Jameswmiller's Blog

The Fellowship of Presbyterians hosted the constitutional convention of the new Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians this week in Orlando. This was a gathering of over 2100 people from over 500 churches in the PC(USA) who were largely disaffected by years of decline, toxic conflict, and wandering theology. The result is functionally a new denomination, though in dubbing it an “Order,” the creators have in mind to signify that an institutional past is being replaced by a more fluid, mission-oriented future.

There are two things worth noting about the gathering. The first is pragmatic. It’s a new organization that dozens if not hundreds of evangelical churches are going to transfer into. It has the practical building blocks in place or on the way: a theological core, a polity, a medical plan and a retirement benefits plan, and so forth. People with good minds have applied themselves to creating an administrative structure. I hardly need to recap what’s already online here.

But secondly, and more importantly, is not what you can put on paper. It’s what it felt like to be there. It’s the reality that this is the historical milieu in which we find ourselves. Orlando had the feeling of a launch, an initiative, an innovation, a new thing. We can read a few paragraphs in a history book about colonists gathering to constitute a country or the old days when a group of excited believers founded a now long-established church which we attend. Those historical readings can remain little more than academic. Orlando let us know what it feels like, and for many of us, that was a first. It was after John Ortberg preached about the passion for meaningful churches that reach a lost world for Jesus that the congregation of thousands sang “Amazing Grace,” and the power of the moment put a tear in my eye. This is what it feels like to be there at that moment.

John Crosby rightly predicted that the process would be “messy.” It’s almost a cute word to describe the exuberant adrenaline rush that comes with such passionate new direction. It’s messy because new ideas are bursting out all over the place. People who are passionate for mission, for meaningful theology, and for a church that is tied together by relationships rather than paperwork all united behind this cause. It felt like we were given permission to imagine. It was, in a word, fun.

Of course underlying this is all the anxiety that comes with tectonic change, but the feeling I got from most everyone I talked to was that tectonic change is unavoidable, and proactive change is better than that alternatives. The reality is that a denomination that declines for 45 years with no vision for change is dying, and freedom to pursue new initiatives is better than death by status quo.

So again, I’ll close this post like I closed the last one: let’s bless it and look for new life.

This is a blog for those interested in the future of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Again, though denominational issues aren’t my favorite subject, I would be remiss not to offer an update. I’ve just returned from a huge gathering of Pastors and Elders in Minnesota who were planning the future of the denomination. Here’s what I take away.

I have to say the gathering of The Fellowship in Minneapolis (#mn2011) is the best Presbyterian conference I’ve been to in fourteen years of ordained ministry. Specifically because it both generated an upbeat atmosphere and because it did something practical.
• It was well attended, with around 2000 people. To put that in perspective, that’s bigger than the gathering of delegates, advisory delegates, and staff to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.
• People were excited to be there and clearly having fun reconnecting with old friends. There was a lot of laughter.
• The worship experience was outstanding.
• The message was direct and had concrete action plans that people could get behind. There was a clear next step when it was over.
• The demographics were surprising. Maybe a quarter or more of the crowd was under 45. There was a significant contingent of young adults, giving it a feel of being a voice of the future of the church.

You have to realize that this is all the more powerful because it is so ironic. What company or enterprise has a huge, nation-wide meeting in which people spend tens of thousands of dollars getting together to talk about the fact that the company is failing. No one does that. That’s outrageous. And that very conference was uplifting, exciting, forward-looking, and hopeful. Nothing about that makes sense. Must be a God thing.

What was most impressive was what the gathering accomplished. The gathering is now a united movement of Presbyterians who will form a New Reformed Body (NRB) for churches who are tired of the failure, incompetency, and conflict of the PC(USA). This body will be ready by a January meeting (in Orlando) to formally accept churches into it. The NRB will include:
1. Churches that will formally ask to be dismissed from the PC(USA) and join the NRB with their property. In so doing, they will most likely also leave the Board of Pensions. In the NRB, congregations own their own property.
2. Churches that will establish a union membership in both the NRB and the PC(USA), making them members of two bodies.
3. Churches that will establish an affiliate membership in the NRB. This might be best for churches for whom deeper commitment might create internal or external conflict.

This is a smart structure on a number of levels.

