Category Archives: Reflection

Thoughts On Some Recent News Reports And Connections To The Church

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Over the last couple of weeks I was struck by a few news reports and some of the implications for the church going forward. Here are those stories and some thoughts about each…

Churches big purchasers of music performance gear

From Which Way LA? on KCRW

This brought to my attention something that makes sense but I had not thought about – churches are now the largest market for live music. This story was driven by the recent convention of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) in Anaheim.

The lead quote in the piece:

“In any city today that you go to, there’s now more bands playing live
music on Saturday night and Sunday morning in churches than there are in
any clubs,” said Christian Musician
magazine publisher Bruce Adolph.  “The DJ’s have hit the sector and
taken away some live music.  Karaoke’s hurt live music.  But a lot of
the guys are actually returning to church and playing music.”

The next quote, from Holland Davis – pastor of Worship Life Calvary Church – emphasizes this fact:

“There’s over 300,000 churches in America alone. And so
just the sheer volume of churches and they all use audio equipment,
microphones, instruments, lighting.  And we’re in a time where the
number of churches that are being started from scratch is phenomenal.”

And the piece points out that the need for musicians and music equipment has increased at a faster pace than the need for pastors, particularly considering multi-site churches that have bands at every location but one preacher on video. (They do overlook the fact that each remote site usually has a worship leader, but that is sometimes a band member too.)

It is also interesting if that comment “the
number of churches that are being started from scratch is phenomenal” because if that is true it doesn’t seem to include the mainline.

OK, so all of you probably knew that. But it was interesting to hear in the rest of the report how NAMM has recognized that churches are the growing market and is catering to them. We now have a secular organization, that admittedly does include Christians, that is helping to drive what Christian worship looks like.

While this is clearly welcomed by some, like the person in the piece that talked about using rock and contemporary music in worship like preaching in the language of the audience, it is not universally accepted. For another perspective check out Jeff Gissing blog post “Why Contemporary Worship Is Not The Answer.” For an even more critical and extensive analysis there is always T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns.

Model versus Brand

On Monday morning I heard a short radio report on shopping for televisions, brand loyalty and shopping for the model. In his Money 101 segment Bob McCormick talked about how consumers have lost brand loyalty, in part because the brand name is now who sells it not who makes it. Instead consumers look for the model that has the features that they want.

Well, the application to the church, and worship in particular, should be pretty obvious. And it is not just that brand loyalty to denominations has all but disappeared but that church shoppers – yes that is a phrase in our lexicon now – mostly care only about the individual church and mostly its form of worship.

This came up recently in a discussion with a teaching elder who had recently received a call. He had potential connections to ECO and the discussion got around to his interest in the PC(USA). Well, as he talked about it his response struck me as being more about the church that had extended the call and not as much about the PC(USA) itself.

But let’s take this one step further to the idea that the name on the front is not necessarily who made it. You could walk into different Presbyterian churches on a Sunday morning (or Saturday evening) and except for the name on the building not distinguish them as being uniquely Presbyterian. You could probably find a Baptist, Methodist and maybe an Episcopal worship service and not distinguish them from the Presbyterian service. To use one example, do we have “Presbyterian” on the label and “made by North Point” in the fine print. While there is not necessarily anything wrong with this we must realize that this would be a factor in the decline of mainline denominations.

But let me also refer to one other aspect of the modern culture and the lack of brand loyalty. In a 2011 Ernst and Young Survey one of the five important points they found was:

From mass broadcasts to self-selection: consumer communication gets personal

As part of a clear preference toward personalized communication and
service, the survey shows trust has moved from traditional mass channels to
closer “community” vehicles, such as social media and other digital channels.
This move is taking the power of the owned and paid-for channel out of
the hands of brands — and the reach of traditional marketing — and making
bloggers society’s new spokespeople. This trend offers huge opportunities
for organizations that can harness digital consumers to their advantage:
nothing less than a massive new marketing department, that’s not even on
the payroll.

This has a number of implications for the church including the idea that there is nothing that gets people to church better than a personal invitation from someone they trust. There are a number of interesting points to this survey but one of the other applicable ones involves, well, involvement:

These new empowered customers, the survey shows, want to have a greater say in how they experience service. They want products and services to be designed, sold, delivered, serviced and purchased in a way that suits them. They want to be active co-creators, not passive consumers.

The implications for worship and our community life are left as an exercise for the reader.

Interview with Rosaria Butterfield

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto a YouTube video of a one-hour interview with Rosaria Butterfield at Patrick Henry College conducted by Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World Magazine.  Mrs. Butterfield was an English professor at Syracuse University who, through extended contact with the members and pastor of a local Reformed Presbyterian Church, moved from a homosexual lifestyle to a heterosexual lifestyle. She has written about this journey in her book The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and the interview covers much of this ground. (And there are Presbyterians throughout her story.)

