Monthly Archives: April 2010

Presbyterians — Owning The Label

An interesting little news article flashed across my news alerts this morning. If I am not reading too much into the story it is not only interesting but fascinating.

The news site NorthFulton.com reports that “Church of the Hills Changes names.” The story lede says:

JOHNS CREEK – The Church of the Hills officially changed its name to Johns Creek Presbyterian Church effective Easter Sunday, April 4.

If you read this the same way that I did the first thing that jumps to mind is that a church with a name that evokes the generic community church concept, maybe one that is trying to be “seeker sensitive,” has changed course and is now embracing its Presbyterian roots and membership. At the present time that seems to be the exception and not the rule.

Now I may be reading way too much into this news story. But here is a quick run down of what I have found out. (And since they are changing their name their web site may be changing as well so some of these links might be broken shortly.) They are a relatively new church in the growing suburbs north of Atlanta and part of the Greater Atlanta Presbytery, PC(USA). The news story says that the church “follows many local area businesses in adopting the young city’s name” suggesting recent incorporation of Johns Creek. The story also quotes the interim pastor, The Rev. Chris Price:

“Our new name better assists newcomers and families who are seeking a Presbyterian church in the Johns Creek area and reinforces our commitment to the Johns Creek community,” explains Johns Creek Presbyterian Church’s interim pastor, the Rev. Chris Price. “Our name has changed, but our philosophy has not. We’re looking forward to strengthening our presence in the city of Johns Creek by continuing to offer residents a strong and balanced community-based, spiritual home that provides fellowship, worship, and extensive outreach programs.”

That quote sure seems to indicate they want to increase their brand as being Presbyterian.

From the history of the church on the web site we find out that it was chartered in 1995 with 100 charter members. The congregational statistics from the PC(USA) show fairly steady growth from 1998 (about 390 members) to 2008 (855 members). Worship attendance has not grown as much going from 250 to 390 in the same time period. Nevertheless, it is a growing congregation in the PC(USA).

At the present time the web site is still under the old name and on the web site the church neither promotes nor runs from the “Presbyterian USA” label, as they use it. As you can see in the church logo to the right the Presbyterian label is smaller but present. (I don’t normally insert a graphic like this in my articles but with the name change I expect any links to break so I’ve included it this time.) Reading through the web site references to the PC(USA) by that name are present but scattered and the presbytery involvement in the planting of the church is acknowledged.

In short, I am left to conclude that the while the congregation and/or leadership was previously accepting of the Presbyterian label it appears that they have decided to now raise its visibility in the community. And this is based on what I could find quickly and read into it, a somewhat dangerous thing to do. The Presbyterian affiliation may have been more or less visible than I estimate before this. The affiliation may be more or less than before with the name change.

[This is about to get a bit off-topic but one thing that did strike me is that there may be a bit of a back story to all this. You thought I was out on a limb so far, let me put one more item on the table. In another article in NorthFulton.com from almost exactly two years ago there is the announcement that a new pastor had been called to become a co-pastor with the founding pastor of the congregation. The article also says that the founding pastor is getting ready to retire so it appears they tried to do the “co-pastor pastoral transition” strategy to get around the vacant pulpit and interim like they have now. Anyway, two years later neither the name of the called pastor nor the name of the founding pastor are now seen in the staff list, and in fact from comparing the pictures it appears that the pastor they called has now landed in Vicksburg. This is not to cast any aspersions on what may have caused this turnover — I have chaired COM, I know that things like this happen for good reasons. But I bring this up only to ask, but not answer, the question of whether the name change may also have been directly or indirectly influenced by the staff changes?]

