Category Archives: missional

The Diversity Of Dismissals From The PC(USA)


As regular readers know I have not just been following the many twists and turns of the dismissals of churches from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) as an outside observer but at the level of my own presbytery I have found myself deeply involved in the process. And so it is with a great deal of interest that I have been following the recent news about dismissals of churches elsewhere. And while I have been seeing the mainstream media focusing on the “stay or go” side of the story, because of my level of involvement locally I have a great deal of interest in the fine details of the terms under which the churches are considering dismissal. My intent today is to drill down a bit into that aspect of the story with regards to two recent cases.

First, I did want to reflect for a moment on how dismissals have changed over the last two or three years. I have always been intrigued that before about three years ago the largest churches in the PC(USA) seemed to be staying with the denomination even if they were expressing concern about the direction that the church was headed. From my discussions with others the reasons seem to be two-fold. The first is that they did not see a good place to go. The only destination similar enough to the PC(USA) for most to even consider was the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) and over the years there were a good number of churches that headed in that direction to the extent that now the EPC has more than doubled in size based on the number of congregations. But as the EPC was working through these growing pains it was generally not seen as a good destination for what passes as a mega-church in the PC(USA). With the founding of ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians in 2012 a more suitable destination was available.

To be completely accurate, one of the churches on the list, First Presbyterian Church of Orlando, did transfer to the EPC. But while it was the first on the list of largest churches to depart it was at about the same time that ECO was founded and another church, First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Springs, began their dismissal process soon after.

The second reason is that the PC(USA) was trying to work out what was meant by Gracious Dismissal. As I will talk about in a minute, it looks like we still are. So while the motion was passed by the 218th General Assembly in 2008 it appears we have reached a point where a number of the kinks have been worked out and there is some greater understanding of what might be involved. This was aided by the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission’s decision in Tom, et al. v. Presbytery of San Francisco (Tom decision) that somewhat clarified the application of the Trust Clause in these matters.

So, we have transitioned from a point where none of the 15 largest churches in the denomination were actively moving towards departure just a few years ago to the point today where several have or are considering it. If we consider the 2011 list of the 15 largest churches in the PC(USA) there are two churches that have now been formally dismissed ( including FPC Orlando to the EPC ) and three more that are in the dismissal process, at least at the beginning of this month…

Which brings us to one of those churches that voted this past Sunday and in doing so decided to stay with the  PC(USA) – First Presbyterian Church of Houston.

As I mentioned above, the media story here has been “stay or go” and while there was a strong majority of the membership that voted to transfer to ECO they fell 36 votes short of the 2/3 supermajority required in the dismissal agreement with Presbytery of New Covenant. This was out of a total of 1,681 members who voted.

One article from the Houston Chronicle gave these thoughts from pastor and head of staff, Teaching Elder Jim Birchfield:

“This is the toughest possible outcome in many people’s minds,” Senior Pastor Jim Birchfield
said. “To fall a few votes short will be very tough for them. I’m a
little bit disappointed. I came out very strongly and passionately in
favor of (the move).”

Birchfield said it was too early to assess the long-term
repercussions of the attempt to switch denominations, and he declined to
predict whether some members will leave the church as a result. He said
his immediate task is to begin smoothing over the differences for the
sake of keeping the 3,100 member church intact.
“We have to begin reconciling the two sides, and that will begin
immediately,” he said. “We’ll also begin reconciling among the
leadership. For the most part, we have had a very gracious debate.”

I would note that there is a longer article from the Chronicle available to digital subscribers.

Other news sources covered similar aspects of the meeting with the Texas Tribune providing this description of the debate:

For more than an hour on Sunday, church members provided testimony for and against leaving PCUSA, some of it tearful.

Those in favor of leaving PCUSA spoke of the national organization’s
“theological drift” and called for a more “Christ-centered theology.”

and

Opponents of the switch argued for theological diversity. PCUSA does
not require churches to ordain openly gay pastors if they choose not to.
They bemoaned what they saw as inevitable fallout from the decision,
and said that appealing to stricter evangelist views would only further
isolate young members from the church.

In particularly fiery testimony, one opposing member said she feared
the switch would make her “a member of a congregation that distinguishes
itself by its homophobia.”

For a more nuanced look at the meeting I would refer you to the article from the Presbyterian Outlook which has a bit more on the process and procedure.

But returning to the Texas Tribune article, one paragraph caught my attention and I want to use it as the starting point to drill down a bit. They describe the property of the church like this:

First Presbyterian of Houston was an obvious target for the fledgling
denomination. The Houston church has roughly 3,100 members, owns
property valued at more than $100 million and boasts an $18 million
endowment. The church is 175 years old.

Now consider the material that was provided by the church from a link that was on it’s Season of Decision web page. The link has now been removed but as of this writing the document with the details of the terms for possible departure is still available. (But could disappear soon.) Besides the rationale for the departure the document has some legal notes, the report of the presbytery team and the details of payments the church would have had to make to the presbytery. I have not figured out which of the two listed options would be used but the larger of the two would have been payments to the presbytery on a five year declining scale totaling $343,236. The rationale for the amount is not given and based upon negotiations in my own presbytery I would not expect it to be so. But for a $100 million property and $18 million endowment it seems like a pretty good deal. This will become more apparent in a minute.

One other item on that page caught my attention, particularly in light of the actual vote tallies, and this could have changed this picture dramatically. While no specifics or formulas are given there is this paragraph about additional payments:

There are two additional payments that might be made to Presbytery. The amounts are not known at this time. If the required majority votes to be dismissed and more than 10% of our congregation vote to remain in PCUSA, and a petition to start a new church is signed by more than 25 members, and Presbytery approves the new church start, we will owe a payment to start a new church. In addition we will likely be required to make a voluntary gift to the Presbytery’s New Church Development Fund.

It is interesting to wonder about the what-ifs had those extra 36 members been there and the vote had gone the other way, but just barely, what the magnitude of these payments would have been. (And I had to smile at the language about being “required to make a voluntary gift…” Probably a required gift of a voluntary amount.)

Let us now turn our attention to another vote, this time at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in San Francisco Presbytery scheduled for this coming weekend. When I started hearing details of this church dismissal I had to think that the presbytery was taking the instructions in the Tom decision very seriously:

When a congregation seeks dismissal under G-11.0103i (now G-3.0301a), it is the responsibility of the presbytery to fulfill its fiduciary duty under the Trust Clause. This fiduciary duty requires that the presbytery exercise due diligence regarding the value of the property of the congregation seeking dismissal. Due diligence, of necessity, includes not only an evaluation of the spiritual needs of the congregation and its circumstances but also financial analysis of the value of the property at stake. Payments for per capita or mission obligations are not satisfactory substitutes for the separate evaluation of the value of the property held in trust.