Whatever you may think of her journey you can consider the interview a case study in a church drawing someone into the Body of Christ through unconditional love and acceptance of who they are. I found her description of the interaction of her and the church very interesting. For instance, at one point (at 0:33:07 in the video) she talks about her expeience saying:

But I had some really burning questions for people so I would go up to my, you know, homeschool mom friends and I would say “Look, I had to give up the girlfriend what did you have to give up to be here? And I want to hear it. And don’t tell me it was your math curriculum, OK…. I’ll pour my coffee on you – I am really not wanting to hear that.” And I heard some amazing things. And it made me realize that I did not have any more to give up than anybody else.

(Please note that these are my transcriptions of the video so I
apologize for any errors and they are excerpts from much longer answers
to interview questions.)

A minute later in the video she finishes up her comment with this:

I learned that there are other people in my church who struggled with sexual sin. I learned that there are other people in my church who struggled with lust, who struggled with faithlessness. Who, um… and they told me that. They took a risk of no longer looking all cleaned up to me to tell me that. And that was very helpful and so I think a good thing to think about as a Christian is to think about “What did you have to give up to be here?” How would you answer that honestly to someone?

Just before this (0:29:44) she talks about the members of the church and how they had been praying for her:

At first it was hard for them to pray for me because – of course these are now my friends – and then they shared with me that… that it’s easier to simply be disgusted by a person like me than pray for me. Right, because I came to church but then I also brought friends to church. I brought Jay [ a transsexual woman and former Presbyterian minister] to church. And we are an acapella Psalm singing church and Jay has probably one of the best bass voices there.

So, that’s an issue. Right, I mean come on, its OK, it is, it’s an issue. I had a deacon in the church tell me if he had known how, how difficult all this would be he might not have been praying so faithfully.

I could quote numerous other parts of this interview that have interesting points regarding reaching out to the broken and different in the name of Christ. But I recommend it as a good insight from someone who found the Gospel as to what people did to help her on that journey and what the process required of her and the people in the church. (And note that there may be a connection to Jeff Gissing’s piece I mentioned in the first section.)

So, there are a few thoughts on some news reports, mainstream and secular, that caught my attention and had me connecting the dots that last couple of weeks. As always, your mileage may vary.

Top 10 Presbyterian News Stories Of 2012

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Well, I did this for the first time last year and thought I would continue again this New Years. So here, in no particular order, are my top ten Presbyterian news stories of the past year.

1. Korean Presbyterians celebrate their centennial General Assembly
With their first GA in 1912 this year Korean Presbyterians celebrated their centennial Assembly in September with guests from around the world including the Church of Scotland and the PC(USA). More from the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

Speaking of the WCRC…

2. World Communion of Reformed Churches to move headquarters
Finding the cost of operating in Germany to be cheaper than in Switzerland in November the WCRC executive committee issued a press release announcing the move from  Geneva to Hanover.

3. Departures from the Church of Scotland
While a few pastors and a couple of congregations began leaving last spring the news climaxed in December with the congregation of St. Georges Tron in Glasgow giving up their fight to keep their property and vacating the building.

And while we are on the topic of Scotland…

4. Presbyterian Opposition to Same-gender Marriage in Scotland
While the Church of Scotland has set a trajectory for ordination and marriage for same-gender partnered individuals, that policy change has not yet been made so the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland have expressed their opposition to the Scottish Government’s plan to introduce same-gender marriage. In addition, while the discussions in Northern Ireland are not as advanced, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland expressed their concern for government suggestions about introducing same-gender marriage in Norther Ireland.

Continuing the news about marriage…

5. Presbyterians Reaffirm Support for Marriage Between a Man and a Woman in New Zealand
Among the many actions at the October General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand was a resolution that “upheld the historic Christian understanding of marriage as the loving, faithful union of a man and a woman.” There was also an approval of presbytery status for the Pacific Island churches giving them the corresponding autonomy and authority.

In another General Assembly…

6. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly Sticks With The Status Quo
Presented with a number of major decisions the 220th GA of the PC(USA) chose to not divest from companies supporting Israeli occupation, to further consider restructuring synods, to propose no changes to the Book of Order related to marriage and preserve the special offerings in their current form.

7. The General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission of the PC(USA) Decides Several Closely Watched Cases
Among the decisions handed down were a guilty verdict for conducting a same-gender marriage, a not-guilty verdict for participating in a same-gender wedding, a final case clearing the way for ordination of a same-gender partnered candidate, a clarification and restriction related to the trust clause and dismissal of congregations and a decision invalidating a presbytery’s statement of behavioral standards for ordained officers.

8. Presbyterian Church In Ireland Statements On Violent Attacks
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland, in statements by the Moderator of the General Assembly, Dr. Roy Patton, expressed their concern following the killing of a prison guard in November and the December attempted murder of a police officer.

9. New Reformed Body
At a Covenanting Conference last January in Orlando, Florida, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (later renamed the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians) was formed. Over the year a number of churches have been dismissed to the Order, although a November Synod PJC decision has raised questions as to whether it is a Reformed body that churches can be dismissed to.

10. Presbyterians and the Elections in Ghana
Throughout the year there were statements and activity by both the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana leading up to the elections in the fall. After a series of exchanges the government did offer an apology for a misunderstanding. The church’s involvement was not always viewed favorably.

