Category Archives: commentary

Discernment of the Call to Ordained Office

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A question that has been in and out of my thinking for many years, and is back in it at the moment, has been the discernment process for calling individuals to ordained office.  One particular manifestation of this has been the church nominating committee having a certain number of positions to fill on the session or board of deacons.  Do they just keep going until they fill all the slots, or do they stop and leave positions vacant if they can find no more willing individuals who they have discerned to have the proper God-given gifts and talents for that office?  In many Presbyterian churches I am aware that there is some pressure to fill the slots because each elder or deacon has a particular program area of responsibility:  we need an “outreach elder” or there is no one for the “food pantry” deacon yet.  I was very happy when my own church dispensed with the elders being assigned to oversee a particular ministry and simply made them the governing body with responsibility for “shepherding the flock.”

I’m writing on this now because I am having a very “hurry up and wait” day at work.  You may know the type:  there are an endless series of short jobs for the computer to do.  Short enough that you really can’t leave and do something else but long enough waiting that you have some time that you need to fill.  Well, I filled part of it with some web surfing in directions I had not ventured before and came across an interesting blog called “ Building Old School Churches.”  Even if you are nowhere near being an Old School Presbyterian church there is some interesting material there.  What caught my attention today was a post by Andrew Webb titled “ On Whether to Vote to Ordain.”  In the post he talks about an experience he had early in his career at a presbytery meeting when a candidate was examined to be a pastor, the discomfort he felt with that candidate, and the guidelines he formulated from talking with experienced ruling and teaching elders about it.  His guidelines, with his emphases, are:

1) Remember
that Presbyteries aren’t rubber stamp operations, we are gate-keepers,
and we’ll be called to account by God for every man we let into the
sheepfold. So ask yourself, “is that man a true shepherd or something
else?” No church absolutely has to get someone if that someone was
never really meant to be a pastor. Calling the wrong man will do them more harm than calling no one at all!
2) Anyone can graduate from seminary, my wife could graduate from seminary but she isn’t qualified or called to be a pastor. Not everyone who graduates is called.

3) If you are
in doubt, ask yourself, “would I be able to stomach this man being the
shepherd of my own family?” If the answer is no, don’t vote for him. Christ’s other lambs don’t deserve less than your own family!
4) Go home
and read Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 [vs. 17-36]
and treat those words as Christ’s advice to you.

I would add that we are a called covenant community and it is the responsibility of the community to be gathering around candidates, helping them discern their call and their gifts and talents throughout the candidate process, not just at the examination.  And furthermore, once God has spoken through the vote of the community to affirm the call, it is our responsibility as members of the community to support, nurture, and guide that person as they live into that call, even if we voted in the minority.

I know that within my presbytery the candidates committee has done a good job mentoring and discerning calls with candidates and I have been satisfied with all that have come to presbytery, the ministry committee, or a search committee of which I have been part.

Do we do as good a job with ruling elders when we ask members of our churches to serve on session?  What could we do better before and after the elders are elected and ordained to develop their gifts for the ministry?  Are our sessions bodies that are seeking to be guided by the Holy Spirit and discerning where God is leading the church, or a group that gets together to “get the business done” once a month?  As an example, on presbytery committees that I have chaired I always insisted, no matter how late the meeting was running, that we did not just “close in prayer” but that we closed in prayer for each other and our churches and church members with a sharing of joys and concerns.  In many cases I suspected that several people wanted to get out of there and get home, but as a community, holding each other in prayer is one of the most important and powerful things we can do.

So as members of the covenant community we have responsibility for who is ordained as a minister/teaching elder, ruling elder, or deacon and we should not just leave it to the nominating committee or candidates committee to do the work for us.  Their work is important and most do it well.  But in the end the call of God through the voice of the people comes from the larger community.

PUP Report and Ordination Standards: Nothing has changed?

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In the wake of the adoption of the report from the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity (PUP) by the 217th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) we heard a lot about how “the standards have not changed.”  For example: coverage of a press conference, a pastoral letter from the Moderator and Stated Clerk, and the Stated Clerk’s new  Advisory Opinion issued following the General Assembly all state that as a fact.