According to the information on the church web site the payment to the presbytery will be $8.89 million if the congregation votes to accept the terms and request dismissal. Yes, it is 1.5 orders of magnitude larger than the terms that FPC Houston got. In addition, for FPC Houston the quorum requirement was 30% of the membership, it is 50% for Menlo Park. And the required supermajority is 3/4 for Menlo Park while it was the 2/3 for FPC Houston. The differences due to presbytery policy are striking for two churches of very similar size (3,567 members for FPC Houston and 3,382 members for Menlo Park according to the 2012 list). As my title says – The Diversity of Dismissals.

The PC(USA)’s polity places dismissals firmly in the authority of the presbytery and each church was obliged to deal with their presbytery in coming to an agreement about the terms of dismissal. One of the places that Menlo Park discusses the terms of the agreement is in Pastor John Ortberg’s February 2nd sermon. In there he talks about the process of arriving at these numbers saying:

Where did this figure come from, and why is it so high? Sorry for the complexity around this, but we want to be as transparent as we can. From the perspective of our church, part of what is suboptimal in our current denominational system is that there are no clear objective guidelines to arrive at a financial figure in a process like this one.

But regarding this financial number, in looking at a lot of the material on their web site I have not seen a breakdown of where this number actually comes from, if there is per capita, mission, property and new church development built into it.

For more details about the voting process there is a short video clip online from February 16th where Ruling Elder Ken Perez discusses what is coming up. In that discussion he also announces that a 5 year reversionary clause on the main property has been added by the presbytery to the terms of the agreement. The church’s main web page about the dismissal has a lot of information and there is another page devoted to this weekend’s vote.

Let me return to TE Ortberg’s February 2nd sermon for a moment and highlight a couple of the comments he made. In his discussion he talks about the various options the congregation has relative to the large cost of departure. Besides paying the millions of dollars, one option is that they could turn down the offer and stay. Another is that they could walk away from their property. He discusses how neither of these fits the missional vision of the church. The fourth option is litigation and he responds to that option this way:

We could say, “We’ll go to court.” However, we think public litigation would be a bad witness for the church. It’s not good for the bride of Jesus. It’s not what God is calling us to do, and nobody wanted to do that.

While not doubting that this is their rationale in avoiding this path, and respecting them greatly for it, it is also worth noting that based on case law in the State of California, specifically the Episcopal Church Cases decided by the State Supreme Court, they would have an uphill battle in retaining control of the property through civil court.

I want to make two final comments about Menlo Park PC’s missional vision as expressed in a couple of different places. In the church’s online material the argument that is regularly presented for transferring is that the necessity of working with the presbytery is burdensome and getting in the way of their missional vision. As TE Ortberg says in that February 2nd sermon:

As you all know, we have a vision. We believe we have a mission. We want to reach thousands of people for Jesus Christ around this Bay Area that needs him so much. We want to launch new sites to help us do that.

We believe we simply cannot do that effectively if we remain in the denomination.

And this is a sentiment that is echoed in the comments by RE Perez where he talks about the issues they have had with the presbytery. Instead of emphasizing what may be a mismatch in the visions of the two governing bodies it sounds to my listening that he is leaning to a more congregational form of government and he wants to get the presbytery out of the way so the church can have more autonomy and flexibility.

Taking this one step further, as I look at all this material throughout it there is a tendency to speak of problems with the denomination when some of the issues are specifically with the presbytery. Picky polity point I know, but we do work on hierarchical structure where presbyteries do have identities and some autonomy from the synods and the General Assembly. It strikes me that the PC(USA) is getting painted with too broad a brush.

The second item I wanted to mention is a good article from The Almanac titled Changes Ahead for Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. In some ways I think the article does a better job of in explaining the church’s vision than the church’s own online material does. For example, it does discuss the issue of the church wanting to expand as a multi-site church while running up against the limitations of geographic presbyteries. It says:

MPPC Communications Director Nicole Laubscher
said ECO’s 110 churches are organized into nine presbyteries by both
geography and similarity, such as size, as opposed to geography alone as
done by the Presbyterian Church (USA).

“For us it’s about the pace of change,” she
said. ECO offers more flexibility, whereas PCUSA is designed for small
churches in a single location. “It creates tremendous barriers.”

When MPPC first sought to expand outside Menlo
Park, she said, “It was really hard. At the time, we didn’t know if we
would just get a no. Instead of being supported, encouraged and helped,
it was another barrier to hurdle. … it’s just not the right framework
to support a larger, multi-site church.”

In PCUSA, the presbytery, or regional
governing body, is responsible for planning and placing new churches.
Tom Conrad, chair of the PCUSA team selected to deal with the proposed
departure of the Menlo Park church, agreed the concept of opening
multiple sites doesn’t fit well with that organization’s system; as a
result, there are “precious few” multi-site churches.

The article also does a good job of exploring the downside to the dismissal agreement.

Some former and current members of MPPC said
they think the theological differences are influencing the church’s
desire to change organizations.

Debra Holvick, who stopped attending several years ago, got re-involved to be able to participate in the upcoming vote.

“This was the church I was baptized in, I went
to Sunday school there, I was married there, my father’s memorial was
held there, my mother remarried there and my children were raised
there,” she told the Almanac. “That church has been a huge part of my
life, so I felt responsible for it and I don’t want them to take it in
an unchristian-like direction and say this is part of who I am.”

Ms. Holvick said taking a stance against gay
clergy and same-sex marriage may not be a major motivation for changing
denominations, but it does come with the package.

Later on there are comments about whether the almost $9 million buy-out price could be “better spent funding scholarships and buying food for those in need in the local community…”

So we wait for the meeting this Sunday to see how the congregation as a whole discerns the will of God regarding its future affiliations. Stay tuned…

[Ed. note: For the record, I did resist using the cliché “Houston we have a problem” as a subtitle to this post. But yes, another post and its correction did use a variation on it.]

Two News Stories About Churches And Their Worship Space

Last week two different news stories caught my attention and they both  were related to changes in the church and how they were working out their need and vision for worship space.

The first story is about the Gilcomston South Church, now referred to as just the Gilcomston Church, in Aberdeen, Scotland. This congregation had been making the news recently because of its discernment about whether to withdraw from the Church of Scotland. Well, it did so on February 15 and unlike the earlier withdraw of St. George’s Tron in Glasgow, it appears Gilcomston was prepared to walk away from the property. The few members of the continuing congregation are now meeting with the South Holburn Church until new leadership is in place and the future prospects are evaluated.