A couple of other noteworthy news items this past year that caught my attention:

The religious violence in Nigeria which has touched all the Christians including the Presbyterians.

The Affordable Care Act in the US was endorsed by the PC(USA) Office of the General Assembly but which has some Presbyterians, including PC(USA) affiliated College of the Ozarks and branches like the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, endorsing broad religious exemptions.

A PC(USA) and EPC ruling elder and Provost of Whitworth University, Michael K. Le Roy Ph.D., was named the President of the Christian Reformed Church of North America’s Calvin College.

So there you have my list — as always your mileage may vary.

And so, as we begin 2013 I wish all of you the best for the new year and that your lives may be decent and in order, but that you also have the appropriate balance of ardor and order.

Happy New Year!

Christmas 2012 — A Different Sort Of Christmas

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As we settle back from our 2012 Christmas celebrations I want to reflect on death. Yes, death, on Christmas, well, sort of, but I am getting ahead of myself…

From the time I started looking forward to Christmas a few weeks back and thinking about what I would write on today somehow death was always somewhere in the picture. At first Dave Brubeck’s passing was part of my thinking — maybe a revision of my reflection three years ago on his music. Also in the picture was Cindy Bolbach’s passing and of course the Sandy Hook shootings a bit over a week ago. And then within the past couple of days we have the shooting of first responders to a fire in Webster, N.Y.

But what occupies my thoughts right now, and the thoughts of my whole family, is the death of my father-in-law Ted this past weekend. Yes, even as we celebrate the holiday we are planning and preparing for a remembering of his life and a celebration of the resurrection a couple of days from now.

Now Ted was a character – to put it mildly – and I could go on at great length about him but that is for another day. He was a member of the Greatest Generation and a Navy Veteran. He joined the service in WW II  and served in the V12 Program but firmly believed that if the war had gone on any longer he would have been a 2nd Lieutenant leading a squad in an invasion of the Japanese Islands. Both he and his older brother were physicists and his older brother worked on one part of the Manhattan Project during the war. Ted later served a second tour of duty with the Office of Naval Research and had many stories to tell about some of his research projects that are now declassified.

Pursuant to the regular topic of this blog he was a ruling elder in the PC(USA) but I would note that as I sometimes describe myself as a life-long Presbyterian who was called to the Methodist church for a few years, he was the opposite and was a Methodist at heart who spent some years with the Presbyterians. But he had a great understanding and appreciation of the priesthood of all believers and the shared and representative leadership of the Presbyterian system.

To be honest, we thought his earthly race would end a year and a half ago, but he miraculously pulled through and we count the last 18 months as very precious “bonus time.” This time around it was not to be and he went into cardiac arrest during his most recent illness. We count it a blessing that he was a fighter and held on long enough for his whole family to be around him to tell him goodbye before joining the Church Triumphant.

While we will greatly miss him I can not tell you all the little bits of God’s Grace that were part of his final days, from the last few hours he hung on to an absolutely wonderful ICU doctor that talked to the family in the most pastoral way possible.

In the piece for Cindy Bolbach I briefly mentioned one of my favorite quotes on death from the novel Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. At the end of the story the aging Archbishop’s assistant warns him to be careful in the rain or he might catch his death of cold. The protagonist responds “I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.” What I did not connect there was the similar thought from scripture about King David:

He [David] died at a good old age, full of days, riches, and honor; and his son Solomon succeeded him. [1 Chronicles 29:28]

Ted did indeed “die of having lived” and “at a good old age, full of days.” Between that and an assurance of his firm saving faith in Jesus Christ I don’t think we could ask for more.

So what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, several things but let me highlight two.

The first is that our family has now joined the group for which Christmas will have bittersweet memories mixed with the joyous celebration. A week ago I was talking with a wonderful spiritually and chronologically mature member of our congregation and while she was wishing us the best for the holidays and the joy of having so much family together she herself was not looking forward to the occasion. Having little family, and none on this continent, the usual festivities and the societal expectations of Christmas did not ring true to her. We must remember that this time is difficult for many for a variety of reasons.

The second has to do with putting Christmas in context. Yes, this is rightfully a joyous celebration of the incarnation, but regarding the story the other book end is the death and resurrection of Jesus. While it may not be what we want to focus on at this time of year, it is helpful to remember the context and that Jesus did come to die. For him we have more difficulty saying that he lived a life “full of days.”

But the story does not end there and it is because of the resurrection that our story does not end with death either. As scripture says:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about
those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no
hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. [1 Thess 4:13-14]

Yes, we grieve – but we grieve as those who have hope because of what Christmas brought and began.

So in whatever state you find yourselves today and throughout this holiday season, may God’s peace be with you, may you know the salvation of the Savior, and also know the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Merry Christmas

Postscript: One of the great blessings and small graces in this journey has been the ministry and caring of so many who are, and have come, into our lives. So many have come along side to walk part of this journey with my wife’s family. But only a few are the pastors at the churches — most are everyday people doing their jobs in very compassionate and ministering ways. They stand as a reminder that in whatever we do, we still belong to God and in whatever we do our jobs are our ministry and we do it to God’s glory. Amen.