Now a new high-profile case is coming before a presbytery as a result of the passage of the PUP Report.  The Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area has called a special presbytery meeting for Saturday December 1 to consider the request of Mr. Paul Capetz to have his ordination as a minister of word and sacrament reinstated.  Mr. Capetz requested, and was granted release from the exercise of ordained office back in May 2000 and the presbytery’s Stated Clerk has confirmed that at the time no charges were pending.  Back in 2000 Mr. Capetz could not affirm the newly adopted Amendment B which inserted G-6.0106b into the Book of Order.  Now with the passage of the PUP report Mr. Capetz writes in his request for reinstatement:

In the meantime, however, a possibility then unforeseen by me has been opened up by the decision of the 217th General Assembly (2006) to approve the recommendations of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church as an “authoritative interpretation” of section G-6.0108 of the Book of Order.

He continues on later in his request:

Since the church has now seen fit to find a way beyond the impasse occasioned by the incorporation of G-6.0106b into the Book of Order, I have prayerfully discerned that it is appropriate for me at this time to request of the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area my reinstatement as a minister member.

Clearly something has changed.  Mr. Capetz explicitly says so.  The word from the top of the PC(USA) says that the standards have not changed.  So has the process changed?  Has the understanding of the standards changed?  Really the question is, if there are “standards” but they are no longer considered standard, what are they?  Why were they put, and continue to remain, in the Book of Order.  Unfortunately, I don’t think we are being honest with anyone when we say that the standards have not changed.  In the strict sense that the Book of Order has not been changed, that is true.  But in reality, to me, when the application and understanding of the standards has changed the standards have effectively changed.

Lest you think this is semantics, or that the PC(USA) is alone, just look at the current top controversy in the PCA with the Federal Vision theology.  Louisiana Presbytery is facing a church trial on charges that they failed to properly apply that denomination’s “standards” in the theological examination of a minister member.

I would like to commend the Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area for the process that they will be undertaking at their special meeting.  Numerous documents are available on their special meeting web site and the docket clearly shows the discernment process they will be going through.  The landscape has changed and they are undertaking the process as the authoritative interpretation directs.

I will be interested to hear about the experience of the discernment process and the outcome.  For advance coverage of the meeting there is an article on the Layman Online as well as a post by Toby Brown on Classical Presbyterian.  At the moment that is all the other coverage I can find.

What matters to whom? Different Perspectives on the Controversies in the PCUSA

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I have found it interesting that over the last couple of months the same sentiment has been expressed by different leaders in different settings related to the current controversies in the Presbyterian Church (USA).  Specifically, these were both racial ethnic leaders, one Hispanic and one African-American, talking about what was important to them and their constituents.  Guess what, it is not the PUP Report and ordination standards.  It is issues of justice, empowerment, and church growth. The issues of ordination standards and homosexuality are “Anglo” issues.  It is not a priority in their congregations and constituencies.  There are other things that are more worthy of their valuable time.

Let me extend this a little bit.  Yes, I’m going to stick with ordination standards related issues here, specifically the departure of churches from the PCUSA to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  Where does this fit in the grand scheme of things?

I’ll return to the 2006 denomination statistics published in the June issues of Perspectives.  In particular, I would note that in 2006 there were 56 congregations dissolved and only 6 dismissed.  I would also note that there were almost 28,000 members lost by certificate of transfer and about 102,000 just left.  Here in So. Cal. our presbytery has several churches hanging on by their fingernails and only one with any rumblings about leaving.  And a neighboring presbytery projects that at the current loss rate it will cease to exist in 20 years or less.

What this tells me is that the New Wineskins Association is not the only problem.  At the present time the chart from the Layman On-Line indicates 46 churches leaving.  We dissolved more churches last year than are trying to leave this year.  And while it is obvious that a church that gets dissolved will have few members and many of those leaving are larger and thriving, you still can not ignore the fact that about four times as many people just left the denomination than transferred out last year.

So what matters?  We can’t blame the New Wineskins movement alone for depleting our numbers.  We all need to carry the burden of reaching out the world around us with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

PCUSA Communication: No apparent change yet

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Previously in my blog I have noted two things that pertain to today’s comments:

1)  The Presbyterian Church (USA) seems to be better at sending Presbyterian News Service reporters to “progressive” events than “evangelical” events.  [ Previous Post – See the last paragraph] (Pardon the labels.)