This story is an interesting contrast to another item today, a post by Dave Sarafolean on Joshua Judges Ruth. That post reminded us of a post by Darryl Hart on his blog Old Life Theological Society about a year ago titled “Too Cool For You? Wither The PCA.” In that piece Mr. Hart talks about the reasons that one conservative Presbyterian branch might have a church plant near an existing church in another conservative branch. He suggests:

One possible reason for the inability of PCA Philadelphians to recommendCalvary OPC to Presbyterian communicants in the area is that the PCA,even in some of its more traditional sectors, like Tenth, no longercultivates a sense of being Presbyterian. Instead, what appears to drivethe PCA, and has been doing so since roughly 1995 when Tim Keller andRedeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City became such a phenomenon,is exegeting, engaging, and redeeming the culture. (emphasis added)

And another recent example that I have cited is the Oakfield, NY, church. What began as the First Presbyterian Church of Oakfield became the Oakfield Independent Presbyterian Church and then the congregation reorganized again as the Oakfield Community Bible Church losing its Presbyterian identity.

So in these days of churches downplaying their denominational affiliations if not distancing themselves from them (remember in my neck of the woods the Crystal Cathedral is Reformed Church in America and Saddleback Community Church is Southern Baptist) it is fascinating to see Johns Creek re-engaging the Presbyterian title.

Reformed Church In America Approves Adding Belhar Confession As A Standard Of Unity

Follow-up To The Oakfield Sale — The Going Price Of An Historic Church Building In Upstate NY

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Just a very quick note as a follow-up to my previous post “An Interesting Tale of Stewardship, Property, and the PC(USA) Trust Clause.”

In that post I described the sale of an historic church building at auction back to a new congregation made up of many members of the old congregation, First Presbyterian Church of Oakfield, NY. In that sale Genesee Valley Presbytery got $50,000 which seems to about cover their legal fees in this whole incident. The various reports placed the value of the building at greater than $200,000, and probably closer to $400,000. An anomaly?

It turns out it is not. VitureOnline reported yesterday, and I don’t think it is a hoax appropriate to the day, that a vacant historic church building in Binghamton, NY, acquired by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York through trust clause litigation when the congregation that was there departed the Episcopal Church for the Anglican Communion in North America, was sold back in February to the local Islamic Awareness Center for $50,000. Again, the assessed value of the property was $386,400. The Diocese saw about the same return on the property as the Presbytery — cash payment of roughly 1/8th the value and no longer having to worry about and care for a vacant building.

For reference, sale of church property below assessment is not unusual. The Episcopal Diocese of Rochester in June 2007 sold off the All Saints church building, now assessed on the tax rolls at just over a million dollars, for $475,000. So that sale was at roughly half the value of the property.

So, $50,000 seems to be the going rate for a $350,000 – $400,000 valued unoccupied church building in Central/Western New York. The macro-economic supply and demand implications are left as an exercise for the reader.

Special Meeting Of The General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland To Discuss The Presbyterian Mutual Society

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Earlier this week the Rev. Dr. Stafford Carson, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, issued the call for a special meeting of the Assembly to consider the plan recently proposed by the Northern Ireland Government. The meeting is to be held on Tuesday 13 April at 2:00 PM, the first date possible with the requisite 14 day advance notice of the meeting.

The press release says:

The business of the Special Assembly, says the letter, is “to consider the present situation for savers in the Presbyterian Mutual Society andto respond to a recent initiative of the Northern Ireland Executive.”

“On Monday the First Minister and deputy First Minister announced that they had formulated proposals to resolve the PMS crisis which they intended to submit to both the Prime Minister and Treasury,” said the Moderator. “The Church recognises the substantial financial commitment of both the Treasury and the Northern Ireland Executive in this process and appreciates all that has been done by Executive Ministers, local politicians and their officials to reach this point.”

“We understand that part of these proposals will involve a financial contribution from the Presbyterian Church. In order to expedite the process we have called this special meeting of the General Assembly,whose decision would be necessary to raise any funds”

The press release says that the report and proposed motions are expected to be mailed out to commissioners next week. This is only the third special meeting of an Assembly in the last 34 years.

Last Monday, the day before the notice of call was issued, the Rev. Carson issued a statement about the possible settlement:

We welcome the announcement from the First Minister and deputy First Minister that they will be meeting with the Prime Minister Gordon Brown to press for a resolution of the PMS crisis.