For All The Saints 2012

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For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

As is my custom on this day to remember All Saints, or the Dia de los Muertos for some of my friends, I pause to give thanks for those I have known who have joined the Church Triumphant in the past twelve months.

So, I give thanks to God for

  • Lyle – who was always upbeat and quick with a joke, but even more he was also a faithful husband and maybe more than anyone else I know modeled what the marriage covenant looks like “in sickness and in health.”
  • Helen – who did so many things for the church, both particular and universal.
  • Carol – a faithful worker for the church and another role model for marriage with her nearly 70 years married to Bill
  • Betty – she loved Christian Education and would give of her time generously to help others with information or answer questions.
  • Erma – another tireless worker who in retirement helped many people through a local food pantry
  • Alene – despite her troubles she still maintained a pleasant greeting for everyone, a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye that was second to none.

This year I also lost a good friend that many in the PC(USA) would know by name, the Rev. Bill Hopper. I expressed my appreciation for his encouragement and witness when he passed away almost a year ago but I include him in my thoughts today.

I want to also express thanks for the life of Deborah Bruce who worked in Research Services for the PC(USA). While I knew her more through her writings than personally, the conversations I had with her were always interesting, encouraging and stimulating. I give thanks to God for her ministry and you can check out the PC(USA) news article for more about her faithful work. It was a very nice and fitting tribute to her to dedicate the recently released Comparative Statistics to her (you will find it at the very end of the document).

For all these saints, and the saints in your lives who have recently gone to be with the Lord, I give thanks. We will miss their presence but we cherish their memory and rejoice in the work they completed and left for us to continue doing.

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,

Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,

And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:

Alleluia, Alleluia!

You Say You Want A Reformation? OK, Now What?

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Yes, it is once again Reformation Day. This is the one day we can nail down as having a dramatic specific positive event in the sequence of many actions that were part of the Protestant Reformation.

A year ago I reflected on why this date among many other possible dates and why Martin Luther over several other reformers.

As I was reflecting this year I was considering the “Now What.” On this day in 1517 Martin Luther began his very public quest to ask hard theological questions of the church in which he was a priest and which was dominant in his part of the world. But while that was a pivotal moment it was much more the beginning of the journey than the end. The papal bull was not issued until June of 1520 and was not in Luther’s hands for him to burn until December. The Diet of Worms was the following April. It then took Luther a bit over a year – while in protective custody – to translate the New Testament into the common German language, but it was another twelve years to complete the Old Testament. And throughout all this he was also writing his commentaries and other books, particularly On The Babylonian Captivity of the Church where he laid out his theology and where the church in Rome had departed from scripture.

Similarly, while we mark the beginning of the Reformation, or at least Luther’s branch of it, on this day maybe the next major milestone is not his famous defense (the famous “Here I stand” speech.) but the response to that speech in the Edict of Worms issued a month later. Unlike the papal bull that condemned Luther and banned his writings, this edict cut off his accomplices and followers with him. In effect this created the Evangelisch/Lutheran church.

But Luther was not alone in having a slow and steady march. John Calvin was first convinced to stay in Geneva in September of 1536 but was kicked out a year and a half later. Three and a half years later he accepted an invitation to return and works in Geneva for the remaining 23 years of his life. Similarly, his famous work The Institutes of the Christian Religion seemed to be a work never finished going through five editions between 1536 and 1559.

And the Scottish Reformation was a real roller coaster ride. In 1560, under the leadership of John Knox, the Scottish Parliament cut ties with the papacy and adopted a new confession of faith. However, the structure of the church changed much more slowly and the back and forth of English rule and those that ruled England led to an ebb and flow in the church. There were high points, such as the Presbyterian influence in the Westminster Assembly, and low points like the 28 years of persecution under Charles II. Religious toleration came back at the end of the persecution in 1687 and Presbyterianism recognized as the established religion in Scotland with the Act of Union in 1707.

It is hard to see Reformation as a single date or point in time.

History generally teaches us that major change, and especially reformation, is messy, complicated and takes time. And Luther, Calvin and Knox are the successes while others like Hus, Tyndale and Hamilton did not find political and societal circumstances as fortunate and gave up their lives for their cause.

But in another sense the Reformation never ended. The point of the Reformation was to recover the Word of God and always be subject to it. The reformers made a point of the third mark of the true church, discipline uprightly administered, with the point of it to be constantly seeking together as a covenant community what God would have us do.

And so, on this Reformation Day, it brings us back around to one of the mottoes we associate with the Reformation:

“The Church Reformed and always being Reformed according to the Word of God”

A Different Sort Of July 4th

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It is part of our American cultural heritage to know what happened on July 4th, 1776 in Philadelphia. But we should also remember what happened on another July 4th, 87 years later nearby.

The short
answer is – not much…

It is more a matter of what had just happened.