2)  The Presbyterian Church (USA) has a new communications person in Karen Schmidt, the deputy executive director of the General Assembly Council for communications and fund development.  And at the GAC meeting Karen talked about a unified message. [ Previous Post]

While I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately enough data points are developing to form a trend.

My latest observation:
In doing the research on the latest convocation of the New Wineskins Association of Churches I found information in other blogs (like Toby Brown’s Classical Presbyterian), The Layman, and the Presbyterian Outlook.  As far as I can tell, the Presbyterian News Service was silent.  While the PNS did not cover the NWAC Convocation, they did cover the meeting of the Covenant Network the following week with two articles, one on the meeting in general and their statement from the meeting and the other article on the testimony given at the meeting given by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals.

Now, I do not have a problem with the coverage of the Covenant Network meeting, but I do question the continuing trend to cover “progressive” events like the Covenant Network meeting while not covering, at least in the same detail, “evangelical” meetings that occur at almost the same time.

PC(USA) GAC Meeting: Change is coming. Will it be enough?

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To expand the alphabet soup in the title, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)‘s General Assembly Council (GAC) concluded their fall meeting just over two weeks ago in Louisville and everywhere there was talk of change.  The question of course is will it happen and if so, will it be enough?  Let me discuss what has come out from the Presbyterian News Service.

It should be noted that this meeting included the executives of Middle Governing Bodies (MGB’s, that would be presbytery and synod representatives).  This was highlighted in the article titled “ Consensus sought on communication strategy.”  This reports begins by saying:

General Assembly Council (GAC) Executive Director Linda Valentine has
said that Presbyterians around the church repeatedly tell her the
denomination needs to improve its communication efforts.

I would disagree somewhat:  I think that the communications efforts are generally good.  I think it is the message, coordination, and uneven levels of coverage that need to be improved.  OK, maybe that would be included in “communication efforts” but I think there are levels of nuance here.  I’ll get back to that in a moment.

This article continues on to talk about Karen Schmidt’s presentation to the GAC and MGB representatives.  Ms. Schmidt is the new deputy executive director of communication and funds development for GAC.  She comes with corporate experience and is looking to  develop a corporate approach to communication strategy for the PC(USA)  including “branding.”  To help develop this strategy she asked those at the meeting a series of questions.  By a wide margin, the representatives said that “the whole church” is “doing the talking,” they agreed that we are “the church” (as opposed to a type of charitable organization), and that the audience is the people in the pews.  Also by a wide margin those present felt that communication should be identified as coming from the Presbyterian Church (USA) as opposed to one of its agencies.  Finally, the participants ranked “Foster/improve climate of trust,”, “Engage to empower/drive support,” and “grow membership/worship attendance” as the primary purposes of the communication.

All of this sounds nice, but part of the problem over the years has been agencies, or even corporations, related to the PC(USA) making statements (or publishing books) that don’t represent approved policy or doctrine but are viewed as coming from the PC(USA) as a unit and not that branch of it.  And yes, it does speak to the people in the pews.  At least that is the audience that pays the most attention even if that is not the intended audience.  So, if the PC(USA) does develop a unified communication strategy it had better be just that – unified.  And if they are going to speak for the denomination as a whole, it needs to be consistent with the policy and doctrine of the denomination.

Now, on to some more change…

Another article from the Presbyterian New Service titled “ Sea Change: New PC(USA) staff transform evangelism and world mission efforts” shows the new directions in Louisville.  The article begins with:

New staff people are bringing about a sea change in
the way the Presbyterian Church (USA) carries out its ministries in
evangelism and world mission.

Tom
Taylor, deputy executive director for mission, Eric Hoey, director of
evangelism and church growth, and Hunter Farrell, director of World
Mission, outlined their new approach to the Evangelism and Witness Goal
Area Committee of the General Assembly Council meeting here Sept. 20.

In the article it talks about how Rev. Taylor wants to “develop a culture of evangelism and mission in the whole denomination” and that the seven GAC “program areas” have been renamed “ministry areas.”  He also talked about their “buzz word” acronym CARE in decision making.  Does the decision conform to “Collaborative, Accountable, Responsive and Excellent.”

I have come to appreciate the very candid and honest comments from Eric Hoey.  (I note his comments on the PCUSA membership decline in this previous post.)  In this article it talks about his talking to his staff in Louisville about what they understand their work to be.  The article says of his impression of the staff from talking to them since he arrived a few weeks ago “…they lack focus and cohesiveness and are somewhat dispirited by
uncertainty about funding and the continuation of their positions as
the new GAC structure unfolds.”

