As I reflect on the fabulous World Mission Celebration which was held this October 21 to 24 in Cincinnati, I believe I have discerned something of the challenge we face. Our Presbyterian Church needs to celebrate and support the work being done all around the world, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, by our full time, professional missionaries. These are our people! They are serving on our behalf around the world and at the invitation of our partner churches. I have been very involved with our World Mission work for several years; I have learned something of the spiritual paradox of our missionaries. Almost to a person, including the director of World Mission Hunter Farrell, every Presbyterian missionary I have met and talked with recently has a very gentle, humble, quiet personality and presence. Our missionaries are not gregarious, loud and life-of-party personalities. They are not flashy. Our missionaries are humble servants. At times these missionaries are difficult to personally connect with because often they do not initiate conversation or broadcast their stories. But these are the people who we are asking to sing from the mountaintops, to proclaim abroad the good work of World Mission. There is a paradox of personality here. Our missionaries are the gentle servants of the church, who work in humble partnership with our church partners all over the world. But we are also asking them to be the cheerleaders for our World Mission work. We must listen carefully. We must pay attention. Our missionaries are not going get in our faces and buttonhole us at the coffee break with their stories. These missionaries are not loud. Often, I have noticed, they are uncomfortable with public speaking.
We need to listen to these gentle ones. We need to open our hearts to their stories. There is a spiritual lesson for us here. It is often the loud, flashy, polished and sexy noise of our world that gets our attention and, too often, our devotion. But maybe God is not in all the noise which attracts us and seduces us. We need to listen to the still, soft voices. We need to listen in and through the silence of deep prayer. Indeed, let us celebrate and applaud the work of World Mission around the world today and hear the quiet, gentle voices of our missionaries. If you are not listening with an open heart and a focused attention you may miss the good news. Let us listen! Let us hear the story of Mark Hare working so far out into the rural area of Haiti that few mission teams ever visit. Mark will tell the good news of the moringa tree. Let us hear the story of Tricia Lloyd-Sidle who works in partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Cuba. If we listen, Tricia will breakdown many of our stereotypes and polarized perceptions. She tells the story of Presbyterians who have been faithful, devout, and persevering through all the years of the Castro regime. Let us hear the story of Gloria Wheeler who knows what happens when poor women are inspired and come together around the task of community development in rural Honduras. Let us hear Jim McGill’s story about the social and spiritual domino effect which unfolds in a rural Malawian village when a new well provides fresh, clean water for the first time ever. Listen to the heartbreaking story of the Roma people. They were in the crosshairs of Nazi Germany, and the victims of prejudice and discrimination throughout the ages. Now there are glimmers of a new tone, a new message and the breaking down of the strong walls of hatred. Our missionary Burkhard Paetzold is there. Are we listening? A quiet, deep truth is being proclaimed. It is the story of Presbyterian World Mission. Please listen to these gentle ones.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Letter from Honduras
This letter is from Mark and Ashley Wright, new Presbyterian missionaries in Honduras. This letter may also be found at the Mission Connections website: http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/letters/wrightm/wrightm_0910.htm
October 14, 2009
Friends,
Moving to a new country isn’t easy. Even though we talked about it at orientation this summer, and even though I had traveled a lot in foreign countries before, I wasn’t really prepared for the reality of it. What made this time different was that I knew I wasn’t going back home. This strange place was supposed to become my home.
I did great at first. I was so excited to finally be here, excited to be answering God’s call and thrilled to be sharing my knowledge with other people. But things started to get a bit tough when it started to set in that I wasn’t going to get to go home anytime soon, and all the frustrations started to really gnaw at me.
One day, as I was making a mental list of all the things that bugged me in Honduras, I had a sudden realization of all the things that weren’t bugging me, and I had to laugh and say, “Glory to you, God, for how you have prepared me for this, and I didn’t even know it.” In a flash, God showed me how He has been preparing me step by step for this adventure. Jesus says, “Behold, I make all things new.” And indeed, by Him and in Him, I am a new creation. My old life has gone, and a new life has begun.
Over the years, God has met me and changed me in very practical ways—from our honeymoon on the Greek islands where (like Honduras) old and inadequate plumbing means that toilet paper goes in the trash can, not the toilet; to learning to live with the nightly window-rattling “boom-boom” cars in our neighborhood in Cincinnati, which prepared me for the incessant noise of Tegucigalpa; to the culture shock of our first pastorate in the Appalachians, where mountain ways were much more different than we expected, and we learned what it meant to be outsiders. Coming to Honduras, we expected major cultural differences, but through those early pastoral years God sharpened our sensitivity to the subtle cultural norms and values that are so important, but rarely discussed.
Last spring, when we first got the chance to meet with the pastors here in Honduras and hear how they had been praying and planning for PC(USA) mission coworkers, it became so clear how God had been preparing us—all of us, in Honduras and North America—for something that we can’t even begin to understand yet.