From July 1st to July 3rd, 1863, the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War was fought at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On July 4th both sides held their defensive positions and waited in the rain to see if the other side would mount an attack. Neither did. That evening Confederate commander Gen. Robert E. Lee would begin his retreat back to Virginia.

This three day battle was strategically very important for both sides – it was the “high-water mark” of the Confederacy and a turning point in the war that was celebrated by the Union.

But it was at great cost. The casualties from the previous three days of fighting were staggering. The Union probably had over 3,000 killed, about 14,500 wounded and over 5,000 missing or captured. The Confederate losses were similar with almost 5,000 killed, about 12,700 wounded and almost 6,000 missing or captured. This represents a loss of about one-quarter of the Union troops and close to one-third of the Confederate army. It is said that the wagon train carrying the wounded back to the south was 27 miles long.

Is it any wonder that when President Lincoln dedicated the cemetery four and a half months later he made no specific mention in his Gettysburg Address of Union victory at that place but only the broader objectives of the Civil War.

And from the other side we have one of my favorite quotes, although it may be apocryphal. Six months earlier at another battle Robert E. Lee is remembered as saying

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.

So, as we appropriately celebrate this Independence Day, which is good and right, let us also remember the broad sweep of all that has gone into our American history. There are two July 4th’s, separated by “four score and seven years” that carry different reflections of our independence.

A Giant

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This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. [Romans 3:22-24]

Yes, tomorrow is the high holy day of American civil religion. Enough chicken wings will be eaten to circle the world more than twice. (Although putting them on a cupcake seems to be taking both these fads too far.) And with my interest in social media, the ways that it will be used this weekend are fascinating. Maybe more on that another time.

You know it must be a high holy day when there is a movement to make it, or more specifically the Monday following it, a holiday. (Got to have time to recover I guess.)

And I guess in the midst of all this there is a football game…

What is interesting about this game is that at one time or another both teams tried to hire a certain college coach by the name of Joseph V. Paterno. One of the teams almost got him but after initially saying yes he thought about it some more and decided not to sign the contract.

Lots has been written about JoePa over the last couple of months, but yes I thought I would add my voice to conversation. I am a graduate of Penn State and have always thought very highly of Joe. I still do. I am still processing a lot of what has happened recently and being a deliberative Presbyterian I am withholding final judgement until more of the facts are known.

Let me be clear right up front — I am not here to apologize, ignore or explain away Coach Paterno’s failings with respect to the recent scandal. As the quote I started with, and many more in scripture say, none of us are perfect. Joe apparently had a moral lapse which helped facilitate the abuse of young children. That will clearly leave a major dark mark on his legacy.

But consider his work on balance – and not the work on the football field on Saturdays. Coach Paterno was an icon, a giant, for good reason.  And it went beyond the high graduation rate of his players and his clean record with the NCAA. How many other coaches do you know have given over $4 million dollars back to their school for academic and spiritual causes. But to characterize him like this, while good, misses both the big picture and the small details.

Phil Sheridan, of the Philadelphia Inquirer does a great job of capturing the big picture:

To say he was the Nittany Lions’ football coach would be to say that
Steve Jobs worked in computers, or that Walt Disney was a cartoonist.
The man was larger than the university where he worked, than the sport
that he coached.

That was both his greatest achievement and, in the end, part of his downfall.

And Rick Reilly, my favorite sports columnist, in his ESPN commentary captures the details in his piece titled “Joe Paterno’s True Legacy.” It is about Joe and Adam Taliaferro, a player who was paralyzed in a game in 2000. Here is a small part of that article about the care Joe showed for his player:

And every other week, Paterno would fly to Philly to see him.

“He’d bring our trainer and a couple of my teammates,”
Taliaferro says. “Nobody in the hospital knew he was there.” Paterno
would tell him all the dumb things his teammates and coaches had done
lately. Pretty soon, Taliaferro would be laughing his IVs out.

“I can’t tell you what that meant to me,” says
Taliaferro, now 30. “I’m stuck in that hospital, and here’s Coach
Paterno bringing a piece of the team to me, in the middle of the season.
How many coaches would do that?”

But you have to realize that this was not an isolated case and he cared about people beyond his circle of players. Many people have contributed recollections over the last couple of weeks about the small things JoePa did. As Cory Gieger, the host of a radio sports show, put it on Twitter after a call-in honoring Joe: @corygiger: There’s no question those small gestures by Paterno made tremendous
impact on so many people, giving them stories & memories for a
lifetime.

And I don’t think Coach Paterno would object to my using that quote at the beginning — he was a religious man and a faithful Roman Catholic. He was a man of quiet but not silent faith.  His was a firm but not flashy faith.  In an article on the Catholic Review web site his bishop remembers him for his faithfulness and his support of the spiritual center and a local school.

My most vivid memory of Coach Paterno, at least off the field, was a political rally on campus.  A congressional candidate had gotten JoePa and a former President of the United States to come out and endorse him.  I don’t need to tell you that the Coach got by far the loudest applause when introduced. (But I don’t remember if the guy won the race.)