When Gilcomston left their building they began by meeting in a local hotel ballroom but complaints from guests resulted in the hotel management asking them to leave. (Their Facebook page has some pictures of the first Lord’s Day away from their building.)

Being without a home the Aberdeen Presbytery made them a very gracious offer (from an article in the Scotsman):

In a remarkable gesture, the members of the Aberdeen Presbytery of the
Church of Scotland have agreed to offer members of the former
congregation at the city’s Gilcomston South Church the temporary use of
the city centre building while they find a permanent base for their
breakaway church.

And a BBC article contains this quote from the convener of the Presbytery’s special committee considering the property:

The Rev George Cowie, committee convener, said: “‘It is deeply sad
when people choose to leave the Church of Scotland. We believe that the
Church of Scotland is a broad church and that it can accommodate people
who hold differing views.

“In this case, however, the situation has not involved conflict, scandal or litigation.

“All parties have shown respect for one another and it has
been a good Christian witness for us to engage with one another in this
manner.”

While I could say a lot about this situation, and the benefits to both parties, I am going to leave that last sentence to speak for itself about the witness. It will be interesting to see in what sort of worship space they finally move into. And that is part of the next story as well…

The second story is about three Georgia churches uniting – brought to us by the Marietta Daily Journal.

Yesterday was the last Lord’s Day with the three separate worship services and this coming week they will join together and charter as the new Light of Hope Presbyterian Church on Resurrection Sunday. Having a look at the PC(USA) statistics for these churches you can see the value of joining forces. (And in the discussion below, since the churches are being dissolved, there is no certainty how long the links will still be good.)

Southminster Presbyterian of Marietta shows in the PC(USA) statistics a membership of 86 members in 2011 and average worship attendance of 43, both declining from about twice those numbers seven years ago.

Woodlawn Presbyterian of Mableton has similar numbers with a membership of  69 and average worship attendance of 38. Their decline is not as sharp with only about a 25% drop over the last ten years, a number similar to the PC(USA) as a whole.

Calvary Presbyterian (official website already gone) of Marietta is the smallest of the three with a membership of 45 and average worship of 37. Their membership decline has two phases, a major drop in 2003 and then a steady loss of about half their members since then.  Since the worship attendance does not show the large 2003 drop that is probably just a cleaning of the membership rolls.

Let me highlight a few details from the news report:  First, all three churches are said to have been founded in the 1960’s so these are not historic churches but more likely represent the mainline expansion into suburbia as the city spread. (They are all on the southwest side of Marietta.)  Second, the pastors speak of their congregations getting older so these churches reflect the graying of the PC(USA). (The comment is made that the average age of one of the congregations is 65 which is only slightly older than the median age for the denomination of 63 determined by the latest Presbyterian Panel Snapshot.) Third, Southminster and Calvary share a pastor – managing with dwindling resources. Finally, both of the pastors of these three churches are at retirement age and with the closings will go into retirement.

But what caught my attention was the future plans for the new church. The first is the new pastor coming in to work with the new church – The Rev. Edwin Gonzalez-Gertz. He is transferring from the Presbytery of Tropical Florida and the summary of the November meeting of Cherokee Presbytery indicates that they were conducting a presbytery level search to fill a designated pastor position. The 2013 Mission Yearbook lists Rev. Gonzalez-Gertz as being on the Tropical Florida Presbytery staff as the Associate Missional Presbyter. A 2006 article in the Sun Sentinel describes him and his earlier work at Cypress Presbyterian Church in Pompano Beach. Lots of good stuff in the article but here is his quote describing that church:

This church has been transformed into a bilingual, multicultural
community that fits the projected demographics for the nation in 2050,
so it is a project that the Presbyterian General Assembly is supporting
to test the different ways of doing church.

Looking to the future the other aspect is all three properties are for sale. So what does this mean for their worship space? Here is what the current pastors say in the article:

The Southminster church building will house the new Light of Hope
congregation for no more than two years, Paulsen said. It will then move
to a new location that’s not a traditional church building.

“Traditional
church buildings aren’t built for ministries,” Paulsen said. “We need
to add some elements to the program to make it more attractive to young
families.”

The new elements will be more contemporary, but won’t stray from the “classic Presbyterian DNA,” as Paulsen put it.

Each
church has promised that the site starting out at Light of Hope will
only be temporary, and they intend to find a vacated building – possibly
an old bookstore or Home Depot site – to draw a new crowd, Spangler
said.

New ways of doing church, and you don’t know how it will work out until you try.

We wish both of these congregations well as they move forward and will try to remember to stop back in to see how they are doing. And a big thanks to Aberdeen Presbytery for your gracious Christian Witness.

And a bit more on church growth in the next day or two…

The Fellowship Gathering — Through The Tweets Dimly

Last week was an interesting week for me, what with the Virginia earthquake on Tuesday and the two day Fellowship of Presbyterians Gathering in Minneapolis on Thursday and Friday.

I did not make it to The Gathering so I have been trying to follow it from my vantage point over here on the Left Coast. News and blog articles about the event are starting to appear, but it was fascinating to track the Twitter comments and interactions during the meeting.  However, what I found was that while the tweets were interesting and helpful they were not enough to help me connect all the dots to understand what the Fellowship is and where it is going. (Guess you had to be there… )  What follows is not so much reporting on the Gathering but sharing my impressions from and about the social media content related to it. As Scott Keeble (@skeeble99) put it:

Gotta love overreactions to 140 char. summaries of a conference you aren’t at.

If you want to play along at home you need to check out the tweets with the hashtag #mn2011.  As the meeting was getting underway I did comment that I did not see a lot of use of the #pcusa hashtag and by implication there was a distancing from the institution. Several friends of different theological stripes informed me that it is indeed common practice to only use the conference hashtag and that nothing sinister should be seen in the use of hashtags.  I stand corrected and apologize for casting aspersions where nothing should have been read into it.

Now, if you want a good look at the best play-by-play of the event you need to check out the constant stream of tweets from Carolyn Poteet (@cvpotweet) who was the unofficial live-tweeter. Her stats say she is only at 1034 tweets ever — I would have sworn that she had 10,000 in one day last week! Of course, she hit her rate limit a couple of times and to get the complete picture you need to also check the tweets from @TomJHouston which she co-opted to keep the info coming while her account was in time-out.  Carolyn, thanks for all your efforts! Your tweets helped tremendously to follow along. (Generally tweets I quote but are not identified as from another source came from Carolyn and I trust that my quoting her in what follows does not stray from Fair Use.)

Also be aware that there were times when the participants split up into breakout sessions so if you see tweets sent at about the same time but on very different topics that is probably what is happening.

