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07591 September 20, 2007
Church leaders say dramatic changes coming
Gray, Kirkpatrick, Valentine address GAC
by Bill Lancaster Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE - The three major leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) told the General Assembly Council (GAC) meeting here that dramatic changes are on the horizon for the church.
General Assembly Moderator Joan Gray told the Council that she had seen meaningful change taking place when churches and presbyteries "hit the wall" and turned to the resources of the faith to seek fresh, new directions.
"It is as if a tsunami of change has hit us," Gray said. "I recently spent time in the Midwest, and these areas are drying up. The people are not there anymore. In Detroit, 3,000 people a day are leaving to emigrate elsewhere. That is just the tip of the iceberg."
She said, "Much of our discomfort is really about our coming to grips with the overwhelming change that is coming at us from all sides. The bottom line is that we simply cannot continue doing church the way we have been."
Gray said people in Nebraska know that. "These small church pastors have hit the wall, and they are saying, 'All right. We can't do that anymore,'" she said. "They put on all the resources they have and have come up with creative ways of meeting that challenge. There are churches that are doing mission against the odds.
"One thing I am seeing is that some of those churches and presbyteries who have come to the end of the string are making a choice," Gray said. "They are letting go of what they had been doing and opening the way to what God is doing."
"There is a saddening ... neglect of the means of grace in the PC(USA). We are not laying hold of prayer the way our grandmothers and grandfathers did, Gray continued. "We have got to relearn what it is to groan in prayer. We have got to learn as leaders that God has more in store for us than we can ask."
Cliff Kirkpatrick, General Assembly stated clerk, pointed to the re-writing of the church's Form of Government, a major portion of the PC(USA) constitution, as a major change in the way the church conducts its ecclesiastical business.
He told a story about a flight back to Louisville from Minneapolis. "We sat there," he said. "Then the pilot announces that there are a few problems. They work on those. The pilot says, 'You really can't expect a 40-year old plane not to have a few problems.' Then the pilot and flight attendants leave and another crew comes onboard. Then, first thing you know, you are heading down the runway and on your way and will perhaps arrive ahead of time. It's like that in the church."
The work of the Form of Government Task Force holds the same peril and promise, he said. "We may move away from a somewhat over-regulated polity to one that frees us up to be a more flexible General Assembly," said Kirkpatrick.
The need for flexibility in the church's polity was made clear a few years ago in the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, he told the Council, when Sudanese immigrants began flooding into Minneapolis. Many regulations in The Book of Order impeded their efforts to form Presbyterian congregations, causing some of them to become Baptists, whose polity is simpler.
"By the grace of God we have had a task force working on this," he said. "How we can make clear the foundations of the church in a way that is life-giving for the church? That is what they are working on."
Linda Valentine, executive director of the GAC, focused her comments on changes taking place in the program work of the General Assembly.
She praised her administration's "CARE" (Collaborative, Accountable, Responsive, Excellence) approach to the GAC's work. She told the Council important collaboration is taking place in her relationship with Kirkpatrick and between the staffs of the Council and the Office of the General Assembly. She called Kirkpatrick a "trusted colleague."
Valentine also highlighted the Mission Challenge '07, a program of PC(USA) missionary visits to presbyteries during the month of October. The intent of the program, she said, "is to reconnect our presbyteries and congregations with our overseas mission workers."
The response has been "overwhelming," Valentine said. The original goal was 80 presbyteries promoting the effort, and when that goal was exceeded, a new goal was set at 100 presbyteries, and when that goal was passed, a goal of 120 was set. Now the number is up to 145.
The Challenge is being headed up by
missionaries-in-residence Bruce and Lora Whearty.
"What you didn't see has been an enormous effort behind this," she said. "Tom (Taylor, deputy executive director for mission) and Karen (Schmidt, deputy executive director for communication and funds development) and others have run with it."
Bill Lancaster is associate executive for new church development for Foothills Presbytery.
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