And on Penn State’s University Park Campus one of the highest honors you can receive is to have a Creamery ice cream flavor named after you.  In the last two months sales of Peachy Paterno have dramatically increased.

The point is that while football was important, it was not the most important thing in his life. His family, the relationships with his players, the university community and the world at large were important too and he did not neglect them.

History will ultimately be the judge in this world. But as the scripture above says about the next one “all are justified freely by his grace that came by Christ Jesus.” And while our salvation does not depend on our works, for a lot of people Coach Paterno made their lives better. As his son Jay said at the public memorial service…

“Among the things he accomplished in his life, it was the games he won that counted the least.”

Top Ten List – Presbyterian News Stories Of 2011

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A bit of a new thing for me but I after thinking about this for a while I thought I would give it a try. No promises that this will become any sort of tradition – but maybe.

It comes with a few caveats – my list may not correspond to yours, in most cases it is more theme than single story, and not too much should be read into the order the stories are in. Also, like the eclectic nature of this blog it is geographically broader than some may anticipate. So without further ado – my top ten Presbyterian news themes and stories for 2011…

  • Ordination Standards – Some things change: Probably the highest-profile Presbyterian news of the year was the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s adoption of Amendment 10-A removing explicit language prohibiting the ordination of same-sex partnered individuals. Along those same lines the Church of Scotland decided at their 2011 General Assembly to begin heading in a similar direction. Within the PC(USA) there is still one related judicial case to be settled but the conclusion of a second one cleared the way for the ordination of Scott Anderson as a teaching elder.

  • Ordination Standards – Some things remain the same: Both the Mizoram (India) Presbyterian Synod and the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico turned down proposals to approve the ordination of women. (Mizoram news story, Mexico news story) And in the American Evangelical Presbyterian Church the General Assembly approved a framework to align churches with presbyteries that are like-minded on the subject.

  • Presbyterian Mutual Society gets their bail-out: A bail-out package for the savings and loan mutual society was finally put together by the governments and the church for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland affiliated organization. Savers started getting their deposits back over the summer.

  • Presbyterian Church in Canada participates in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: At the National Truth and Reconciliation Event in Halifax in October the PCC was active and participating, including comments from the Moderator that included the 1994 official apology for the Church’s participation in the assimilation policy and the “tragic legacy of the Indian Residential Schools System.”

  • Property cases: While a few congregations successfully defended their right to property in civil court cases (e.g. Carrollton PC v Presbytery of South Louisiana), in general the denomination was usually successful in property cases. This holds not just for the PC(USA) (e.g. Hope PC, Oregon; Timberridge PC, Georgia) but for the Free Church of Scotland as well in their case to regain Broardford from the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).

  • Federal Vision cases in the PCA continue: In the Pacific Northwest Presbytery TE Peter Leithart was found not guilty of Federal Vision charges. In another case the Standing Judicial Commission ruled that Missouri Presbytery had not properly acted upon the allegations against TE Jeffery Meyers and they sent the case back to the presbytery for trial.

  • Renewal and Reform – PC(USA) moves forward and the Church of Scotland stops short: The PC(USA) took a number of steps this year to modernize, led by the Administrative Commission on Middle Governing Bodies ramping up its work, but also including a new Form of Government Section in the Book of Order and the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church for the 21st Century. Similarly, the Church of Scotland General Assembly heard the report of their Panel on Review and Reform, but the proposal for restructuring presbyteries was rejected with out an alternative leaving a lot of people asking “what now?”

  • 75th Anniversary of the split resulting from the Fundamentalist/Modernist debate: The division led to an earlier Presbyterian Church in America and a couple years later the Bible Presbyterian Church.  That earlier PCA developed into the Orthodox Presbyterian Church which recognized and discussed their branch of the division at their General Assembly this year.

  • Fellowship PC(USA) of Presbyterians: Beginning with an invitation in February this new affiliation hosted one of the largest Presbyterian gatherings this year. While morphing a few times through the year (name change, dropping a tier) it ended with the release of the draft theology and polity documents related to the formation of a New Reformed Body.

  • Presbyterian Church of Ghana and therapy treatment of homosexuals: While in itself the announcement might not have made the list, it was amplified via Twitter and the response, mostly negative, went viral globally.

I will add an honorable mention which while not as high profile as others on this list, it is always noteworthy when a new Presbyterian branch is organized. In this case, it is the foundational Synod Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Timor Leste. (H/T MGPC Pastor)

So with that I will wrap up this calendar year of blogging and wish all of my gentle readers the very best for the New Year. (And yes, I do realize that some of you are already there…) May you celebrate the rolling of the calendar with the proper Presbyterian proportions of ardor and order, and of course doing it decently and in order.  Happy New Year!

UPDATE: For a list of the Top 10 for one branch, the PC(USA), check out the Presbyterian Outlook article.

The Airline Industry As A Model For The American Mainline Churches

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Last Friday on NPR‘s All Things Considered news show there was an interesting piece in their Planet Money segment on “Why Airlines Keep Going Bankrupt.” In that report the following lines got me thinking:

(Reporter) CAITLIN KENNEY: …[A]ll airlines face these challenges and only some file for bankruptcy. He says it’s usually a certain type.