First, in acknowledging that denominations are dead, it’s an act of living into a new structure which will function differently than a denomination. What exactly that will look like is as yet uncharted territory, meaning the pioneers will most likely get to define it as they go. Bureaucrats will look for paperwork and policies to explain this change, but this is really too innovative to fit into pre-existing boxes.

Second, in allowing for concrete movements with a concrete timeline, it offers an alternative to death-by-status-quo on the one hand or transfer to not altogether appealing denominations on the other. It should calm some of the panic that congregations are feeling.

Third, it’s actually an act of affirming those elements of our tradition which we value while admitting that it’s time for a game-changer. Churches leaving for other denominations, even Presbyterian denominations, have sometimes left a wake of resentment. This at least might be a way of saying that the desire is not so much to leave as to avoid changing the moral and theological positions many of us believe cannot be changed. It’s sort of (oddly) an act of radically staying in place by changing everything.

It may be time to acknowledge that this is a moment like the one that Paul and Barnabas came to, where, for the good of the whole Church, they had to do ministry in different directions. There’s a certain grace to allowing each body to function without persistent threat of conflict and a poor witness to the world. There’s no gain by forced maintenance of the status quo, because, again, the status quo has been 45 years of declining membership and financial hemorrhaging. Change will come fairly soon anyway as systems are no longer able to keep their doors open. We’ve witnessed the closing of SFTS in So. Cal., there are presbyteries switching from full-time to part-time executive presbyters, there have been regular layoffs at the national offices, and there have been budget cuts at every level of the denomination. An optimistic move forward is far better than the alternatives.

So let’s bless it and look for new life.

Many have already heard that the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico has broken its 139 year old ties with the Presbyterian Church (USA) over the decision to allow homosexual ordination.

Now the National Council of the Korean Presbyterian Church of the PCUSA has released this statement:

We are thankful for the missionary work of PCUSA beginning 127 years ago that gave birth to the Korean Presbyterian church. However, the NCKPC, the National Council of the Korean Presbyterian Churches of PCUSA and a faithful body within the denomination, is deeply concerned with the recent constitutional change and declare the following:

1. We express our deepest concern for the recent passage of Amendment 10-A by the majority of the presbyteries which lowered the existing ordination standard.

2. With the amendment, certain presbyteries and sessions can proceed with the ordination of ministers, elders, and deacons practicing same-sex relationships. However, the amendment cannot coerce the evangelical churches, Korean and others, to comply with the change of ordination standards. The Constitution of PCUSA protects this freedom.

3. We are saddened by the secularization of our nation and certain churches that drifted from the values set by the eternal Word of God. The Word of God is our perpetual standard.

4. The NCKPC will neither ordain people practicing same-sex relationships nor recognize such ordination.

5. Uniting our efforts in solidarity with many evangelical churches within PCUSA, the NCKPC pledge ourselves to the renewal of our denomination through the Word of God.

There are 423 Korean churches within the PC(USA), and they have doubled in membership over the last 20 years.

A guy comes to Jesus with a son who is ill saying he can’t heal him. Jesus actually scolds the man. It isn’t very nice. Jesus says, “You unbelieving generation.”

But I kind of like what Jesus is actually doing.

Our tendency is not to admit that we choose not to trust God, but rather insist that we don’t have enough information to decide whether or not to trust God. It’s a bit disingenuous. We like to claim to be agnostic, from the Greek prefix a-, meaning “against” or “without,” and gnosis, which means “knowledge.” What Jesus accuses us of being is apistos, which is “without belief.”

When we claim to be agnostic, we are hedging our bets. We are imagining that there will be some grand trial at the gates of heaven at which the Lord will say, “Why didn’t you believe and obey?” And we will say, “Well you didn’t really give me enough information upon which to make a reasoned decision.” And the Lord will say, “Oh, yeah. My bad.”

See, that trial isn’t going to happen, just fyi.

Because the burden of belief isn’t on God, who has already done enough. The burden of belief is on us, who have sufficient reason to believe.

Honestly, a-gnosis in the Information Age? Learn to Google.

In the end, I just don’t believe that there is such a thing as an agnostic. I don’t have enough information upon which to decide whether or not there are agnostics. I don’t think agnosticism is a viable position, at least not for very long. Here’s why.

