Musings from Minnema
June 22, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I
hope the beginning of summer finds you well and that you have great
plans for enjoying (what we all hope will be) these warmer and
slower days. John Calvin was often at pains to teach us that God
made the world for our enjoyment as well as for our utility so
taking the time for delighting in God’s creation is a legitimate way
to glorify our Maker.
But
speaking of Calvin I have been spending much of my leisure time
recently in reading a number of good books about the implications of
his theology for economic life.
For many years I have taken a week of vacation in the summer
to visit Guatemala and to offer some pastor friends there a workshop
(they call it a “Capacitacion.”) on whatever subject they choose.
So this year, they have invited me back in mid-July and asked
me to make a series of presentations on Calvin’s views on economics.
Thus, I am preparing.
This whole story is a fascinating one. Many years ago a scholar
named Max Weber published a number of books alleging that Calvinism
had provided the spiritual engine of capitalism. Weber’s theories
gained such notoriety that this idea prevailed in “the popular mind”
and many people assumed that the Calvinism Weber found at the heart
of capitalism was a faithful reflection of the great Reformer’s
original teaching!
Then in the latter years of the twentieth century, things started to
change. Scholars woke up to the fact that Weber’s thesis may have
pertained to Calvin’s heirs but not to the man himself. A French
scholar named Andre Bieler wrote a great book on Calvin’s economics
in the middle of the century but it was not translated into English
until the century end.
When it was, an international convocation was convened in Geneva in
2004 to bring together other scholars to look again at Calvin’s
economics. Another book
came out of that. So now
we are at last beginning to distinguish what Calvin really said as
opposed to what many people, listening through the ears of Weber,
had always assumed he said.
The
more I have read and thought about what Calvin actually taught, the
more convinced I am of the relevance of his ideas for us today.
My friends in Guatemala understand this and thus made their
invitation to me. It would also be good if we in the Presbytery of
the Northern Plains could give this topic some attention. So let me
give you a little sampling of what I am learning from Calvin about
the way in which he was able to integrate his theology with his
economics. I want to describe four of his more significant
convictions.
First of all, I am convinced that Calvin gave so much attention to
economic life because he saw it as a prime arena in which we humans,
with the proper faith, can experience on a daily basis the
providential care of our Creator. Over and over, in his sermons and
other writings he urges us to remember that it is God who supplies
the materials with which we work, the opportunities we have to work,
the energy and skills with which we work
and the blessings we reap
from our work. So we should not secularize our economic lives as if
God has no role in them but rather take every opportunity we have to
thank and praise God for daily provision. One writer even suggests
that for Calvin economic life is nearly sacramental in its ability
to convey God’s grace to the faithful!
Secondly, if our economic life is a prime arena in which we
experience the grace of God to us it is likewise a prime arena in
which we show our gratitude to God through our work, the way we
approach it and the way we treat others. Every faithful worker is,
Calvin believed, a grateful steward of the gifts of God who shows
that gratitude in whatever form of work he or she is led to
undertake, in the way he or she uses the profits resulting from that
work and in the way he or she relates to others in the economy. One
strong conclusion of this, that Calvin frequently stressed, was that
all work was valuable and thus no worker should be exploited or
denied a fair and living wage!
More than just “market forces” needed to be part of the
equation here.
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The poverty of Christ was one of the supreme marks of his royalty and, as a result, “consecrates” all poverty.
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Christ’s embrace of poverty has direct implications for the church and for the individual Christian: neither is ever able, faithfully, to bask in the lap of luxury.
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Though some disparity between rich and poor is necessary (Calvin rejected the communism of the Anabaptists before him) the rich have been entrusted with their excess wealth so as to be able to help the poor. (In several sermons, Calvin says that the rich who withhold what the poor need from them are nearly guilty of murder!)
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On the other hand, poverty in itself does not convey virtue unless a poor person learns in such conditions how to place his or her complete trust in God.
Finally, the
implications of all of this for the church were astonishing (and
have much to teach us). Calvin organized two kinds of deacons: one
to collect funds from wealthy members and the other to distribute
them to the poor through various programs designed to help them out
of their poverty. Many
of the poor thus helped were French refugees who then found a haven
in the church and added to its life. As the church welcomed Christ
in their poorer neighbors, Christ blessed the church.
I
think our churches today could benefit from thinking a lot about
this history. Sometimes we get so preoccupied with our own
institutional survival that if we think at all about welcoming new
people it is about new people who are like us and can contribute
like us to the church. Calvin – and Jesus before him – would remind
us that embracing the poor (including the refugee) in some way,
shape or form may still be one of the truest marks that the kingdom
of God is drawing near to us, to our churches and to our
communities.
And, as always, I thank you for thinking with me.
Peace,
Steve Minnema
June 15, 2010
Dear Friends in
the Presbytery,
We
had a good time in Jamestown and may have even felt the moving of
the Creative Spirit among us. I was particularly grateful for Sue
Coller’s thought provoking keynote address. I went away from that
asking myself a number of questions. As leaders in the church do we
normally notice, appreciate and thus re-enforce conformity or
creativity? Are we so stuck in a certain way of being church,
acquired in our formative years, that we can hardly imagine, let
alone embody, any other way? And are we so afraid of failing, if we
try something new, that repeating old patterns feels like our only
safe choice?
But
it is always important for us to remember that it may well be in
just such questions that we can find the seeds of the new creation.
Having a clear and straight road forward is both unlikely and
undesirable. We learn to trust as we follow the twists and turns of
a winding road that is always bringing us to new struggles
and new surprises.
So
where are we as a Presbytery on the winding road that we hope will
take us to the future God desires for us? Though we have made
several attempts to address this question, there still seems to be
some confusion so another attempt seems to be in order. (My general
feeling, when I’m on a journey like this one, is that it’s nearly
impossible to over-communicate.)
Before my arrival the presbytery discerned that it was being called
to become “a vibrant, informed Presbyterian community that nurtures
ministry and joins in Christ’s mission.”
I was called for a
limited time to help the Presbytery to live into this mission and
determine the most effective, faithful and sustainable way for it to
organize itself going forward. In August of last year, presbytery’s
council identified the four outcomes they wanted to see from this
transition time:
-
We will identify our core values on the way to discerning our priorities…
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We will identify and affirm the gifts of people, train them and match their gifts with the work of the presbytery…
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We will determine an affordable staffing plan and mission structure and describe it in new by-laws…
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We will evaluate and revise our means of communication as one step toward engaging congregations in the presbytery and engendering connection and trust.
In Bismarck, in
October of 2009, we engaged in an exercise to identify our core
values.
In January,
council authorized the creation of a transition task force to work
with me in planning the transition process. At the February, 2010
meeting in Grand Forks, commissioners spent an extended time in
small groups working with our core values and a list of all the
activities in which the presbytery
might engage. They then
sought to identify a smaller list of possibilities which represent
our current sense of priority.
Following this meeting, the transition task force designed a process
to engage the sessions of the presbytery in reviewing the smaller
list coming out of Grand Forks and giving us their feedback.
Twenty-five sessions responded and their feedback was shared
with commissioners in Jamestown.
With that in hand, commissioners then divided, by their own
choice, into six groups to give a final shape to our priorities
moving forward.
I
do not have space here to include all the details of the six
priorities but I do want to summarize what emerged. The first group
looked at what needs to be our priority as we try to strengthen the
connections between congregations and presbytery.
Their answer was that we need to find new ways (such as
through sister church relationships in the presbytery) to connect
congregations with congregations for the sharing of best practices
and worship exchanges. Group two looked at what needs to be our
priority in reclaiming our heritage. They believed that a variety of
curricula stressing Presbyterian basics needs to be developed and
utilized around the presbytery – for confirmation, officer training,
etc. Group three looked at leadership development and proposed that
we hold regular clergy and elder retreats focusing on our vision and
ministry. Group four looked at nourishing ministry and concluded
that the Presbytery’s priority needs to be the recognition that both
individuals and congregations in the presbytery are gifted and that
the presbytery needs to find a way to identify, affirm and evoke
those gifts for our common work. (This is actually the third outcome
mentioned below.) Group five was asked for a priority as we seek to
join in Christ’s mission.
They had what they felt was a significant conversation but
concluded that our priority going forward was to continue that
conversation until we reach clarity on how to do this. And group
six, looking at communication, wants the presbytery to make a
priority of “crossing the digital divide” by making use of a greater
variety of technological means to enable congregations to connect
with Christ’s mission in the world.
At
the end of the meeting, presbytery endorsed these priorities and
referred them to council for further discussion. But the transition
task force will now be turning its attention to outcomes two and
three.
There are a variety of ways in which we might put in place a process
to identify the gifts of people, train them and recruit them so that
their gifts match the work we are asking them to undertake. Clearly,
we will want to talk about the nominating process. We may want to
look at ways of creating a data bank with the preferences and gifts
of ministers, elders and clp’s available to those looking to fill
positions. We may want to review how the ministry team approach is
working. The goal is clear enough: we want a presbytery in which the
people who want to work feel that their gifts are valued and put to
good use for the common good.
Finally, we will need to make a beginning this year on identifying a
variety of models for the presbytery’s institutional life, including
such things as its staffing, its budget, its organization and the
location of its office.
Though it is more likely that decisions about these matters will
have to be made in 2011, our conversation about these questions will
likely need to begin later this year.
We
are not neglecting outcome four.
Early on, we agreed that everything we did needed to
contribute to this outcome.
(That was why we put it in the middle of the triangle.) So,
for instance, the session conversations that just occurred were
aimed at helping sessions feel more engaged in the planning process.
What is more, the priority identified by group six in
Jamestown will also address this goal.
In the meantime, I continue to take every opportunity I can
to meet with sessions and tell this story so that they can get a
sense of what’s happening and how they can be involved.
Are
we pleased with how everything has gone?
Of course not. Anyone of us can step back, take a look at the
whole journey and say, “We could have done better here or there.”
But the fact of the matter is that a lot of people and churches have
participated in this process and slowly, though not without a lot of
“ifs” and “buts,” a consensus is emerging about where we are going
and how we are going to get there together. The priorities
identified in Jamestown are one piece of it.
As we keep trusting the Creative Spirit in our midst, we can
expect to see an even clearer picture emerge in the year ahead.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
Peace to You,
Steve Minnema
June 8, 2010
Dear Colleagues
and Friends in the Presbytery,
It’s a busy week around the presbytery office as we prepare for the
weekend meeting in Jamestown. I
am very excited about the fact that at last count we had 67 people
registered for the meeting. I believe we are in for a memorable time
of worship, work, learning and fellowship.
You won’t want to miss it!
Our
agenda will be punctuated, frequently, by moments of meditation
drawn from our theme and the texts chosen by the transition task
force. We are seeking to learn, as individuals and as a presbytery,
how to live meditatively in and from God’s word to us. The idea is
that such deep listening allows us to move into God’s perspective
and, from that vantage point, to see the new things God desires to
bring forth. Without
such deep listening, we remain mired in our own perspectives and can
only see what we are accustomed to seeing. Deep listening takes
time, concentration and receptivity.
It is a discipline that can be acquired by practice. It
brings us closer to God.
In
this practice, one can never hear the same text too many times. Each
new hearing is another invitation to let go of our distractions and
focus our attention on the message God has prepared for us.
Thus, I invite you to start right now with one of the main
texts for the weekend: Isaiah 42:5-9.
Thus says God, the Lord, who created the
heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what
comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to
those who walk in it: I am the Lord, I have called you in
righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have
given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to
open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the
dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord,
that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to
idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I
now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
As
we prepare to listen deeply to this text, it is helpful to recall
the many similarities between our situation in the church today and
that of Israel when the Lord spoke these words to them through
Isaiah. They were an exiled and dispirited people who were
frequently tempted to think that their best days were behind them
and their future bleaker than bleak. Even their sense of being a
chosen community had broken down and they were starting to act as if
it was everyone for him or herself. God, they thought, had deserted
them and left them to a desperate destiny that represented a worse
fate than that of their idolatrous neighbors. Energy was thus
depleted, hope gone and new possibilities non-existent.
Then comes this word through Isaiah.
And if it is deeply heard, it
conveys nothing less than the same power that raises Christ – and us
with him – from the dead. That is why we would be wise, as
individuals and as a Presbytery, to pay attention.
It
is almost impossible to describe how a text like this “works,” how
it is able, the more we let ourselves live in it, to restore us to
life and transform us. But sometimes paraphrasing a passage like
this can be a helpful way for each of us to say to one another,
“Here’s what I hear.
What do you hear?”
And what I hear goes something like this:
It’s me, your
Maker, who’s talking to you now. I gave you the breath of life so I
am more than ready to give you the Spirit that renews your life. I
am not through with you! In fact, I am hanging on to you so that I
can use you as witnesses to my faithfulness and servants of my
saving work in the world. I am the Lord and I will be glorified so
stop looking backward and start expecting signs of a new creation.
So
what do you hear? If I
could suggest one way for you to prepare for this presbytery
meeting, it would be that you spend some time meditating and praying
over this text and maybe even writing your own paraphrase of what it
is saying to you. Then,
when we come together, we will do so with a common conviction as to
Whose we are and Whom we are called – and privileged – to serve.
See you in
Jamestown,
Steve Minnema
June 1, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I
hope this finds you rested and refreshed after a long holiday
weekend and that it was a good time for being with family and
remembering those we have loved and lost. I had the opportunity
myself to visit my dad’s grave yesterday and found that to be a
tender time for bringing to mind the many ways in which he shared
his life with my mother, my brothers and me. It’s important, every
once in a while, to recall the debt we owe to those who have loved
us and given themselves to and for us.
It
was one year ago today that I assumed this role as your interim
executive director. That would seem to make this a good time to do a
little reflecting and projecting. What has happened in the last year
and what does it portend for the future? Have there been any clear
signs of God’s presence and work among us? If so, where do they
point us as we look forward?
And might the
conclusions we draw offer us some perspective as we prepare for the
upcoming presbytery meeting in Jamestown and the work on priorities
that will take place there? I invite you to join me in exploring
some of these questions.
