Monthly Archives: April 2008

PC(USA) Stated Clerk Nominating Committee Selection — Rev. Gradye Parsons

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The Presbyterian News Service has just broke the news that of the fourteen applicants for the job of Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) the choice of the nominating committee is current Associate Stated Clerk Rev. Gradye Parsons.

While we did not know the list of applicants, I think that most GA Junkies would figure Rev. Parsons to be the odds-on favorite if he wanted the job.  He has been in the Stated Clerk’s office for eight years and is presently the director of operations.  If you apply “kremlinology” to this choice, he is frequently seen seated close to outgoing Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and at several events I have been to he has been the Stated Clerk’s representative to the event or meeting.  (Want to try it yourself?  Zoom in on this very high resolution image or note that Gradye is in the Stated Clerk’s seat in this picture.  Both are from the 217th General Assembly.)

To his credit, he has a great deal of experience in the office which will be helpful.  Some may view that experience and the hiring from within as a negative as well as Rev. Parsons’ participation with the governing board of the National Council of Churches of Christ.  I am encouraged that the article mentions one of Gradye’s goals is to do more to develop the ministry of elders and in my time with him I have found him very knowledgeable, friendly, and good natured.

But this is only the choice of the nominating committee and it is now time to wait and see if any of the other 13 applicants will chose to also run for election making this contested.  They have until May 7 to announce.  The election will be held on the Friday of General Assembly, June 27.

One interesting thing is that this was a coordinated web roll-out from the PC(USA) headquarters.  Within a short period of time this announcement appeared on the main PC(USA) web page, the Stated Clerk Nominating Committee web page, and the PC News service site as the highlighted article.  One has to wonder if it would have found as much penetration if the choice was an outside nominee.

The Church Virtual — One Approach

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This sure looks like an April Fools Joke but it since I have been thinking about the church as a “virtual covenant community” it actually had me going for a minute or two…

Over the last few months various discussions and thinking have been happening around the internet about the church in a Web 2.0 world.  In my own thinking as a Reformed church member the Covenant Community is central and in many ways I think the community can be preserved, even enhanced, in a Web 2.0 world.  This would be the Church Virtual I spoke of in a previous post (way down at the very end).  I’m working on a more detailed piece with my thoughts and reasoning on being covenant community in an online setting, but as I work through it, the part I am having the most difficulty with, or maybe being the most stubborn about, is the sacraments.  Well, in a post probably particular to this day, the blog Father Jake Stops The World has posted an article from “Religion World News” (a play on one of the supermarket tabloids) about a New Jersey Episcopal priest who wants to do “virtual communion.”  (The other tip off is that the byline is Princeton, NJ and everyone knows that is a Presbyterian town. ) The catch is that anyone who has thought or talked about the online covenant community must at some point seriously address the question of “what about the sacraments?”  And while this one is probably in jest, I am sure serious proposals like this have been floated.

I’ll elaborate further on my thinking in the detailed post in a couple of months, but as yet I can not get my head around the idea of “virtual communion” being reformed practice.  Yet, it is only a step or two removed from the “extended communion” that the PC(USA) has now.  (For those not familiar with “extended communion” it is the practice of taking and serving communion to the homebound by two or more trained elders or deacons following the celebration of communion in worship.  In the extended communion the unity of Word and Sacrament must be preserved but since it is extended and considered serving communion as part of the earlier worship a Minister of Word and Sacrament does not need to be present. W-3.3616(e))  And while this section was added to the Book of Order in 1997, maybe the most famous “extended communion” occurred in 1969 when Buzz Aldrin celebrated it on the surface of the Moon.

So, like the best April Fools Jokes, this one has just enough truth behind it to make it believable.  But in the direction the online community is going, it may simply be a few years before we see this for real in some churches.

Update (4/2/08) – This is not an April Fools Joke: Yesterday the company Wesley Music began offering the ability to webcast funerals from participating funeral homes for a fee.  Remote viewers would need a login password provided by the family.  More from The Scotsman.com