It’s encouraging to know that a solution may be possible but we are disappointed that everyone’s preferred option of a commercial solution does not now seem possible. From our perspective that was the only solution that would deliver 100 pence in the pound to all savers.

However, if the Northern Ireland Executive, in consultation with the Treasury has been able to devise a scheme that restores 100 percent of all savings then that will be an excellent outcome.

We have not seen details of the proposals and at this stage we need clarity. We have sought written information on the details of this package and await a response.

The details of the government proposal are not yet know but a Belfast News Letter article says “It is believed that First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness are set to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown imminently to discuss the deal.” However, a Belfast Telegraph article reports on the dissatisfaction of some savers in the Society regarding the suggestion that even though the plan would pay them back most, if not all, of their deposits the funds would be returned over time and not immediately as they desire.

Stay tuned as details of the proposal and the church report are released.

Nominee For Moderator Of The 136th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Canada Announced

The Church In The Current Culture — Insights From Other Areas

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As regular readers are well aware one of my interests is noting commentaries on the current culture and cultural indicators and “overlaying” that on the church to see what that means for our ecclesiology.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Theology After Google conference at the Claremont School of Theology. This conference, organized by Philip Clayton and Tripp Fuller, has drawn a bit of controversy for its emphasis on “progressive” and “emergent” theology. Yes, that was clearly there but my interest was on the technology and the concept of “returning theological discussion to the people,” which in my view is “platform independent” and need not be automatically associated with a theological viewpoint. Anyway, more on that another time.

But in the spirit of this concept of taking culture and holding it up against the Church I heard some fascinating bits on the radio program “This American Life” last Saturday (3/27). The program was about NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated), a joint Toyota/GM venture in Fremont, California, which began in 1984. GM pulled out of the venture in 2009 when it filed for bankruptcy and now Toyota is ending its part of the project with the last vehicle, a Corolla, rolling off the assembly line today (Today’s NPR story). And there is a Presbyterian connection to this story: The Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and pastor of Mission Bay Community Church in San Francisco was the religious representative on a California state commission that issued a report regarding the shut down and traveled to Japan to call attention to the closure and meet with Toyota officials.

The piece is interesting and tells the story with the voices of those at the center of the rise of the plant and the attempts to reproduce it elsewhere. Here are some quotes from the story. As you read them instead of thinking about a commercial enterprize or a manufacturing plant, substitute the mainline church in there:

“Why hasn’t GM got it yet? It’s not like this reliability problem snuck up on them — It’s been fifty years since it started losing market share. Fifty years since it began the slide from holding over half the U.S. car market in the 1960’s to just 22% today.” (Ira Glass, program host)

“I think there was pride (pause) and defensiveness. ‘I’m proud because I’m the biggest auto maker in the world. I’ve been the best, I’ve dominated the market. You can’t teach me anything you little Japanese company.’ ” (Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way, talking about why GM senior management was not completely accepting of the fact that Toyota was building better quality cars in the early 80’s.)

“The key to the Toyota production system was a principle so basic it sounds like an empty management slogan — ‘Team work.’ Back home in Fremont GM supervisors ordered around large groups of workers. At the [Japanese] plant people were divided into teams of just four or five, switched jobs every few hours to relieve the monotony. And a team leader would step in to help whenever anything went wrong.” (Frank Langfitt, reporter)

“There were too many people convinced that they didn’t need to have to change. (reporter asks why?) It’s not logical. They just didn’t.” (Larry Spiegel, GM mid-level management who tried to help implement the NUMMI model at another GM plant.)