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It’s ok to be in the dark so long as you remember that
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God uses our darkness to teach us to trust.
I
began my work with you in the midst of a lot of darkness. As most of
you know, there were many unresolved tensions in the life of the
presbytery, between persons, within congregations and between
congregations and presbytery. Would these tensions persist and lead
to hurtful conflict? Or would we learn to accept one another with
our differences and figure out how to work together? And there were
numerous uncertainties about the future shape of the presbytery’s
life? What are our priorities?
Who gets to determine them? And if we can agree on our
priorities, do we have the resources to devote to them? Can we get
organized efficiently to make use of the resources we have? How does
the presbytery need to be staffed going forward? Is there a future
for the Presbyterian tradition on the Great Plains, given the larger
number of churches that seem to be in decline? Is it even part of
God’s plan for the future of the Great Plains that there be a
distinctive Presbyterian witness here?
If so, what is that distinctive witness?
In
the midst of such darkness, one is frequently tempted to yield to
anxiety and that takes several forms.
Sometimes, we panic and go into an emotional tailspin that
depletes us and leaves us exhausted.
At other times, we use such anxiety as a spur to assume
greater and greater control of anything that we can take hold of and
feel like we can push in the right direction. And, at other times,
the anxiety of such dark times leads us into intense conflict with
others in the belief that “Someone has to be blamed for this
darkness so find your favorite target and punish him or her.”
But
none of these strategies succeed in doing any more than diverting
our attention from our main quandary: we still don’t know where
we’re going nor how we’re going to get there! So that leads me back
to the quote I mentioned earlier. Where we are going in the
darkness, if we are open to realizing it, is into a more deeply
trusting relationship with our Maker. Such a relationship, emerging
in the depths of our current not knowing, is
both our highest priority
and our most distinctive
witness as Presbyterians. Our Brief Statement of Faith sums up
centuries of Presbyterian conviction when it begins, “In life and in
death we belong to God.” That is what we know on one level but have
to be re-taught, time and again, before it sinks into our bones and
our souls and brings us real rest.
But
learning to trust in the darkness encourages us to open our eyes and
see all the manna we’ve been missing because it doesn’t look like
the meals we were hoping for. And in my year with you in this
darkness, here are a few forms of manna I have noticed:
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The Landscape of the Great Plains (of which I get to see a lot) has a rugged and spacious beauty that is charged with the Glory of God;
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Presbyterians on the Great Plains have a rich heritage of working together to love and serve God and neighbor;
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Old tensions can be softened if people will “speak the truth in love” and listen.
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The Word of God has power to enlighten our darkness.
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Oftentimes in the midst of darkness, the best gift is framing a question that enlightens your dilemma.
-
Being in the darkness together is life-giving.
-
Conveying appreciation to one another is invariably encouraging.
Many times throughout the past year I have returned to the Book of Ephesians in the belief that, for some reason, its wisdom was just what we were needing at this time. So let me close with its great benediction (6:23-24):
Peace be to the
whole community, and love with faith, from God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who have an undying love for
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Yours in his
Service,
Steve Minnema
May 25, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
Greetings to you in this very young season of Pentecost!
I hope your worship on Sunday filled you with the Spirit and
thus empowered you to communicate with others about the good news
and to invite them to join with you in the beloved (and very
diverse) community God is creating in and through us.
At least, that’s what I think Pentecost is all about and I
was grateful to be in a worship service in Devils Lake on Sunday
where those themes were prominent.
In
an effort to mark this new season – and to help us explore a few of
its implications – I want to tell you four stories from my recent
interactions with individuals and churches around the presbytery.
Afterward, I will try to draw from this little collection a
few lessons for Pentecost.
First, someone recently sent me a link to a fifteen minute video he
had seen that he thought I might enjoy.
I did. The video featured a man asking an intriguing question
and offering an even more intriguing answer.
Question: What do Apple Computer, Martin Luther King and the
Wright Brothers have in common?
Answer: Unlike their competitors who stressed the what and
how of their activities, they stressed the why and thus invited
others into a common belief in the great value of their enterprise.
Second, I had the opportunity to preach in Watford City recently to
a small congregation actively wondering what its future needs to be
to serve God’s purposes. I was led to suggest to them, from my text
from Ephesians 4:7-16 and from the mission motto of the PC(USA),
that our main work, today and always, is “to grow the church deep
and wide.” “We must grow
up in every way into Christ…” (4:15). And we must “promote the
body’s growth…”(4:16). This is God’s calling to us.
And if we are tempted to evade it because of doubts about the
time or circumstances or even about ourselves, we might want to ask,
“If not now, when? If
not here, where? If not
us, who?”
Third, one of our pastors has been urging me to look at the growth
out west, particularly in Williston, and to see if we should be
re-thinking the decision made several years ago to end our witness
there. As I was contemplating this, I very accidentally met a couple
from Williston who had worshiped in our church there before it
closed. They still live
there but attend another church now. “I have a theory about why
churches close,” the man told me. “They lose their desire to reach
out to others with the good news of God’s love.”
Finally, I’ll go back to Devils Lake. Walking into that church
sanctuary on Sunday, there was no doubt whatsoever about what Sunday
it was. Nearly everyone – except for visitors like me – was dressed
somehow in red. From the
very young to the very old, everyone was part of a visual witness to
the “Tongues of fire” that descended on the first followers of
Christ and still descend on us today, enabling our communication
with the world. To see this
multi-generational witness was to recall the great promise from
Joel, realized in Pentecost, that God would pour out the Spirit “on
all flesh.” “Your young
shall see visions and your old dream dreams.” (2:17)
The
church was formed by the power of the Spirit and it will be
transformed today by that same power. In an age in which we are
laying great stress on the importance of organizational and
managerial strategies aimed at bringing change, we must never forget
that without the power of the Holy Spirit, such techniques are worse
than pointless.
The
church exists to receive the loving and enlivening Spirit of God and
to share it with the world. What might happen if all of us got clear
about this “why” for the church’s life and started articulating it
to others? In a deeply
cynical and disillusioned age, people might just say, “That’s
exactly what is needed today!
I want to be part of that.”
When the Spirit came upon the first followers of Christ, it
immediately directed their attention to others, from other nations
and cultures, who needed to be invited into the beloved community
God was forming. We might amplify on the thesis of my friend from
Williston. The church that stops wanting to share the good news is
on the verge of death because the Holy Spirit has, for all intents
and purposes, withdrawn from its corporate life. To put it a little
differently, the church that has no Spirit to share, has no why
behind its existence and thus fails to evoke people’s commitment and
loyalty.
Finally, all that red clothing in Devils Lake gives me much hope. I
can imagine the people of that congregation, old and young, parents
and grandparents, in the process of getting ready for church that
morning. Do we really want to go to all the trouble of dusting off
that old red tie or skirt or putting red socks on the baby? Yes,
because the Spirit’s presence in “all flesh” needs some kind of
visual confirmation so that it can be noticed, affirmed and
celebrated. And, thanks to the trouble they took, their attire
helped all of us to realize those goals.
So
in this season of Pentecost, let us expect nothing less than that we
will be empowered to communicate the good news to others and invite
them to join us in the beloved community. If not now, when?
If not here, where?
If not us, who? And may peace be with you all.
Your brother in
Christ,
Steve Minnema
May 18, 2010
Dear Friends and
Colleagues in the Presbytery,
I
hope this finds you well and enjoying these balmy days of spring. I
just returned yesterday from a weekend way out west to Williston and
Watford City and so am full, again, of the impression that North
Dakota is a lot more beautiful place than is often recognized.
When you add to that all the evidence I saw of new economic
activity, one might well conclude that we have abundant reasons to
be grateful to God for this state we call home.
This is the last of a five part series of musings taking off from
Professor Gary Hansen’s presentations to a group of us at Maryvale
Retreat Center focused on “nurturing a Presbyterian identity in our
congregations. We have thus far looked at what makes our witness
distinctive when it comes to 1) how we worship, 2) how we nurture
faith together, 3) how we govern ourselves and 4) how we do mission.
The final focus has to do with how we understand our
relationship to the larger church and how we practice that
relationship.
A
conversation in which we are currently involved helps to illustrate
a central conviction that our Reformed heritage has helped us to
hold with regards to this issue.
The question was raised as to whether the presbytery can
dismiss a congregation that wants to become an independent,
“community” church. The answer, from our synod stated clerk, is that
that is not an option. Presbyteries are only allowed to dismiss
churches to other, recognized “Reformed bodies.” The principle on
which such a stipulation is based is this: that from our theological
position as Presbyterians, congregations cannot be authentic
expressions of the Body of Christ
alone. The relationship
with the larger church is essential to a congregation’s claim to be
a bona fide locus of the presence of Christ! It is in our
relationships across congregational boundaries that we have the
chance of recognizing and validating our various ministries.
So
we can say that for us as Presbyterians, there are three main
reasons that keeping a strong connection between particular
congregations and the wider church is so critical: first, it enables
us to validate particular congregations as true expressions of the
Body of Christ; second, it enables us to witness to the world of the
unity Christ gives to his church; and, third, it allows us, when
necessary, to exercise oversight or to assist in mediating
conflicts.
So,
first of all, Presbyterians have always been concerned with knowing
“the marks of the true church.” So, for instance, the Scots
Confession says that “the notes of the true Kirk…we believe, confess
and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the Word of God…
secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Jesus
Christ…and, thirdly, ecclesiastical discipline rightly
administered.” On the negative side, if the presbytery should learn
that one of these marks is missing from a congregation, some kind of
intervention would be needed.
But on the positive side, churches where these marks are
present can find encouragement from their relationships with others
in the larger church through which they are affirmed as valid
incarnations of Christ’s presence in their communities. (And in some
ways this is far more important than whether there are five or five
hundred members. Christ is present!)
Secondly, chapter four of the Form of Government, on “The Unity of
the Church”, reminds us that “Visible oneness…is an important sign
of the unity of God’s people. It is also a means by which that unity
is achieved.” In our relationships beyond the congregation, we aim
to affirm the unity that we find in the grace of Christ and thus to
display that unity to a fractious world as evidence of God’s work
and as a sign of hope. Congregations who stick to themselves are
failing to do their part to respond to this important calling.
Finally, the same chapter in the Form of Government (see G-4.03011)
reminds us that there are times when the practice of authority is
needed in the life of the church and maintaining such authority is
in everyone’s basic interest. “A higher governing body shall have
the right of review and control over a lower one and shall have
power to determine matters of controversy upon reference, complaint,
or appeal.” Our heritage has always been realistic and has
recognized that sometimes things go wrong in the church and so there
need to be structures and processes in place for redressing them.
Without such authority, chaos prevails and both the church and its
witness can be badly hurt.
Those who were at the retreat came up with a number of ideas for
addressing this challenge more effectively. Some suggested that we
divide the presbytery into cluster groups for officer training
purposes, thus giving elders a chance to meet and speak with elders
from other congregations. Someone proposed that we could strengthen
connectionalism by teaching elders how their ordination vows guide
them in this direction. One practical suggestion – and timely as
well! – was that we pray for commissioners to this year’s General
Assembly in Minneapolis. Several people reminded us that our sister
church relationships with congregations in Chogoria serve this
purpose of connecting congregations to the wider church. And,
finally, someone said that she would include in the local church
newsletter a regular article about goings on in the larger church.
It
is important, of course, to remember that nurturing a Presbyterian
identity in our congregations is secondary to nurturing a Christian
identity. But, as we all know, there are many various ways to be
Christian. Presbyterian is one way and it has a rich history from
which – if we are open to it - we can learn as we seek to “grow up
into Christ who is our head.” (Ephesians 4:15) I am, as ever, glad
to be on this learning journey with you.
Yours in Christ,
Steve Minnema
May 11, 2010
Dear Colleagues
and Fellow Presbyters,
As
I re-read last week’s Musing, I was struck again, as I have been
before, with three points that I have come to see as critical in our
life together in the PNP:
-
We need to develop a culture of accountability such that we help each other to follow through on the commitments we make to God and to one another.
-
Calvin’s original idea was that the role of the elder is to do just that!
-
A key component for developing a culture of accountability among us today is the renewal of the role of the elder in our midst.
So as we continue
to think about what we learned from Gary Hansen about Presbyterian
distinctives in our life together, we need to remember that talking
about these things means little unless we take steps to enact them.
And taking such steps requires the kind of culture in which
we hold one another to the commitments we make.
So,
to review, we have looked at what makes a congregation Presbyterian
in a) its worship life; b) its practices of Christian nurture; and
c) its manner of governing itself. Today, we turn to those
distinctives arising from our heritage as we seek to engage in our
mission in the world.
It
is probably not common knowledge but Professor Hansen began his
remarks by reminding us that the Reformers in general and Calvin in
particular have been frequently criticized by Christians who
followed them – in and out of the Reformed family – for not being
committed to mission beyond the Christian culture in which they
lived. He went on to suggest that in some recent research he had
been doing, he has found evidence that the criticism – in Calvin’s
case, at least – is not justified. In particular, Calvin personally
participated in the training of many people who were subsequently
sent out to share the gospel as the Reformed understood it.
(Just a few days after the retreat, I was reading a book
about Calvin and learned that he even helped to prepare a group of
Reformed missionaries to South America!)
What is more, Professor Hansen went on, we should take careful note
of Question 86 in the Heidelberg Catechism (based closely on
Calvin’s work). There,
we are reminded that the Christian is called to do good works out of
gratitude for the grace we have received so that “by our reverent
behavior (we) may win our neighbors to Christ.”
So
mission is in our heritage
but what is our distinctive approach to mission?
Professor Hansen stressed three characteristics of a mission
that expresses our nature as Reformed Christians: 1) It is carried
out by people who feel a sense of a call from God and it invites
others into that same experience. 2) As a church centered in the
gospel, it stresses the sharing of the good news through personal
evangelism and church planting and 3) When we commit ourselves to
actions that demonstrate God’s love and justice to our neighbors, we
seek to do so by means of partnerships rather than by a
paternalistic approach.