Finally, the brand new Director of World Mission, Hunter Farrell, spoke.  The article says of his comments:

He said he wants to bring together the new
Presbyterian Global Fellowship, middle governing body executives,
seminary professors of mission, the Witherspoon Society, Antioch
Partners ( a joint effort of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and
the Outreach Foundation), General Assembly mission staff and others.
“All these groups have their perspective about what God is doing in
this world.”

Instead of each group doing their own thing, he wants them to see how they can more effectively accomplish mission together.

Again, focusing the effort and trying to get a variety of groups on the same page.  And an impressive accomplishment if he gets all those groups at the same table.

While I have previously talked about whether the new blood would be able to make changes in the corporate culture, after hearing these comments, and the unified front of Taylor, Hoey, and Farrell, I now have guarded optimism that they will be successful.  The questions do remain about whether they will meet resistance, how much change they can affect, and will it be the right type and enough to revitalize the denomination?  Time will tell.

Comments on the Presbyterian Coalition Gathering

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A couple of quick comments on the Presbyterian Coalition Gathering X in Houston this last week.  I am mostly dependent on the coverage from the LaymanOnline and some info from the Outlook.  I have not seen any coverage in other blogs or the Presbyterian News Service.  Since you can get the news from them if you are interested in more details, I want to add a couple pieces of analysis and commentary.

The Outlook placed the attendance at 125 and in one article on the Layman a speaker lamented the small attendance.  This leads me to wonder about the state of the “conservative” organizations in the PC(USA).  Is this decline at the Coalition Gathering just part of the life-cycle of the organization, due to interested individuals and churches getting spread out over more organizations, and/or a shift in momentum (and strategy?) to something like the New Wineskins group.  This may be echoed in the comments of the co-moderator of the Coalition, Jerry Andrews, as quoted by the Layman: “American
evangelicals are the most contentious group on the face of the Earth. If we didn’t argue
all the time, we probably wouldn’t be evangelical.” Yes, I took that out of context, but I do think there is something to this characterization and this argumentative nature makes evangelicals a bit restless and prone to “move onto the next thing.”

I enjoyed the Layman’s article about the presentation by the Rev. Tom Taylor, deputy executive director
for mission in the General Assembly Council.  I have been keeping track of Tom and his time in Louisville because I consider his tenure there a bellweather for the possibility of change within the institutional leadership.  His appearance at the Gathering I consider a positive step in and of itself.  But the Layman got it right when they observe that Rev. Taylor has not been on the job for a full year yet and has not had an opportunity to be part of the budgeting process.  That is where the rubber will meet the road and we will see if he and other fresh evangelicals can have an influence or if they will be tilting at windmills.  (Where the heck am I getting all these clichés this morning?)

I found it interesting that the Outlook story did not cover Tom Taylor’s remarks or presence.  I found it more interesting and even disturbing that a major staff member from the GAC speaks at the Coalition Gathering and there is no Presbyterian News Service coverage of that or anything related to the Gathering.  However, they did just release a story about the November Covenant Network Conference. I won’t say that it is necessarily institutional bias, there could be many reasons for the missing coverage, but it sure could be viewed as such.  As I keep telling my fellow members of a synod task force:  Yes, doing this or that may be extra work, but if we want to be viewed as having done a credible and balanced job we need to do a little bit more to be sure all sides feel they have been properly heard.

Appeal of Rev. Jane Spahr’s PJC decision

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Last Friday, August 17, the Synod of the Pacific Permanent Judicial Commission heard the appeal of the acquittal of the Rev. Jane Spahr by the PJC of the Presbytery of the Redwoods.  Back in March, 2006, the Rev. Spahr was acquitted of having violated the PC(USA) prohibition on ministers preforming same-sex weddings. As a recent PC(USA) New Service article summarizes the decision at that time:

But since the section of the PC(USA)’s constitution that reserves
marriage for a man and a woman “is a definition, not a directive,”
Spahr “was acting within her right of conscience in performing marriage
ceremonies for same-sex couples,” the presbytery tribunal of ministers
and elders said in a written ruling.

