General Assembly -- Day 8
The last day, but certainly not the last days...
The feeling as we end our business in Portland is that the meeting is ending, but the work continues. Outgoing Vice-Moderator Larissa Kwong Abazia made that point in her closing sermon on Acts 1:6--Lord, will you now restore the Kingdom of God?--we cannot remain closed away from the world inside the church, waiting for God to do something for us, but we must go into the world (where God is), becoming implements and instruments of the Kingdom of God. How we accept that challenge will determine whether or not we are in our last days.
Fittingly, after the passionate and belief-driven work of the past few days, we ended with reports on money. Like many churches and presbyteries, the denomination is prepared to run with a deficit, trusting God and the membership to rise up to cover us. It was a dose of reality. It reminded us that our work of faith is within the world, not apart from it. The tools of faith are the daily things we use to do any and all sort of work. We have to work within the world to transform the world. The transformation of the world into the Kingdom of God comes from inside out--we work in the world to reveal the spiritual potential within all that is. So, we have budgets. We have human beings who get weary and tired. We make mistakes. Things go wrong. That's just the way life is. All mission comes within the confines of life. Therefore, we need to be aware of and ready to use the stuff of life to achieve the high ends we seek.
Where we encounter the truly transcendent is in our willingness to see things differently, despite accepting things as they are.
Let me explain that from a presbyter's perspective.
One of the most fascinating and enjoyable conversations I had was with The Rev. Dr. Richard Boyce, Dean of Union Presbyterian Seminary-Charlotte, over lunch. In addition to being Dean, he is also a professor of worship and sacraments. He shared his recognition that such classes now have to work beyond the assumption of training pastors for Sunday morning worship inside a church, for with the rising tide of New Worshipping Communities, preaching and sacraments can happen almost anywhere--How do you lead the Lord's Supper in a pub? How do you preach in a city park? How do you baptize believers loosely gathered around a sandwich shop? I shared with him the very real issues of exactly such scenarios in some of the NWCs in Sacramento. As we work not to disappear, we are going to radically alter our appearance. Are we equipping folks for that shift?
Inversely, he and I both noted the necessity of form, structure, and procedure. Even a group that most revolutionizes the concept of what church is will still need some of the tried and tested tools of church to be church. So how do you alter such tools to meet new contexts? What does a Session look like in a theology pub? How do you alter our requirement for educated leaders in congregations led by Ruling Elders who cannot stop everything and go to seminary for three years? We do not want to sacrifice the learning for the sake of staffing, for everybody needs those tools for this work.
The real world confines the Kingdom; the Kingdom infuses the real world.
Our new Stated Clerk, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, intoned something powerful--We are not dying; we are reforming...I believe that. But to make it so, we need to pursue this alteration of vision boldly and resolutely. For instance, for pastors seeking calls, at the moment, I have no traditional congregations searching (the two that were are done and finishing); BUT---if you really and truly feel called to be a pastor for a congregation, we do have an active program of NWCs--instead of waiting for an opening in an existing congregation--START ONE! That is reformation. Northern California is a rich and deep mission field, full of human beings who may or may not know they are children of God and who avoid traditional religion as if it were radioactive. So meet them with Christ in a new way, a way congruent to their experience, and a way that invites them to the table by showing them the table no longer stuck inside a mouldering church building.
This is where I see and find hope. After lunch with Richard, I came away with a sense that seminaries may well be transforming themselves to meet this altered landscape, rethinking how they teach and equip pastors, and we can see on the horizon a new day rising.
May it be so--there is so much to do in a world such as ours.
The feeling as we end our business in Portland is that the meeting is ending, but the work continues. Outgoing Vice-Moderator Larissa Kwong Abazia made that point in her closing sermon on Acts 1:6--Lord, will you now restore the Kingdom of God?--we cannot remain closed away from the world inside the church, waiting for God to do something for us, but we must go into the world (where God is), becoming implements and instruments of the Kingdom of God. How we accept that challenge will determine whether or not we are in our last days.
Fittingly, after the passionate and belief-driven work of the past few days, we ended with reports on money. Like many churches and presbyteries, the denomination is prepared to run with a deficit, trusting God and the membership to rise up to cover us. It was a dose of reality. It reminded us that our work of faith is within the world, not apart from it. The tools of faith are the daily things we use to do any and all sort of work. We have to work within the world to transform the world. The transformation of the world into the Kingdom of God comes from inside out--we work in the world to reveal the spiritual potential within all that is. So, we have budgets. We have human beings who get weary and tired. We make mistakes. Things go wrong. That's just the way life is. All mission comes within the confines of life. Therefore, we need to be aware of and ready to use the stuff of life to achieve the high ends we seek.
Where we encounter the truly transcendent is in our willingness to see things differently, despite accepting things as they are.
Let me explain that from a presbyter's perspective.
One of the most fascinating and enjoyable conversations I had was with The Rev. Dr. Richard Boyce, Dean of Union Presbyterian Seminary-Charlotte, over lunch. In addition to being Dean, he is also a professor of worship and sacraments. He shared his recognition that such classes now have to work beyond the assumption of training pastors for Sunday morning worship inside a church, for with the rising tide of New Worshipping Communities, preaching and sacraments can happen almost anywhere--How do you lead the Lord's Supper in a pub? How do you preach in a city park? How do you baptize believers loosely gathered around a sandwich shop? I shared with him the very real issues of exactly such scenarios in some of the NWCs in Sacramento. As we work not to disappear, we are going to radically alter our appearance. Are we equipping folks for that shift?
Inversely, he and I both noted the necessity of form, structure, and procedure. Even a group that most revolutionizes the concept of what church is will still need some of the tried and tested tools of church to be church. So how do you alter such tools to meet new contexts? What does a Session look like in a theology pub? How do you alter our requirement for educated leaders in congregations led by Ruling Elders who cannot stop everything and go to seminary for three years? We do not want to sacrifice the learning for the sake of staffing, for everybody needs those tools for this work.
The real world confines the Kingdom; the Kingdom infuses the real world.
Our new Stated Clerk, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, intoned something powerful--We are not dying; we are reforming...I believe that. But to make it so, we need to pursue this alteration of vision boldly and resolutely. For instance, for pastors seeking calls, at the moment, I have no traditional congregations searching (the two that were are done and finishing); BUT---if you really and truly feel called to be a pastor for a congregation, we do have an active program of NWCs--instead of waiting for an opening in an existing congregation--START ONE! That is reformation. Northern California is a rich and deep mission field, full of human beings who may or may not know they are children of God and who avoid traditional religion as if it were radioactive. So meet them with Christ in a new way, a way congruent to their experience, and a way that invites them to the table by showing them the table no longer stuck inside a mouldering church building.
This is where I see and find hope. After lunch with Richard, I came away with a sense that seminaries may well be transforming themselves to meet this altered landscape, rethinking how they teach and equip pastors, and we can see on the horizon a new day rising.
May it be so--there is so much to do in a world such as ours.
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