To
elaborate a bit, we might say that mission in the Reformed
tradition:
-
Arises from our vocation as the followers of Christ and seeks to spread the message that God has a gracious, life giving and world serving vocation for everyone willing to receive it. The deeper we enter into the joy of our own vocation, the better we will be at inviting others into that same joy.
-
Knows that at the heart of the Reformation was the recovery of the scriptural notion of justification by grace through faith. This is the way we Reformed like to summarize the great gift we have received in and through Jesus Christ. Something is telling many of us today that the recovery of the church’s vitality and its mission is connected with the hope that the church can once again recover its grounding in this good news and its capacity for sharing it with others.
-
Is able to reform itself by learning from experience. Having visited Presbyterian churches in many countries (Cuba, Guatemala, Kenya), I much appreciate Professor Hansen’s emphasis on partnership as opposed to paternalism. This approach, learned through painful experience in the 20th century, is one good example of the church willing and able to reform itself and its approach to mission in light of new learnings and experiences.
So, in response to
this, participants identified a number of ways in which our
congregations
might begin moving in some of these missional directions. They
included:
the use of more
mission co-workers in interpreting mission to our people; joint
mission trips involving people from different congregations in a
common effort; scriptural and theological studies underscoring the
importance of mission; a mission fair featuring information about
local mission opportunities; more mission speakers at presbytery.
Some of the specific commitments made by participants at the
conference were:
To invite a pulpit guest focused on mission at least twice a year;
to encourage presbytery council to make sure that there are at least
two mission speakers a year at presbytery; to encourage our people
to be missional through both their words and the way they live; to
re-enforce people’s commitment to mission through encouraging
messages; to organize a regional mission fair; to use the Mission
Yearbook of Prayer for a mission update in every service;
to begin the journey of moving from the attitude of sending
money to an attitude of participating in Christ’s work; to begin to
develop a new relationship with a sister church in Chogoria; to
start a program of intentionally sharing garden products with local
food pantry.
So
we can take heart.
Mission is not a new discovery for Presbyterians; the gospel is as
rich and full as ever; the world is just as much in need of that
gospel and we can learn from our heritage how to be faithful in
following Christ (and how to have a joyful time in doing so!)
Peace and blessing on you all as we keep on thinking together.
Yours in Christ,
Steve Minnema
May 4, 2010
My Dear Friends in
the Presbytery,
May
has arrived and I hope it will bring for you a month of many
blessings. I have been reading a lot of Calvin lately and have been
struck again at how important the natural world was to him and to
his extraordinary sense of the grandeur of God. I sometimes think
that his ancestors have gotten so strongly focused on his emphasis
on justification that we forget to cultivate – at least partly in
the natural world - our own lively awareness of the Glorious One
with whom we are reconciled in Christ.
Maybe there’s an assignment there for us in May.
This is the third of five musings building on the retreat that was
held in April, with the help of Professor Gary Hansen, on nurturing
a Presbyterian identity in our congregations. The first week we
looked at Presbyterian distinctive in worship, the second in the way
we teach the faith and this week we are looking at governance.
How does a Presbyterian Church that is being faithful to its
heritage govern itself?
Before describing for us the three governance principles that, in
his opinion, mark a church organization as Presbyterian, Professor
Hansen shared with us a few of the premises that he brought to this
discussion They are worth our pondering so I will offer them first.
Premise one: Historically – and beginning with Calvin – the main
role of the elder is to exercise spiritual oversight in a
congregation, meaning, in particular, to create a culture of
accountability in the church so that people are helping people to
live faithful lives in which one’s behavior on weekdays matches
one’s profession on the Lord’s Day.
Premise two: how elders function in any given congregation is
affected by the size of the congregation.
For instance, in larger
churches sessions are often tempted to become boards of directors.
On the other hand, in smaller congregations it is sometimes
tempting for the session to give too much power to the church
matriarch or patriarch who often has her or his hands in too many
pots.
-
“Creeping congregationalism” in which the session regularly defers on major issues to the majority of the congregation.
-
“Emerging Episcopalianism” in which the session regularly defers to the minister who starts to function like a bishop.
-
“Shadow session Presbyterianism” in which the real decisions in a church are made by power brokers who have not been elected by the session but know how to get their way.
Sessions, Dr.
Hansen insisted, need to understand that in our denomination they
were
chosen to “guide
the ship.”
So
that leads directly to the first principle that marks a Presbyterian
style of governance:
It delegates
authority and leadership to the session. In other words, in our
system we elect elders to exercise their best judgment on our behalf
in discerning and directing the church’s ministry and mission
and we agree to honor
their decisions!
Principle number two is this: In a Presbyterian church, the session
is “growing into spiritual oversight.” This is a critical and very
helpful insight. Calvin’s system of governing the church depends
upon it being led by mature and growing leaders who are learning how
to promote the spiritual growth and faithfulness of others. It
almost goes without saying that we have a long way to go in making
this a reality but identifying it as a goal is a good beginning.
Finally, principle number three is that in a Presbyterian church,
its session helps its members do ministry. The Reformation was very
clear about “the priesthood of all believers” but we have not been
so clear and have too often allowed a certain passivity to prevail
among church members who have not been challenged and empowered to
claim a more active discipleship for themselves.
In Presbyterian churches trying to be true to their heritage,
elders are prepared to address this situation and encourage new
commitments.
In
the brainstorming time following this presentation, participants in
the seminar offered the following ideas for furthering this vision:
educate the session and deacons; do articles in the newsletter about
polity; have an annual session retreat; as in Kenya, have the elders
very visible in their leadership of worship; increase attendance at
Presbytery; educate people about the freedom we have in church; do
regional elder training.
-
At each session meeting, discuss a different responsibility of elders;
-
Institute training for new officers between election and ordination;
-
Read/study/reflect on ordination questions with those becoming elders;
-
Use bulletin and newsletter to promote connections with larger church;
-
Organize regional elder training;
-
Work on Presbytery wide plan for strengthening team leadership in churches;
-
Do more teaching of Presbyterian practices.
The more I have
reflected on these issues, the more I have come to conclude that
something very critical is at stake in how we govern ourselves and
whether we can do so in a fashion that is more in accord with our
heritage. And it all has to do with the kind of person we are
seeking to form as a church. Are we trying to produce passive people
who know how to sit back and let others make the big calls or are we
trying to produce mature and active people ready and willing to take
a piece of responsibility for creating the church’s future? Our
heritage commits us to the latter but are we ready to follow it?
As
always, I thank you for joining me in these reflections.
And may God’s richest blessings be with you all.
Yours in Christ,
Steve Minnema
April 27, 2010
Dear Friends in
the Presbytery,
I
hope this finds you well and continuing to enjoy the marvelous
spring with which we have all been blessed this year, though a
compulsive realist warned me yesterday that it could all change very
quickly. Nevertheless, I’ve seen lots of folk on the Grand Forks
golf course, Kevin Kaufmann says the ice is out of Devils Lake and
the construction crews have closed down several lanes on the
interstate. So we will rejoice and be glad since this is the day
(and the season) that the Lord has made.
Last week I began a series of musings derived from our time in
Valley City with Professor Gary Hansen and looking at various
markers of the Presbyterian identity of our congregations.
In the first offering, we looked at how our churches are
distinctively Presbyterian/Reformed in the way they worship.
This week we turn our attention to the particular way in
which Presbyterian/Reformed congregations approach their calling to
nurture people in the faith.
Professor Hansen suggested that he could discern five identifying
markers that become visible when our approach to Christian nurture
is faithful to our heritage:
-
We learn and grow through our participation in worship;
-
We study Reformed theology, especially the confessions of the church;
-
We learn and grow by participating in accountable fellowship;
-
We learn and grow by owning the work of ministry;
-
We learn and grow through the practice of spiritual disciplines.
First, then,
Presbyterians expect to be nurtured in their faith in and through
public
worship.
An excellent verse describing what we hope for in worship is
I Corinthians 14:15: “I will pray with the spirit, but I will pray
with the mind also; I will sing praise with the spirit, but I will
sing praise with the mind also.” We are nurtured and grow as we,
with our whole selves, enter into the act of worship.
Second, we study our heritage of Reformed theology, and especially
our confessions.
All ministers and
elders, upon ordination, promise to be guided by our confessions as
they undertake their ministry. Unfortunately, there are often few
opportunities for such study and many elders lack the confidence
that they could make much headway in such study on their own. Still,
when such opportunities are offered, they yield great insight into
the wisdom passed on to us by our ancestors in the faith and great
encouragement for faithfulness.
Do more of us need to agitate for such opportunities?
Third, we learn and grow as we are in fellowship with others in which the practice of mutual accountability is cultivated. This makes eminent Presbyterian sense! We know something about the power of sin. So we ought to understand the importance of getting all the help we can from one another in acknowledging that and seeking to transcend it through grace and personal discipline supported by caring friends. I am currently reading a book about Calvin and am impressed again with how important he understood the practice of discipline to be in the life of the church. He knew that as people all of us need the help of others if we are to live God-honoring lives.
Fourth, Presbyterians grow by taking appropriate responsibility for
their share of the ministry of the church!
I recall that Calvin frequently complained that the catholic
church of his time treated its people like “dumb sheep.” The
churches of the Reformation were determined to leave such an
attitude behind and stress the fact that all of us are called to
ministry and mission and
given gifts to help us be effective. Claiming such gifts and owning
such ministry is a faith-nurturing and very Presbyterian thing to
do!
Finally, we learn and grow through the practice of spiritual
disciplines. I think immediately of the Presbyterian/Reformed
insistence that the Bible needed to be translated into the common
tongue so that “ordinary” people could read it and profit from its
message. It is not overstating
the matter to suggest that our ancestors understood – and would want
to teach us as well – that a daily practice of scripture meditation
and prayer, along with regular attendance in public worship, is
essential if we wish to keep learning and growing in faith.
After hearing and pondering Professor Hansen’s points, participants
identified the following ideas for helping our congregations become
more Presbyterian/Reformed in their practice of nurture: preach
Calvin’s way of working through a whole biblical book; sermon series
on the Great Ends of the Church; Lift up the role of the Spirit in
education and worship; More
intentional use of small groups; getting more males involved in
accountable groups; Have
session study the constitution; form a spirituality group; pray for
one another in session; More
Bible study; once a week, have an open meal at church; more
devotional/learning times with session; elder training; job
shadowing (elders go with pastor on visits); teach Reformed
theology.
After further pondering these options, participants committed
themselves, in their own churches, to: modeling nurture to elders
through taking them along on visits; expanding spiritual time at
session meetings; start a Bible study for men; invite and empower a
member to organized an adult Sunday School class; explain how the
worship service models faithful living;
Begin process of spiritual
accountability with session; lift up the role of the Spirit; preach
through a book of the Bible once a year; study, prepare messages
that help people understand our confessions.
So
how would you assess the nurture in your congregation’s life?
Do you see the marks of it being Presbyterian/Reformed?
What ideas do you have for improving the way in which your
community delivers this critical service to its membership and
community?
As
ever, I am deeply grateful to be on this thoughtful journey with you
all.
Peace,
Steve Minnema
Interim Executive
Presbyter
April 20, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I
hope this finds you enjoying the warmth and joy of this marvelous
season in which we celebrate
both the resurrection of Christ and the coming of spring.
Together, it would be my prayer for us all, may these parallel
outbreaks of new life touch you deeply and restore your soul. God is
not only – as we so often remind each other – in the darkness but
also in the light!
-
Worship life;
-
Practices of Christian nurture;
-
Governance;
-
Mission;
-
Relationship to the larger church.
Considering the
question of worship first, Professor Hansen offered us several
principles
(or “priorities”)
which, in his judgment as a church historian, were strong markers of
a Presbyterian/Reformed approach to the practice of worship. They
were: that worship for us is “grounded in scripture,” exhibits “a
good balance between freedom and form,” is “structured to reflect
and shape Christian experience,” and is “active and contemporary.”
The
first principle is clearly foundational for us and has been since
the Reformation. The earliest hymns were Psalms, many of the
earliest prayers were based on prayers in scripture, the practice of
the sacraments was re-formed to put the church in accord with
scripture, and the central stress of the service became the hearing
and proclaiming of the Word of God.
Secondly, Presbyterians acquired from Calvin and others the belief
that while forms for use in worship (“liturgies”) were invaluable
aids, they should not be regarded as God-given commandments never to
be varied or changed. In every worship service, we believe, there
needs to be a creative combination of historic structure and
spontaneity such that all the actions that need to happen get
included but in a way that demonstrates the presence and working of
the Holy Spirit and brings life and renewal to the worshipers.
Thirdly, the worship service needs to reflect and shape “Christian
experience.” Thus, for instance, a common movement in many of our
services is from confession of sin to assurance of forgiveness to
exchanging a sign of peace with others. The point here is to confirm
worshipers in the understanding that reconciliation with God leads
us on to reconciliation with others. Likewise, the distribution of
the communion elements by elders can confirm for us the
understanding that the grace of God is mediated to us, first through
Christ and, secondarily, through others, and thus calls upon us, in
turn, to mediate it to others.
Finally, Presbyterian/Reformed worship is “active and contemporary.”
Here, of course, Dr. Hansen was quick to explain that he was
not weighing in on the debate over “traditional” or “contemporary”
forms of worship. But he was insisting that our heritage expects people to participate in
worship in ways that connect their encounter with God with their
daily lives in the world as it now is. Presbyterian worship is never
to have the character of a “flight to the past” but is always to
feel as if something new is transpiring - between worshipers and God
- that will have an immediate impact on life as we know it.
Use a variety of
confessions from the Book of Confessions; Use sermon time to teach
about worship; Sing more Psalms in a variety of settings; Read the
Psalms responsively, using newer translations; Offer Moments for
Mission from Mission Yearbook; Preach a series of sermons from one
Biblical book; form a group or have session or worship committee
study the Directory for Worship; add people to the worship committee
for the sake of doing worship planning as a group; make sure every
service involves more than just the pastor in the leadership role;
do a teaching of some kind on the Lord’s Prayer; Arrange for the
presentation of the offering to reflect the joyfulness of giving;
teach the theology behind the order of worship; preach more on the
meaning of the sacraments; Add a reading of “the law” to the service
to demonstrate Calvin’s teaching that the law guides us after we are
forgiven; Study scriptures on prayer so that I’m praying as
scripture teaches; use a reading from the confessions to go with the
sermon; include in the newsletter an article teaching people about
worship;
Perhaps you can think of other ideas – and will. But the point here
– and in fact in this whole effort at recovering our heritage and
our identity – is not to say that being Presbyterian/Reformed is the
only way to be Christian or even the best way.