In his “On the Heavens,” Aristotle suggests that no human being could stand between food and drink and die of both thirst and starvation, due to the fact that he could not decide which drive was stronger. Jean Buridan picked up the illustration in the modern age and suggested that it was impossible for a mule trapped equidistant from two equally delicious bails of hay to starve to death. The agnostic is in the same place. The agnostic stands perfectly balanced between on the one hand the promise that he was created intentionally, that his life has purpose, that one day he will stand before his maker and give and account of his life, and on the other hand the idea that he is completely free in an empty, accidental universe. I just don’t think you can stand there for very long. The needs and desires of the human heart are far too strong for that.

We live in a broken world in which we lose our children to death and to bad decisions, we lose our marriages, we lose our jobs, we struggle for meaning and purpose. In the end, you’re not going to stay perfectly undecided on something as big as whether or not your life has meaning. You’re either going to live like God is really there, or you’re going to live as though he’s not. The mere fact that we do or do not behave morally proves that we are not agnostic.

So hover in between as long as you can, if you so desire, but sooner or later, we all decide.

If you want to follow our conversation about how we know the story of Jesus is true, you can listen to the sermon series here.

The 2010 statistics are starting to come in.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) lost 61,047 members this year (-2.6%). It lost 97 churches (26 of which left for other denominations). It had 2,163 less baptisms than the previous year. It took in $73 million less than the year before. It has 74 less ministers.

The U.S. population this same year grew by over a million.
Next year, it will have less than 2 million members for the first time.

The United Church of Christ lost 31,500 members (3.5%). They are now around a million members.
The Episcopal Church is down 2.83%, with around 2 million members left.
The ELCA (Lutherans) dropped by 1.99% in 2009, or minus over 90,000 members, their largest annual drop. 2010 statistics are not yet available.

Dear Sonoma,
Today I baptized you. For you it was exciting, because you were the center of attention, and there was a party in your honor afterwards. You understood what it meant and affirmed a core creed that I would want to hear from someone who follows Jesus. But I think having all eyes on you sealed it for you.

I don’t know that you will understand what it meant for me for a long time.

For just a moment I was every parent. Every parent wants to hope away the bad off of their children as easy as a bath. We want to hope away all that might adversely happen to you and all the adversity you might cause. In the back of my mind, I have some rationalized understanding of a God who uses pain, suffering, and even death for redemption, but there’s a part of my heart that would gladly stand between you and all that. I can talk about your character, but I’m mobilized by your safety. I’m not defending this; only confessing.

I realize of course, that when I pray, “Deliver us from evil,” my mind goes to shadowed alleyways in which evil lurks, the kind of evil that would hurt my daughter. But Jesus preempted that line with “Lead us not into temptation,” because the dark alleyways he was concerned with are the ones within us.

So like every parent, I wish I could wash all of the shadows away. Baptism doesn’t do that. But as a symbol, it’s a physical manifestation of that hope. I hope that those parts of my own daughter that would lead her astray might die and something else would grow in its place, submerged and arisen. The only way that can really happen is if I put you in His hands. And that is why, when we stood side by side with our friends at the pool and prayed, I had trouble catching my breath. That was a moment for me in which I had to surrender you to Jesus, knowing that only he can do some of the things that every father would want to do.

Then we tiptoe into the cold water together on an overcast June day. Also particular to fatherhood, I tell you that it isn’t cold at all, and then you put your foot in and roll your eyes at me. We wade out long enough to acclimate. You are smiling and present to the moment. I’m lost somewhere. I start to say the words and have to swallow to get them out. You disappear for a second.

I wonder if in the moment of incarnation the Father had trouble catching his breath because of all that he hoped for his Son and for all of his children. I wonder if he knows the feeling of wanting to do it quick to keep from crying.

Then you are up again, smiling. Everyone applauds and I exhale.

At the house there are friends and cake and more attention, all of which suit you well. One of your observations later in the day, after everyone leaves, apparently unrelated, is, “Two of my favorite words that begin with ‘F’ are ‘famous’ and ‘fabulous.’” Sure enough, that was today.

Now you are baptized, and again I feel the sense for why we call God “Father.” We share in the feelings of the one who made us, who died for us and who rose, who watches us be born in a world in which we die, and who has given us a way to rise.