Moving on from the reporting to the “conversation” the first thing that impressed me was the theological breadth represented by those tweeting from The Gathering. In particular there are several people I know that I don’t think were at the meeting to sign up for the New Reformed Body but were checking out the Gathering for other reasons. I trust that they will provide their thought in the blogosphere in the near future. Based on the Twitter activity I make a back-of-the-envelope calculation that about 5-10% (100-200 people) of those present probably held viewpoints contrary to the view of orthodoxy the Fellowship seems to be promoting.

In addition, I was pleased to see at least three of the “big four” from the General Assembly at the meeting.  The GA Moderator and Vice-Moderator were there — Moderator Cynthia Bolbach made some well-received comments towards the end of the meeting, judging by the tweets, and Vice-Moderator Landon Whitsitt was his usual self providing a nice stream of insightful comments throughout the meeting. (More on this later) If I understood the tweets correctly, GA Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons was also in attendance and spoke briefly — as Seth Normington (@revnormsy) put it “Brief, rather opaque comments from ga stated clerk, gradye parsons. Nice of him to attend. Blessings, good sir.” There was no mention of GAMC Executive Director Linda Valentine being present and likewise but I saw no identification that anyone else from the GAMC was in attendance. [Update: Thanks to Jody Harrington’s comment below where she commented that Linda Valentine was at the conference. The text above has been adjusted appropriately.]

That leads me into a few observations about the meeting gleaned pretty much exclusively from the tweets:

  • Besides the breakout sessions there were also discussion groups. It looks like the higher governing body professionals and officers were grouped together in their own groups. I did not see an explanation of this and am curious why.
  • Carmen Fowler LaBerge (@csfowler2003) informs us “#mn2011 registration info: 950 clergy; 575 elders; 53 church administrators; 20 PCUSA staff; 68 presbytery execs. 300 didn’t indicate.” (That would be 1966 total)
  • Carolyn also tweeted the answer to one of the nagging questions I had: “Primary diff from New Wineskins – tone.” Another time a speaker is quoted as saying “I felt like New Wineskins got hijacked by angry people.”
  • Leslie Scanlon (@lscanlon) of the Outlook provides us with some of the descriptions of where the conservatives feel they or the denomination is – “Some metaphors used at #MN2011. Deathly ill. Stuck in a box canyon. Car sunk in swimming pool. #pcusa”
  • Because it is Twitter with a 140 character limit the acronyms were flying. Two that I had to recalibrate my brain for were NRB – which to this group means New Reformed Body but I normally think of as National Religious Broadcasters – and the FOP (or FoP) – which of course here means Fellowship of Presbyterians but in my day job is a professional organization.
  • There were questions from afar about the diversity in the Gathering but I did not see the questions answered.  However, at one point Carolyn tweets this telling comment “Potty parity at #mn2011! First time in my life I’ve ever seen a line at the men’s room but sailed through the ladies’!”

Going back to that bullet point about the tone of this group, I was struck by how positive the official portion of the meeting was.  That did not completely extend to the Twitterverse, but I’ll talk about that below. Based on the 140 character reports the leadership of the FOP is in communication with, and maybe even working with, the OGA leadership.  It was also made clear that  “we are not calling anybody apostate,” and “will not seek to demonize the #PCUSA in any manner.” And one final quote on this – “One of the ways this won’t be a spin off to a new denom (quickly), is b/c we don’t want to lose relationships w/people we love.”

Two big topics at this meeting that are inexorably linked are the New Reformed Body and theological beliefs, usually referred to as the Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith.

Coming into the meeting the FOP had made it clear that the NRB (yes, I can throw acronyms around too ) was going to happen but that there were a lot of details to be worked out.  The impression I got from the Twitter reporting and discussion is that enough details have to be worked out and now this is a train that has left the station and is headed for the announced constitutional convention January 12-14, 2012, in Orlando. But the FOP clearly hopes for the NRB to continue in some form of partnership with the PC(USA).  One comment was “the degree to which the NRB can relate back to the PCUSA, and we hope it can, baptisms, ordinations, permeable boundary.” Another said “hopefully we can share some HQ functions – missions, theology and worship…” One of the themes I found most helpful was the description of what they are about in this sequence of tweets from Carolyn: “like-minded church to unite around a common purpose. from Phil 2:1-2,” “we’ve created such a broad tent that there’s no center pole. we need to establish essentials again,” and “need to make clear abt what’s at the center rather than police the
boundaries, so people can determine if it’s a good fit for them.”

Related to this is the question of standards.  At the Gathering the NRB was described as an “empty warehouse” waiting to be filled.  That is to be done this Fall when draft documents are posted on the web site, regional gatherings are held, and they are finalized at the constitutional convention in January.  There is a clear intent to define or state the Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith. But this led to a lot of Twitter conversation about the standards.  There were comments about the return of subscription. While not necessarily advocating subscription, @BenjaminPGlaser, who was at the meeting, asked in a tweet “I wonder how many of the ministers/ruling elders at #mn2011 could affirm the WCF w/out major qualification…” (WCF is of course the Westminster Confession of Faith, a document that Presbyterians historically have included in the standards that needed to be subscribed to.) There were also references to Machen, particularly his final sermon recently republished in Theology Matters. To that TwoFriars commented “Machen’s fundamentals are NOT Reformed essentials, FYI.” Along a similar line Landon Whitsitt (@landonw) commented “I’m struggling to reconcile the fact that the “essentials of faith” being thrown out at #mn2011 are classicly Evangelical, not Reformed.” Craig Goodwin (@craiggoodwin) had a number of thoughtful comments about standards and in response to Landon asked ” …are Evangelical, not Reformed. Can’t be both?” It will be interesting to see what this discussion produces throughout the Fall leading up to the January meeting.

Going forward I suspect the real hard questions will not revolve around the theology, although they probably should, but around the “Three P’s”, yes pensions, property and power.  To put it bluntly – can you take it with you when you leave?  From the Q&A portion of a presentation on the NRB Carolyn tweeted “lots of Qs about per capita, pensions, etc. A – we’re not giving answers
at this point, don’t want to get tangled in the details.”  This turned out to be a bit deeper than it seems — they put off some of the discussion of details to a breakout on Friday but they are also putting off details until the relationship of the NRB with the PC(USA) is more clearly defined.

I want to look at this topic of the relationship between the NRB and the PC(USA) in more detail another time after the presentation videos are posted and I have had a chance to digest them.  Let me just say here that three possible models were proposed: 1) This might be accomplished with union presbyteries – a polity solution that already exists. [ed. note – I should have seen that before now!] 2) Create the category of affiliate churches or affiliate presbyteries like the current affiliate members. Requires new polity language. 3) Leave completely.  Regarding this, Carolyn quotes Jim Singleton: “Singleton – yes, this is gonna be messy!!”