It is to say,
however, that it is our way and that there are gifts and graces in
our heritage that we would be foolish to neglect because they have
the power to enrich our experience of God and our effort to live,
faithfully, as the followers of Christ.
As
always, I thank you for thinking with me and look forward to
visiting with you again next week.
Your Brother in
Christ,
Steve Minnema
April 13, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I
hope this season of Eastertide continues to renew you as we keep on
exploring all of the many ramifications of the good news that
“Christ is Risen, Indeed!”
This past Sunday as I was listening in one of our churches to the
gospel text for the day from John 20, 19-31, I was struck with the
relevance of one dimension of that story for our upcoming Presbytery
meeting (June 11-12 in Jamestown) around the theme of “Discover the
<Creative> Spirit.” The
risen Christ breathes upon his followers and then says, “Receive the
Holy Spirit.” Though one
could never exhaust the inexhaustible meaning in this moment, I want
to try to articulate a little of what this verse might hold for us
as we are trying to open our presbytery, our churches, our families
and our own individual lives to a new experience of the Spirit’s
creative power.
First, in this verse Jesus quite literally “inspires” his disciples,
as that Latin word means “to breathe into.” If we are going to
receive more of the Holy Spirit, that will happen as we are inspired
by the Risen Christ and/or one of his followers in whom he is living
and reaching out to us. Inspiration requires encounter so the first
question we might be asking ourselves as we prepare to discover the
<creative> Spirit is how and where such inspiring encounters need to
occur.
Second, we should not miss the obvious truth here that the Risen One
who inspires his followers is the one who had earlier died on the
cross and then been raised to new life by the power of God. The
Spirit who is offered to us through Christ is thus connected to –
and a bearer of – the creative power of God that has already
overcome the forces of death and wants to continue that triumphant
work in and through us. The
Holy Spirit is thus “a force to be reckoned with.” So the second
question we might want to ask is: are we prepared to give ourselves
to such an overwhelming power?
Third, another fascinating dimension of this text is the way in
which it acquires its deepest meaning when it is heard in full
concert with the several other texts to which it strongly alludes.
Listen to John saying that Jesus breathed on his disciples
while also hearing:
-
“God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)
-
“Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” (Ezekiel 37:9. The vision of the dry bones.)
-
(The idolater) “misconceives the One who shaped him, who breathed an active soul into him and inspired a living spirit.” (Wisdom 15:10, a passage that would have been known to many of John’s original hearers.)
When these
companion texts are allowed to join their voices to the original
text from
John 20, what we
hear is an unmistakable claim that in this interaction of the risen
Christ with his followers the Creator God is at work re-creating
those who have fallen under the spell of death! The question that
this astonishing affirmation might lead us to ask is whether we are
paying sufficient attention to the powerful Word of God that puts us
squarely before such promises and asks us to trust the One who gives
them.
Finally, John’s story also gives us a strong hint regarding the way
in which our new creativity, inspired by the Spirit of Christ, needs
to find expression in our lives and in our ministries. Sometimes
when we hear of creativity, we focus too narrowly on such things as
arts and crafts for which some of us have gifts while others do not.
But here the focus of creativity for the disciples is a ministry
whose aim is the facilitation of forgiveness and the restoration of
broken relationships – between people and God and between people and
other people. Instead of letting death settle into a community, a
family or a church on the assumption that broken relationships must
be left broken, the inspired followers of Christ are invited to
believe that forgiveness can be administered and relationships
healed. So the final question this poses for a presbytery trying to
“discover the <creative> Spirit is: are we ready to take on the
challenge of work like this?
It
somehow seems appropriate to close this reflection with the words of
an old hymn that just might have been coming to your mind as you
read this just as it was coming to mine while writing:
Breathe on me, Breath
of God; fill me with life anew
That I may love what
thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do.
Peace to you all,
Steve Minnema
April 6, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I hope that your various celebrations
of Easter brought new life and joy to your churches and to your
families. When I was a
parish pastor, I always tried to stress that the good news of Easter
is so great that it takes a season of seven weeks – and not just one
day – even to make a start at appreciating the message and living by
its light. May this season bring such a beginning for you and yours!
Someone sent me a copy today of an
article in The Parish Paper
edited by Herb Miller, Lyle Schaller and Cynthia Woolever.
It was entitled “New Trends in Belonging” and it gives us
some good food for thought as we think about how our congregations
and communities of faith might be more effective in reaching out to
new people and including them in our fellowship.
I want to describe four points that got my attention and why.
First, did you know that the fastest
growing group in America’s religious landscape are those that answer
“none” when asked about their religious affiliation?
They are up 138% since 1990 while the percentage of those who
profess to be Catholics or Protestants is not keeping pace with
population growth. I draw some obvious conclusions from this (and
suspect that you will too):
-
There is a growing number of so-called “nones” in all of our communities in the Northern Plains.
-
Their presence presents our churches with a challenge/opportunity for sharing the gospel “near to home.”
-
It would be a very wise move for us to try to understand who these folks are and what they are seeking.
That leads to the second point I took from the article. A large
percentage of “nones” are not permanently disaffiliated; they are,
rather, in the process of switching affiliations – or even of
acquiring a first affiliation after being raised without one.
Thus, for instance, four in ten “nones” who were raised
without an affiliation eventually became Protestants. And one-third
of all “nones” say that they are unaffiliated because they just have
not yet found the right religious group for them. (40% of all “nones”
say religion is important to them.)
We who remain in the church might well
use this information to re-examine our long-standing attitudes about
our neighbors in our communities. Unless I am badly mistaken – which
has certainly happened before! – many of us as church members
assume that there are very
few people in our immediate environment who might consider an
invitation from us to come to church. Our neighbors, we commonly
think, either already belong or, if they do not, are hardened in
their non-belonging. We
thus excuse ourselves from taking any responsibility for reaching
out. But what if one of
our un-affiliated co-workers, for instance, is among the one-third
of such “nones” who just hasn’t yet found the right place? Needless
to say, our silence would represent a great opportunity missed.
Point three is an argument the author
of this article, Cynthia Woolever, makes about what she calls “the
new normal” when it comes to how people today find their way to
faith.
We used to think,
she says, that the pathway to faith was a) they believe; b) they
join; and c) they participate.
We now know, she concludes, that many people first
participate, then join and last, but not least, believe.
This, too, has some strong lessons for us in the church. Far too many church members shun the ministry of evangelism because they assume you have to be some kind of theologian to talk people into believing so that they will later decide to join the church. It appears to be more accurate today to say that the most effective evangelists are those who know how to be gracious hosts who welcome people into the community and facilitate their belonging and their participation. Are we acknowledging, supporting, empowering and honoring the people with such gifts?
Finally, the article concluded with
some good and specific questions that can profitably be asked by
church leaders from, for instance, Crookston, MN to Fairfield, MT
and all points in between.
Here are a few of them:
-
Do we emphasize the participation of children and youth in all aspects of congregational life?
-
Do we have a systematic way to re-connect with people when they start drifting away from us?
-
Do we welcome the kinds of people who are especially likely to be among the “nones:” single young adults, “mixed” religious couples, or former Catholics?
-
Do our services meet the needs of people younger than 45?
One of my favorite books from Dr. Seuss is
If I Ran the Zoo. I often
find myself thinking, “If I
ran the zoo – which I know I don’t – I would do things my way and it
would be a much more interesting and efficient zoo.”
In this case my thought went something like this, “If I ran
the zoo, I would put a sign on every church door that people would
have to see upon exiting: “Who is waiting for your invitation to
join us?” It is not out
of the question that there is a “none” in your neighborhood waiting
for your word of welcome. How long will she or he have to wait?
Blessings on you
as we continue our Easter journey, together,
And Peace as well,
Steve Minnema
March 30, 2010
My Dear Friends in
the Presbytery,
Several years ago, I heard a colleague talking about the anguish he
and his beloved wife experienced as they moved together toward her
death from cancer. One of the ways they managed to cope was through
the reading of the Psalms at night before bed. One particular part
of their story captured my attention. My colleague said that when
they came to Psalm 88, he wanted to skip it but she would not let
him.
What was going on there was that both of them knew Psalm 88 to be
the only Psalm among the 150 in the Psalter that does not affirm
God’s eventual victory over the death and despair that the Psalmist
both anticipates and fears. It is dark from beginning to end.
What my friend’s wife sought to teach him that night was
simply the value of honesty in the face of catastrophe: if it feels
like you are “clean cut off,” she was suggesting, say that to anyone
who will listen. Maybe someone will.
It might even, eventually, be God. Regardless of the outcome,
you will be building whatever is left for you to build on the solid
foundation of truthfulness and that’s the only sure way to go.
I
mention this here and now by way of urging us, in this Holy Week,
not to take a detour around the cross in order to assure a safe and
comfortable landing at Easter.
We are all eager to hear that right will prevail over wrong,
that love will triumph over hate, that non-violence will prove more
final than violence, and that joy will be the last word rather than
sorrow. If the word that declares those outcomes to us on Easter
morn is to be anything other than a glib repetition of an ancient
formula, if it is to have the character of a surprising announcement
of unanticipated news, it will only be because we have had the
courage of the Psalmist to say – in the darkness before Easter – how
desperate things really look and how hopeless we actually feel.
I
had a most poignant experience in one of our churches this past
Sunday. It was Palm Sunday but the pastor had chosen to have the
story of Christ’s trial and crucifixion read during the service so
that worshipers (who might not all make it to midweek services)
would be sure to have the whole story heading into Easter. So the
lay reader for the morning had three texts to read, one from Isaiah,
one from Philippians and one from Luke 23:1-49.
She
did well with the first two readings.
When she got to the account in Luke where the people demand
that Barabbas be released and Christ be crucified, she broke down
and could not continue. After attempting to collect herself, she
finally sighed and said, “Well, you know how it ends,” and she sat
down. Without any
intention on her part to do so – it was clearly not premeditated in
any way – I felt like I had just been effectively ushered into the
depths of Holy Week.
We
are not supposed to be unmoved – as we too often are – by this
narrative. I have to
assume that this church member could not get through this reading
because she understood at some primary level that the hatred and
violence and rejection of God evident in the story are still present
in our world today and as hurtful as ever. And when she said, “You
know how it ends,” she was not talking about Easter. She was talking
about how Luke 23 ends, with the Son of God on a cross, with
darkness spreading across the land, with the apparent triumph of
hatred over love, violence over peace, the powerful over the weak
and despair over hope.
We
know it ends that way, not merely because we know how Luke 23 turns
out, but because we have lived long enough to know how often stories
end like that, in the darkness with the forces of evil apparently in
full control! Like the Psalmist in chapter 88, we have to have the
courage to say that that’s exactly how it often feels – and then
just to wait.
If
we wait patiently, maybe – just maybe - someone will invite us to
get up early enough to go with them and to greet the dawn of a new
day at the very point where we’d buried our dearest hopes the day
before. Maybe someone else will tell us it’s time to move on because
the Lord we had given up on is on the loose again and we must not
look for him among the dead. And maybe when we gather with others to
compare notes about all this – and maybe even to break some bread
together – we will realize that he is among us in new ways and, in
fact, actively writing a new story full of possibilities we never
could have imagined –or even have dreamt of - before.
But for now, before we know if any of this will happen, it is probably best simply to sit with Psalm 88 and to wait, in silence, in darkness but also, however much we can, in trust and hope:
But I, O Lord, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before
you.
O Lord, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?
Waiting with you
in Christ,
March 23, 2010
Dear Friends in
the Presbytery,
Greetings to you
in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God our Creator
and the Communion of the Holy Spirit. Though those words have the
sound of a formula, they are in fact pointing us toward the secret
of a happy and productive life. It is only as we are mindful of the
blessings offered to us through our triune God that we can live with
gratitude, joy and love.
I began this
series some time ago based on the priority discussions that took
place in ten small groups at the Presbytery meeting on February 5.
By now, you will – I hope – be able to say with me by memory
that we are a presbytery determined to become “a vibrant, informed
Presbyterian community that nourishes ministry and joins in Christ’s
mission.”
We have, thus far,
looked at the first five phrases in that vision statement so today
our question is this: Given
that the Presbytery could do many things (see the list from
Council), what one thing must we do to “join in Christ’s mission”?
The list of things that the presbytery might do included the
following:
Encourage the development of teams which do new regional or national ministry
Do mission with Bdecan
Do mission with Chogoria
Provide annual youth mission trips
Provide annual adult mission trips
Provide scholarships/funding for churches doing mission trips
Provide grants/ funding for churches doing mission projects locally or beyond
Support existing campus ministries
Encourage churches in college towns to do campus ministry
Fund campus ministry
The top priorities of the ten small groups were these:
-
Keep our children coming; youth mission; Bible Camp
-
Provide funding, training materials, and support for campus ministry
-
Fund youth and young adult ministries, not only on campus; maybe have youth retreats at more than one location.
-
Share the hope of “advanced acceptance” (vary focus on international, state, community)
-
At least one international focus and one mission within our Presbytery
-
Hands on mission projects that bring congregations together to work together; go out to congregations and listen to them to help them expand connections with people
-
Strengthen our relationship with God which will lead us to mission.
-
Throw ourselves wholeheartedly into the Chogoria partnership and the Bdecan partnership
-
Provide funding, scholarships or grants for churches to do mission trips
-
Support and assist the development of teams which do regional ministry.
Since the first
few weeks of my time here in this Presbytery, I have heard various
people arguing that what we most need to pull us together is a
mission – or maybe several mission projects – that can offer us a
common focus and a common joy.
Many of the comments from the small groups seem to move in
that direction as well. So let me offer three more or less extended
comments that might help to deepen our conversation about this.