I know that living and working here in Honduras will bring many difficult challenges. Even the smallest things we take for granted can become mountains to climb. Right now we live day to day, not knowing what the political situation will bring: Will there be a demonstration blocking the road to the kids’ school? Will there be more curfews and disruptions of daily life? What about the people who are in such need even when things are “normal?” They need to work every day just to have a bit of food for their families. I don’t know the answers to these questions, and I can’t change them. I can’t fix them. I don’t even always know how to be faithful in the face of them, but I do know that God is with us all of the time. And I know that God has called us here, to this place, at this time. And looking back, I can see how God has been patiently preparing me and my family for this very thing. Scripture tells us that even when we am faithless, God will still be faithful with us: “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
There are still days when I ask myself, “Why are we here? What possible good can we do? And though we don’t know fully how we will be used down here, Mark and I have felt that something big is happening here in Honduras. This sentiment has been echoed by other people here as well. The young and old here are so hungry for God’s word. And they are not afraid to share the hope they have in Christ. When you meet a person who knows what the good news of the gospel is, you can tell right away by the smile on their face, or the happiness in their eyes. Yes, they may have tragedy in their lives, but they know that what they see before them is not God’s final say on the situation.
When I am faithless and think that nothing will ever change, I have to remember the people we have met here who carry the promise of the gospel inside them—how they are a blessing to us, and how, somehow, just by being here without a political or economic agenda, we seem to be a blessing to them as well. Together we live in expectation of the things that God has been preparing, whatever they may be, and in thankfulness and humility that God has been preparing us for this very time.
I hope that you will pray for Honduras during this difficult time, for the political leaders and for the people.
Grace and Peace,
Ashley and Mark Wright
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you.-Peter 1:3-4
October 14, 2009
Friends,
Moving to a new country isn’t easy. Even though we talked about it at orientation this summer, and even though I had traveled a lot in foreign countries before, I wasn’t really prepared for the reality of it. What made this time different was that I knew I wasn’t going back home. This strange place was supposed to become my home.
I did great at first. I was so excited to finally be here, excited to be answering God’s call and thrilled to be sharing my knowledge with other people. But things started to get a bit tough when it started to set in that I wasn’t going to get to go home anytime soon, and all the frustrations started to really gnaw at me.
One day, as I was making a mental list of all the things that bugged me in Honduras, I had a sudden realization of all the things that weren’t bugging me, and I had to laugh and say, “Glory to you, God, for how you have prepared me for this, and I didn’t even know it.” In a flash, God showed me how He has been preparing me step by step for this adventure. Jesus says, “Behold, I make all things new.” And indeed, by Him and in Him, I am a new creation. My old life has gone, and a new life has begun.
Over the years, God has met me and changed me in very practical ways—from our honeymoon on the Greek islands where (like Honduras) old and inadequate plumbing means that toilet paper goes in the trash can, not the toilet; to learning to live with the nightly window-rattling “boom-boom” cars in our neighborhood in Cincinnati, which prepared me for the incessant noise of Tegucigalpa; to the culture shock of our first pastorate in the Appalachians, where mountain ways were much more different than we expected, and we learned what it meant to be outsiders. Coming to Honduras, we expected major cultural differences, but through those early pastoral years God sharpened our sensitivity to the subtle cultural norms and values that are so important, but rarely discussed.
Last spring, when we first got the chance to meet with the pastors here in Honduras and hear how they had been praying and planning for PC(USA) mission coworkers, it became so clear how God had been preparing us—all of us, in Honduras and North America—for something that we can’t even begin to understand yet.
I know that living and working here in Honduras will bring many difficult challenges. Even the smallest things we take for granted can become mountains to climb. Right now we live day to day, not knowing what the political situation will bring: Will there be a demonstration blocking the road to the kids’ school? Will there be more curfews and disruptions of daily life? What about the people who are in such need even when things are “normal?” They need to work every day just to have a bit of food for their families. I don’t know the answers to these questions, and I can’t change them. I can’t fix them. I don’t even always know how to be faithful in the face of them, but I do know that God is with us all of the time. And I know that God has called us here, to this place, at this time. And looking back, I can see how God has been patiently preparing me and my family for this very thing. Scripture tells us that even when we am faithless, God will still be faithful with us: “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
There are still days when I ask myself, “Why are we here? What possible good can we do? And though we don’t know fully how we will be used down here, Mark and I have felt that something big is happening here in Honduras. This sentiment has been echoed by other people here as well. The young and old here are so hungry for God’s word. And they are not afraid to share the hope they have in Christ. When you meet a person who knows what the good news of the gospel is, you can tell right away by the smile on their face, or the happiness in their eyes. Yes, they may have tragedy in their lives, but they know that what they see before them is not God’s final say on the situation.
When I am faithless and think that nothing will ever change, I have to remember the people we have met here who carry the promise of the gospel inside them—how they are a blessing to us, and how, somehow, just by being here without a political or economic agenda, we seem to be a blessing to them as well. Together we live in expectation of the things that God has been preparing, whatever they may be, and in thankfulness and humility that God has been preparing us for this very time.
I hope that you will pray for Honduras during this difficult time, for the political leaders and for the people.