Now, a couple of weeks ago in my pre-Gathering piece I suggested that this event was a Rorschach Test for those who had issues with the PC(USA).  Well, I see now that I was right in concept but wrong in scope.  This event was a Rorschach Test for the whole PC(USA) and maybe even for American Presbyterianism more broadly. But after the broad reaction that the very first Fellowship letter last February engendered I should have expected that.

Departing from Twitter for a moment it is important to note that groups with opposite views have posted very specific pieces on their web sites interpreting or making suggestions related to the Gathering.  More Light Presbyterians issued a call to prayer for the meeting and a related article.  Individually, Janet Edwards offered a suggestion to the FOP ahead of the Gathering, as did Shawn Coons, and Adam Walker Cleaveland wanted to make sure the elephant in the room got named. Clearly this meeting had a lot of people’s attention across the denomination.

So back to Twitter and the meeting…

First, in the interest of full disclosure I would comment that I (@ga_junkie) did not tweet much but did make the one comment I discussed above that could have been considered snarky, and also a second that could be taken that way as well.  Early on Andrew Johnson (@AndrewJohnsonYM) tweeted “New reformed body… no brand but Christ” which I retweeted adding “Starting to sound like the Springfield Presbytery”. (If you need the reference, Springfield Presbytery was part of the Stone-Campbell Movement that left the Presbyterians two centuries ago proclaiming “No creed but Christ” and led to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). )

The vast majority of Twitter comments I saw were constructive and contributed to the social media discussion.  Yes, a lot may have had a snarky edge to them, but I found few offensive and there was a general improvement in tone when the organizers made it clear that this new group was not about demonizing the PC(USA).

Yet most of the comments, my own included, seemed to clearly reflect the lens through which the writer was viewing the Gathering.  Exempli gratia:

DavidIvie1 David Ivie
#mn2011 why would a group convene to protest gay ordination and then on day one celebrate women’s ordination? no sense of irony?

David_Berge
David Berge
#mn2011 lots of people talk about “post-denominationalism” 4 better or worse #fellowshippres is actually doing something about it

rwilliamsonjr Robert Williamson Jr
If you want to leave, I will
bid you peace. If you want to stay, I will embrace you. But I can’t
relate to the leave-but-stay option

Stushie57
John Stuart
The future of the Church is in Christ’s good hands, not conferees nor ordinands.

joyousjava Lara B Pickrel
Sometimes our churches’ panicky attempts to keep people from leaving (for the sake of numbers) feels like idolatry.

craiggoodwin
Craig Goodwin
Pleasantly surprised by tone and focus of #mn2011. Did it take finally losing the vote for Presby evangelicals to get focused on mission?

Reading the events through our own lens or filter is not inherently an issue.  It is what shapes our diversity and understanding of the world and the conversation and listening process for others helps us to not only see alternatives but can help us refine, sharpen or adapt our own perspective.  Along those lines I have to point out and say how much I appreciated the tweets from Landon Whitsitt (@landonw) who was multi-tasking and reporting on the proceedings through both his open source lens as well as his progressive lens. This tweet captures his dual perspective:

Okay…I’m putting my cards on the table. Except for including GLBT
persons, I want a church that looks like what I’m hearing at #mn2011

Let me conclude by saying that in spite of some sharp comments in the Twitterverse I was generally very impressed by the depth, breadth, level, volume, tone, thoughtfulness and civility of the Twitter conversation around this event.  But the operative word here is “around.” While the live tweeting helped me know what was going on I still feel that I am looking through a glass dimly related to where this is going. The quotes that were passed on and the sessions reported on still seemed to reflect the influence of the core group of tall-steeple pastors. There seemed to be lots and lots of discussion of a New Reformed Body but I did not sense how that might have been informed or moderated by Dr. Mouw’s comments regarding why we need each other. And I am still left with the impression that tail number four may be wagging this dog. But this is only what I see from my remote vantage point via the Twitterverse.

So, as this moves on I am looking forward to several things. First, I want to see the videos when they get posted on the Fellowship site so I have the primary sources for much of this information and I can judge for myself. Second, I await written accounts from those who were there – something longer than 140 characters. (The Presbyterian Outlook has already posted several articles by Leslie Scanlon including ones on the lead off presentations, Richard Mouw’s message, the talk by Ken Bailey, and an initial summary. There are similarly one, two, three and four articles from the Presbyterian News Service.  In addition, it looks like Two Friars and a Fool are aggregating blog posts on the Gathering but I would single out Jim Miller’s which is getting a lot of Twitter recommendations.) Once I have a chance to view, read, think and digest I anticipate being ready to make some more comments about the content of the meeting.

Looking out a bit further the real test of this model as the open source community that Landon is looking at will be in the process for posting, consulting, editing and approving the new documents for the New Reformed Body.  At this point I am pretty much trusting Landon’s impression of the proceedings so far in its promise for development of a Covenant Community in a participatory environment.

Looking even further ahead, there is a good possibility that both the New Reformed Body’s partnership with the PC(USA) as well as developments in the other FOP streams will require actions by the 220th General Assembly and changes to the Book of Order. Leslie Scanlon captured this quote from Mark Brewer:

“This next General Assembly is going to be wild.”

I look forward to seeing how the development process works and what product it results in.  I also look forward to seeing how the broader church reacts as this progresses.  This has the promise of being new territory — I like an experiment and I hope you do too.  Stay tuned…

Fellowship PC(USA) Gathering — Some Things To Pay Attention To

I have to admit that for the purposes of blogging I was not really tracking the Fellowship PC(USA) Gathering too closely.  Yes, I knew it was coming up but I did not have it ranked too high on the news scale of the stories I was tracking. It struck me as a bit of a New Wineskins redo and instead I have been struggling to stay on top of other news items, especially in the midst of General Assembly Season.

Now, this may seem contradictory, but in the interest of full disclosure let me also say that personally I have been very curious about the Fellowship gathering and how it fits into the PC(USA) big picture at the present time.  In fact I was interested enough, and the questions in my own congregation were numerous enough, that I very seriously considered attending. However, family commitments are keeping me home that weekend and it seemed a long way to go for a two day meeting.

Having now put my cards on the table, I will continue by saying that I have changed my mind and now consider this something that all of us in the PC(USA) need to be watching.

What changed my mind? First, the size.

At the present time the Fellowship PC(USA) is saying that they have pre-registered an overflow crowd of 1900 attendees.  Checking some numbers, it seems that this will be the largest gathering in the PC(USA) this year, and I think it will make it one of the largest gatherings of Presbyterians in the world this year.