First, I love the
quote – but I cannot remember who said it originally – that goes
like this:
“It is not so much
that the church of God has a mission; it is far more that the
mission of God has a church.”
When in our vision statement we say that we wish to join in
Christ’s mission, we are affirming this: Christ has missional
designs on our world, our various states and our communities. The
question is whether we are living in accord with those designs.
Second, (and much more specifically), there is probably much wisdom
in the notion that the presbytery should focus on one international
and one “local” mission.
Our partnership with the Chogoria Presbyteries in Kenya and our
informal partnership with the Bdecan Presbyterian Church near Devils
Lake are often put forward for this role. But is there a strong
consensus among us about this?
It is hard for me to assess that.
Are there other options that should be looked at as well?
Finally, someone gave me some feedback on this series of musings and
basically said,
“I wish you would
take a stab at saying why we have not made more progress on these
matters than we have.” Though I am not sure I know enough about our
history as a presbytery to be able to do that, I do have one strong
concern in this matter of involvement in mission.
And I can be very succinct about it:
We have undoubtedly been slow to engage in mission in the past because
we perceive ourselves to be short in resources.
But in my short time here, I must say that I have come to
believe that this is a gross misperception.
There are wonderful resources here to do mission, both
internationally and locally. We just have to discern what Christ is
calling us to do together and then commit ourselves to doing it,
effectively and joyfully.
As
always, I thank you for your good thinking with me.
Next week, we will tackle a new and as yet to be determined
topic. Be well.
Steve Minnema
March 17, 2010
Dear Fellow Presbyters,
At our last Presbytery meeting, our moderator,
Pat O’Donnell, reminded us that the best way for the Presbytery’s
new vision statement to find a place in our heads and hearts is
through repetition, treating it as a kind of mantra that is given
plenty of space to capture our attention. I hope that in this series
of musings, something like that has been happening for us. We are
aspiring to be “a vibrant, informed Presbyterian community that
nourishes ministry and joins in Christ’s mission.” Keeping that at
the forefront of our thinking is a helpful way of staying in focus
and in unity as we move forward.
It is important to remember that this vision
statement was adopted by us because we saw it as more than just an
inspiring dream of what we wished to become. It is that but it is
also our best discernment as to what God is seeking to make of us.
So affirming that we are committed to this vision is tantamount to
giving ourselves, in trust, to God’s purpose for us, as individuals,
congregations and as a Presbytery. In other words, in using this
vision statement we are trying to be much more than just an
effective and united organization with a common purpose; we are
trying to be the faithful people of God!
Thus far, we have looked at what our
priorities might be as we seek to be “vibrant,” “informed,”
“Presbyterian,” and a “community.” So today’s question is this:
Given that the Presbytery could do many things (see the list from
council), what one thing must we do to “nourish ministry”? The list
prepared by council included the following:
Provide connection for churches and leaders with common interests (RASCALS, Transformation Team)
Support the ongoing work of Presbyterian Women
Encourage the renewal of local ministry in congregations with training and resources
Encourage the outreach ministries (growth) of congregations with training and resources
Share information about what churches are doing in mission and ministry
Provide one or more youth retreats each year
Encourage and/or fund new church development
After discussion, the ten groups at Presbytery
each weighed in with their top priorities and here are their
responses:
-
Encourage the outreach of congregations with training and research
-
Encourage and fund new church development
-
Outreach ministries – focus on growth
-
Come along side denominated (?) in service to others
-
Come alongside
-
Encourage renewal of local ministry in congregations with training and resources – helping to do missions in the larger community – use several congregations to work together.
-
Foster collegiality among clergy and elders; start with clergy
-
Support con ed events like RASCAL gathering
-
Provide connections for churches and leaders with common interests
-
Share information about best practices from churches in the presbytery
Someone -with more history in the Presbytery than
I have - explained to me what he thought was the background behind
some of these responses. “There has been a lot of debate in the
past,” he told me, “as to whether the Presbytery should admonish its
congregations to get out there in mission or come along side of
congregations in an encouraging and supportive way.” If that’s
accurate, the responses from the small groups suggest that the idea
of “coming along side” is preferable.
What might that look like? Here, it seems to me,
there is also some good clarity about what might be our best option
and it has to do with creating links between congregations through
which best practices can be shared and encouragement offered. This,
I believe, is a key insight as to how we might move forward.
We need to understand that
good things are happening in the ministries of our congregations and
that more good things can and will happen as we come together, learn
from one another and support one another. There is no reason why
our meetings cannot include such opportunities and they need to!
If our vision
and our understanding of
what God is wishing to do among us is that we become a vibrant,
informed and Presbyterian community that
nourishes ministry, then our priority has got to be finding new ways
to come along side one another, to share what’s working for us, to
hear what’s working for others and to offer mutual encouragement.
So, in closing, let me challenge you a bit.
What ministries are people in your congregation passionate about?
Would you be willing to share your stories with others and hear
theirs? Think about this
because in the works right now are plans for a meeting this summer
when such sharing will be on the agenda.
(More on the details later.)
So may God bless you as you continue your
reflections and your activities in service to God and others.
Peace,
Steve Minnema
March 9, 2010
My Dear Sisters
and Brothers in Christ,
Greetings to you in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of
God and the communion of the Holy Spirit.
It’s rather sobering to remember that we are called to
display in our fellowship with one another the same community that
marks the triune life of God! And yet the good news is that we can
do this, not because we are up to it on our own, but because we are
indwelt by God and can thus trust that the triune presence will make
itself known through us.
This is the fourth in a series of articles reporting on our last
discussion at Presbytery regarding our priorities for the future.
Today’s focus is on this question: “Given that the presbytery could
do many things (see the list prepared by council), what one thing
must we do to become more of a “community”?
The list prepared
ahead by council included the following possible options:
Make triennial visits to sessions
Send staff or official visitors to worship in congregations
Send staff or official visitors to meet with sessions more regularly than triennial
Provide staff as pulpit supply
Support and encourage candidates for ministry
Provide pastoral care for pastors and CLP’s , including those honorably retired
Assist churches or individuals seeking emergency or disaster grants
Provide persons for ecumenical boards (e.g. Minnesota or ND Council of Churches)
Provide staff or elected volunteers for ecumenical connections (e.g. interface with bishops)
Provide for gatherings of Presbyterians in addition to presbytery meetings
The ten small groups at presbytery wrestled with the question and came up with the following replies (each one representing the top choice of one of the groups):
-
Provide for gatherings of Presbyterians in addition to presbytery meetings
-
Provide for gatherings of Presbyterians in addition to presbytery meetings
-
Provide gatherings of Presbyterians in addition to presbytery meetings
-
Mission
-
MISSION
-
Being there for congregations during times of need. Be there but not suffocate them. Relational thing – COM liaison program worked where there was commitment by elders/pastors willing to work, having time to work with the congregation you served!
-
Operate under the consensus model; train moderator and delegates
-
Provide opportunities for us to gather in small groups outside of PNP meetings
-
Send staff or official visitors to worship and meet with sessions
-
Provide for regional gatherings to do Presbyterian junk (meant in a good way) together – elders, pastors and anyone!
Reflecting on this
latter list, I am struck by the strange tension that seems to be
present here. On the one
hand, it seems that we have a strong consensus that community
building is an important challenge before the presbytery.
On the other hand, it also seems that we have no consensus
regarding the best way to go about it.
There are a variety of insights here that are well worth our
pondering. First of all, we seem to agree that it is energizing for
Presbyterians on the Great Plains to gather and share their lives
and ministries with one another. We gain a sense of family and have
an opportunity to support and instruct one another. We do not have
to follow Christ alone!
Second, several of the groups, in their stress on the word
“mission,” seem to me to be suggesting that the best community we
can know happens as we are engaged together in common acts of
witness and service. They are reminding us of Jesus’ challenge to
“seek first the reign of God” and his promise that “all these
things” (such as genuine community) will be added to those who get
this straight.
Third, several of the groups stressed that there are times when
building community requires some initiative taking. When
congregations or individuals are in stress or distress, we need to
be mindful of that and reach out.
Fourth, I am intrigued by the suggestion of one group that the
consensus model of decision making would be a great way to build
community among us. I suspect they are feeling that the standard
“Robert’s Rules” approach to our discussions too often produces
winners and losers and little real understanding of one another. A
different approach, one that was less likely to ride roughshod over
dissenters, might lead to greater community (and better decisions.)
Finally, at least one group sought to remind us that there may be
ways to organize our fellowship in regional gatherings so that we
have more opportunities to enjoy the company of our Presbyterian
neighbors and benefit accordingly.
While none of these suggestions has the feel of a final answer to
it, taken together they do call us to use our creativity and
organizing savvy to strengthen the bonds that connect us to one
another as a vibrant, informed Presbyterian
community on the Great
Plains.
As always, I thank you for thinking with me on this. Though it may
seem to us that we have not yet identified our top priorities with
sufficient specificity to provide the guidance we need to go
forward, we must remember that this is a work in progress. The next
step is to get our sessions involved and, after that, to come back
to Presbytery for at least one more attempt to develop something
definitive. So keep on
trucking with us and be sure to report any “aha moments” along the
way.
Peace to you all,
March 2, 2010
Dear Fellow
Presbyters,
I
hope that the beginning of a new month finds you hopeful.
Spring is coming and, with it, the breaking out of new life
from the earth. May the season of Lent witness for each of us, and
for our churches, the breaking out of new life as well. It may be
accompanied by some pain – T.S. Elliot wrote in a poem that “April
is the cruelest month” – but pain that births new life is good pain
and we need not dwell on it as we wait in hope for what
God is creating.
In
the presbytery right now, we believe and hope that one thing God is
creating is a greater clarity about our priorities as we seek to
become “a vibrant, informed Presbyterian community that nourishes
ministry and joins in Christ’s mission.” This is the third of seven
musings aimed at continuing the conversation we began at Presbytery
last month regarding how we can prioritize the various options we
have in living out this vision.
The
question for today is this: “Given that the Presbytery could do many
things (see the list provided by council), what one thing must we do
to become more “Presbyterian”? The list of possibilities provided by
council included the following:
Assist churches in securing pastoral leadership
Interim pastors during transitions
Called/installed pastors – vacancy process
Part-time supply pastors or lay preachers
Presbyterian CLP’s
Assist in conflict situations within or among churches
Provide moderators in times between clergy
Provide moderators when churches are served by clergy or lay persons not Presbyterian
Facilitate formation of larger parishes with other Presbyterian congregations
Facilitate formation of larger parishes with non-Presbyterian congregations
Maintain a list of persons recommended for pulpit supply
Oversee the process of candidates preparing for ministry
Oversee the process of CLP’s preparing for commissioning
Provide ongoing oversight of the CLP program
Set, interpret, and enforce minimum salary standards
Assist clergy seeking a new call
Provide for the annual reading of session minutes
Communicate information about the PCUSA
Provide for the receiving and distributing of PCUSA special offerings
Encourage connection between churches and Jamestown College
Provide a board member for Jamestown College
Nominate persons to serve on Synod and GA bodies
Send delegates to Synod and GA
Provides board members for Clearwater Forest
Meet as a presbytery at least twice each year
Maintain a presbytery council to lead our work and make decisions between meetings
Maintain a budget/finance committee to monitor our budget and investments
Provide for treasurer and bookkeeping services
Provide for a stated clerk of the presbytery
Maintain a personnel committee to support, evaluate, and coordinate staff
Provide closing commissions to churches which choose to close
Provide oversight and signatures as needed on church property sales and mortgages
Maintain a presbytery office
Maintain a self-development of people committee to encourage grant requests and distribute OGHS funds
Maintain connections with PCUSA action groups (older adults, hunger, restoring creation, etc)
Maintain a connection with the Presbyterian Foundation and promote its work through congregations
Maintain a Committee on Representation
Maintain a Permanent Judicial Commission
Maintain a Nominating Committee
Maintain a Committee on Ministry
Maintain a Committee on Preparation for Ministry
Maintain a Sexual Misconduct Response Coordinating Team
Maintain a presbytery directory
Provide training and resources about Presbyterian heritage and Reformed theology
Advocate with the Synod for funding for campus ministries
The ten small groups that met at Presbytery identified the following as their priority: (One came from each group):
-
Provide training and resources about Presbyterian heritage and Reformed theology
-
Provide training/ fun activities to highlight our heritage and Reformed theology.
-
Training and resources about Presbyterian heritage and Reformed theology to go out and share faith. Assist churches to see importance PC(USA) ministers to fill pulpits.
-
Celebrate our common joys of being
-
Training to celebrate the unique points of being Presbyterian – learn unique points of other denominations so we can celebrate their identities (even tho it’s not ours); identify communicators to be intentional about sharing information with churches served by non-Presbyterians
-
Discernment and growth for churches between pastors; need support during this time; don’t do a good job during this time. Need to find ways to help churches during this
-
Educate the presbytery what it means to be “Presbyterian” with the understanding that delegates take it back to congregation.
-
See above in #2 (i.e. Presbytery must provide resources and opportunities for elder training – emphasizing the importance of the office of elder.
-
Meet as a Presbytery at least twice a year
-
Live out our connectional church by gathering together for non-business opportunities
I was in one of
our congregations recently and discovered that the people there are
actively trying to figure out what it means for them to be
Presbyterian. One of the conclusions they had come to was that it
does not mean looking down on people from other traditions. They
were determined, they said, to have a church where people coming
from other denominations could enter and feel welcome. I mention
this because too often people think that if we emphasize our
Presbyterian identity and seek to strengthen our appreciation for
our heritage, this will result in a kind of religious snobbishness
that most of us find very unattractive. And, of course, this can
happen! But it does not have to happen and it
will not happen if we remember three things.
First, people and congregations from other traditions are members
with us in the body of Christ. Our various, particular traditions
form part of the rich diversity with which God has blessed the
church. No one tradition has a corner on the truth but together we
get a bigger picture than we can form alone. We need one another and
one another’s tradition.
Second, our most authentic motive for strengthening our grasp on our
Presbyterian identity and heritage is to go deeper into its wisdom.