Grace and Peace,
Ashley and Mark Wright
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you.-Peter 1:3-4
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Report to the Presbytery Michael Englund-Krieger
With an invitation by our Presbytery's education committee, this report was presented to the Presbytery of Carlisle by Michael Englund-Krieger. Michael is a senior in high school and a member of our Derry Church:
My name is Michael Englund-Krieger. I believe some of you know my Dad. I was born and raised in the Presbyterian Church and I love our church. I love Jesus, and I am committed to live a Christian life forever. In the Presbyterian Church I have had wonderful opportunities to know Jesus, grow in faith and experience what it really means to be the church. When my dad was the pastor of Parkwood Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh we had an awesome youth group. We did the forty hour famine and we did Group work camps. We had a great youth leader who really had a great influence on me in middle school, and this is when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Those were great years in youth group and church. I had friends in that youth group, and I truly enjoyed going to that church every Sunday. The first year we moved here I went to Montreat with Pastor Kelly and the Market Square Church youth group. Montreat was a wonderful blessing in my life. The next summer, my Dad and I went on a mission trip with the Derry Church to Nicaragua. I experienced poverty, God touched my heart, and my eyes were opened. Later that summer, I went to the Presbyterian Youth Triennium along with 30 other kids from this presbytery. What a fabulous experience to be together with 3,000 Presbyterian teenagers. I think Presbyterian Triennium is a great opportunity for senior high Presbyterians. I loved Triennium because I got the opportunity to worship with other high school students around the country. At Triennium, they broke us up into small groups. In each of these groups, no two people are from the same presbytery, and I made some very close friends. My small group was excellent; we all learned about each other’s faith and grew into a small family. I still remain in touch with a few friends from my small group. The following summer, my dad talked me into applying to Project Burning Bush at Union Theological Seminary. Project Burning Bush is one of the most powerful blessings in my life. It is a leadership development program for teenagers focused on the discernment of our sense of call. In several short weeks the 16 teenagers at Project Burning Bush became some of my closest friends, truly my brothers and sisters in Christ. This summer I went with my Dad to Honduras. We talked a lot about freedom and democracy, since we had a lot of time sitting in the hotel. Our trip was cancelled because of the political crisis in Honduras. But that trip was still a remarkable blessing in my life. This summer I also worked at Camp Krislund. I was on the Adventure Team, and I am proud and grateful that not one summer camper was hurt or injured on the adventure equipment at camp. The summer staff at Krislund was an amazing community of Christians. I thank Art for his leadership and friendship, and his extraordinary impact on the camp.
I know I am supposed to talk about the 2010 Youth Triennium. But what I really want to say to all the pastors here is this: I am a teenager and I love the Presbyterian Church because I have had so many wonderful opportunities in the Presbyterian Church. Pastors, please find your teenagers, talk with them and connect them with these amazing opportunities we have in the church. Teenagers need role models at this point in their lives, be a leader and mentor for them. Tell them about Triennium, and Montreat, and Krislund. These programs will have an impact on their lives. Encourage the youth to go on mission trips. Please get your teenagers involved and connected with these events and their lives will be blessed. They will love Jesus and they will love the Presbyterian Church.
I love Jesus. I love the Presbyterian Church. I am called to serve. I am a senior in high school and I am applying to the United States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy. I hope for the opportunity to express my service through the Army or the Marine Corps. This deep heart for service which I have; I got it in the Presbyterian Church. Thank you.
My name is Michael Englund-Krieger. I believe some of you know my Dad. I was born and raised in the Presbyterian Church and I love our church. I love Jesus, and I am committed to live a Christian life forever. In the Presbyterian Church I have had wonderful opportunities to know Jesus, grow in faith and experience what it really means to be the church. When my dad was the pastor of Parkwood Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh we had an awesome youth group. We did the forty hour famine and we did Group work camps. We had a great youth leader who really had a great influence on me in middle school, and this is when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Those were great years in youth group and church. I had friends in that youth group, and I truly enjoyed going to that church every Sunday. The first year we moved here I went to Montreat with Pastor Kelly and the Market Square Church youth group. Montreat was a wonderful blessing in my life. The next summer, my Dad and I went on a mission trip with the Derry Church to Nicaragua. I experienced poverty, God touched my heart, and my eyes were opened. Later that summer, I went to the Presbyterian Youth Triennium along with 30 other kids from this presbytery. What a fabulous experience to be together with 3,000 Presbyterian teenagers. I think Presbyterian Triennium is a great opportunity for senior high Presbyterians. I loved Triennium because I got the opportunity to worship with other high school students around the country. At Triennium, they broke us up into small groups. In each of these groups, no two people are from the same presbytery, and I made some very close friends. My small group was excellent; we all learned about each other’s faith and grew into a small family. I still remain in touch with a few friends from my small group. The following summer, my dad talked me into applying to Project Burning Bush at Union Theological Seminary. Project Burning Bush is one of the most powerful blessings in my life. It is a leadership development program for teenagers focused on the discernment of our sense of call. In several short weeks the 16 teenagers at Project Burning Bush became some of my closest friends, truly my brothers and sisters in Christ. This summer I went with my Dad to Honduras. We talked a lot about freedom and democracy, since we had a lot of time sitting in the hotel. Our trip was cancelled because of the political crisis in Honduras. But that trip was still a remarkable blessing in my life. This summer I also worked at Camp Krislund. I was on the Adventure Team, and I am proud and grateful that not one summer camper was hurt or injured on the adventure equipment at camp. The summer staff at Krislund was an amazing community of Christians. I thank Art for his leadership and friendship, and his extraordinary impact on the camp.