How big? Not as big as a PC(USA) General Assembly, but the PC(USA) Big Tent gathering had an announced attendance of around 1700.  The NEXT Church event was 350.  The PCA General Assembly had 1,183 commissioners and the Church of Scotland GA had around 800 commissioners.  For the GA’s, if we make a rough estimate that observers are about the same number as commissioners that puts their total attendance in the same ball park as the Fellowship PC(USA) is expecting. In the PC(USA), 1,900 members would represent almost one in every thousand of the total membership. If you want to consider congregations, the 830 congregations expected to have representatives make up about 8% of the PC(USA) churches.

Is it a minority? Yes. Is it significant? In light of the size of other gatherings I think it is.  The material from the Fellowship says “The initial planners thought there might be a few hundred people interested in new ways of ‘being church’…” This event has evolved into something bigger.

So lets be honest – to bring together the largest gathering of Presbyterians this year with a six-month lead time says something about the state of the PC(USA). However, I think it says more about the uncertainty some members of the PC(USA) feel than it necessarily says about the new organization itself.

Why do I say this?  Consider the developments in that time.  The Fellowship PC(USA) launched with a letter and a white paper which quickly needed some clarifications added to it. Early on there was a video by the Rev. Jim Singleton talking about a “new kind of fellowship” as a group mostly within the PC(USA), but maybe some outside it, and advertises it as an idea to be presented to the Fellowship gathering.  There is also an interesting video by Rev. Singleton where he takes credit for the “deathly ill” phrase and gives the explanation behind it.  Then in May, with the impending passage of Amendment 10-A, the Fellowship issued another letter that said “we are committed to starting a new Reformed Body without leaving the PC(USA).”  So having a portion of the Fellowship outside but in correspondence with the PC(USA) had been de-emphasized.  (Although it should be noted that one of the signatories to that letter is Head of Staff at a church that is now exploring dismissal, but keep reading because this letter has been superseded.)  The Fellowship also announced the hiring of the Rev. Dr. Paul Detterman as Administrative Consultant for the Fellowship.  On June 24 they announced that the main room had reached capacity and that registrations were going to be taken for an overflow room bringing the total possible registration to 1,450.

At about that time another letter was posted with new goals for the Fellowship.  They say:

The goal of the Fellowship is to form a new way for Presbyterian
congregations to relate, recapturing more of what it means to be the
body of Christ.  The mission of the Fellowship is to create an
environment in which these congregations can grow and thrive as
communities in covenant.

And they acknowledge that the landscape has changed:

While the original motivation for the Fellowship was a desire to
positively impact the decline and increasing dysfunction of the PC(USA),
the passage of Amendment 10-A has brought an enormous challenge into
the discussion.  Suddenly, a new reality has emerged in our
denomination, creating a crisis of integrity for Presbyterians who
remain committed to theological orthodoxy.

And the new Reformed Body outside the PC(USA) was back on the table:

One option under the Fellowship umbrella will be a new Reformed body
that, while desiring to maintain mutually helpful association with the
PC(USA) and its related institutions, will nonetheless provide a clear
and distinct identity beyond the PC(USA).  Documents required for the
creation of this new Reformed body are in process.

And in an interesting admission they say “We believe the new Form of Government (nFoG) provides specific options previously unavailable to us, and we are exploring these.” And somewhere about this time the name changed from the Fellowship PC(USA) to Fellowship of Presbyterians. (For reference, the new domain name fellowship-pres.org was acquired on August 11) [Update: The Fellowship discussed their new name and logo on August 16.]

The final step in this prologue to the meeting was a letter from the Administrative Consultant titled “What to expect in Minneapolis…”  I will return to this in just a moment.

It is important to also recognize that while this may be the most high-profile effort under way there are numerous other initiatives floating around.  One of these is the creation of Presbytery Committees of Correspondence. (News coverage by the Presbyterian Outlook, The Layman) (And for those not familiar with the term, “Committees of Correspondence” is a loaded term going back to the American Revolution)  In another development the Presbytery of San Diego has created an Administrative Commission to work with churches interested in moving their membership to them as a like-minded presbytery, “if the way be clear,” effectively forming a flexible, semi-geographic, or “fuzzy-boundary” (as I like to call it) presbytery.

So, in this present landscape what should we be watching for at the Fellowship Gathering? In looking this over I see a Rorschach Test in all of this – if there are 2000 people there will there be 2000 different opinions and expectations?  Has the Gathering come to represent a visible way of expressing protest or uncertainty about the PC(USA) without enough common vision?  In his recent letter Mr. Detterman admits as much:

As the spring progressed, however, and it became clear that ordination
standards and a significant portion of the Book of Order would be
changed, the August Gathering became the go-to place for many more
people with a wide range of different needs and concerns.  As the number
of registrations grew, so did people’s expectations.  Now with well
over 1,900 people attending, the “gathering” appears to have morphed
into a “happening.”

and

The 830+ congregations sending representatives have many different
needs.  Some are looking for a “safe” place in the wake of changed
ordination standards.  Others are looking for innovation and
opportunities for missional engagement.  Some are committed to
continuing long-term relationships with the PC(USA) while others will be
seeking assistance toward an expedient departure.  People who are
coming to Minneapolis looking for an ecclesiastical “silver bullet,” an
instant solution that calms the waters of their ministry will be
disappointed.

With that introduction the letter gives four things, or “tiers,” to expect:

First, for those happy, content, or accepting of where they are the gathering will be offering “ideas and options for nurturing Christ-honoring ministry in place.”

Second, some attendees will be interested in innovative and creative changes in presbytery structure. “A few of these models will be explained and explored.”

Third, for congregations not in a comfortable place in their presbytery “new possibilities for “affiliate” congregations will be introduced.” This will also include discussion of possible changes to be sent to the 220th General Assembly.

Finally, there is the option of a “new Reformed Body,” now explicitly distinct from the PC(USA). This goes on to say:

The idea is to recapture our core identity, believing that Reformed
theology has much to say to our contemporary culture, and that Calvin’s
original vision for the nature and role of presbyteries offers a better
way of relating to one another than most of us are experiencing now.  In
forming this new Reformed “body,” there is also the opportunity to move
with imagination and energy into the reality of a post-denominational
world.

The letter is clear that no votes will be taken at this meeting.  The letter says “We will be presenting a carefully-designed range of options, all covered
by a large “umbrella” of shared commitment to Jesus Christ, to God’s
mission in the world, and to each other.  Discernment and intelligent,
Christ-honoring discussion will be the heart and soul of our time
together.”

I have to think that there are a few more possibilities out there as well so it will be interesting what comes to the surface and what ideas and reports come out of the Gathering.

