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Is There Anything “New” under the Sun?—Part I

6 Comments / Death & Dying, It All Started in the Garden, PCUSA, Spiritual Disciplines, Teaching, Theological Reflection / By /

[Got sidetracked yesterday, first with Jury Duty and then with the Giants-Pirates wildcard match-up last night. Okay, I am back in focus!] In my last post, I suggested that just because something is new or experimental, it does not necessarily follow that it is good or orthodox. The catalyst for my comments was an “outside the box” worship service conducted during the last meeting of San Francisco Presbytery.  It makes sense now to explore whether the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other historic mainline denominations have fallen off the deep end in their efforts to try something new. The motivation, it […]

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What Sort of “New” Is Acceptable in the PC(USA)?

10 Comments / 2012th General Assembly (Pittsburgh), 221st General Assembly (2014), Essential Tenets of the Reformed Faith, GAPJC Decisions, Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, Spiritual Disciplines, Teaching, The Missional Church / By /

One of the first things a counselor (of any type) will tell you is that if you want to change a behavior, the best place to start is by monitoring what your current behavior is. If you want to change your eating habits, for instance, you would keep a food log for a couple weeks to observe what you are actually putting in your mouth. Then when it is time to start the behavioral change project, you know where your points of vulnerability are, you know how much of a change is required, and you get a pretty good idea

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Self-Maintenance and the Life I’d Rather Lead

1 Comment / Food, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Frustration has risen lately, as I struggle to manage a different life than I had been leading in BC days. There are so many things I must do everyday in the category of “self-maintenance,” it feels like a full-time job. Whereas I used to track progress in maybe seven concurrent work projects, my new routine includes management of: Medications, which are taken at 7 a.m., 7 p.m., and at bedtime. Some of these meds are my old standbys for “before cancer” (BC) conditions, but the new batch addresses the aftermath of lung cancer and surgery. Two different inhalers (with different

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Is Creativity Allowed in Presbyterian Worship?

4 Comments / Current Events, Leadership and Spirituality, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Every fiber of my Reformed body cringed during my presbytery’s worship time two weeks ago, described in yesterday’s post. Among people who should have known better, what we did together was not worship. It certainly was an experience—I’ll grant you that—but because it dwelled on ourselves and our experience of our bodies and never even acknowledged God’s presence, it was nothing like what you would call Reformed Worship. In the note I finally received yesterday from our executive presbyter, Jeff Hutcheson acknowledged that the service was “outside the box,” but shared his own spiritual experience through it as significant and

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The Misdirection of Worship: A Case in Point

8 Comments / 2012th General Assembly (Pittsburgh), 221st General Assembly (2014), Leadership and Spirituality, PCUSA, Peace Unity & Purity, Personal / By /

Lest one thinks that idolatrous worship was a problem only eons ago, as illustrated in yesterday’s post, even today within the PC(USA) it is possible to find events promoted as worship experiences that are anything but. A case in point: the after-dinner “worship” on the agenda of San Francisco Presbytery’s regular meeting of September 9. The “Order of Worship” handed out to us as we entered the sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church of Oakland consisted of the following elements: a call to worship, opening song, Scripture exploration, Communion & Community Prayer, Announcements, Closing Song, and Benediction. The experience unfolded in

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Deuteronomy and the Worship Wars

2 Comments / Uncategorized / By /

I was going to begin today’s blog with a reflection on worship wars as they emerge in Deuteronomy, the book of the Bible I am reading as part of my daily discipline. I got as far as chapter 4:1-20 and realized I had to go back to the time and events of the Exodus. Deuteronomy is the “fifth book of Moses,” and it starts out with the Israelites poised on the threshold of the promised land (Canaan). Moses is recounting their history and the instructions that had been given to them by God on Mount Sinai (referred to here as

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“Hot Off the Press”: One Way to Organize Sensitive Discussions on World Topics

3 Comments / Current Events, History, PCUSA, Teaching, Theological Reflection / By /

In earlier posts, found here and here, I shared a couple of methods for generating discussion on topics needing theological reflection. I used 4-MAT and Case Studies often in the Fuller Seminary classes I taught. Versions of both have been helpful in the church Sunday school context, but I fell upon a less formal approach that got excellent traction in the last church I served. Years ago, I started an adult Sunday school class we called “Hot Off the Press.” The idea was to engage in discussion of world and national events from a faith perspective. My agenda was to

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Information Overload

6 Comments / Current Events, History, Personal / By /

One of the 21st century’s greatest blessings is also its greatest curse. I’m speaking of information technology that has given us the Internet, the World Wide Web, not to mention social networking. It used to be that one found out what was happening in the world by radio broadcast or newspaper. As an aside, one of my all-time favorite museums is the Newseum in Washington, D.C. (next door to the Canadian embassy). Worth the price of admission is the amazing collection on Level 5 called the News Corporation News History Gallery. This display covers more than 500 years of news

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Unspeakable Sadness

3 Comments / 221st General Assembly (2014), Current Events, Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, PCUSA, Personal, Theological Reflection / By /

Going back to my original list of reasons for not blogging this summer, today I address the experience of sadness. Several things piled on over time and rendered me still before God, downcast in spirit: • my mother’s death after a sudden and short illness, in early April • the developing news of my friend Steve Hayner’s pancreatic cancer • actions of General Assembly, particularly regarding same-sex marriage • the beheading of innocents at the hands of ISIS • the escalating death toll due to Ebola in West Africa • devastating wildfires in California, at or near some of my

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Breathing Lessons and the Big Contest

2 Comments / Death & Dying, Leadership and Spirituality, Lung Cancer, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

I celebrated a milestone of sorts today, the last session of a pulmonary rehabilitation class I have been taking to learn how to breathe and manage my air. A group of twelve has met for a total of 36 hours over these last seven weeks, instructed by respiratory therapists, physical therapists, nutritionists, pharmacists, psychotherapists, and doctors. We have been supervised in the gym for a minimum of 1½ hours of tailor-made exercises each class day, and we marked our progress. We are now considered “educated patients” who have learned how to observe our health status and to know when to

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