I know I am supposed to talk about the 2010 Youth Triennium. But what I really want to say to all the pastors here is this: I am a teenager and I love the Presbyterian Church because I have had so many wonderful opportunities in the Presbyterian Church. Pastors, please find your teenagers, talk with them and connect them with these amazing opportunities we have in the church. Teenagers need role models at this point in their lives, be a leader and mentor for them. Tell them about Triennium, and Montreat, and Krislund. These programs will have an impact on their lives. Encourage the youth to go on mission trips. Please get your teenagers involved and connected with these events and their lives will be blessed. They will love Jesus and they will love the Presbyterian Church.
I love Jesus. I love the Presbyterian Church. I am called to serve. I am a senior in high school and I am applying to the United States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy. I hope for the opportunity to express my service through the Army or the Marine Corps. This deep heart for service which I have; I got it in the Presbyterian Church. Thank you.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Happy Birthday John Calvin!
We celebrate this year the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. I was in Montreat on July 10, which is his actual birthday, for our church’s celebration of John Calvin. John Calvin, by the power of his mind, and his remarkable organizational skills set in motion a movement that truly changed the world and our lives. His thoughts about organizing the church have flowed through these centuries with great power and have been captured in our Book of Order, and in Reformed and Presbyterian Churches all around the world. It is no exaggeration to say that wherever in the world we witness the blossoming of the idea of democracy, we see the legacy of John Calvin. When we sit at our session tables, gather in the dignity of our presbytery meeting, and in congresses and federal courts all around the world, with our commitment to group decision making and shared authority, we feel the genius of John Calvin. From Geneva where Calvin first pondered and practiced these blessed ideas about church organization this influence has flowed. Like all brilliant ideas, these ideas have been claimed, revised, reworked and created again in different contexts and in different cultures. Like all brilliant ideas, these also have been misused and transformed into ugly patterns of ideology and idolatry. One thing I have learned in this year of remembering is that we must peel back all the layers and remember John Calvin himself, his work, his ministry and legacy; not Princeton Theology or the theology of James Thornwell, not Westminster Theology, and certainly not the theology of the Synod of Dort and it aberration of Calvin using the acronym TULIP, and not the Dutch Reformed Church and not even the heritage of the Church of Scotland. In other words we need to remember John Calvin and not simply Calvinism. The essential kernel of Calvin’s polity has flowed from Geneva to Scotland, from Scotland to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, to South Korea, Thailand and India, to Mexico and Brazil. These ideas have flowed to Kenya, Sudan, Egypt, Malawi and South Africa. And now in our world the essential ideas of Calvin’s polity are expressed in church meetings and church structures, and democratic constitutions by people who have never heard of John Calvin, and who do not know this heritage. But we know the heritage and we are grateful for the legacy.
For us today though, maybe it is the theological system of John Calvin, more than the polity, which is most astounding. It is this theology that needs to constantly be remembered and reclaimed, celebrated and breathed deep into the very soul of our prayer life. If Calvin’s church polity easily becomes confused in the interplay and interconnection of a number of different and vital themes, Calvin’s theology may be easily summarized and proclaimed in one, loud, glorious phrase: the sovereignty of God.
I want to try on with you a one paragraph summary of John Calvin’s theology: The world is filled with the dazzling beauty, majesty and magnificence of God. All around us, everywhere, in all of creation, in every creature, in the whirling of the planets, and the movements of the molecules God’s dazzling magnificence is everywhere. But we cannot see it. Why can we not see the beauty and majesty of God all around us? Our blindness cannot be God’s fault, it must be our fault. There is something wrong with us. We are sinful, totally depraved, creatures. This sin blinds us to the majesty and beauty of God all around us. We are blind. Our loving and gracious God comes to us in Word and Holy Spirit so that we might be able to see. We are by the gift of Word and Spirit assisted in seeing; we are chosen to see. Now with the new eyes blessed by the Word and the Spirit we can see all the majesty and beauty of God, and we spend our lives saying “Thank you.”
Maybe I can do even better. I can summarize the totality of Calvin’s ministry and purpose in one memorable phrase: “Lift up your hearts.” “Lift up your hearts.” This is the essential spiritual practice to which Calvin calls us. All the organizational work, and the careful themes of polity are in order to create churches, and church structures which are holy places devoted to the lifting up of our hearts. All of the carefully systemized theological reflection is intended to help us to orient our minds toward the lifting up of our hearts. Most importantly for Calvin, it is about our hearts. It is about God’s gift in Jesus Christ which fills us with a motivating passion and an ardent zeal. It is about the power of the Holy Spirit coming down into the very core of our being, not simply our minds, and not simply an act of intellectual belief, but a passionate and inspired lifting of our hearts. All the polity and all the theology of John Calvin is intended toward this one end, that the people of Jesus Christ will lift up our hearts to the Lord. Preachers, maybe at the top of every sermon as you sit down to craft and write each week you may write this: “The purpose of the sermon is to encourage us to lift up our hearts.” Elders, maybe we should print this at the top of every session meeting agenda or maybe above the door to our church buildings: “The purpose of this church is to help us lift up our hearts to the Lord.” And, maybe I pray, the purpose of our presbytery is to help us lift up our hearts to the Lord.