It will also be interesting to see what reaction there is from outside the Gathering.  There has been a bit so far from beyond the Fellowship’s sphere of influence.  Shawn Coons has written encouraging them to honor the statement on the web site that their actions be “mutually helpful association with the PC(USA) and its related institutions.”  An article from The Christian Century anticipates a strong preference for the fourth option above in a piece titled “Lull before another Presbyterian storm?

I do want to point you to one more video before I go.  One of the keynote speakers at the Gathering is Dr. Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary.  He was gracious enough to take the time and speak with my presbytery and I understand that he has been speaking to others as well.  Los Ranchos Presbytery heard him and posted the video of his hour-long talk.  It is not exactly the same as what he discussed with us, but his perspective and passionate argument for staying together as a denomination make the video well worth watching.  (At our presbytery meeting he spoke more about practical ways that we could work out to stay together.)

So, I look forward to hearing about this gathering from a distance.  The official Twitter account for the Fellowship is @fellowshippcusa [Update: changed to @fellowshippres] and the announced hashtag is #MN2011. We will see who else is tweeting and blogging from the event. And as it goes, maybe we will have enough pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle to start finding a picture emerging.

[As a postscript let me point out that the Presbyterian Outlook was working on this event in very similar directions as I was and got their stuff posted over the weekend.  They have (at least) one article about the Gathering, another on the mixed signals, and an editorial.]

An Interesting Invitation And Some Of My Preliminary Reactions

I got an interesting invitation in my e-mail today, and I’d bet that at least a few of my regular readers got it as well.  As I read it over I had some pretty quick reactions to some of the items, both positive and negative, and thought I would spend my lunch hour reflecting on these a bit.  For me, this can be dangerous because my first reaction often is sarcastic and snarky.  So either move along to other reading or enable your snark filters before going any further if that might be a problem for you.

The invitation came in the form of a letter from “A Fellowship of Presbyterian Pastors” inviting me to a gathering next summer.  (If you don’t have a copy of the letter you can download one.) Those of you who know me realize that this in itself throws up a red flag in my mind.  Not the gathering but that it is coming from a group that contains exclusively teaching elders — no ruling elders.  Now to be clear, the invite is to ruling elders as well as teaching elders, so this is not another case of receiving mail incorrectly addressed to “Dear Rev. Salyards.”  But I must admit that as I looked through the letter and read through the signatories the first thing I thought of was RE Beau Weston’s thought piece Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment.  More on the signatories in a moment, but on to the content.

The letter begins

To say the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is deathly ill is not
editorializing but acknowledging reality.

Interesting.  We are “deathly ill?”  OK, read on and I’ll address that in a moment…

Over the past year, a group of PC(USA) pastors has become convinced that
to remain locked in unending controversy will only continue a slow
demise, dishonor our calling, and offer a poor legacy to those we hope
will follow us.

I tend to think that it is not the presence of controversy itself, but the process by which we wrestle with the controversy. (And there’s that thing about this coming only from teaching elders again.)

Skipping down to the next paragraph

Our denomination has been in steady decline for 45 years, now literally
half the size of a generation ago.

It then goes on to further detail the decline.

Holding here for a moment let me first compliment them on using the acronym PC(USA) instead of PCUSA.  The latter (Presbyterian Church in the United States of America) was of course a predecessor denomination that ceased to exist with a merger in 1958 when the UPCUSA was formed. But that brings me to asking the question about who is in decline?  The PC(USA) has only been in existence for 28 years so going back 45 years means that we have to consider all the predecessor denominations and their children if we want to be faithful to the lineage.  That would be the UPCUSA and the PCUS (northern and southern in the vernacular) and out of them in the last 45 years has come the PCA, PC(USA), and EPC.

Am I just being picky?  Maybe.  But let’s skip over the next paragraph and the following begins…

Homosexual ordination has been the flashpoint of controversy for the
last 35 years.  Yet, that issue – with endless, contentious “yes” and
“no” votes – masks deeper, more important divisions within the PC(USA). 
Our divisions revolve around differing understandings of Scripture,
authority, Christology, the extent of salvation amidst creeping
universalism, and a broader set of moral issues.

While I don’t argue with what is said here, so far in the letter two things stand out to me as being a bit, shall I say, short-sighted.  First, Presbyterians – be it American, Scottish, or others – have always argued.  Does the Adopting Act and the New Side/Old Side debate ring a bell?  American Presbyterianism was imported in three or four separate streams and over 300 plus years we have recombined and realigned numerous times to double or triple that number, depending on how you count.  And many of the topics mentioned – understandings of Scripture, authority, Christology – have been part of these arguments the whole time.  Presbyterians seem prone to disagree by our very nature.  Our problem is not that we have disagreements but how we work through them.

My second point here is that all mainstream, or oldstream, denominations are in decline.  The reasons are complex and I think to simplify it to our divisions does not recognize the full nature of it and the changes in society that are also a part of the formula.

In light of this, are we “deathly ill?”  While we will continue to decline to an unsustainable level if current trends continue we must also recognize that many of the individual churches represented in the list of signatories, as well as others, are doing well individually and there are strong ministries within the PC(USA).  The question is more about how we get things done and what course we chart for the future.

So speaking of what the future course will be, the letter goes on to state five “new things” the PC(USA) needs and the four values that this group of pastors is proposing.  The first of the new things is really not new — A clear concise theological core was what the Adopting Act of 1729 was trying to attain.  The other four things are a commitment to nurture leadership, a passion to share in the larger mission of the people of God, a dream of multiplying healthy missional communities, and a pattern of fellowship.  I can get behind each of these characteristics.  Moving on to their four stated values, members across the spectrum of the PC(USA) will find these a bit more problematic.

The letter concludes with a discussion of what these pastors are looking at implementing — A Fellowship, New Synod/Presbyteries, Possible New Reformed Body and/or Reconfiguring the PC(USA).  To some degree, in fact in my mind to a large degree, this sounds like the New Wineskins Association of Churches so I would be interested to hear how this proposed fellowship would be different.

Maybe one way that it would be different would be the size of the churches.  NWAC contained some fairly large churches.  The signatories to this letter, while clearly stating they represent only themselves, do have connections to eight of the fifteen largest churches in the PC(USA) with several more recognizable congregation names in the bunch.  The significance and implications of this are left as an exercise for the reader.

In addition to the letter this group, Fellowship PC(USA), has a temporary web page as well as a four page white paper titled Time For Something New.  (Although I find it interesting that the current name of this file itself is “PCUSA Problem Internal 3 5b.pdf.”)  A few mentions have popped up on Twitter, there is a web copy of the letter over at the Layman, and John Shuck has given us his opinion.

