I have commented on this before, but after a conversation yesterday and reading the news out of Louisville, I was again reminded of the road the PC(USA) appears to be directing itself down.  While the Office of the General Assembly seems intent on fighting tooth and nail to at least keep the property in the denomination, even if there are no members in those pews, the question raised last night was “At what cost?”  And while my main concern in previous posts was the cost of people, attitudes and spiritual well-being, the cost discussed yesterday was pure money.

As we looked at presbytery, synod, and national budgets it seemed to us that the PC(USA) is headed for trouble.  Not only is the declining membership, by both the ongoing decline and now the churches withdrawing, going to put the squeeze on “per capita” funds, but in places the legal expenses are mounting fast.  At least one presbytery, and the synod by extension, is accumulating large legal bills in its litigation against multiple churches.  And as they plan the budget for next year they are trying to figure out how to raise the funds to pay the bills, probably at the expense of significant ministry opportunities.  And Santa Fe and Sierra Blanca presbyteries are on record questioning their role and future viability.

The denomination has acknowledged these challenges in several press releases coming out of last month’s General Assembly Council meeting.  These include “GAC, PC(USA) Executives look for ‘a new way’“, a story about a joint meeting between GAC and presbytery executives.  Discussion groups looked at the future of the denomination and the article says:

One small group went so far as to suggest that the 2008 General
Assembly take no actions, but spend it’s entire time in discernment of
God’s mission for the church. Another group suggested that annual
statistical reports be replaced by reports on governing bodies’
discernment of their mission.

Another news article about the meeting entitled “Turning mazes into labyrinths” lists eleven items for discussion including this interesting one:

The congregational dilemma — what is job one? (“The denomination has
not lost members; local congregations have lost members.”);

On the one hand, I’ll admit that no one is a member of the General Assembly, they are a member of a local congregations.  But is this intended to negate that fact that when I sometimes tell people that I attend a PC(USA)  church they say “Isn’t that the church that _____________?”  Fill in the blank with your favorite controversial topic be it the Trinity report, the 9/11 book, the divestment in Israel, the list goes on.  I hate to break it to the folks in Louisville, but the PC(USA) an image problem, or a disconnect, that is hurting the local congregations, not the other way around!

Another article titled “Forward into the unknown” details comments that GA Moderator Joan Gray made to the GAC.  I am encouraged that at times Rev. Gray seems to have her head on straight about this and is very pragmatic.  In particular, she is blunter than most about the situation:

The ways of being a denomination that have served
us so well for so many years, in which I was raised and trained and
done my ministry for the past 30 years, are passing away, some so
slowly that we barely recognize it, some very fast.

We
have come to a time when any person with a computer can access a
universe of resources, programs and relationships. And churches are not
looking to the national office for these things much any more.

And a final article, “Reorganizing principles,” discusses the new GAC executive director Linda Valentine’s comments at the meeting.  Facing a nearly 10% budget reduction from last spring and a continuing series of layoffs to downsize the denominational offices, she too discusses the changes that are taking place.

Thus, responsiveness, accountability and collaboration, Valentine said,
are the “restructuring principles” undergirding the current GAC
reorganization, which was set in motion by the council at the end of
April.

So where does this leave the PC(USA) at this juncture?  Nice words from the top but I think many of us have heard these before from GA, synods, and maybe even our presbyteries.  Are we “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” or will this have a real trickle-down to the congregations?  Are we reducing expenses and selling off property just to balance the budget and then we will turn around in one, five, ten more years and have to do it all over again.

I am struck by two things in this series of articles:
First, a lot of talk about restructuring, about doing new things, increased communication, all of that.  But I saw very little about individual congregations and reconnecting with the people in the pews.  It is still about Louisville.
Second, I was looking carefully but saw no comments in any of these articles from the Stated Clerk, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick.  I will let that observation stand without further comment about conspiracy theories or that old science of “Kremlinology.”  But if GAC says or does something, will OGA follow?

So what is the future of the PC(USA)?  Can the denomination reconnect with the people in the pews or is all hope of that gone with the decline of main-line denominations?  And what will be sold/cut next to hold the denomination together?

Today’s edition of “Counterpunch,” a liberal, probably very liberal, appearing electronic newsletter has a fascinating article by Robert Jensen titled “Finding my way back to church…and getting kicked out.”  In the article Mr. Jensen details his experience at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Mission Presbytery.  He also outlines his, by his own admission, marginally Christian beliefs, and how his membership at St. Andrew’s was challenged at the presbytery because in another news piece he referred to himself as an atheist.  The presbytery instructed the church to remove him from the membership rolls by a vote of 156-114.  His membership is still in place while the presbytery decision is appealed to the Synod of the Sun.

The article is interesting on a lot of different levels. 

First, it gives a view of our denomination from a liberal, modern, and marginal perspective.  How do we present ourselves?  What do our presbytery meetings look like to someone who had never seen one before.  How does it translate to the outside world?  As Mr. Jensen points out, he was present at the meeting but was not given the privilege of the floor.  He was allowed to distribute his statement of faith which reads:

On God: I believe God is a name we give to the mystery
of the world that is beyond our capacity to understand. I believe
that the energy of the universe is ordered by forces I cannot
comprehend.
On Jesus: I believe Christ offered a way into that mystery that
still has meaning today.
On the Holy Ghost: There are moments in my life when I feel
a connection to other people and to Creation that rides a spirit
which flows through me yet is beyond me.
I believe that Holy Spirit can only be nurtured in real community,
where people make commitments to each other. I have found that
community in St. Andrew’s. I have tried to open myself up to
our pastor’s teaching, to the members of the congregation, and
to the church’s work in the world.”

I never said it was orthodox, but if the church is to address the faith that people bring with them then we need to be aware of this.  But where do we as a church go with this?  He has clarly found community so now how do we help him find the Gospel?

Do not get me wrong.  In the PC(USA) we have a specific membership requirement:

G-5.0101 Membership through Faith
a. The incarnation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives to the church not only its mission but also its understanding of membership. One becomes an active member of the church through faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and acceptance of his Lordship in all of life. Baptism and a public profession of faith in Jesus as Lord are the visible signs of entrance into the active membership of the church.

But the question that we as a denomination, and maybe as a system of church government, need to be aware of, reflect on, and be cautious about, is how do we undertake the “Proclamation of the Gospel” so that our polity helps and not hurts us?