“This was one of the biggest differences between Fremont and Van Nuys — Van Nuys hadn’t been shut down. It turns out it’s a lot easier to get workers to change if they’ve lost their jobs and then you offer them back. Without that many union members just saw the Toyota system as a threat.” (Frank Langfitt, reporter)

“At Van Nuys it wasn’t just union members that resisted the Japanese system. Managers didn’t like it either — they had their own privileges to protect…. Their bonuses depended on the number of cars that rolled off [the assembly line], never mind how many defects they had.” (Frank Langfitt, reporter)

“Workers could only build cars as good as the parts they were given. At NUMMI many of the parts came from Japan and were really good. At Van Nuys it was totally different.” (Frank Langfitt, reporter)

“You had asked the question earlier ‘what’s different when you walk into the NUMMI plant?’ Well you can see a lot of things different, but the one thing you don’t see is the system that supports the NUMMI plant.” (Ernie Schaefer, Van Nuys plant manager)

“[Toyota] never prohibited us from walking through the plant, understanding, even asking questions of some of the key people. I’ve often puzzled over that, why they did that. And I think they recognized is that we were asking all the wrong questions. We didn’t understand the bigger picture thing. All of our questions were focused on the floor of the assembly plant, what’s happening on the line. That’s not the real issue. The real issue is ‘How do you support that system with all the other functions that take place in the organization?’ ” (Ernie Schaefer, Van Nuys plant manager)

“One reason car execs were in denial was Detroit’s insular culture… [E]veryone had settled into comfortable roles in this dysfunctional system and learned to live with it. And in the late 1980’s, with their market share in free fall, Jeffrey Liker says they were more apt to blame others than themselves.” (Frank Langfitt, reporter)

“Jeffrey Liker says the cultural gap between NUMMI and the rest of GM was so vast that even with clear marching orders to change some of the people running the company didn’t know where to begin.” (Frank Langfitt, reporter)

“We had some tough goes in some of our facilities where we spent more time trying to convince the plant leadership versus going on and actually doing the implementation. I was actually asked in one plant to leave because they were not interested in what I had to sell.” (Goeff Weller, GM manager in charge of converting plants to the Japanese system)

This is not to advocate for change for changes sake, or to say that implicitly “new is better.” It is interesting to consider how we do things, how the organization – be it the congregation, presbytery, synod, or national level – can change and support other changes that are happening. How do we work together – top down or bottom up? Is our measure of success quality or quantity? Do we view ourselves as “too big to fail?” I love the quote about it being easier to get people to agree to change if the institution has been shut down and their are trying to begin again differently.

There is a lot to think about in there. And this piece did get the attention of another Presbyterian commentator – Jan Edmiston at A Church for Starving Artists.

Let me finish with a much shorter piece that aired one week earlier (3/20) on NPR’s Weekend Edition about military recruiting and how the Millennial Generation differs from earlier ones. This was an interview with Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, the commander in charge of basic training, and is titled “New Basic Training Hardens ‘Softer Generation’.” He says this about today’s recruit:

We also have really found a new generation of soldiers, what some may call the millennial generation, who are advanced in terms of their use of technology, and maybe not as advanced in their physical capabilities or ability to go into a fight.

and

I think we are seeing a decline, across the board, in America. And in fact, it concerns many of us in the military, and we’re watching it very closely. This isn’t a decline in our recruits; this is a decline in our American society in terms of their physical capacity. It’s just a softer generation. But we can’t afford to accept that.

and

They’re different. They have a technology edge. I think they’re smarter than any generation we’ve ever had before.

They certainly ask a lot more difficult questions. They team differently. They have loyalty and – but I think the most important thing about this generation, this generation of millennials, as I said we call it, is the fact that they want to change the world. They want to contribute to something that’s bigger than themselves.

It sounds a lot like other assessments and descriptions of the millennial generation that we are hearing and experiencing in the church. Now how do we adapt the church, like the military is working on adapting, without compromising our mission or message?

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — A Survey Of The Landscape

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Over the last few days I have become refocused on the upcoming General Assemblies and trying to map out my strategy for blogging in advance of each one. Needless to say, if I am going to blog about every overture submitted to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) it will take some time. Or maybe not…

At the present time there are 102 overtures, two committee reports, and 52 recommendations from standing committees of GA entities. But of those 102 overtures, well over half fall into six predictable categories. Here is the landscape we are looking at:

Ordination Standards: It should be no surprise to anyone following the PC(USA) these days that the hottest topic for this GA, as measured by the number of overtures, is ordination standards. There are seventeen overtures that directly address G-6.0106b or other sections of the Book of Order that deal with ordination standards. In addition, there are a few more that address the way that the General Assembly does it’s business that could influence the ordination standards status as well. And there is one, Overture 56, that proposes to change the Book of Order to require future changes to the Book of Order to have the concurrence of two-thirds of the presbyteries making it significantly harder to change the Constitution. (For reference, there are other Presbyterian branches, such as the PCA, which do require a 2/3 vote.)

