then.

OK, I think that does it for the obligatory introduction and geeky details — on to the data.

Turning first to the large churches over the course of these 16 annual reports (1994 – 2009) nineteen different churches have appeared on the list of 15 largest.  Of those, nine have been on the list all 16 years, five were on the list at the beginning and have dropped off, one left the list and later returned, and four have been added.  A couple of the congregations have held fairly steady positions on the list, only moving up or down four places or less in 16 years, and Peachtree (Atlanta) has held the number one spot for all 16 reports.  All 19 churches were part of the PC(USA) in 2009.

Looking at membership numbers, five of the original 15 are larger than they were in 1996, a couple of them significantly larger.  For the other ten, one has a minimal (<5%) decrease, but looking at the churches whole histories over this time most show fluctuations and it is not unusual to see periods of several years with very stable membership numbers.  Over the whole time range one church, Fourth (Chicago) showed no declining years and two churches that joined the list had no declines in the time they were on the list – Second (Indianapolis, 99-09) and Christ (Edina, MN, 02-09).  While some of the churches showed significant declines from 1994 to 2009, no church had declines all 15 intervals.

One of the most interesting properties of this list over time is that for the 15 largest churches there is a fairly constant total membership.  The combined membership begins at 73,689, increases to a peak of 75,872 in 1998, generally decreases to 71,368 in 2004, and then moves up and down again until finishing at 71,722.  This represents a 2.7% decline over 15 years and a 5.9% total variation.

But when looking at this pattern it is clear that the variation is less a function of the general decline of the PC(USA) and more a reflection of significant membership changes in individual congregations occasioned by some event or transition in the congregation, usually a change in the senior pastor.  For instance, the 1998 peak marks the year just before changes at both Peachtree and Menlo Park.

In fact, maybe the thing I find most interesting in this analysis is the response of membership at these churches to changes, particularly in pastoral leadership.  While I won’t explore this in depth now, here is the graph of church membership for three churches, Peachtree, First (Orlando), and First (Nashville).  I have normalized the membership numbers to the peak just before the transition and placed that peak at Year 5 on the graph.  The similarity of the growth-transition/drop-growth pattern is strikingly similar and I’ll be looking at it in more detail in the future.

normalized church membership change

But for our purposes today, what this analysis does show is that for the largest churches in the denomination over the last 15 years the decline as a group is nowhere near what it was for the denomination as a whole and factors that are usually cited for decline in the denomination are subordinate to local influences when it comes to changes in the size of the membership at these churches.  It is not so much that the 15 largest churches at any given time are necessarily declining, but that there is rotation in the members of the list and the total size of the churches on the list remain relatively constant, or at least fluctuate within a certain narrow (+/- 3%) range.

Turning now to the other data set, it is important to note that for the largest churches in the denomination there has been a decline when viewed as the number of churches with membership >1600.  I have compiled the data for the whole PC(USA) from Table 2 from 1995 to 2009 into another spreadsheet and looking at the top category we can see that the number of large churches held fairly steady from 1995 to 2003 (in the range of 113 to 124 churches) and then from 2003 has steadily declined to 91 churches in 2009.

Looking at all the data ranges we see that only the lowest two ranges, churches with memberships of 0-50 and 51-100 have increased over the range of the chart.

Because of the large scale differences between the lower ranges and the largest ranges I also plotted the distributions normalized to their size in 1995.

Now it is easier to see that the number of churches with memberships of 50 or less increased almost 30% and the next higher range (51-100 members) increased slightly (5%).  All other ranges showed a decrease of between 13% and 36%.  And while the largest churches showed significant decrease in numbers, the greatest percentage decrease was with the slightly smaller churches in the range of 301-1200 members.

Clearly what is happening is that as members have left the PC(USA) individual congregations have remained active and the churches have been slipping from the larger size ranges to the smaller ranges.  This is not an unexpected conclusion since membership has declined 22.1% in this time period, but the number of churches has only declined 6.2%.  With this change the mean size of congregations has dropped from 235 to 195 and the median size has gone from 128 to 97.  This increasing concentration in the lower size ranges is a reflection of the Presbyterian tendency to let a congregation continue until the membership drops to a point where the members themselves realize that the church can no longer sustain itself.

That is probably enough data for today and by now you have probably come up with some of your own applications from this exercise.  Let me mention two of concern to me: 

1) Are we training our seminary students for this world of lots and lots of very small churches?  If more than one-quarter are 50 members or less and half have less than 100 members what should seminary students know about the world they will be stepping into.  Taking this a step further, what are the best models for a pastor in small churches?  Yoked ministry?  Tent-making? Commissioned Lay Pastor? House churches? Something else?  If the future is full of lots of very-small churches what should pastoral leadership look like?

2) Should the future be full of lots of very small churches?  Should presbyteries be considering what is the best model for congregations?  Should the number of congregations decrease in proportion to the decrease in total membership?  Should governing bodies at all levels be more aggressive about counseling and shepherding congregations into a new reality?  I don’t know, but these are questions Presbyterians around the world are asking.

So two ends of the size spectra – two differing behaviors in membership variation.  But what does each suggest to us about ministry at that end of the distribution?