For instance, we do not need to know the Book of Confessions
better in order to be able to boast of our theological knowledge; we
need to know it better in order to know that “in life and in death
we belong to God” and can trust God completely for our salvation.
Fortified by such wisdom, we can continue to explore our
heritage to discern the way of life that best lives out such trust.
Finally, and very specifically, we will avoid Presbyterian snobbishness if we pay heed to our own tradition’s warnings against such an attitude! As an illustration, let me conclude with a quote from the Preface to The Brief Statement of Faith:
We are convinced that to the Reformed
churches a distinctive vision of the catholic faith has been
entrusted for the good of the whole church.
Accordingly, “A Brief Statement of Faith” includes the major
themes of the Reformed tradition without claiming them as our
private possession, just as we ourselves hope to learn and to share
the wisdom and insight given to traditions other than our own.
In short, the
Preface concludes, “Reformed
confessions, when necessary, even reform the tradition itself in the
light of the Word of God.” We
cannot be snobbish about our tradition because such an attitude only
demonstrates how deeply we still need to be reformed!
In
April, we are hosting a conference in Valley City on the marks of a
Presbyterian identity in our congregations. While the event is
designed with pastors and commissioned lay pastors in mind, any
elder is welcome and we would encourage you to join us for this
great chance to go deeper in our tradition and thus to get wiser
too.
Thanks for thinking with me and God bless you as we continue this
journey together.
Steve Minnema
February 23, 2010
Friends and Fellow
Elders,
Grace and Peace to you. I hope that your Lenten journey is well
underway and that you are using this season of meditation to examine
your life and your relationships and to open yourself more fully to
the new creation God in Christ is always intending for us. I find
for myself that one of the obstacles that often interferes with the
coming of such new life is my strong tendency to hang on to old
disappointments. The more obsessed I become with “If only…”, the
less room I have for “What if?” Perhaps our practice of prayer in
Lent might be a way to let go of those disappointments and make room
for the new possibilities?
Last week, I began a series of seven musings based on the work we did at Presbytery in using our vision statement to imagine a new future and set some priorities. Just to remind you yet again, we are seeking to become “a vibrant, informed Presbyterian community that nourishes ministry and joins in Christ’s mission.” And last week, we looked at the various ideas coming from small groups about how we might become more “vibrant.” So this week we turn to the second question: “Given that the presbytery might do many things (see the list from council) what one thing must we do to become more informed?” The list provided by council included the following:
Informed
Train CLP’s (Commissioned Lay Pastors)
Train elders and/or deacons
Train clerks of session
Train church leaders in stewardship
Train church educators
Train church musicians and worship planners
Train youth leaders
Provide continuing education events for clergy and CLP’s
Provide mentors for CLPs
Provide mentors for new clergy
Provide educational components at presbytery meetings
Provide scholarships to synod or national training events
Promote financial and retirement planning through the Board of Pensions
Train non-Presbyterian church leadership in Presbyterian polity and Reformed theology
Provide resources for training on a variety of topics
Provide access to a resource center and encourage its use
Maintain a presbytery website
Maintain a presbytery newsletter
Maintain e-news or other vehicle for passing through information the presbytery receives
The following were the top priorities (one from each) of the ten small groups that discussed this question at Presbytery:
-
Train elders and/or deacons
-
Spell out names rather than using initials; Find more ways to communicate with others. Provide educational components at presbytery meetings in order that commissioners can then train their churches.
-
Train elders by quadrants; a) train a trainer; b) send training materials and video of discussion to sessions
-
(Blank)Listen to each other; listen to many sources; presbytery offer one event where no particular difficult issues are discussed but train on having difficult conversations.
-
Scholarships to synod/national education events and come back to report/do training;
-
Pulpit exchange between churches with pastors and elders
-
Encourage collaborative learning; provide presbytery wide events; each meeting should have a focused learning component
-
Presbytery must provide resources and opportunities for elder training – emphasizing the importance of the office of elder
-
Provide for training in Presbyterian heritage and government
-
Training opportunities to reclaim our Reformed heritage (intentionally vague because we need so much)
I personally am very moved by these responses and believe they offer us valuable guidance as we seek to become a more “informed” community of Presbyterians on The Great Plains. I have four reasons for this response. First, there is a clear and obvious desire expressed by everyone to learn and grow. I have a friend who teaches history to unmotivated, first year students in college. It is no fun to speak to sleeping students! I hear in these responses that presbytery members are eager to learn more about their heritage and to tap its wisdom. That gives us solid reason to be hopeful as we plan.
Second, I hear a strong recognition that our priority needs to be on church officer education, on providing opportunities for ministers, elders and deacons to learn more about our historic understanding of these roles and how they fit in to God’s mission for the church in the world. I believe that is a worthy priority for us to consider.
Third, there is strong affirmation here that our meetings need always to have “a focused learning component.” Learning is exciting; learning makes meetings more exciting; so plan your meetings so that good learning takes place.
Finally, there is a very prudent concern expressed above for the delivery system we use to bring this learning into our local churches and, particularly, our sessions. I was reminded not long ago that a great sermon poorly delivered is not really a great sermon. We need to think as much about the means of training elders as about the content if we are to make any progress with this.
I’m sure you heard even more than this in the small group input above. Let’s keep thinking about these things. Share these e-mails with your elders, too, and get them involved. The new creation we talked about at the beginning, which is certainly God’s intention for our presbytery, will begin, I am convinced, with new thinking; so let’s keep at it!
And May the Peace of Christ Sustain You in this Season of Lent,
Steve Minnema
February 16, 2010
My Dear Colleagues
and Friends in the Presbytery,
I hope this finds you well and that means deeply connected with the
grace of God which we know in Christ and share with one another.
That is the only sure way I know to be full of joy and peace and it
is my hope for you.
I mentioned last week that I was working on collating the input we
received at Presbytery regarding our future priorities. I have
finished that now and have decided to share it with you slowly, over
the next seven weeks. My goal is to encourage all of us to keep on
reflecting on these questions and to invite others into this
conversation with us. We need to hear from session members, from
church members and – as I was reminded in an article I just finished
– from young adults who need a voice in the church’s future.
So please help me – and our new transition team – by circulating
these e-mails widely and inviting as many people as possible to
think with us about these important questions.
The first question we considered was this: “Given the fact that the presbytery could do many things (see the list circulated ahead of time) what one thing must we do to become more “vibrant”? The “list circulated ahead of time” came from the council and under the heading “vibrant” included the following possibilities. We could:
·
Provide opportunities for renewal for clergy (e.g. cluster support
groups)
·
Provide opportunities for renewal for church members (e.g. prayer
retreats)
·
Provide vibrant worship at presbytery meetings
·
Encourage “energy, intelligence, imagination and love” among
presbytery members and churches.
The following were
the top priorities (one from each) of the ten small groups that
discussed this question at Presbytery:
·
Renewal for clergy – support groups
·
Improve the level of energy, intelligence, imagination and love
among Presbytery participants and members of churches at large
·
Renewal for clergy
·
Play
together
·
Play
together – if we can play together
·
Perk
up presbytery, add value to Presbytery meetings (educational,
worthwhile worship) look at dates/times to get better attendance;
facilitate interactions in non-threatening, comfortable atmosphere.
·
Focus
on what we do well and what brings us joy
·
Presbytery must meet more frequently (quarterly? Bi-monthly?) and
more fruitfully – for one day (Saturday), including worship, study
and learning as well as business.
·
Offer
coordinated prayer opportunities to all church members throughout
presbytery
·
Renewal for clergy and renewal for members – weekend retreats for
clergy and elders together
As I ponder this input, I am struck by the wisdom that’s here and by
the guidance we can find if we are open to it. Summarizing, what I
hear here is something like this: leaders and people in
congregations periodically suffer slumps and stand in need of
“renewal.” Presbytery gatherings, because they are more occasional
and can connect us with people and experiences other than those of
our everyday world, have a chance of offering us such renewal. They
need to be planned carefully so that they bring us (beyond our
normal time for business) valuable moments for prayer, for learning,
for worship, for mutual support and for play. If people
leave presbytery gatherings feeling renewed, they will leave feeling
grateful for the time they have had together and eager to return.
In other words, what I hear here is that our top priority toward
becoming a more vibrant presbytery is to plan all our gatherings in
a way that leaves the participants feeling spiritually renewed.
What do you hear? What ideas do you have about this? And with
whom can you speak in your congregation to engage them in this
conversation?
Next week, we will move to how we can be more “informed.” Thanks for
thinking with me on these things. I may have shared one of my
favorite sayings with you before, but it’s a good time to consider
it again and maybe even to use it as a motto for this series on
using our vision statement to discern our priorities. Dom Helder
Camara, the Achbishop of Brazil, wrote it in a book: “If we dream
alone, it is only a dream. But if we dream together, it is the
beginning of a new reality.” So let us dream together of a
presbytery that is more “vibrant.” An increasingly cynical and
disillusioned world is in desperate need of seeing that such a
development is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, still possible.
Peace to you all,
Steve Minnema
February 10, 2010
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ and in the
Presbytery,
I was very pleased with our planning time at the presbytery meeting
last Friday. It seemed to me that the commissioners were well
engaged in the various conversations, appreciative of those who
spoke publicly and, so far as I could tell at the time, full of good
ideas for the future. One of my goals for this week is to collate
the feedback we received and get it in the hands of our new
transition task force for further processing as we move forward.
I may even share with everyone in a future musing what people wrote
on their report forms. There was not time at the meeting for every
group to share every answer but I think it would be valuable for you
to get them in writing so that you can keep on talking and
discerning.
There was one input that rather caught my attention and I want to
spend this musing on it. After we had come back from the longer,
larger group discussions, we went through the seven questions that
had been considered and asked for a different group to share its
answer on each one. The very first report struck me as
especially noteworthy. In response to the question, “What one
thing must we do (among the many that we could do) to become more
vibrant?” the first group replied, “We must learn to pray for
one another.” Prayer, they went on to suggest, is at the core of all
true vibrancy in the church.
Since, as you know, I have suggested that we let the wondrous little
Book of Ephesians be our guide during this time of transition, let
me propose a verse from that source that can serve as our text for
today:
Pray in the Spirit at all
times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and
always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray also for
me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known
with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an
ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must
speak. (6:18-20)
I hear three themes in this passage that reveal the deep connection
between prayer and a community’s vibrancy. You may hear it
differently but here’s what “jumps out” at me. First, “Pray in the
Spirit” is an admonition to us not to allow prayer to become
perfunctory but, instead, to be sure that we pray with complete
mindfulness that it is the Spirit of God who prays in us and through
us and who even empowers us to be partial agents in answering the
prayers we raise! Prayer is a time to be fully conscious that
we are not alone against the world and its challenges, that God in
the Spirit is as near to us as the beating of our hearts and thus
that we can at one and the same time “rest in the Spirit” and be
bold in our service. To pray is to draw on the well of the Spirit
and that is the ultimate source of all true vibrancy.
Second, there is an urgent insistence in this text that prayer must
be continuous. We are to pray “at all times;” we must “always
persevere” in our praying. So what’s up with that? Why such a
stress on constant vigilance in prayer? Here are Calvin’s
thoughts on the matter and they offer us some real help:
So what is the meaning of always? When
everything flows on prosperously, - when we are easy and cheerful,
we seldom feel any strong excitement to prayer, - or rather, we
never flee to God, but when we are driven by some kind of distress.
Paul therefore desires us to allow no opportunity to pass, - on no
occasion to neglect prayer; so that praying always is the
same thing as praying in prosperity and adversity. (Calvin’s
Commentary on Ephesians 6:18).
The point here is both simple and profound. If we only pray
when we are in trouble and need help, we will be stuck in an
immature prayer life marked and marred by the notion that God exists
to give us what we need when we need it. But if, on the other
hand, we pray through good times and bad, that will provide the
discipline we need to learn that the heart of prayer is communing
with God rather than manipulating God for our ends. And sustaining
our communion with God sustains our vibrancy.
Finally, you’ll note that the major focus of prayer in this passage
is “supplication for all the saints.” That is then driven home by
the author’s request that prayers also be raised for him and for his
ministry of teaching and preaching. The great question this raises
for us is this: how does our commitment to praying for others who
are in the church and in the ministry with us, which can simply feel
like a duty or an obligation, actually increase our vibrancy as a
community? The best answer to that, I suspect, is that by
means of such a prayer life, we acknowledge, affirm and strengthen
our interdependence with God and with one another.
When I know that my brother is praying for me and
my sister knows that I am praying for her, we all know - and are
able to remind each other – that the grace of God is sufficient for
us and can be relied upon in all circumstances. In such knowledge
there is also great vibrancy.
We are at the beginning of a process of discerning our priorities as
a Presbytery. Regardless of what that process yields, prayer needs
to be at the top of our agenda if we want to be truly vibrant.
Peace to you all,
Steve Minnema
Interim Executive Presbyter
February 2, 2010
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I
do hope you are well. I
am looking forward to seeing many of you at the Presbytery meeting
this weekend. It
promises to be an interesting event and I encourage you to pray for
the commissioners as they prepare for the conversation and make
their way to Grand Forks.
This is the last of our musings arising from Paul S. Wright’s book,
The Presbyterian Elder.
As I mentioned last week, our
focus today is “the churches and the church” (chapter V) and this is
an opportunity to think about the important role elders are called
to play in maintaining and strengthening the connection of
congregations to the larger church.
If there is one theme that
most needs our attention here in the PNP today, this is it!
I
had the great blessing of attending last week a Synod Training
Meeting at which the main speaker was Joe Small of our PC(USA)
office of theology and worship. I have written about him before and
have much appreciated his work over the years.
One interesting and little known fact he shared with us is
that our denomination is the only mainline denomination that has an
office of theology! We,
apparently, believe that theology matters!
Joe
made many points in his various presentations that are worth our
pondering. (For example, Calvin would not be pleased to hear us talk
about “clergy and laypeople” since that was a distinction he refused
to make.) But I want to share three of Joe’s points that have
special relevance to this matter of how elders can take
responsibility for a healthy connection between congregations and
the larger church.