Marriage: Second in the number of related overtures is the topic of Marriage. Not counting the report of the Special Committee on Civil Unions and Christian Marriage and the minority report, which have not appeared on PC-Biz yet, there are eleven overtures asking for Book of Order changes or Interpretations related to this.

General Assembly operations and procedures: This is the most “jello” category, a little hard to nail down, but I count about 15 overtures that address how the General Assembly does it’s business. While a few ask for constitutional changes, like Overture 54 to reduce the number of commissioners that I mentioned yesterday, most are changes to the Standing Rules. This assortment of overtures deals with who can speak, who can vote, what and when business can be transacted. There are some interesting and attractive items in here, like Overture 38 to give priority to controversial items or Overture 74 which would have the standing rules require committee reports and votes on business items to all be placed ahead of dinner before commissioners get too tired.

But what is interesting about this category is that there are several additional items in the recommendations category. One of these is Recommendation 38 from the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly which would add the requirement that when the Moderator is empowered to appoint a task force or special committee the Moderator consults with the Nominating Committee. (Maybe Bruce was a bit too free wheeling and independent in his appointments and they don’t want that to happen again. We just want to make sure it is done decently and in order.)

New Form of Government (nFOG): The three remaining categories are all close but this weighs in at number four with seven overtures. Some try to perfect it while two, Overtures 44 and 95, ask for more time to consider it and one, Overture 98, wants to dismiss the task force and ask the presbyteries to roll back all the resent changes including the undoing of the Chapter 14 change made a couple of years ago. And then Overture 95 invites more suggested changes from the church on the nFOG. We could take one step beyond their suggestion, post it on a Wiki, and let the whole church work away at it for two years. (And no, I am not being sarcastic but am seriously considering if it would be a worthwhile exercise.) Overture 53 seems to say that the nFOG is only a starting point and after we approve it further revisions are still necessary to make it a manual of operations.

Middle East: Again, this category is tied to both an ongoing discussion in the church and a just released task force report that is not on PC-Biz yet. This is the area that seems to be receiving the most outside publicity and criticism from Jewish groups and the mainstream media. There are six overtures in this area, most of which do not directly address the report since the report was so recently released. In addition, there are three recommendations from GA permanent committees on this topic.

Middle Governing Bodies: Finally, there are five overtures and one recommendation to study or change the middle governing body structure. These include two overtures to increase flexibility, one in presbytery membership (45) and one in synod membership (36), and the rest to decide if we need to cut some of them back.

Finally, across all the categories there are two overtures and four recommendations that request a task force, special commission, and even an Administrative Commission to get something done. I am still trying to decide if the fact that twice as many of these recommendations come from the permanent committees means something significant, positive or negative, about the way the PC(USA) does business.

Those six categories cover 61 of the 102 overtures posted on PC-Biz. So the landscape is dominated by these controversial issues. But in between we find some interesting individual items. There is Overture 12 “On designating May 1 every year as a Day of Prayer for Healing.” (Interesting idea although I would have liked to hear the rational for that particular date since there are other things on May 1 as well.) And Overture 48 which would add language about the Covenant Community to the section on membership.

At this point we are well past the 120 day deadline so no more overtures proposing changes to the Book of Order would be expected. But there is plenty of time for other overtures before the 60 day (those with financial implications) and 45 day (all others) deadlines so the number should continue to grow. At this point before the 218th GA there were only 75 overtures posted so we are well ahead of that pace this year and we can probably expect more than the 128 overtures there were for that meeting. We shall see where it finally ends up.

The GA Junkie

The Politics of Presbyterianism