Synod PJC Ruling In The Case Of Caledonia And Others v. Knox

This past weekend the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies heard and decided the complaint of The Session, Caledonia Presbyterian Church, Paula Bremer, James Gunn, Alan Crandall, Jerry Indermark, James F Scaife, The Presbytery of Central Florida, The Presbytery of Prospect Hill, and Stockton Presbytery v. John Knox Presbytery.  (And thanks to the Covenant Network for posting a PDF of the decision)

The case involves the examination for ordination and declaration of an exception by Mr. Scott Anderson approved by John Knox Presbytery last Spring. Not a lot of intro needed here because the background, context, and implications are nearly identical to the Parnell decision I commented on a week ago.  Check that post out for the relevant polity comments. In this case there were three specifications of error regarding the process and the application of ordination standards.  By a 7-2 vote the PJC found that the Presbytery had followed the correct procedure:

The John Knox Presbytery acted within its authority following G-13.0103(r) using the most recent Authoritative Interpretation (Al) (2008)…

The SPJC finds that John Knox Presbytery properly took responsibility for that decision. Therefore, permitting Anderson to declare a departure or exception from Section G-6.0106(b) was within the authority of the Presbytery.

There was a dissenting opinion which said, in part:

The majority finds that as the Presbytery followed the provisions of G-6.0108 and the PUP and Knox AIs, it could vote to ordain Scott Anderson as he declared a scruple to the application at least some of the ordination standards as outlined in Section G-0106(b) [sic] to his own life.

This interpretation of the Knox Al, as it applies to Section G-0106(b), [sic] cannot be sustained under our polity. In this case, such an application has effectively allowed a Presbytery to invalidate or amend Section G-0106(b). [sic] We do not believe that any governing body, including the General Assembly, through the authoritative interpretation process as provided under G-13.0103(r) can, directly or indirectly, amend an express provision of the Book or Order.

The ordination standards as provided in Section G-0106(b) [sic] have engendered continuing conflict in our denomination and we acknowledge that Presbyterians in good faith have deep disagreement as to the wisdom if these standards. However, the only forum for a change to this Section is by and through our presbyteries, not through the use of authoritative interpretations.

(And in case you did not figure it out, for that persistent typographical error in the dissent the reference should be G-6.0106(b))

Not much more to say in this case.  The decision and dissent are both direct and concise and the reasoning is very similar to the Parnell decision.   Considering the timing, similarities, and parallel natures of these cases it is reasonable to expect that if they are both appealed, and the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission accepts them, that they would be heard and decided in the same session, probably next Spring.  Stay tuned…

Two Moderator Designates For Next General Assemblies — Free Church Of Scotland And Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

No rest for the GA Junkie…

With the conclusion of this year’s GA cycle the circle of life general assemblies keeps on going and we start to look forward to the Assembly Season in 2011.  This week brought two announcements of moderator designates for their respective assemblies.

Today the press is reporting that the Free Church of Scotland has announced their Moderator Designate for the 2011 GA, the Rev. James Maciver, pastor of the Knock Free Church on the Island of Lewis.  According to the news story he has been the pastor there for thirteen years.  He served at East Kilbride for ten years before that after his induction in 1987.  Rev. Maciver has served as a committee, presbytery and synod clerk.  Since 2000 he has served as the Principle Clerk of the General Assembly.  UPDATE: The Free Church web site now has the news story.

With the conclusion of their General Assembly the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand announced that the Rev. Ray Coster is the Moderator Designate for the next Assembly in 2012 and will then serve in that position until the 2014 Assembly.  Rev. Coster has served the St. Andrew’s church in Mt. Maunganui for 25 years and in that time it has grown into a multi-congregation church with five pastoral leadership teams, one for each congregation.  Before his present position he served at Trinity Presbyterian in Timaru for nine years.

Following his being introduced to the Assembly he delivered a few comments to the commissioners, beginning with:

Assembly, I am sure that the one hundred people who have stood in this spot before me as Moderator designate have said that this is a great honour. And it is. I pray that when my time finishes I, like Graham will say, Church you have given me a great privilege. I really do appreciate the support you have given me, but even more the trust you have shown to me. It is a lot to live up to and I hope I can make a good contribution to the life of the Presbyterian Church as your next moderator. I have been in the arms of this church since infancy and I will die in her arms when my time comes to go home.

A bit later he talks about how he is not much for assembly politics and goes on to say of his gifts:

Never been a great assembly orator – sat through many assemblies and never said a word. But, give me a pulpit and one ear that will listen and you can’t shut me up. I love talking about Jesus. I love discussing the faith. I love encouraging others.

He concluded his remarks with his desires for the church, including this about elders:

As a parish minister I have been so strongly supported by good elders. I believe that elders are the hidden strength, underestimated and sometimes unappreciated wisdom of this church. In a parish they are like the keel of the ship. They are the story holders, the ethos carriers. I would love to encourage the elders and spend time with them.

(That’s a good quote — I will use that one again.)
And this is his closing remark about the church in general:

But if there is one thing more than anything else that lies deep in my heart it is to see the church living as a resurrection church; a church that has an intimacy, closeness with the risen Lord. A church that knows life and has life and gives life to all people. A resurrection church knows that it does not exist for itself, it exists for the world in which it lives. A church that is not concerned for its self-survival, but is always ready to sacrifice and suffer for the community around it. A church that is alive in the market-place as much as it is inside the church. It should never escape our attention that all of the miracles of the resurrection church in Acts occur in the Market-place, not the church setting. Only one occurs on the steps of the Temple. A church that has confidence in its Lord and a boldness in its mission. A church that moves in the power of the Holy Spirit. A church that lives the benediction – the good word. The empowering grace of Jesus, the overwhelming love of God, the joyful and happy fellowship of the Spirit. It’s a church of people who know that when they are in Jesus, God is not ticked off with them. They are the apple of his eye.

There has been a bit of reaction to this selection, not the least of which is Rev. Coster’s daughter who tweeted “So proud of my dad!”  There is media coverage from the Bay of Plenty Times and the press release on Scoop.

So my congratulations to both of these gentlemen and best wishes and prayers as they prepare to take up this office to which God has called them through the voice of the people.