(Interviewed expert) PROFESSOR SEVERIN BORENSTEIN: The legacy airlines.

So my thinking made the jump –

“All churches face challenges and only some are in steep decline: The mainline churches.”

Is there a parallel or model in here?  I am still not sure, but permit me to riff on this a bit.

The story discussed how the legacy airlines had price structures and business models that date from before 1978 when the airline industry was deregulated. After deregulation they could not change rapidly enough to compete with the new low-cost carriers that sprung up and the legacy airlines were driven into bankruptcy, sometimes twice. What did bankruptcy get them?

KENNEY: And that’s where bankruptcy comes in. When you see a
bankruptcy, think of it as an airline saying we want to renegotiate our
contracts so we can be more like newer airlines. James Sprayregen is a
partner at the law firm Kirkland and Ellis. He’s worked on the
bankruptcies of United Airlines and TWA.

JAMES
SPRAYREGEN: Those contracts, albeit amended, you know, dozens and
probably hundreds of times, they sort of grew on themselves almost like a
coral reef. And a lot of inefficiencies got built into those.

KENNEY: In bankruptcy, work rules change, vacation days go away, pensions and benefits get reduced.

SPRAYREGEN: Unfortunately, bankruptcy is all about breaking promises.

KENNEY: Breaking those promises means the legacy airlines are going to start to look a lot like the newer airlines.

So, let’s break this down a little bit…

The concept of deregulation is an interesting one to consider for denominational dynamics. When the mainline membership peaked in the 1960’s the mainline was pretty close to a de facto established church. Then society changed and the mainline church, and churches in general, lost their cultural and social status and the decline began. Norms were not the same regarding the mainline churches and more flexibility and variability were introduced into society’s church-going habits. As I pondered this change that might reflect a sort of “deregulation” in the American religious landscape two things came to mind that might be indicators and results of this change.

The first is the, shall we say, change in stability of the American Presbyterian mainline. Following the division in the 1930’s related to the Fundamentalist/Modernist debate, the branches of the Presbyterian mainline enjoyed a period of relative tranquility that was marked by unions and not by divisions. Following the 1960’s the controversies heated up again with the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America from the southern branch in 1973 and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church from the northern branch in 1981, and other rearrangements continuing to the present. (Check out the chart of the American Presbyterian branches.)

The second development I thought might be indicative of a denominational deregulation is the external influence of non-denominational churches and particularly megachurches. With the loss of influence, authority and loyalty to denominations in general, and the mainline in particular, independent or loosely affiliated churches grew. Note the similarities in timing discussed in this article by Scott Thumma (written around 1996):

 Nearly all current megachurches were founded after 1955. The explosive
growth experienced by these congregations, however, did not begin in
earnest until the decade of the eighties (Vaughan 1993:50-51). The 1990’s have not slowed this growth. Data collected in 1992 revealed over 350 such congregations (Thumma 1993b).
Vaughan estimates that the number of megachurches grows by 5 percent
each year (1993:40-41). Given this rate over two million persons will
be weekly attendees of megachurches in the United States by the start
of the new millennium. Anyone familiar with the American religious
scene cannot help but have noticed the rapid proliferation of these
massive congregations. In fact, it is precisely their size which
attracts so much attention.

OK, so in this model we have a societal change that results in a sort of deregulation of the denominational, and particularly the mainline, landscape. This deregulation resulted in both internal and interdenominational changes. And like the airlines the churches are in a position that they can not change fast enough to stay competitive. (old inefficient airplanes –> old inefficient buildings?)

In the story the thing really inhibiting the legacy airlines are the labor agreements. For the churches, what would be our “labor agreements” that have built up over time and keep us from being able to transform into the new reality?

  • Our polity? Does nFOG solve this for the PC(USA)?
  • Our structure? Will the MGB Comm be able to solve this? How about the Special Committee on the Nature of the Church for the 21st Century?
  • Our leadership? Not enough creative thinkers or not enough with a good perspective on youth?

I could go on naming elephants in the room and sacred cows and I’m sure you can think of things that I would not.  The point is that there are lots and lots of things which are being mentioned that are keeping a mainline church pointed in the same direction and there is usually someone that thinks that changing that thing will allow the church to, forgive me for using the business term, be more competitive.

Let me step back for a moment here and affirm that there are certain things that are needed for a business and likewise for a church. These can be modified and adapted but not all together dispensed with. To take the analogy to possibly an absurd level of detail, just as an airline needs planes a denomination needs congregations, and as a plane needs a pilot a church needs a pastor. The question is not do we need a plane, but what plane works best in a particular situation? A pilot needs to be trained, but how much and what kind of training for that plane and that situation? Similarly, the “business model” for a denomination does not require every congregation look the same and every pastor have identical training.

