You are currently subscribed to the PCUSANEWS listserv of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
==================================================
This story available online at: http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2006/06380.htm
06380 July 27, 2006
Preaching shares center stage with business at New Wineskins gathering
by Toya Richards Hill
TULSA, OK * Amidst frustration and disdain for the current state of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the preached word of the Lord found its place again and again during a four-day convocation of the New Wineskins here last week.
From the broad pulpit of Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church, flanked by two large video projection screens and a massive cross behind it, various ministers of the Word and Sacrament did their best to motivate and empower those present.
"We are here out of a sense of crisis," said the Rev. Jim Logan, co-founder of Jim Logan Evangelistic Ministry and overseer of Kingdom Fellowship Christian Center in Charlotte, NC. This initiative came about from "something that has been building and brewing for years."
Yet "we are people of the book," he said referring to the Bible, and healing and deliverance is in the word of God.
"God's word is true, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel." Confessing Biblical truth is declaring faith in the fact of the word of God, Logan said.
That message, and others transmitted during the 2006 New Wineskins convocation July 19-22, resonated well with these PC(USA) members and ministers contemplating leaving the denomination they believe has tossed aside key tenets of the faith.
They've set up a strategy team to consider various options, including congregations actually pulling out, and will make more decisions during a February meeting in Orlando, FL.
Confessing Biblical truth is a key issue for the New Wineskins, now called the New Wineskins Association of Churches, and Logan preached mainly about what doing that entails.
It "involves faith, and not fear," he said. And, he said from personal experience, it involves being willing to lose all that you have.
"We have not really learned what it is to live by faith," Logan said. "Some of us are waiting until we can see it."
Confessing Biblical truth also "is demonstrated in unity," said Logan, a minister-at-large in the PC(USA)'s Charlotte Presbytery. "Unity of people of the same spirit."
Denominationalism "implies separation * it implies division," he said. "The fact that we are Presbyterians is not our unity. * When you get to heaven there's not going to be a Presbyterian section."
"Our unity is in Christ," Logan said. "I believe that's why many of you are here."
New Wineskins co-moderator the Rev. David Henderson echoed that focus on Christ during his message.
"Jesus is the source from whom all life and light emanates," he said. But, "The body must be joined to the head in order to survive."
He told the story of a woman in his congregation who has ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Unable to walk or easily use her hands, the woman, who uses a computer to communicate, struggles to connect her functioning mind with a body that won't comply, said Henderson, pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, IN.
"Her head is busy thinking, planning, dreaming, sending messages: body this is what I want you to do, this is what I want you to say," he said. "But the body refuses to cooperate."
"We must remain genuinely connected to the head," Henderson said.
The Rev. Carmen Fowler, associate pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Hilton Head Island, SC, talked about how the Presbyterian Church has become distracted and "enamored with ourselves" over the years.
The church began to fail to make disciples, and in doing so, "God began to lift up others," she preached. "This is not your grandmother's Presbyterian Church. Things have changed."
"This is the season of our humiliation," Fowler said. But "humiliation is the process of being humbled."
Service, missional faithfulness and supporting saints who are on the front lines are all part of what God desires, she pointed out.
The task is to build up the body of Christ "until *," she said. "You better be strapping on your work boots."
==================================================
You are currently subscribed to the PCUSANEWS listserv of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
To unsubscribe, send a blank message to
mailto:PCUSANEWS-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org.
To update your email address, send your old email address and your new one to mailto:PCUSANEWS-owner@halak.pcusa.org.
For questions or comments, send an email to mailto:PCUSANEWS-owner@halak.pcusa.org.
To learn more, visit http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 100 Witherspoon Street Louisville, KY 40202 (888) 728-7228