Those are my initial thoughts, but I want to digest the letter and white paper some more.  Maybe I’ll have more to say later.  The meeting is August 25-27 in Minneapolis (nicely outside GA season).  I am curious to find out more of what is behind this and curious enough to mark the date on the calendar, but not so enticed yet to make my airline reservations.

It will be interesting to see where this goes.  As the polity wonks will quickly recognize, a couple of the proposals are ideas that have been brought to GA but have not gone any further.  Recognizing that holding the PC(USA) together as an organization of something even near its current size will require restructuring and compromise on both sides, this, like the Middle Governing Bodies Commission, may be a valid forum for exploring the way forward.

I’m interested to see what other reaction there is to this initiative both within and outside the denomination.

Stay tuned…

The Emmaus Project — Transforming, Recharging And Refreshing Presbyteries Within The Presbyterian Church In Canada

After spending two days working on new directions in the Church of Scotland I thought it only appropriate to mention the kick-off  of a conference today in the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

The Emmaus Project began their first conference this evening in Alliston, Ontario with 145 individuals from 17 presbyteries.  It grew out of the Long Range Planning Committee of Assembly Council identifying five statements as relevant for “strategic planning and developing an overall vision.”

  1. Visibility and relevance that result in change in the world. — How can the PCC make a visible and relevant
    contribution to positive change in the world?
  2. Christ-centred living that nurtures and empowers individuals to
    embrace God’s world. — How can that kind of
    living be nurtured?
  3. Committed leadership that is prepared to take risks. — How can we encourage and develop that kind of
    leadership?
  4. Congregational vitality that enables courageous choices. — How can we encourage congregations to move forward
    in intentional mission?
  5. Effective structure that supports meaningful ministry and mission. — How do presbyteries and the national church
    support this goal? How may our structures become more effective?

The conference looks to address five “qualities” of presbyteries:

  • Become encouraging and supportive of congregations
  • Assist and challenge ministers through the struggles and growing
    pains of ministry
  • Become proactive rather than reactive
  • Be visionary rather than plodding
  • Help shape new directions in mission

through the exploration of:

  • What it means to be on the road to Emmaus
  • How to recognize Jesus’ presence on our journey
  • How to turn and move to Jerusalem with confidence
  • The implications of the risen Christ walking with us
  • How this shapes our mission for the future
  • Ways for presbyteries to become both prophetic and pastoral

So this conference is underway.  While it has a Twitter hashtag (#emproj) it seems that only @PCConnect is posting tweets (and that is reported to be @ccarmichael ).  There is also a Facebook page for the Project.  And there should be regular updates on the Project Emmaus news blog.  I am looking forward to hearing how the conference goes.

A blog entry yesterday gives a brief overview of the conference and an insight into the planning that has gone into it.  Some excerpts:

This marks the culmination of a three or four year process emerging
from the Long Range Planning committee as a follow up to the Flames and
Sabbath year initiatives. LRP went through a very long strategic
planning strategy when it was finally decided that the best way to
transform the institution of the PCC was to work through the basic
building blocks which are the presbyteries.

The decision was not to do new programs but rather develop a
strategic plan. Each selected presbytery (we had 27 presbyteries apply
but could only accept no more than 17) sends a critical mass 5-10 reps
depending upon the size of the presbytery, sufficient to effect change
within their own framework.

Please pray for us during these next four days as we seek to not
simply renew, but actually transform the workings of our presbyteries so
that they may become more forward thinking, engaging in appropriate
mission and providing support to congregations for this century.

We understand that the stakes are high, and we need courage to look
at significant change and movement forward. So we do ask that you join
us on our Emmaus journey through your prayers and support during these
next few days.

You might want to look through the other blog entries a bit including one on Presbytery Best Practices and one on 1925 that considers the PCC’s “Presbyterian identity” in light of their resistance to church union in 1925.

So it will be interesting to watch the Twitter feed, blog, and Facebook page as the conference proceeds through the weekend.  But maybe more interesting will be watching how each of these presbytery groups returns to their homes after the conference to begin re-visioning their own presbytery.  As always, Semper Reformanda, so stay tuned…

Being Missional In Scotland — A Presbyterian Partnership: Reformission Scotland

This fall there has been an interesting development in Scotland – the launch of Reformission Scotland.  To quote their web site:

Reformission Scotland is a Scottish church planting partnership.

Our aim is to plant gospel churches that will replicate themselves.

The Gospel Partnership page describes the partners as being “individuals, churches and organizations” that have a shared vision and ethos.  These partners come from the Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the Associated Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in the USA.

From the web page describing the history of Reformission Scotland, we learn that this is an effort that goes back two-and-a-half years to an initial meeting in June 2007.  From this developed a 10 man steering committee, six from the C of S, and two each from the Free Church and the APC. Their Council of Reference includes seven more men, three from the U.S., one from Surrey, England, and three from Scotland.  On November 3 they ordained their first church planter, the Rev. Athole Rennie, who was trained in the Church of Scotland but ordained to the ARP.  For more on all of this there is a nice description by Neil MacMillan (a member of the steering committee) on his blog, and a two-part article in the Outreach Newsletter of the Outreach to North America mission agency of the ARP.  The newsletter article begins on page 2 with comments by Rev. Rennie and a good article on page 3 by Ivor MacDonald the chairman of Reformission Scotland.  In the article he shares that the goal of Reformission Scotland is to have five church plants in five years.  There are some nice pictures of those who gathered for the Rev. Rennie’s induction in the APC Newsletter.

It is interesting that this group has identified church planting as the key to church growth and spreading the Gospel.  For more on their reasons for this emphasis you can check out their Why Church Planting Is So Important page, and the two articles that are linked there. The area identified for the first plant is Leith, the port area of Edinburgh that is now undergoing redevelopment and, from the sound of it, gentrification. This will be an interesting area in the near future.

I would also comment that the Reformission Scotland web site is attractive, easy to navigate, and easy to read.  The front page alone was interesting because of the fine photography that cycles through the banner – although generic landscape shots they catch your attention.  They have done a good job of providing summaries that link to more details for those that are interested.  I would also point out that the page style, sans the rotating banner, is very similar to the Duke Street Church website I linked to above.  For updates the Reformission Scotland page does not have a “news” or “announcements” section or a blog, but there is an RSS feed recognized by my browser. (Although I have not gotten my feed reader to recognize it yet – I’ll keep trying.)  As I noted above, one source of news will probably be the Rev. Neil MacMillan’s blog since he is on the steering committee and is the Mission Development Officer for the Free Church.

A very interesting project bringing several Presbyterian branches together in mission.  I look forward to how this project progresses.