If you want to understand the theology of John Calvin, and, I would say, if you want to understand the purpose of the church today standing in the legacy of John Calvin, simply ponder this little phrase, “Lift up your hearts.” How does that happen? Where does it happen? What inspires and motivates it to happen? And finally what are the consequences and results when we come together with lifted hearts. This is the legacy and the invitation we have received from John Calvin. Lift up your hearts. Thanks be to God.
For us today though, maybe it is the theological system of John Calvin, more than the polity, which is most astounding. It is this theology that needs to constantly be remembered and reclaimed, celebrated and breathed deep into the very soul of our prayer life. If Calvin’s church polity easily becomes confused in the interplay and interconnection of a number of different and vital themes, Calvin’s theology may be easily summarized and proclaimed in one, loud, glorious phrase: the sovereignty of God.
I want to try on with you a one paragraph summary of John Calvin’s theology: The world is filled with the dazzling beauty, majesty and magnificence of God. All around us, everywhere, in all of creation, in every creature, in the whirling of the planets, and the movements of the molecules God’s dazzling magnificence is everywhere. But we cannot see it. Why can we not see the beauty and majesty of God all around us? Our blindness cannot be God’s fault, it must be our fault. There is something wrong with us. We are sinful, totally depraved, creatures. This sin blinds us to the majesty and beauty of God all around us. We are blind. Our loving and gracious God comes to us in Word and Holy Spirit so that we might be able to see. We are by the gift of Word and Spirit assisted in seeing; we are chosen to see. Now with the new eyes blessed by the Word and the Spirit we can see all the majesty and beauty of God, and we spend our lives saying “Thank you.”
Maybe I can do even better. I can summarize the totality of Calvin’s ministry and purpose in one memorable phrase: “Lift up your hearts.” “Lift up your hearts.” This is the essential spiritual practice to which Calvin calls us. All the organizational work, and the careful themes of polity are in order to create churches, and church structures which are holy places devoted to the lifting up of our hearts. All of the carefully systemized theological reflection is intended to help us to orient our minds toward the lifting up of our hearts. Most importantly for Calvin, it is about our hearts. It is about God’s gift in Jesus Christ which fills us with a motivating passion and an ardent zeal. It is about the power of the Holy Spirit coming down into the very core of our being, not simply our minds, and not simply an act of intellectual belief, but a passionate and inspired lifting of our hearts. All the polity and all the theology of John Calvin is intended toward this one end, that the people of Jesus Christ will lift up our hearts to the Lord. Preachers, maybe at the top of every sermon as you sit down to craft and write each week you may write this: “The purpose of the sermon is to encourage us to lift up our hearts.” Elders, maybe we should print this at the top of every session meeting agenda or maybe above the door to our church buildings: “The purpose of this church is to help us lift up our hearts to the Lord.” And, maybe I pray, the purpose of our presbytery is to help us lift up our hearts to the Lord.
If you want to understand the theology of John Calvin, and, I would say, if you want to understand the purpose of the church today standing in the legacy of John Calvin, simply ponder this little phrase, “Lift up your hearts.” How does that happen? Where does it happen? What inspires and motivates it to happen? And finally what are the consequences and results when we come together with lifted hearts. This is the legacy and the invitation we have received from John Calvin. Lift up your hearts. Thanks be to God.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Report to the Presbytery Sept. 22, 2009
The Coercion of Connectionalism
When I was in high school, in both my junior and senior years, I earned a Varsity Letter in Men’s Gymnastics. Gymnastics was my sport and those years and those teams are some of the great, joyful memories of my life. I was pondering recently that my experience in men’s gymnastics, long ago, has prepared me for this job. I have a very highly developed sense of balance. A sense of balance is a good thing in a time when the ground beneath the church is shifting and moving.
We are living in a time of massive culture change and transformation in our church. Some have called the changes that are happening in the church today as sweeping and comprehensive as those of the Protestant reformation in the 1500s. I agree with that, we are living in the midst of a Modern Reformation.
Possibly the most sweeping change which is shifting the ground and undermining the foundations of our Presbyterian Church is the breaking down of our connectionalism. So much so that a polity of free association has, for many congregations, become the polity of our church. The polity of free association is the American way, and it is very successfully expressed in the Southern Baptist tradition which, of course, is by far the largest of the Protestant Churches. A polity of free association means that each church has a choice, a free choice, about what other congregations you may choose to associate with. This is a very free form, fluid polity. Congregations come and go in their relationship with one another depending on their needs and desires at any given point in their life. This polity of the free association of congregations is both a very old idea in America and a very new idea. The post-modern, emergent church movement which is blossoming all over our country is a free association of congregations. The Willow Creek association, and the Purpose Driven Church association are free associations of congregations. Each congregation decides with which other congregations they want to associate.
Let me be very clear, the Presbyterian Church is very, very different. There is supposed to be, and there has historically always been a fundamental coercion to our connectionalism. Our congregations do not, on any given day, have a choice about our connectionalism. Our connections together are part of the identity of who we are as churches. I call this the coercion of connectionalism because there is not free choice about this decision. Congregations today that choose to break our connectionalism and sever all connections with our Presbyterian Church cause tremendous trauma and pain, often expressed in disciplinary action, legal action and high rancor.