The decision was appealed to the synod PJC by the Presbytery of the Redwoods.  The decision is expected today or tomorrow.  Whichever way the synod PJC goes and appeal to the GA PJC is expected.

The Rev. Spahr is set to retire at the end of this month from her position as the Founding Minister Director of That All May Freely Serve.  The weekend of August 11-12 there was a series of events honoring her and her service at the Downtown United Presbyterian Church of Rochester, NY.

And now a comment:  I found a quote from the Rev. Robert Conover, the stated clerk of the Presbytery of the Redwoods interesting.  The PC(USA) news articles quotes him as saying

“My sense is that our presbytery more or less
reflects the denomination as a whole in that we’re relatively evenly
divided in our perspective. A significant portion of the presbytery is
very supportive of Janie and her actions and a significant portion of
the presbytery is not. So regardless of how the case is ruled on, at
whatever level, there will be those who are disappointed.”

From the south end of the state of California the Presbytery of the Redwoods carries a very distinct reputation as a liberal, not a divided presbytery.  In addition to the Jane Spahr case, the evidence from down here includes an acknowledged lesbian candidate for ministry who transfered her presbytery of care from the Presbytery of San Gabriel to the Presbytery of the Redwoods when it looked like she would not be approved for ordination by San Gabriel.  She was ordained by Redwoods in the Fall of 2001.  As a story from the Presbyterian News Service at that time describes it the approval hinged on what is meant by “chaste.”  Maybe the Rev. Conover is right, I know that some of the presbyteries around here are not as conservative as we are sometimes made out to be, but because of evidence like these two stories this is the reputation Redwoods has.

State of the PCUSA: II — Departure of churches from the PC(USA)

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This past week the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) issued a formal response to the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) document that details their perceived problems with the PC(USA).  The New Wineskins Strategy Team Report, A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven, was adopted at their Winter Convocation in February.  While there was some general response at that time, this week the PCUSA sent a letter from Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and General Assembly Council Executive Director Linda Valentine to all the middle governing bodies promoting new materials from the Office of Theology that directly addresses the NWAC concerns (the PCUSA letter calls them “mischaracterizations”).  The Presbyterian News Service has issued a press release on the letter and materials and the letter, a one page summary, and the four page detailed commentary can be found as a single PDF file on the PC(USA) Middle Governing Body Connect site.  (The titling of the file as “wineskins-letter-brief” had me looking for the long version but as best as I can tell that is the whole thing.)

The material is basically what many of us PC(USA) watchers would have expected out of Louisville:  It is well written, contains numerous references to the confessions, particularly the confession of 1967, explains in detail the actions of the General Assembly with respect to different reports, like the Trinity Report, and overall is a great rebuttal to the NWAC document.  There are however two problems.

The first problem is that it will have difficulty getting into the hands of the members in the pews and when it does it is written at a level that will put the average person asleep faster than a slow sermon on a hot day.  There is an obvious reason for sending it to Middle Governing Bodies and that is because that is the place that it will be used and understood.  I can’t see this getting much “trickle down” from there the way that the NWAC strategy report got distributed.

The second problem is the persistent one in the PC(USA) about our words matching our actions.  As much as the NWAC is a relatively small percentage of the churches in the PC(USA), there are also a small number of churches on the progressive side whose theology and actions, when they become known through the media (including this blog), seem to contradict the nice words in this document.  (If you want examples I refer you to my blog posts of Sept. 28, 2006; Nov. 11, 2006; April 19, 2007)  This is not helped by actions at the national level which include the infamous “Re-imagining Conference,” the “Louisville Papers,” and the publication of “Christian Faith and the Truth behind 9/11.”  I realize that there is a rational explanation behind every one of these and I am lumping three very different issues together.  But that is the way that many of the PC(USA) members view what has been happening in the denomination over the last couple of decades.  In their minds all these things can not be separated!

This is not to say that there are not good things coming out of Louisville.  In particular I point to the Director of Evangelism and Church Growth, Eric Hoey’s comments in the June Perspectives where he realistically assesses the declining rate of adult baptisms and membership decline and says:

This tells me very clearly that Presbyterians do not know how to share the “Good News” of their faith and welcome people into our churches through baptism… If we continue down this path of not being able to share our faith, the apple of the PC(USA) will soon fall apart! (emphasis his)

This almost seems to reinforce the NWAC contention that the PCUSA has lost its missional interest.