Our little reenactments are pale shadows of the real thing, only impressions that are meant to touch our hearts with a sense of it. But in those moments we get a feel for God. Our rites are like a child invading a father’s wardrobe and dressing up like him in oversized clothes that we will one day grow into. I hope that in these younger years you dress like Jesus and then grow into him.

Two of my favorite words that begins with ‘F’ are “Father” and “faithful.”

Love,
Papa

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3

When I saw the “over a million copies sold” branded on the front cover, I figured this would be a shallow, health and wealth guide to getting rich in God’s name. I was pleasantly mistaken. It’s not a sophisticated work, but I can see why it’s selling. It’s a thoughtful and energetic attempt to reframe the way most American Christians see their money and belongings. It’s goal is to help us to let go a bit and give a bit more, and I think it’s succeeding.

The great part of Alcorn’s work is that he walks us through his own experiences, both of giving and of losing money without meaning to. His fascinating personal story includes moments at which he could have lost everything and the successful course he charted into becoming a radical giver.

I’m going to guess that the primary customers of this book have been pastors and non-profit managers (who, if they’re wise, have given out this book by the boxful). But the reality is that any Christian who knows that they aren’t particularly generous will find an encouraging challenge to give that emphasizes rationale rather than playing upon guilt.

I didn’t expect to say this when I started the book, but I’d recommend it. I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. And honestly, they’ve been sending me some great books.

There are height tick marks charting my children’s growth in fading pencil on the kitchen wall. One day they will be painted away as childhood has been by time’s brush, and it will be only a solitary, fuzzy snapshot in our memory. The lowest ones are as faint as the babyhood of my tall little boy. The pencil, the memories, and he, I can hardly keep up with as they go running away. Wouldn’t it be humble of mortal humanity to see most of life’s tick marks as a memory of heaven, written in pencil and fading, hardly stored in the eternal history books?

So Glenkirk Church is trying a new experiment in mission and world-awareness. We’re eating on $2/day this week. Around half of the world’s population lives on $2 US per day, so we together as a congregation are trying to eat on a diet of $2 of food per day (note: not for people with health issues or dietary issues and not for children).

In the middle of my dining table is a box that says “$2″ on it. Each day, we’ll put $2 in it to donate to our church’s work with the poor at the end of the week. And each day at dinner, we’ll talk with our kids about the world we live in and what Jesus wants to do in this world. And each day we’ll be a little bit hungry.

My friend Christine Prince has provided us a creative menu to choose from.

The Christian discipline of fasting is one that believers have used to clutter free their souls in order to create a vacuum that God might fill. This simple fast through the course of the week is meant to clear our hearts of self-indulgence to make room for the love that God has been wanting to put there. I hope if you’re doing it with me, you’ll tough it out for the sake of our souls.

Glenkirk Church is working with a creative mission organization called Cargo of Dreams.

The idea is that Cargo of Dreams drops off a container (not Tupperware; the kind that goes on ships) at your church and provides instructions on how your congregation can transform it into a school, hospital, or office building. You paint it, build the interior, and stock it with appropriate supplies. You do the work together as a congregation over the course of a few months, then Cargo of Dreams ships the container to its intended location. The recipients simply cut windows and doors in the container itself and their building is built.

It’s Habitat for Humanity with a postage stamp.

In our case, Glenkirk is building a preschool for a group of children in a Black township in South Africa who currently hold their class meetings outdoors in a field.

The advantages to this unique kind of mission are numerous. It gets a much wider circle of the congregation involved in world missions than we could have by requiring people to fly overseas. It costs less than flying a team overseas to build the same building. It gives the congregation a galvanizing project to gather around, working together towards a valuable goal. And it’s obedient to Jesus. Cargo of Dreams works with churches both on the sending and on the receiving end, so it’s a work of the Kingdom and it’s clear to all spectators that it’s an act of the Christian Church. It’s attractive to people who aren’t Christian but who happen to find themselves at Glenkirk, because this is the kind of things that even non-church-attenders know the church ought to be doing. Further, it should serve as inspiration for those interested in Christian mission to think outside the box of familiar patterns of mission work.

That to say, I recommend it. We’re doing it, and so should your church. Check out their website if you want more information.