First of all, Joe reminded us of something that we too often forget:
While the local congregation is our clearest and nearest
participation in the Body of Christ, it is not sufficient in itself.
It can only be maintained as an expression of the true body of
Christ as it stays related to other congregations who also embody
Christ. We can put the
implications of that both negatively and positively.
Negatively, a congregation that cuts itself off from other
congregations cuts itself off from the living Christ!
Positively, a congregation that is committed to staying
connected to other congregations will find that it thereby stays
connected to Christ.
Do
we as elders, pastors and commissioned lay pastors understand this?
Do we realize how important it is to the vitality of our
congregations? Do we accept that taking responsibility in this is
part of our calling?
(For instance, in our ordination vows, we promise to serve “the
peace, purity and unity of the church.” The last word refers to more
than our own congregations.)
Secondly, in his writings – and again at this conference – Joe
stresses his belief that the term “governing body” to refer to
sessions, presbyteries, synods and General Assemblies is “an ugly
word.” He believes it is a term that reflects a time when the church
adopted the hierarchical, “top down” bureaucratic approach to our
relationships and that it betrays the original intention Calvin had
for groups such as the presbytery.
Joe Small hopes that the new term for these bodies in the new
Form of Government to be considered by our GA this year will be
adopted. Then they would
all be called “councils,” with the hope that they would begin to see
themselves as forums where church leaders come together to counsel
with, encourage, guide and support one another – and once in a while
to deal with common challenges.
In other words, such councils might be great places for
people from various local congregations to enjoy the communion that
sustains us as particular embodiments of the Body of Christ.
Finally, Joe Small argued that one of the greatest theological questions facing our denomination today is the future shape of our presbyteries. In particular, two theological issues are at stake in the way we will “do presbytery” in the future:
- Will we enshrine in our life together the truth that congregations cannot be faithful expressions of the Body of Christ alone?
- Will we embody in our life together our Reformed vision of the whole ministry of the whole people of God, with elders and ministers showing us in their commitment to team leadership that we do not accept the clergy/lay dichotomy that we see all around us?
Clearly, if
this kind of new/old thinking about the role of the Presbytery is
going to catch hold among us and take shape in our presbytery, it
will take the commitment of all of us – and particularly of elders
in our churches – to bring it to pass. Let me give the last word to
Paul Wright whose last chapter concludes as follows:
“Presbyterians are eager to work with other Christians in promoting
the essential unity of the church of Christ.
It is our prayer that all may be one, in spirit and witness
if not in name, even as Christ desired, together bringing healing,
peace, and unity to a broken world. Elders are privileged to witness
and serve in such a church. “
Blessings to you
all,
Steve Minnema
Interim Executive
Presbyter
January 26, 2010
Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Presbytery,
Thanks again to those of
you who got back to me after last week’s musing to say that you are
sharing these thoughts with your elders and finding them helpful. I
am glad to know the conversation we are having is extending to
include others.
This
week we continue our consideration of Paul S. Wright’s book, The
Presbyterian Elder, by looking at chapter IV: The Session.
Wright makes several important points that got me thinking about
other matters as well so I want to share a few of those and hope
they will stimulate your thinking too.
First of all, Wright
spends some time reflecting on chapter ten of the Form of Government
where the duties of the session are laid out. Three of his
observations are especially important:
-
The opening paragraph of this chapter makes it clear that “the session is responsible for the mission and government of the particular church.” The point is that the session’s role is comprehensive and encompasses the health of the church in every dimension of its life and work. (Yet, I have to ask, when was the last time your session took agenda time to discuss the spiritual health of your congregation and its members?)
-
The duties assigned to the session in chapter ten are described in such a way that those which are often seen as “merely administrative or institutional” are presented as spiritual challenges. Thus, for example, the session is “to challenge the people of God with the privilege of responsible Christian stewardship of money and time and talents…” (But, again, when was the last time your session considered giving such a challenge and then backing it up with your own increased giving?)
-
I deeply believe that
new ways of being and doing always involve new ways of thinking. I
also believe that in our case as Presbyterians the new ways of
thinking that can help us the most are in our old documents! What
might happen in a stalled church if the elders on session were to
take responsibility for the church’s spiritual health, commit
themselves anew to their own growth and then find the courage to
challenge the congregation to follow where they lead? Wouldn’t it be
wonderful to find out?
Wright also suggests two other ways in which our sessions can
take a hard look at themselves and begin to see some new
possibilities. The first is to ask about the way we plan our agendas
and the second about the way we organize our work in committees,
task forces or ministry teams.
-
W
-
-
-
Another way to say
this is that the session is responsible to be good stewards of the
people’s time and talents and one of the best ways to do that is to
organize the work of the church by means of groups that people value
and find meaningful (and well organized).
Peace,
Steve Minnema
January 19, 2010
My Dear Fellow
Presbyters,
I hope this finds you well and that your congregations continue to
find new ways to grow and change and be faithful. I have two big
concerns on my mind and heart as I write to you today so I decided
to combine them in one epistle. The first is the topic we
promised to address this week: What is an elder to be? The
second is the disaster in Haiti and our response to it. Something
tells me that the points I need to make regarding the first topic
can be well illustrated by reference to the second.
Last week, we focused on what an elder must believe and we stressed
that the central requirement is that an elder know from experience
what it means to trust Jesus Christ and to be his committed
follower. This week, we want to look more at the manner of living
that we Presbyterians – through our constitution – expect of our
elders. Here’s a good place to start. It’s found in Form of
Government 6.0303:
Elders should
be persons of faith, dedication and good judgment. Their
manner of life should be a demonstration of the Christian gospel,
both within the church and in the world.
The main point in this powerful little paragraph is that we expect
elders to demonstrate in the way they live that their lives have
been impacted for good by the gospel of God’s grace to humanity in
Jesus Christ. What is more, this demonstration is to take place in
both the church and in one’s daily life in the world. Whether we
like to think about it much or not, anyone elected as an elder in
the Presbyterian Church is expected in some sense to live a life
that is exemplary, one that offers others an example of the
difference Christ can make in our lives. I want to suggest that
there are four dimensions of such a witness to the gospel that
elders might particularly take to heart.
First, if the gospel says one thing over and over, it is that God
calls sinful people like us and promises to do in us and through us
“far more than we can ask or imagine.”(Eph. 3:20) I have never yet
met – nor would I want to meet! – an elder candidate who read the
above, bolded statement and said, “No problem. I can do that
for sure.” A big part of how we demonstrate the gospel to others is
by realizing that we are not qualified in ourselves to live as God
wants us to live. If we read this statement and say, “I’m going to
need a lot of grace and love to do that,” we’ve got it just right!
The first way we demonstrate the gospel in our lives is by humbly
acknowledging our day by day dependence on a grace we do not
deserve.
Last week a well-known television preacher declared that the people
of Haiti were clearly reaping in the current disaster the results of
a pact they had made with the devil years ago. He was
undoubtedly referring to reports that Voodoo is still practiced by
many Haitians.
How might an elder
– who knows her or his own need for daily grace – respond to such an
assertion and thus demonstrate the gospel to others? One
possibility is that he or she might want to ask that preacher how he
can be so sure that this earthquake represents God’s judgment on a
people’s sin. Aren’t we all sinful and don’t we all have to
ask, when bad things happen to us, how much of this is the
consequences of our behavior and how much just the unfortunate
implications of our mortality and vulnerability?
Second, an elder responds to the neighbor and the world as she or he
is guided by a prior commitment to Christ. Listen to
ordination question number 6: Will you in your own life
seek to follow the
Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the
reconciliation of the world? It is as we make Christ our focus
and engage in a daily, continuing conversation with him, that we
find guidance in responding to our needy neighbors. While I am glad
to see the outpouring of gifts for Haiti occasioned by wide media
coverage of this tragedy, we Christians need to be clear that our
compassion for others is not dependent on the coming and going of
vivid images or stories on the nightly news but on a voice inside
that never ceases to urge us to care for “the least of these.”
Third, an elder is always a member of a ministry team and thus must
work with others to shape the church’s coordinated response to the
challenges and opportunities it sees in the world. The second
part of question 5 is this: “Will you be a friend among your
colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering
of God’s Word and Spirit? Occasions such as the Haiti disaster are
excellent times for us to remember how much we can accomplish when
we work together rather than alone. And elders can and ought to lead
the way!
So, for instance, one of our elders in this presbytery – who is also
a commissioned lay pastor – wrote me to say that there were only 20
people in church last Sunday but, working with the communicant’s
class that had asked her to help them make a response, that
congregation raised nearly $250 for Haiti. Elders are team players.
Paul Wright, in his book on the Presbyterian elder, put it nicely:
“To be able to think with others, to pray with others, and work with
others is one of the qualifications of an elder.” (p. 36)
Finally, an elder demonstrates the Christian gospel in his or her
manner of life by staying hopeful and spreading hope to others.
Question 8 is this: “Will you seek to serve the people with energy,
intelligence, imagination and love?” A deep and abiding hope, born
of trust that we are in God’s hands and being used by God for God’s
purposes, is the fountain of all these virtues. I was in a service
in one of our churches this past Sunday. The preacher, one of our
minister members, acknowledged that the Haiti disaster leaves us
wondering where the hope is and whether there is any point in even
responding. But then she reminded us of the old proverb that “a
journey of a thousand miles begins with the first few steps.” And
even though we had all heard that before, we also all recognized
that we have no choice but to stay hopeful and act hopefully. It is
only in that way that our manner of life can demonstrate to the
world that the gospel of Christ has changed us and changed us for
good.
Next week, we will conclude our look at Wright’s book by considering
what he has to say about the elders when they gather as a session.
Peace be with you all.
January 12, 2010
My Dear Brothers
and Sisters in Christ and in the Presbytery,
As I mentioned last week, one of my work objectives for this year is
to put together a helpful program of training/orientation for
elders. Toward that end, I raised a number of questions with you and
want to thank those who responded. Your responses help me to
understand how you see this challenge and that offers me some
excellent guidance.
I also shared with you some reflections from Paul Wright’s classic
little book, The Presbyterian Elder, and promised that I
would continue with that today. Wright’s focus is on the basics but,
as we so often learn, neglecting such truths inevitably gets us in
trouble. So today’s focus is on the question: What must an
elder believe?
In one of the churches I served a few years back, a man was elected
as elder but when he came to the new officer orientation and learned
of the ordination questions he would have to answer, he had serious
misgivings. He ended up asking the session, “Can I still be ordained
even though I really can’t say in all honesty that I trust in Christ
as my Savior?” The discussion that resulted from his question was
one of the more important conversations we had during my time in
that church. As you might imagine there were a few people who
quickly took a position with some saying, “No way” and others “Why
not?” When the dust had settled we had reached several important
conclusions: 1) It was a good thing that this man had taken the
questions seriously and was refusing to say a “yes” he did not mean;
but 2) He was not just saying that he had the same doubts that all
of us have; he was saying that his doubts were such that he could
not make a public profession of his trust in Christ as Savior; and,
thus, 3) he ought not to be ordained since such a profession is a
requirement for church office.
What those elders were confronting in that discussion were two of
the harder - but nevertheless essential – truths in our Presbyterian
approach to leadership: 1) We must insist that our elected leaders
lead from a position of personal commitment to Christ and 2) It is
the responsibility of currently elected officers to make sure this
happens. Another way to say this is that faithful Presbyterian
leadership begins as church officers say and mean their
ordination vows. Since it is the first three of those vows that
focus on the beliefs required of ministers and elders, I want to
follow Wright in taking a closer look at those particular promises.
Do you trust in
Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of
the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit?
The very first
qualification for ordination is not a mere intellectual assent to
orthodox doctrine; it is a living trust in a living Lord who has
saved us and called us to serve him in and through the church.
What is more, through Christ’s presence in our lives we are able to
experience the fullness of the divine reality disclosed to us in the
three persons of the Trinity.
As we trust in
Christ, we are reconciled to our Creator and filled with the
indwelling Spirit who renews our lives and empowers our service.
Thus, this question is not merely put to our heads but also to our
hearts: Do you know from your experience the transforming power of
trusting the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the world?
If so, you have met the first qualification for
ordination.
Do you accept
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy
Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the
Church universal and God’s Word to you?
The second qualification for ordination is a commitment to accepting
the authority that the Scriptures rightly claim by virtue of the
fact that, by the work of the Spirit, they become for us: 1) the
unique witness to Jesus Christ and 2) God’s Word made personal.
Once again, we are not merely being asked for a head nod in the
direction of an ancient belief. We are being asked if we have found
from experience that the Scriptures deserve our disciplined and
respectful attention because through them we have met Christ and
learned to trust him and also, through them, have heard a Word from
God with our name on it.
A few years ago a survey by the Presbyterian Panel showed that only
36% of our elders believed that a working knowledge of the Bible was
important for their work. In my view, that is tantamount to saying
that it’s perfectly fine for elders to say and not mean their
ordination vows!
Do you
sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed
faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and
reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do,
and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead
the people of God?
The final question addressed to what an elder must believe asks for
our commitment to our particular heritage as members of the Reformed
family of churches. More specifically, we are invited to affirm that
we “sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets” of that
tradition as they are found in our confessions.
For many elder candidates, this is a tough question. In my
experience, very few of them are able to identify an “essential
tenet” of Reformed faith and that would seem to be necessary before
one can “sincerely receive and adopt” them. There are three
ways that this difficulty can be met with integrity. First, elder
candidates can be given some opportunity in their training to
explore these essential tenets. Second, there is a real sense in
which people who have been Presbyterians for some time have imbibed
our essential tenets even if they are not particularly adept at
articulating them. Elder candidates who with time and
experience develop a deep appreciation for the way we worship, the
way we interpret the Bible, the way we do the sacraments, the way we
bring the word of God to bear on contemporary concerns can say and
mean that they sincerely receive and adopt our essential tenets.
Finally, elder candidates may also answer this question with an
honest “I do and I will” if they are thereby saying, “I don’t know a
lot about this yet but am willing to keep learning.”