Anyway, I’ll get down off my soapbox now, but it is important to remember that the PC(USA) operates on several levels and it has been my experience that what happens at higher governing bodies has little day-to-day importance or visibility to the “member in the pew.”

We will see what will happen with this document.  In my experience, it will get a limited circulation to people who already know this material.

In the mean time there is serious action with NWAC leaving the PC(USA) in favor of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.  While several churches are moving in this direction, I will highlight two.

The first is Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.  This departure is notable because of the size of the church and the amicable way in which it happened.  It is a church of 1800 members and following the congregational vote of 1,082-10 on January 28 the Presbytery of East Tennessee established an Administrative Commission to review the situation.  The report of the Commission in the presbytery meeting packet (report begins on page 7) is interesting, if for nothing else than it’s generally positive and friendly tone.  For example, from the forward:

We wish to acknowledge the cooperative spirit and non-confrontational approach evinced by the Session of SMPC, and especially the Clerk of Session, Steve Frost, in their interactions with the ARC. Every request from the ARC to the Session for information and records were met in a timely and gracious fashion. The character of conversations moved quickly from cautious to cordial to trustful. This alone distinguishes the current situation with most other dismissal requests in the denominations, which have been characterized by hostility, distrust and, oftentimes, aggression. The ARC has tried to find a different way that, while recognizing our obvious differences with the members of SMPC, emphasizes our commonality resulting from being a part of the Body of Christ. If we have succeeded, it is due in no small measure to the like-minded approach taken by SMPC’s Session. Indeed, the letter of January 10, 2007, was notable for its pastoral and gracious tone, and made a pastoral approach by ARC possible. We thank God for these, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the action items the recommendation is:

That Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church be dismissed from the Presbytery of East Tennessee, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with property, real and personal (i.e., all assets), to the Presbytery of the Southeast of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, effective immediately upon receipt by the Stated Clerk of PET of notification of acceptance of SMPC by the Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of the Southeast of the EPC; said dismissal being contingent upon no other conditions.

So the church got to leave with their property and name.  In addition, the church agreed to continue to support the presbytery mission budget for another five years and the two parties agreed to a transition support structure for any Associate Pastor that wanted to remain in the PC(USA).  The Presbyt
erian News Service has a press release on the departure as do other media sources.

The second high-profile church to vote to leave the PC(USA) is Memorial Park Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh Presbytery.  On June 3 the congregation voted 951 to 93 to request the presbytery dismiss them to pursue membership in the EPC.  This action is probably not a surprise since the church called the Rev. Dr. D. Dean Weaver in 2005 to serve as senior pastor.  Rev. Weaver is co-moderator of the NWAC.  The yes vote exceeded a threshold that the church set with the presbytery so now negotiations over the details of the departure, including the property, will begin.  According to the PC(USA) press release another church in Pittsburgh Presbytery has reportedly reached an agreement with the presbytery to pay the presbytery $250,000 over 10 years.  The Memorial Park Church has issued its own press release about the congregational vote.

In addition an opposition blog was established last Saturday June 9.  I am a bit hesitant to mention it since it contains one entry with strong language and accusations against the way the meeting and vote was conducted and I do not see an e-mail address or name for contacting the author.  I won’t link to it but if you use “memorial park church blog” in your favorite search engine it should come right up.

And finally a reminder that the General Assembly of the EPC meets next week where they will vote on establishing a special transitional presbytery for NWAC churches that wish to transition to the EPC in that way.

The state of the PCUSA: I — Membership continues decline

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Well, the numbers are out and, to no ones surprise, the membership in the Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to decline.  The annual numbers for 2006 are contained in a press release from the Presbyterian News Service as well as detailed statistics and commentary in the current (June) issue of the Office of the General Assembly’s on-line publication Perspectives.  Looking back at past issues of Perspectives I see that the 2004 stats were also published there in the June 2005  issue with less commentary (at least direct commentary). [It looks like when they don’t have a GA to float them at they go to Perspectives.]

In reading through the associated articles there are some good points made but in some places they appear more like  analyzing the obvious or spin.  In the former, I give you a couple of lines from the end of the article by Kris Valerius (manager of OGA statistics) titled “The Rest of the Story“:

The bottom line: For
growth to appear, our overall losses need to go down and our overall
gains need to go up. The 2006 picture shows we lost fewer people, but
we also brought fewer into the church. Not the formula for growth.

