Well I've read the strategy team report.
What is it that New Wineskins is up to?
Let's start to talk about it. One thing it means is that at the very least 100 of the current congregations of the PCUSA are not going to be here next year. That means that the dynamics will change within the PCUSA very fast.
But first let’s look at the substance of the report.
It immediately states three key issues: A breakdown of theological integrity, missional effectiveness, and structural effectiveness. The details of these are spelled out over the next 32 pages of the document. The conclusions of that are summed up in the second paragraph “our current denominational skin has ruptured”.
Three culprits are pointed out (sort of): 1) years of drift from these three issues has caused an accumulation of hopelessness and infighting (pages 1-5), 2) The Trinity Report has unmasked a theological divide that constitutes the worship of false gods, 3)TPUP has affirmed standards while making enforcement optional (pg 6, pp2).
The statement regarding God says: “The PCUSA 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 culture.”
These are without a doubt the harshest words in the document, however, the entire document is unflinching in its appraisal.
The team lays out two options – leaving and joining the EPC in forming a non geographic transitional Presbytery, and staying and slugging on in a much changed and likely more progressive PCUSA. It is clear that the team is in favor of option one.
I really want to hear from you all and your assessments of this document. I'll leave you with these thoughts for now:
This weekend I have been asked to speak to the session of another congregation about being a missional church. This morning I was talking to my wife Julia about my talk and that one of the most important elements in being a healthy person and a healthy church is a willingness to fail - in fact a willingness to fail gloriously. Perhaps it is time to try that as a denomination? Rather than try and survive shouldn’t we just die?
John 12:24 4 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
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8 Lagniappe (comments):
Bill,
Good words. I've scanned the report last night-- scanned- but it sounds imminently reasonable. Obviously many questions, but-- God promises to be with us, not give us a roadmap.
Will you be at Orlando? We'll have myself and two elders.
dm
Thanks for opening up the discussion, Bill.
After my first reading of the report, I'm afraid it lacks one key element for success. The report says, essentially, that a way can be prepared for congregations to transition to the EPC, but is leaves the ensuing fight with the presbytery over property to each congregation... including the assertion that the congregation must be ready to give up its property if the courts demand it.
The strategy to achieve the ultimate outcome will only work, IMHO, if New Wineskins can find a way to fight the legal/property battle en masse. Something like a class action suit against the PCUSA property clause might be an option.
There are simply too many congregations who are theologically and emotionally aligned with where New Wineskins wants to take us, but lack the resources, the wherewithal, the chutzpah, or the cunning to take on their presbytery over their property.
---Just my first reaction.
---John Foreman
I think you hit the nail on the head. God put us in this denomination. Are we sure enough that we have mastered the Lord's purposes that we can say now that He was wrong?
What if the Lord's purpose is for us, and for the PC(USA) to "fail gloriously," as you suggest? What do we have to lose if we are faithful to the Gospel where we are, and grow disciples, and trust Jesus Christ to do now what he did in the time of the Book of Acts?
With half of its congregations failing to support full-time paid pastors, it seems to me that the PC(USA) is pretty close to collapsing, and changing into something new whether Louisville and the academic elite wish it to or not. Why leave now?
Dave,
Yes I will be in Orlando, without elders from my congregation but with my Dad an elder in Virginia.
John,
Not that I've talked to any lawyers, but if I had, they would tell me that the property laws of each state are so complicated that such a plan would not work - at least that is what I would imagine they would say. perhaps they are wrong.
Clay,
I was not thinking of the kernel getting on the ground all by itself - I was imagining more of an active laying down of our institutional lives and rebirthing something new.
Way back I articulated a view of the Church as a bayou, perhaps the schools should seperate - the bayou will not be diminished?
Keep up the comments out there - what do you think - I really want to hear from all of you out there.
PS - working with my new ergonomic keyboard so if my typos are even worse than usual please extend some grace - its for the good of my body!
Hi Bill,
I think that being in the EPC and NWAC will improve our witness for Jesus Christ.
I am worried, however, that a mass exodus from the PCUSA to the EPC will simultaneously weaken both institutions.
First, courageous followers of Christ will be leaving the PCUSA and, arguably, abandoning it to a spiraling into death.
Then, these folks will go to the EPC. I'm worried that the EPC will be unequally yoked with the NWAC churches.
On page 9 (of this 155-page document), there is a table that compares PCUSA, NWAC, EPC, and PCA. EPC members attend worship 30% more than NWAC and give more than twice the average NWAC member. Would we be a hindrance to the EPC if we sought to enter their institution?
How is the EPC addressing this issue?
Chad
Chad,
Good questions and ones that no body can answer. This is waht I'm getting at with the kernel text. We must take risks. It is a lack of risk that kills most congregations. It is fear of the unknown that keeps individuals in abusive homes. It is FEAR: false evidence against reality, that prevents us from trusting God.
You are right it could all end horribly (my paraphrase of your words) but is it worth the risk.
I believe; rather than cripple, both instituions we might just might strengthen them both. If we loosen up our death grip on one another perhaps we can grow stronger.
The thought I've been having relates to my own personal experience. I witness to people about a way out of drugs and alcohol best, not by hanging out at bars, but by being liberated from them.
You've brought much to the conversation! Thanks
We should have set up the denomination so that every 10 years we agree to cease to exist.
We then could come together and decide if it is worth doing it again, re-covenanting or doing a whole re-write of the whole project.
And---we should also have agree to spend everything in our accounts by the end the 10 years.
Imagine 7 billion dollars in the PCUSA accounts being sent out for Christ....
(So much for dreams...)
What made most sense to me in the strategy report is having NWAC be nothing more than a transitory organization facilitating churches joining the EPC.
There never was a need for a new denomination. I am glad the NWAC leaders saw fit to seek an agreement from EPC for the churches to join them.
This action takes away a reason for fence-sitters in the PCUSA to do nothing. Now they cannot spend hours arguing over the essential tenets originally proposed by NWAC. Instead the fence-sitters are going to have to make a decision----either to leave or to stay.
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