If you would permit me a short detour on this theme: Taking a cue from the airline industry, maybe churches need “type certification.” In the airline industry the basic educational requirement for pilots is very similar.  If all you want to do is train to be a air transport pilot you can do it in about 6 months for $60,000. But whenever you switch aircraft types you need to be trained and certified on that specific aircraft. Just because you fly a 737 does not mean you can sit down in a 747 and properly fly it. So, could the church have a basic fast-track training program for pastoral leadership and then a more customized extension for the specific situation the individual is going into? For the PC(USA) there is already an interim pastor training program that does something like this. (Although it is an extension, not a replacement, of the standard course of study.)  And yes, this is a very general proposal and actually off-topic for this post, but maybe something for continued contemplation.

Returning to the original riff – Let’s move on to the most loaded and divisive question in this model: What would the equivalent action be for a mainline church to reorganize like a company would reorganize in bankruptcy?

Let me put it a different way: What does the mainline church need to get out of to continue on as a viable entity? Or to use the language quoted above – What promises does the mainline church need to break to become the church for the 21st century?

Note carefully the model — this is not working around the edges or tweaking a few programs. This is noting one or two really big things that you then throw out and begin over again. This is the opportunity to deal with that one thing that is holding you back and replace it with something you can work with.  Yes it is radical, but in this model, that is what the legacy airlines have to do to remain viable.

So what is it? Maybe the polity? The structure? The ecclesialogy? The theology?  I don’t know and I’m not going to suggest anything specific here. The question for thought and discussion, if you accept this model, is what items are peripheral to our core business of being Presbyterian and Reformed, of “Glorifying God and Enjoying God Forever,” of preaching the Word, administering the Sacraments and upholding Discipline, that we can dispense with at whatever cost? If we said “no more Mr. Nice Guy,” what would you do to change the church?

Now, maybe I am completely off base with this – I am more than ready to accept that conclusion. I am simply extending the historical development of one industry to a completely different realm. I can easily be convinced that the model I have put forward here is way too superficial and general and that comparing the airline industry to the Christian Church is not fair to either. I am cautious that what I have done is forced the analogy, making something fit where no correspondence is deserved.

So there I end the thought experiment, at least for the moment in this form. I will say that enough of the analogies work in my own mind that I don’t plan on stopping to think about it – but I won’t promise any written follow up. However, in this time of rethinking everything about the mainline churches I thought it might be an interesting model to put out there.  Thanks for thinking it through with me.  Your mileage may vary.

Now, where did I put that court decision…

[After thinking about this over the past weekend I was interested to see that on Monday Pastor Questor reposted a similar sort of model, but comparing the mainline to the American auto industry.]

Passings — Tom Gillespie

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Over the weekend the Rev. Thomas Gillespie Ph.D., immediate past-President, of Princeton Theological Seminary passed away. If you want the formal notices and full biography you can read ones from Princeton and the Presbyterian News Service.  I knew President Gillespie only through the good fortune of meeting and working with him on two different, and very Presbyterian, occassions. I found him to be a most gracious and humble individual, full of life and good humor, and truly a pleasure to work with.  As you will see, both of these were formal occassions so he may have been on his best behavior. None the less, I came away from each with a very high regard for the gentleman.

In reading the Princeton news piece I did have to chuckle. Our Presbytery has a good-hearted standing joke about which is the best seminary – one of the two in our Presbytery, Fuller or Claremont, or Princeton. Well, Tom got his M.Div. from Princeton, his Ph.D. from Claremont, and then returned to Princeton as president.  He covered the bases.

The first time I met and worked with Rev. Gillespie was when I was a commissioner to the 209th General Assembly (1997) and on the Theological Institutions Committee. One afternoon our committee broke up into a number of groups to meet with the presidents and students from the PC(USA) seminaries.  It was a good discussion, lively and open, and a great chance to hear this informal reporting from our schools.  I have to admit that I don’t remember who the other seminary president in our group was but I do clearly remember Rev. Gillespie and his participation.

The presidents met with us for much of the committee time, particularly since we were dealing with the tricky question of denominational doctrine in tension with academic freedom. In no small part it was Tom Gillespie who helped us navigate that issue and use the presbytery overture as a starting point for compromise action by the Assembly.

The second time I worked with Rev. Gillespie was almost a decade later when I was the Moderator of Presbytery and he was the preacher for an installation. In my time as Moderator he was probably the best known pastor that I shared the pulpit with at an ordination or installation. As we were preparing for the worship service he and I had a brief but wonderful conversation about the presbytery, our mission programs and what else what happening.  He was not an “ivy tower” academic but showed a genuine concern for what was happening in the churches around the country. But the most enduring thing to me was his positive affirmation of my leadership position in the presbytery and his comments about the nature of shared leadership between teaching and ruling elders. It was clear from working with him that day that ruling elders are just as important in the Presbyterian system as the teaching elders and his affirmation of my work in the church is something I have carried with me since.

I give thanks for his life and the brief times that we have worked together in the life of the church.  My deepest sympathies to his family and prayers in this time of loss. If others have had the same experience as I have the PC(USA) is a better denomination because of how he has encouraged and contributed to it. Godspeed.