I argue the Presbyterian Church is very unique because our connectionalism binds us together in ways deeper than our own free choice. This is part of our identity and character; it is not a choice on any given day. This is a style of church which is very different from the American cultural emphasis on free choice and free association. But this all begs a very difficult question: Is our connectionalism sustainable in the midst of the modern reformation we are living through? My response is that it depends on what question is being asked when our church leaders are sitting around their session tables planning the ministry and mission of their own congregations.
If the question, “What has the Presbytery done for us?” is on your agenda as you do your session work, I submit that all connectionalism is gone. And I would argue, from my own experience, that this is exactly the question that many church leaders are asking today. “What has the Presbytery done for us?” This question does not reflect our classic Presbyterian connectionalism, but rather is an expression of a polity of Baptist free association. The Presbytery and the General Assembly cannot possibly bring resources and expertise to every one of our churches, to be able to satisfy every session need, every day. If our defining question is simply, “What is in this for me?”, we are done. Shut off the lights and close the door. This question breaks all connectionalism because it presumes that all that really matters is my congregation, my needs, and my well being. This question casts out any vision of the vital importance of being together in ministry.
For connectionalism to be true and deep in our midst we must ask a different question: “How can we participate in and support the connection of the 52 church in our presbytery, and, indeed, the 11,000 churches in our Presbyterian Church.” We must presume a deep connection between us and ponder ways, especially in these challenging times, in which we can participate in our connections. Thus I ask our Elders and church leaders to think carefully about the defining questions that are operating within your congregations. Are your guiding questions presuming that the churches of our presbytery and, indeed, throughout our church are in this together? Or are your guiding questions actually straining the bonds that unite us? I request that our church leaders take very seriously a framework of decision making that unites and builds us up together. Ask and pray and ponder this question: “How can we participate in and support the connection of the 52 churches in our presbytery?”
When I was in high school, in both my junior and senior years, I earned a Varsity Letter in Men’s Gymnastics. Gymnastics was my sport and those years and those teams are some of the great, joyful memories of my life. I was pondering recently that my experience in men’s gymnastics, long ago, has prepared me for this job. I have a very highly developed sense of balance. A sense of balance is a good thing in a time when the ground beneath the church is shifting and moving.
We are living in a time of massive culture change and transformation in our church. Some have called the changes that are happening in the church today as sweeping and comprehensive as those of the Protestant reformation in the 1500s. I agree with that, we are living in the midst of a Modern Reformation.
Possibly the most sweeping change which is shifting the ground and undermining the foundations of our Presbyterian Church is the breaking down of our connectionalism. So much so that a polity of free association has, for many congregations, become the polity of our church. The polity of free association is the American way, and it is very successfully expressed in the Southern Baptist tradition which, of course, is by far the largest of the Protestant Churches. A polity of free association means that each church has a choice, a free choice, about what other congregations you may choose to associate with. This is a very free form, fluid polity. Congregations come and go in their relationship with one another depending on their needs and desires at any given point in their life. This polity of the free association of congregations is both a very old idea in America and a very new idea. The post-modern, emergent church movement which is blossoming all over our country is a free association of congregations. The Willow Creek association, and the Purpose Driven Church association are free associations of congregations. Each congregation decides with which other congregations they want to associate.
Let me be very clear, the Presbyterian Church is very, very different. There is supposed to be, and there has historically always been a fundamental coercion to our connectionalism. Our congregations do not, on any given day, have a choice about our connectionalism. Our connections together are part of the identity of who we are as churches. I call this the coercion of connectionalism because there is not free choice about this decision. Congregations today that choose to break our connectionalism and sever all connections with our Presbyterian Church cause tremendous trauma and pain, often expressed in disciplinary action, legal action and high rancor.
I argue the Presbyterian Church is very unique because our connectionalism binds us together in ways deeper than our own free choice. This is part of our identity and character; it is not a choice on any given day. This is a style of church which is very different from the American cultural emphasis on free choice and free association. But this all begs a very difficult question: Is our connectionalism sustainable in the midst of the modern reformation we are living through? My response is that it depends on what question is being asked when our church leaders are sitting around their session tables planning the ministry and mission of their own congregations.
If the question, “What has the Presbytery done for us?” is on your agenda as you do your session work, I submit that all connectionalism is gone. And I would argue, from my own experience, that this is exactly the question that many church leaders are asking today. “What has the Presbytery done for us?” This question does not reflect our classic Presbyterian connectionalism, but rather is an expression of a polity of Baptist free association. The Presbytery and the General Assembly cannot possibly bring resources and expertise to every one of our churches, to be able to satisfy every session need, every day. If our defining question is simply, “What is in this for me?”, we are done. Shut off the lights and close the door. This question breaks all connectionalism because it presumes that all that really matters is my congregation, my needs, and my well being. This question casts out any vision of the vital importance of being together in ministry.
For connectionalism to be true and deep in our midst we must ask a different question: “How can we participate in and support the connection of the 52 church in our presbytery, and, indeed, the 11,000 churches in our Presbyterian Church.” We must presume a deep connection between us and ponder ways, especially in these challenging times, in which we can participate in our connections. Thus I ask our Elders and church leaders to think carefully about the defining questions that are operating within your congregations. Are your guiding questions presuming that the churches of our presbytery and, indeed, throughout our church are in this together? Or are your guiding questions actually straining the bonds that unite us? I request that our church leaders take very seriously a framework of decision making that unites and builds us up together. Ask and pray and ponder this question: “How can we participate in and support the connection of the 52 churches in our presbytery?”
