Bringing the Word to Life

For one group of Presbyterians, the waters are not churning white-water but the going-nowhere stillness of the doldrums. Or, to use another analogy, this group is stuck in the gridlock of a traffic jam, either unable to move from one place to another or thwarted from getting into the flow of traffic at all. I am speaking of “unattached pastors,” those ordained teaching elders (Ministers of Word and Sacrament) who, for one reason or another, cannot find or take a call in a local congregation. As the PCUSA reorganizes itself, along the lines proposed by the Fellowship of Presbyterians, the

I had no idea bicycle racing was a team sport until the Tour de France captured the America’s imagination in 1999. The U.S. Postal Service team enabled Lance Armstrong to win the race six times under its sponsorship. The team has two sections: the support team and the cycling team. The support team includes people responsible for the equipment, cyclists’ medical care, coaching, local arrangements, and marketing. The cycling team includes the captain and specialists in climbing, sprinting, time trials, and defensive strategy. The general idea is for all the team members to unite their efforts to support the captain’s

Lloyd Ogilvie, in a family camp talk delivered at Mount Hermon decades ago, employed a vivid image my husband and I still use to identify a critical skeptic.  A grave digger toiled on a hot, muggy day to fashion a perfect, sharp-cornered grave. Before the casket arrived to receive its earthly embrace, a sour chap sidled up to the edge of the pit and kicked some dirt into it.  “There,” he groused to the grave-digger, “you missed some.”  Ogilvie likened this “dirt-kicker” to those in the church who can never affirm or be satisfied with the ministry efforts of others.

Those known affectionately as the Seven Dwarfs[1] saw the initial purpose of their Letter to the PCUSA (dated February 2, 2011) as getting a national conversation going. They certainly accomplished that! Reactions to their initiative have ranged from “Who do they think they are?” to “Oh, good, somebody will provide the ultimate solution to our problem!” My blogs last week attempted to address those two extreme reactions: resistance to self-appointed leadership and idol-worship. This week, I would like to unpack four changes of attitude I think are necessary for the evangelical wing of the Presbyterian Church to get its act

Those following the progress of the Fellowship of Presbyterians stand on tippy-toes awaiting something about to happen. People were waiting for the Minneapolis meeting to unfold. People are waiting to see how a theological statement comes together and a polity maze is navigated. Now people are waiting for the Orlando meeting in January. Some, not all, Presbyterians feel themselves to be “on hold.” Perhaps they are waiting for the next Session meeting at their church, or a pastoral letter from their teaching elder. Maybe it’s just Labor Day Weekend, the end of summer . . . in any case, some

One of the biggest challenges of a new movement within the Presbyterian Church is the leadership challenge. How are the people of God to be led through the adaptive changes necessary to shape the Fellowship of Presbyterians (FOP) and the New Reformed Body (NRB)? What makes this area particularly difficult among evangelicals is that they carry a gene resistant to national leadership, something akin to a cat’s aversion to a leash. What I share in this post is the result of observations made over decades while serving four churches in various capacities, including senior pastor, and two evangelically-minded boards, one