wfn.org | Proposals on status of Christian educators fail to advance (Revised)

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6001 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

26-June-2000
GA00053

	Proposals on status of Christian educators fail to advance

	Committee turns down report, overture pertaining to ordination

	by Emily Enders Odom

LONG BEACH, June 26 - Following a strenuous debate, which occupied nearly
the entire afternoon, the Assembly Committee on Church Orders and Ministry
voted 41-12, with 3 abstentions, to refer to the General Assembly Council
(GAC) a proposal giving church educators a chance to be ordained as
ministers with a specialization in Christian education.

	The proposal came from the Workgroup on the Role and Status of Christian
Educators.

	"[Our] differences demonstrate that we are not ready to make this move
ahead," commented one commissioner.  A related overture, 00-57, from the
Presbytery of Chicago, calling for the creation of a separate ordained
office of church educator, was disapproved by the committee.

	 The workgroup, which had been formed to conduct extensive study pertaining
to the role of Christian educators, had at one point considered but
ultimately rejected the ordination option outlined in 00-57.

	Missing for some commissioners was an adequate Biblical and Reformed
theological rationale for the ordination of educators.
	
	The committee defeated an earlier motion to refer only portions of the
report to the GAC, with consideration given to that rationale as well as to
the orders of ministry, the outline of fair labor practices and the role of
volunteer and part-time educators who do not desire certification.

	Several church educators testified during the committee open hearings. 
Judy Grantham, from West Jersey Presbytery, spoke of an opportunity she had
once enjoyed as church educator to join a support group for women in
ministry.  After introducing herself at the first meeting, without an
ordination date, Grantham was convinced that future invitations got "lost in
the mail."  "What is it that is missing," asked Grantham, "that would make
me a real minister in this priesthood of all believers.  Only an ordination
date?"

	The committee appeared moved by, yet ultimately unable act on, the
presentations from Grantham, immediate past General Assembly moderator Freda
Gardner, Auburn Theological Seminary president Barbara Wheeler and others. 
Gardner, who has spent 43 years as a church educator, said she had opposed a
similar proposal  in the mid-1980s.  Now that the issue of  ordination has
been extensively studied, she said, "it is imperative that educators be
treated fairly in ways commensurate with their ministry in shaping the
present and the future of the church."

	In shedding light on the basic issue of ordination, Joe Small, coordinator
of the Office of Theology and Worship for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
reminded commissioners that "in baptism, we are all ordained to ministry." 
In upholding the three historic ordered ministries of the church, Small
maintained that "ordered ministries must never be issues of status or
power."

	Commissioner Robin Roberts, of Mississippi Presbytery, said he was opposed
conceptually to the ordination of church educators.  "We do not yet have a
theological or practical basis for doing this," he said, insisting that
there must be other and better ways to validate church educators without
ordaining them.  "If this is a payment issue, let's pay better."

_______________________________________________
pcusaNews mailing list
pcusaNews@pcusa.org

To unsubscribe, go to this web address:
http://pcusa01.pcusa.org/mailman/listinfo/pcusanews