Friday, August 21, 2009
Our Missionaries in Honduras: Mark and Ashley Wright
Praise God! Ashley and Mark Wright and their three children arrived safely in Honduras to begin their mission service. Please see their mission connections webpage at:
http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/wrightm.htm
You may find webpages for all of our Presbyterian international missionaries at missionconnections. Please pray for the Wrights as they begin their service with the Presbyterian Church in Honduras. This article is copied from their initial mission connections article:
Rev. Mark and Ashley Wright
The Wrights are the first Presbyterian mission co-workers to serve with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. They began their service in July 2009. They’re tasked with leadership and theological training, as well as promoting congregational self-sufficiency in the Honduran context. While their primary role is helping to build the capacity of local church leaders, the Wrights also nurture and resource the PC(USA)’s mission network.
Once the center of the Mayan empire, Honduras is a now a sparsely populated, mountainous country in Central America, and one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout most of the last century it has been ruled by various military dictatorships, but since the 1980s the military has been more restrained and democracy is growing, as is the income level of the people. The Presbyterian Church of Honduras consists of 20 churches located within a 60-mile radius from the capital city, Tegucigalpa. The church members are said to be so enthusiastic that many meet four days per week: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday as well as Sunday.
Ashley recalls a particular moment of insight that occurred in India when she was only 10 years old. “We were in New Delhi visiting the Taj Mahal and it was very, very hot. We had walked back up to the front along the flat pools, and were standing next to a man chopping sugar cane. He tossed the left-over ends into a huge pile on his left, and many children were scampering onto the pile looking for pieces that had any juice left in them. I started watching a little girl who was about 6 years old. She stopped in front of me and we stared each other up and down—I in my dress and shoes and hat and she in a dirty undergarment but with a gold stud in her nose. She was very thin, and from the way she tore into her small stump of discarded sugarcane she was obviously very hungry. For the first time, I realized how extremely blessed I was to have been born into my family in the United States and not into poverty in India. I realized at that young age that I was not put into the world to be a taker, but to be a person who gives and makes the world better.”
Mark tells about the time during his junior year abroad in 1986-87 when he was part of a group of American students who crossed the Berlin Wall and were hosted by a group of students in East Germany. The two groups defended their countries vigorously. Then, Mark reports, “As the evening wore on and our leaders went home for the night, we all began to talk and defend less and listen more. Words got easier, ideas and ideologies got softer, and we all began to be able to admit both the faults of and our love for our respective nations. A wall fell that day. Later, during graduate school at the University of Salzburg, I took another trip to Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie, where not long before the guns, dogs, and barbed wire had seemed so permanent and dangerous. This time, however, I borrowed a hammer and climbed on a stretch of that thick wall. I beat enough pieces of concrete off to fill a backpack and I brought them home when I returned to the United States. The funny thing is, I don’t know what happened to them. It seems that even the pieces of that wall have disappeared.”
Ashley spent four years in children’s ministry for the Kennedy Heights Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. She gave children’s sermons, taught both preschool and confirmation classes, and organized Bible school. Prior to that work, she had served in a similar ministry with children at First Presbyterian Church in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Before that, she worked as a librarian at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, a high school biology teacher in Charlotte/Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and a customer service representative for Eagle Vision in Memphis, Tennessee.
Mark spent a year in Germany and another in Austria and is fluent in German. He served for almost five years as pastor of Kennedy Heights Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and two and one-half years at Spruce Pine Presbyterian Church, Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Ashley earned a bachelor’s degree in art and literature from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. She also earned an M. Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in religion from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. He has also earned three masters degrees. The first was in teaching from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. His certificates are in middle school and high school biology, chemistry, science, and German. The second was in German language and literature from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. The third was an M. Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Ashley is a member of the Balmoral Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and is a candidate for ordained ministry in the Presbytery of the Mid-South. Mark was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament on July 1, 2001. He is a minister member of the Presbytery of Cincinnati.
Ashley and Mark have three sons—Ethan, Eliott, and Gabriel—who will accompany them on their assignment to Honduras.
http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/profiles/wrightm.htm
You may find webpages for all of our Presbyterian international missionaries at missionconnections. Please pray for the Wrights as they begin their service with the Presbyterian Church in Honduras. This article is copied from their initial mission connections article:
Rev. Mark and Ashley Wright
The Wrights are the first Presbyterian mission co-workers to serve with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. They began their service in July 2009. They’re tasked with leadership and theological training, as well as promoting congregational self-sufficiency in the Honduran context. While their primary role is helping to build the capacity of local church leaders, the Wrights also nurture and resource the PC(USA)’s mission network.
Once the center of the Mayan empire, Honduras is a now a sparsely populated, mountainous country in Central America, and one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout most of the last century it has been ruled by various military dictatorships, but since the 1980s the military has been more restrained and democracy is growing, as is the income level of the people. The Presbyterian Church of Honduras consists of 20 churches located within a 60-mile radius from the capital city, Tegucigalpa. The church members are said to be so enthusiastic that many meet four days per week: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday as well as Sunday.
