The Missional Church

Digesting the Mid-Councils Commission Report

Leave a Comment / New Form of Government (nFOG), PCUSA, The Missional Church / By /

The Mid-Councils Commission Report came out over the weekend, and I am digesting it. A few brief comments today, and then I will elaborate on some specific areas of importance as the week goes along. There is much in this report to be very excited about. The topic of missional leadership is dear to my heart, the subject of a class I will be teaching at Fuller Seminary starting next week. As I have been reading the report, there are many sections I think would be excellent conversation starters in the class, “The Missional Church and Its Leadership.” The paper […]

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Is Giving Up an Option?

3 Comments / Fellowship of Presbyterians, New Zealand, PCUSA, The Missional Church / By /

When I went to New Zealand on vacation, my intention was to leave “work” behind, which these days includes thinking strategicially about the role of evangelicals within Presbyterian Church. So on one of our long-drive days around the North Island, I was startled to see a Presbyterian church on the main street through a particular town. I just hadn’t thought about it in advance, and therefore was surprised to find a kin on this Pacific island. Now on the lookout, I discovered several congregations, although most were union churches, often paired with the Methodists. When kayaking was ruled out one

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A New Job, and Renewed Vision

7 Comments / 2012th General Assembly (Pittsburgh), Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, Personal, The Missional Church / By /

As you may have heard by now, the Presbyterian Coalition has appointed me its new “Renewal Director” effective January 1, 2012. You can read more about the Coalition and its purpose on its website.  I am delighted with this appointment on many levels and feel that God orchestrated the various factors to bring about this result. I have previously served on the Board, and one year as a Co-Moderator, so the Coalition family is familiar and dear to me. It will be a privilege to serve with this organization, for Kingdom purposes in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). My vision for

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Light in a Dark World

1 Comment / PCUSA, The Missional Church / By /

The sixth reason why individual Presbyterians must be equipped for stand-alone discipleship is perhaps the most obvious one: we have an incredible challenge to evangelize our own PCUSA tribe, the “world” of which we are a part. A word of explanation about terms: We are hearing more Presbyterians talk about the missional challenge before us, but they may not be referring to the same dynamic I am. Many groups are co-opting the term “missional,” but its original meaning (according to authors like Michael Frost and Darryl Guder) has to do with incarnational ministry outside the church-circle. A missional advance is

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When Not to Listen

4 Comments / PCUSA, The Missional Church, Theological Reflection / By /

For the first time in decades, my husband and I are singing in the same choir, he in the bass section, me with the sopranos. It’s a small group, twenty in number, comprising staff and volunteers of the local hospital. This week we begin a series of thirty-minute concerts for the hospital’s seasonal events, corporate dinners, and convalescent facilities. Our director is getting very picky now, which is to be expected, demanding blend. The challenge is particularly acute for the sopranos, who make up almost half of the whole chorus. The exhortation is to “listen to one another and stay

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Please Pass the Salt

Leave a Comment / Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, Sermon on the Mount, The Missional Church, Theological Reflection / By /

In this week’s Sermon on the Mount Bible class on Matthew 5:13-16, the discussion revolved around the uses of salt and the Christian calling Jesus was talking about when he said, “You are the salt of the earth.”  It came down to two categories: salt is good as a flavor-enhancer, and salt is good as a decay inhibitor. One class participant is a fire fighter who cooks for his company and at home for his wife. He delighted us with a description of how salt makes another food taste more like itself. The point of salting, he said, was not

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Market-Driven Mission (Jobs, Spahr, and the PCUSA)

7 Comments / Current Events, PCUSA, The Missional Church / By /

Three topics converge today in a swirl of reflections brought on by the day’s news: 1) The death of Steve Jobs, founder and innovator of Apple, 2) the announcement that Janie Spahr has again officiated at a wedding of a gay couple, and both in light of 3) the missional calling of the PCUSA. First, a disclosure:  I am an “Apple person.” I have owned an Apple computer since 1990 and introduced two church staffs to its wonders. Something about the right-brain utility of Apple products, the intuitive user interface, has worked for me all these years. Perhaps because I

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Missional Diaspora Could Make the Difference

3 Comments / PCUSA, Sermon on the Mount, The Missional Church / By /

Yesterday I proposed the possibility that a dispersal of Presbyterians might be the right thing to happen, if such a diaspora scatters the seed of the gospel on new soil (Matthew 13:3-9). But I can hear the complaints of the saints (“saints” in the New Testament refers to anyone who believes and trusts Christ): “I don’t want to be scattered in the world in which I live; it’s not safe out there! I would rather stay in the confines of the church and build it up and bring people to it.” If this actually worked in today’s world, I would

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Dandelion Dynamics: Is Dispersing the Worst Thing to Happen?

6 Comments / Fellowship of Presbyterians, Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, The Missional Church / By /

This week’s posts have mused ever so briefly on why it is imperative that the Presbyterian Church hang on to the idea of “essentials of Reformed faith and polity” and to know what those essentials are. The recent Synod PJC decision in Parnell et al v. San Francisco Presbytery, if applied throughout the church, would deconstruct Presbyterianism as we know it.  When the values of “mutual forbearance” and “thoughtful disagreement” are carried to their extremes, the denomination loses its grip on “the Scriptures, our only rule of faith and manners” and “the essentials of Reformed faith and polity.”  What is

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One Last Time: It’s the Essentials, Stupid!

5 Comments / Parnell v. San Francisco, PCUSA, The Missional Church, Theological Reflection / By /

There are a lot of issues to distract Presbyterians right now. The white noise comes from all quarters, as various subgroups of the denomination try to get the attention of people in the pew. Interpretations of past events and actions fly, as in a Louisville staffer commenting in a webinar about the Mexican church’s alienation from the PCUSA: “Amendment 10-A did not really have to do with sexuality, it was about a person submitting in all aspects of his life to the Lordship of Christ!”[1] The smoke and mirrors, the denial, even the incredulity some of my presbytery colleagues show

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