Well, no sooner do I post my comments on waiting than a couple of hours later the New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) issues their Strategy Report for their Winter Convocation next month.  The Strategy Report is available as a 155 page PDF document from the New Wineskins site. After taking a day to look it over here are my observations and comments.

Of those 155 pages, only the first 33 are report content and the remainder are “Exhibits” which I will discuss in a minute.  The report has five recommendations for the NWAC convocation to consider.

In the transmittal letter, the “Strategy Team” says they began with the question “What is the heart of the issue with the PC(USA)?”  Their conclusion is that the PC(USA) has drifted away from orthodox Reformed Christianity which culminated with the 2006 GA not repudiating the Trinity Report and adopting the report of the Theological Task Force.  As the report says: “These actions were the culmination of nearly eighty-five years of debate concerning Biblically faithful doctrine (orthodoxy) and practice (orthopraxy).”  The report goes on to comment on the current state of the PC(USA):

The PC(USA) has now embraced a de facto confessional position which encourages the worship of a god unknown in the Scriptures, a god of man’s own making whose names appeal to the sensibilities of contemporary philosophy, politics and a culture that asks the Church to validate rather than redeem that culture. It also adopted an authoritative interpretation of the Book of Order that, while affirming the existence of standards for ordination, takes the step of making the enforcement of those standards optional on the local level. This new reality allows local judicatories to determine that such departure from revealed truth is a “non-essential” for ordination.

The PC(USA) now allows ministers of the Word and Sacrament, ruling elders, deacons, and by logical extension church members, to embrace beliefs that are inconsistent with the clear teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrines from our own Book of Confessions. We now believe that the PC(USA) has eroded Reformed orthodoxy and Presbyterian practice to a point where the collective conscience of many no longer allows us to remain aligned with this thinking. This report proposes new ways to minister with faithfulness to the Gospel both inside and outside the PC(USA).

The main body of the report discusses how the churches are called to “A New Thing” (yes, you can easily guess that the report draws thematically from Isaiah 43 as many redesign processes seem to these days) with that new thing being a call to become a clearly “Missional Church.”  The “New Thing” is necessary because in the PC(USA) the churches and the denomination have lost their theological identity.  To accomplish this the report, in Chapter III, lays out “The Plan.”  In summary it is:

The Plan we are prayerfully called to endorse is a realignment by NWAC churches with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) to fulfill our vision of becoming a missional force for Jesus. Initially, NWAC churches will be received into a non-geographic transitional presbytery (NWEPC) of the EPC. We will immediately begin working as partners with the EPC leadership to develop a more missionally faithful new thing.

This proposed alignment includes:  A NWAC presbytery in the EPC that will have the full normal authority of a presbytery, including the ability to ordain, receive, install and dismiss pastors and plant churches.  The ministers however, must “affirm without reservation” the EPC confessional and doctrinal standards.  This presbytery and the rest of the current EPC will establish a commission, if the EPC GA approves, that will look at how to structure the EPC as a missional church.  Also, the EPC is absolved of responsibility for legal disputes that arise from a NWAC church leaving the PC(USA) and a NWAC church need not go through the NWEPC presbytery but may join the EPC directly if they so chose.  The NWEPC will be a transitional structure to be removed by 2012 at the latest.

To their credit, the Strategy Team acknowledges staying with the PC(USA) is a faithful option as well although they argue against it saying that the denomination will only get worse.  The report says that what is already a dying branch of the Reformed Church will become even more theologically unorthodox by the departure of its evangelical congregations.  But each congregation must make its own decision.

So, the five recommendations are: 1) Implement the plan.  2) Enter into relationship/discussion with the EPC as a body.  3) Those churches called to leave, do so.  4) Those churches that are still discerning God’s will continue to study faithfully.  5)  Those churches called to stay in the PC(USA) continue to be a faithful witness there.

Now, the rest of the story…
The exhibits section of the report takes up, as I have already noted, almost 3/4 of the report.  The first group of exhibits are educational resource materials gathered from a variety of sources including published articles and information sheets for congregations.  The second group are entitled “Legal Action Plan Documents” and are a set of documents providing assistance, maybe a complete road map, to handle the legal issues of leaving the PC(USA), mostly related to property.  The third group are denomination relations resources, mostly documents from the PC(USA) headquarters including the “Louisville Papers.”  And finally, there are sample overtures and letters.

So, some comments…
Well, the NWAC has now presented their side of the news that they have been talking with the EPC and from both sides it is apparent that the talks were fairly extensive.  There is also in the report, on page 9 following the Executive Summary, a great chart  showing a comparison of churches in the PC(USA), NWAC, EPC and PCA including theological and social stands.  The point of the chart, while being extremely informative, appears to be to show that the EPC is the logical body to affiliate with.  No argument from me there.  But with 148 NWAC churches and 180 EPC churches, if all transfer over to the EPC it will nearly double the size of the denomination.  However, it will still be far behind the PCA with 1300 congregations.

And finally, in discussing this transfer with a good friend of mine who is an evangelical PC(USA) minister, he mentioned that he might have problems affirming the Westminster Standards without reservation, primarily for Chapter 21, Section 8 that reads:

8. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due
preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs
beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their
own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and
recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and
private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and
mercy. (emphasis mine)

Does this preclude watching the Super Bowl or World Cup games on Sunday?