Ashley recalls a particular moment of insight that occurred in India when she was only 10 years old. “We were in New Delhi visiting the Taj Mahal and it was very, very hot. We had walked back up to the front along the flat pools, and were standing next to a man chopping sugar cane. He tossed the left-over ends into a huge pile on his left, and many children were scampering onto the pile looking for pieces that had any juice left in them. I started watching a little girl who was about 6 years old. She stopped in front of me and we stared each other up and down—I in my dress and shoes and hat and she in a dirty undergarment but with a gold stud in her nose. She was very thin, and from the way she tore into her small stump of discarded sugarcane she was obviously very hungry. For the first time, I realized how extremely blessed I was to have been born into my family in the United States and not into poverty in India. I realized at that young age that I was not put into the world to be a taker, but to be a person who gives and makes the world better.”
Mark tells about the time during his junior year abroad in 1986-87 when he was part of a group of American students who crossed the Berlin Wall and were hosted by a group of students in East Germany. The two groups defended their countries vigorously. Then, Mark reports, “As the evening wore on and our leaders went home for the night, we all began to talk and defend less and listen more. Words got easier, ideas and ideologies got softer, and we all began to be able to admit both the faults of and our love for our respective nations. A wall fell that day. Later, during graduate school at the University of Salzburg, I took another trip to Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie, where not long before the guns, dogs, and barbed wire had seemed so permanent and dangerous. This time, however, I borrowed a hammer and climbed on a stretch of that thick wall. I beat enough pieces of concrete off to fill a backpack and I brought them home when I returned to the United States. The funny thing is, I don’t know what happened to them. It seems that even the pieces of that wall have disappeared.”
Ashley spent four years in children’s ministry for the Kennedy Heights Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. She gave children’s sermons, taught both preschool and confirmation classes, and organized Bible school. Prior to that work, she had served in a similar ministry with children at First Presbyterian Church in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Before that, she worked as a librarian at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, a high school biology teacher in Charlotte/Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and a customer service representative for Eagle Vision in Memphis, Tennessee.
Mark spent a year in Germany and another in Austria and is fluent in German. He served for almost five years as pastor of Kennedy Heights Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, and two and one-half years at Spruce Pine Presbyterian Church, Spruce Pine, North Carolina.
Ashley earned a bachelor’s degree in art and literature from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. She also earned an M. Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in religion from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. He has also earned three masters degrees. The first was in teaching from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. His certificates are in middle school and high school biology, chemistry, science, and German. The second was in German language and literature from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio. The third was an M. Div. from Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Ashley is a member of the Balmoral Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and is a candidate for ordained ministry in the Presbytery of the Mid-South. Mark was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament on July 1, 2001. He is a minister member of the Presbytery of Cincinnati.
Ashley and Mark have three sons—Ethan, Eliott, and Gabriel—who will accompany them on their assignment to Honduras.
Praying for our Schools.
In preparation for a new school year, the New York Board of Regents wrote a prayer which they expected to be read at the start of the year in every public school in the state of New York. The pray was brief and nondenominational:
Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”
On June 25, 1962 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the State of New York could not have an official prayer read in public school classrooms. The Court deemed unconstitutional a public prayer to be used in public schools which was composed by governmental officials. As we know, there was a chorus of outrage at this Supreme Court decision from many devout Christians. But since that long ago day, those of us who attended public schools which never had official public prayers, and who now have children looking forward to another school year in public schools which never have public prayers, we have learned that, in fact, the civilized world has not come to an end because of that Supreme Court decision.
I believe we church leaders need to hear again and take to heart President J. F. Kennedy’s very perceptive response to that monumental Supreme Court decision:
“We have in this case a very easy remedy and that is to pray ourselves. I would think that it would be a welcome reminder to every American family that we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity, and we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of all our children.”
In our churches and in our homes, our congregations, pastors and parents have the responsibility to pray for our schools, students, and teachers. As we begin another school year let us pray.
NOTE: For an excellent discussion of public religion in America, including the story of the 1962 Supreme Court ruling on school prayer, see Jon Meacham. American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. (Random House, 2007).
Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”
On June 25, 1962 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the State of New York could not have an official prayer read in public school classrooms. The Court deemed unconstitutional a public prayer to be used in public schools which was composed by governmental officials. As we know, there was a chorus of outrage at this Supreme Court decision from many devout Christians. But since that long ago day, those of us who attended public schools which never had official public prayers, and who now have children looking forward to another school year in public schools which never have public prayers, we have learned that, in fact, the civilized world has not come to an end because of that Supreme Court decision.
I believe we church leaders need to hear again and take to heart President J. F. Kennedy’s very perceptive response to that monumental Supreme Court decision:
“We have in this case a very easy remedy and that is to pray ourselves. I would think that it would be a welcome reminder to every American family that we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity, and we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of all our children.”
In our churches and in our homes, our congregations, pastors and parents have the responsibility to pray for our schools, students, and teachers. As we begin another school year let us pray.
NOTE: For an excellent discussion of public religion in America, including the story of the 1962 Supreme Court ruling on school prayer, see Jon Meacham. American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. (Random House, 2007).
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