A few other statistics are mentioned in that article, but I’ll take a closer look at those in a minute.

The rest of the articles take a look at the statistics from various views including “look forward and not back” or “look beyond the numbers to the vibrant and faithful congregations” or “today’s young people are not joiners and membership numbers don’t tell the whole story.”  The latter item is a very valid point and while worship attendance is reported by congregations the OGA does not report these numbers in this statistical summary.  I did appreciate the articles by Clark D. Cowden and Eric Hoey who view the numbers as a wake-up call.  Rev. Cowden writes how the church needs to be missional and reaching out and Rev. Hoey looks at the number of adult baptisms reported and their steep decline in the last three years and says something similar about spreading the gospel.

Being a bit of a geek, well actually a major geek and a research scientist, I have gone back a couple more years to get as much info as I could quickly.  Combining this year’s stats with those published in 2005 gives six years data (2001-2006) to better analyze trends.  The interesting thing is that in this data there are few statistically strong trends.  However, three trends come through “loud and clear” and two more are significant.

The first two statistically significant trends are for the decline in the number of congregations and decline in total membership.  (By “statistically significant I mean that the linear regression has an R-squared of almost 1 (in case you care)).  The six year trend in congregation decline is 47 congregations/year and in membership it is 45,469 members/year.  To put this into perspective, this is a loss of one medium sized presbytery worth of churches and one large presbytery in terms of members.

The other strong trend is the growth in ordained ministers at an average of 41 per year.  While some of the writers are correct that in pointing out that this is an encouraging trend, it is also disturbing to realize that even with more ministers it is not doing any good at growing the membership.

In addition, there are weaker trends ( R-squared of 0.55 and 0.80 respectively) in the slight decline in churches received and the trend in the increasing number of churches dismissed.  Both of these are small numbers, but the recent history of a beginning exodus of chruches to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church may reinforce this trend in the coming year.  Stay tuned.

Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down

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The quote in the title is from British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement today that he has set a date for his resignation.  But it got me thinking and reflecting on the pull of power, especially in a Presbyterian system.

As a Reformed church we believe that power should not be concentrated in an individual person but held by the commissioners to that governing body.  Even then, in the Presbyterian Church (USA), an elder may only serve on session for a maximum of six years before they must take at least one year off.  The same is true in my Presbytery for committees, although many people just move on to another committee.  My Presbytery has no restrictions on elder commissioners to Presbytery.  I’ve lost track of the number of years I have been an elder commissioner, but not always from my church.  My status as a voting elder in Presbytery has also included my time as a committee chair and as moderator and vice-moderator.  And minister members are always voting members for as long as they are members of Presbytery.  But, our Synod commissioners only serve a maximum of four years and an individual is usually only a General Assembly commissioner once.

There are places in our system where there is usually no limit on time of service.  Clerks are one of these places.  There is no requirement that the elder serving as clerk of session be an elected member of session so there is no limit on how long someone can serve.  As an example, when my six years as a member of session were up, I continued on for an extra two years serving as clerk.  No vote, but an opportunity to participate.  And at my parents’ church there is a vintage plaque memorializing a gentleman who a number of years ago served for decades as the clerk of session.

Our presbytery recently reelected our stated clerk for another three year term which will get them to near two decades of service.  Having worked closely with the clerk this individual is wonderful at the job, never injecting them selves unless I was about to do something contrary to the Book of Order or if I asked them for advice.  Now, the theory is that these positions have only limited power, but many of us are aware that even in setting dockets or providing constitutional guidance to committees there is the substantial opportunity for influence.  So, on principle, in a Presbyterian system, should there be term limits on any position just to avoid the “pull of power?”

Just some thoughts for today after hearing the quote from Mr. Blair.  In a related note, his presumed successor as PM is Mr. Gordon Brown, a Scot.  I have heard and read of him described a number of ways, but almost all of the profiles (like this one from Earthtimes.org) mention his father’s service as a minister in the Church of Scotland.  In one of the interviews this morning with an opposition commentator I heard him described as “presbyterian,” with the adjective used not in a spiritual sense but as being stern and reserved, much like another article I commented on here a while ago.