Next week, following Wright, we will look at the remaining
ordination questions under the overall question, “What must an elder
be?” I hope you have a great week and, as always, thank you for
thinking with me. This too is part of our common ministry.
Steve Minnema
January 5, 2010
Dear Fellow
Presbyters,
A new year brings new challenges and new opportunities both for us
as individuals and for us as church leaders. In many ways the more
important question is whether this new year will also bring us the
kind of growth we need if we are going to face these challenges and
opportunities with “energy, intelligence, imagination and love” (as
we promised in the eighth of our ordination vows).
Such growth – I’ve always believed – is something of a mystery. It
is often spurred by pain (“There must be a lesson for us in this
ordeal!”) or by the profound recognition that what we’ve been doing
“forever” is no longer working. Growth is never automatic. It
takes a certain openness of spirit to new ways of seeing and even to
the experience of being taught or coached by others. It takes
discipline, the day in and day out commitment to take a new insight
or strategy, practice it and then make adjustments. And, finally,
true growth is always marked by a certain “aha! joy in discovery”
that lets us know that the person involved is going to keep on
growing just for the fun of it.
A recent slogan in our PC(USA) lexicon suggests that we are called
to “grow the church deep and wide.” It’s helpful, I think, because
it reminds us that there may be a connection between our growth in
depth and our growth in width or, in other words, between our
spiritual growth and our capacity to reach beyond ourselves in
inviting others into our fellowship. Those who are more and
more mindful of the great grace that has claimed them in Christ are
more and more able – with and without words – to welcome others into
that same grace.
One of my work objectives for 2010 is “to develop a flexible and
useful plan for elder training throughout the presbytery.” I covet
your suggestions and your participation as we begin the work of
discerning how best this might be done. Should we be thinking about
some special events for church officers at various locations around
the presbytery? Should we be putting something together that could
be accessed via the computer? Should we be focusing on initial
elder training or continuing education? All these questions and more
will have to be considered. Behind all of this, the goal must
be kept in clear view: we want to promote the growth of elders so
that they can undertake their important ministries – face their own
set of challenges and opportunities – with “energy, intelligence,
imagination and love.”
There are many good books that can help us. One classic, The
Presbyterian Elder by Paul S. Wright, will form the basis of
several musings in January. Others will follow. I especially want
to encourage you to respond to me with your thoughts and suggestions
as we turn to this specific focus: how can we grow strong elders in
the PNP? Perhaps, I will conclude each musing with a question or two
for you to ponder and, if you choose, to get back to me about.
In the first chapter of Wright’s book, he deals with a recurrent
issue that we have to keep addressing because it does not seem
ever to go away. It is the way in which the ministry of the
church so often gets professionalized. In spite of the fact
that we have such a long tradition of stressing “the priesthood of
all believers,” the reality seems to be that many of us still
believe that real ministry is done by the ordained clergy (or maybe
also by the Trained and Commissioned Lay Pastor) and not by
“ordinary church members.” Unless and until we can get over this
noxious notion – both in our thinking and in our living – we can
never grow the church deep and wide. It will always be more of a
loose fellowship of those who are cared for by the same pastor.
Here’s a strong statement from Wright’s book:
Our Reformed
heritage causes us to take a dim view of “professionalism” and
“specialists” in matters of faith. Faith is an encounter with God.
The truth of Christian faith is not some secret learning to which
only certain initiates have access; neither is it a spiritual power
which only some can possess and transmit. The heart of our faith is
that Christ comes to persons whom the Spirit has awakened to faith.
It is a perversion to think of our faith in terms of
professionalism… The church is true to itself and its Lord when
there are not two classes of people – one with a unique status in
relation to the things of God and another in an inferior position.
It is not an exaggeration to say that John Calvin took the second
century model of church governance by presbyters (elders) and
applied it to the reformation church as a clear attempt to
protect the protestant movement from just such professionalism!
We ordain elders in order to affirm that the critical ministry of
leadership in the church is as open to “ordinary church members” as
it is to seminary graduates and that the gifts and call of
God to such persons are in no way “second class.”
Lately it has been occurring to me often that “the jury is still
out” on Calvin’s bold experiment. The office of elder could simply
die out; or, maybe more likely, it could continue for a while and be
occupied by those who have little in the way of “energy,
intelligence, imagination and love.” The only way to avoid
such outcomes is for the elders to catch a new vision of their
calling and make a new commitment to growth in faith and in
faithfulness.
So what do you think about this: 1) Have we moved past the
temptation to professionalize the ministry or not? 2) Are our elders
mindful of the ministry to which they are called? 3) What ideas do
you have to stimulate real growth among our church leaders?
Next week I will share some more ideas from Wright’s book. But
let me hear from you on the above and be at peace.
Yours in Christ,
Steve Minnema
December 22, 2009
Dear Sisters and
Brothers in the Presbytery,
I want to take this musing to express my sincere hope that you will
all, in your families and in your congregations, have a blessed
Christmas filled with moments when it feels like the divine has been
born again in your midst. This is, after all, what we pray for when
we sing the last verse of one of the great carols of the season:
O
holy child of Bethlehem, Descend to us today;
Cast out our sin and enter in, Be born in us today.
We
hear the Christmas angels, The great glad tidings tell;
O
come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel!
I had a friend once – a colleague in ministry – who told me that he
always looked for some radiant moment near the end of Advent when
this prayer would find some kind of observable fulfillment.
Then, and only then, would it really “feel like Christmas” to him.
Since I seem to remember this comment every year, I suspect I have
come to follow his lead. It’s been an unusual advent for me, to say
the least. Having served as a pastor for thirty-four years before
moving here, this is the first time in a long time in which I have
not had a significant role in leading a particular community through
the “waiting and watching” of Advent to the welcoming and rejoicing
of Christmas. So early on, I must confess, I started to wonder if
this might be one year when the kind of “NOW IT HAS ARRIVED!” moment
described above might not arrive for me.
But God is good – and faithful – and so yesterday I was given such a
moment and want to describe it for you. Maybe doing so will help, in
some small way, to sensitize you to such moments as well. It
happened in our church in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota where I was to
preach the morning sermon since their commissioned lay pastor, Tom
Potter, was away celebrating an anniversary. I had decided to use
two texts from the lectionary, the first from Psalm 80 and the
second Mary’s Magnificat from Luke 1. What had struck me as I
pondered these texts was the wonderful harmony they exhibited
together. The Psalm is a cry for God to smile again on Israel
after the exile and the Magnificat an affirmation that in the birth
of Jesus Mary has seen that smile incarnate. So that became my theme
for the service and for the sermon: that we were not made to live
forever under the frown of God but can expect, in God’s time and
way, to see God’s smile and thus, as the Psalmist puts it (80:19)
“be saved.”
So when I got to the church ten or so minutes before the service and
saw the bulletin for the first time, I learned that I would be doing
a children’s time. That was my first surprise. The
second, after I had said, “It’s ok; I’ll think of something,” was
that the children’s time turned out to be the high point of the
service, the moment at which the message really got proclaimed and,
at least by me – and maybe by others, too – heard.
What happened was this. When we came to the spot in the service
designated as “Time for the Children,” but before I had a chance to
announce that, one solitary lad – looking to be around ten or so –
rolled forward in his wheel chair with a big smile on his face. I
immediately started asking myself, “How did he know I would be
talking about smiles today?”
So I greeted him and then told him that he had clearly been sent to
help me share the message I had prepared for the adults in a simpler
form that kids might understand. (In my experience, many adults
appreciate the simpler version as well.) So he just smiled and said,
“Sure.”
So I asked him a few questions. “When you were born,” I said,
“whose smile do you think you might have seen first?” After a
moment’s thought, his face lit up and he said, “My mom’s!”
“I thought so,” I responded. “And did that smile say to you that she
was not happy to see you?”
“No way!” he responded.
“So when do you open your Christmas gifts?” I asked him.
“On Christmas Eve at my Dad’s and on Christmas Day at my mom’s,” he
responded with great enthusiasm.
“So you have a double treat to look forward to,” I responded. “But
let me ask you this:
Are you hoping to
see your parents’ smiling faces at Christmas?”
“Yes,” he responded with a big smile of his own.
“Because,” I concluded, “you know that a smile is a promise of good
things to come. And that’s why in our Bible story this morning,
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is so happy and smiling. Because
she has seen in the birth of Jesus the smile of God and knows that
all will be well.” And the smile of that little lad told me that he
had understood the message very well.
But I think what spoke the loudest to me in this experience was the
fact that this young believer, who had obviously known some pain in
his short life, was showing us how the smile of God comes, not to
remove the difficulties in our lives, but to bring us joy in the
midst of them.
I might even go
farther and say that at that moment that young lad became the
presence of the smile of God in our midst - “Be born in us
today!” – and those with the eyes to see and the heart to receive
were given a great gift.
As Advent gives way to Christmas, it is my hope and prayer for you
all that some such moment will allow you too to see the shining face
of God that first became incarnate in the Babe of Bethlehem.
Peace to you in
the Prince of Peace,
Steve Minnema
December 15, 2009
Dear Friends in
the Presbytery,
It is hard to believe that there are only ten days remaining before
our waiting time is over and our celebration of Christ’s coming can
begin. Will we be ready to receive him and give him our lives?
Are we lifting up our prayers of preparation? Are we making room for
him in our calendars?
Last week I shared some reflections with you based on John P.
Burgess’ essay entitled “Thinking Theologically About the Church.”
I suggested, with him, that such theological work is one of those
“divine disciplines” that help us to perceive and receive the
fullness of what God intends for the church. So today I want to
explore the question a bit further. What, exactly, is God’s
purpose for the church? And how does understanding the church as
a pilgrim people deepen our grasp of that purpose?
Burgess begins his chapter III with an important sentence, though
one that might require an explanation. “To think theologically about
the church is above all to think eschatologically.” The
fact that my spell check does not recognize that last word gives me
a clue that I might need to clarify what it really means. The gist
of it is simply this: Jesus came declaring that in him and his
ministry the reign of God was breaking into the world. As followers
of Jesus, we, his church, have the privilege and the responsibility
to be a sign for the world of that good news. The saying I created
many years ago to help me express this thought goes like this:
“Without the reign of God on its horizon, the church is pointless;
but without the church in the foreground the reign of God is
pointerless.”
As a pilgrim people, the church refuses to accommodate itself to the
present arrangement of the world; it will not settle down and be
comfortable with things as they are; instead, it insists on
following its God given longing for the new creation and, in so
doing, calls into question all the settlements made by the rich and
the powerful while, at the same time, giving hope to the poor and
the lowly. (I’m thinking here of Mary’s Magnificat which will be
heard in many of our churches this Sunday.)
One of my favorite texts could well be our theme song as God’s
pilgrim people: “All of these died in faith without having received
the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them.
They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth,
for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking
a homeland.” (Hebrews 11:13-14)
To be a pilgrim
people is to accept the hard fact that we can never be completely at
home in this world until the reign of God arrives with its justice
and peace for all. All that we have to sustain us are our longing
and our trust in the faithfulness of God.
Burgess adds an intriguing thought arising from an interesting
question. Here’s the question: why in The Apostles’ Creed does the
phrase “the forgiveness of sin,” follow upon “the holy catholic
church, the communion of saints,” and precede “the resurrection of
the body and the life everlasting”? His answer, and I believe he is
right about this, is that the church becomes “holy” as it receives
forgiveness and, as it receives forgiveness, it serves as a sign to
the world of how God’s new creation begins.
There are several important implications from this that are well
worth our pondering.
First of all, the
ritual of confession and forgiveness that happens in most of our
churches on most Sunday mornings needs to be better understood as a
moment of supreme importance for the church and its mission in the
world. As a friend of mine would put it, “This is a really big
deal!” We must all try to be wide awake and completely mindful of
what is transpiring at this “opportune moment.”
Second, we need to recognize that it is by the grace of forgiveness
alone – and not be any inspired efforts on our parts to be more
loving or saintly – that we are rendered holy. I have served
enough churches to know that one of the big diseases that afflict
many congregations is something that could be described as “Let’s
play church and all pretend that we’re better than we are.” This is
a fraudulent holiness that is entirely human made and thus points no
one beyond itself to the One who is the source of all true holiness.
Finally, there is a lot of talk about “the missional church” today.
Though this well may be a needed corrective to a church that’s grown
overly preoccupied with its own internal well being, the truth is
that the church cannot be the church without being missional. What
is more, the church is at its missional best at that moment when it
honestly repents of its sin, throws itself on the mercy of God and
thereby demonstrates to the world how the reign of God actually
arrives.
Ours is a cynical age in which a lot of people are living with
diminished expectations while others have decided to grab what they
can before everything collapses on top of us.
A pilgrim people
will thus be regarded by many as weak and foolish and out of touch
with reality. Read Hebrews 11:29-40 and you will see that it
has always been so. A faithful God calls us to a journey of faith
and we simply cannot stop or turn back, can we?
May we continue to
encourage one another as we await the reign of God in Christ,
Steve Minnema
December 8 ,2009
Dear Fellow
Presbyters,
I do hope this finds you all well and that something of the light of
God is breaking into your darkness in this season of waiting.
The PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship recently sent me a copy
of an essay by John Burgess entitled “Thinking Theologically about
the Church.” It is a helpful and provocative piece and I thus want
to share some reflections from it over the course of a few weeks.
The first and main point I want to explore today is simply Dr.
Burgess’ suggestion that a) we are normally disinclined to think
theologically about the church and b) we need to do so. I find
myself in agreement with him and want to encourage you to think with
me about this and what it might mean for us.
Burgess begins by suggesting that most of us see the church as a
“voluntary association” whose great challenge is to provide the
religious services sought by its members and/or friends. The more
effective, creative or innovative such an association is, the more
success it is likely to have in attracting and keeping adherents.
The problem, Burgess goes on, is that too many of us think of the
church only in these terms and we thus fail, frequently, to
ask with any real interest: how is the church a divine creation and
what is God up to with it?
It is this basic shift in our perspective, from “What do we want to
make of the church?” to “What does God want to make of the church?”,
that turns our attention away from ourselves and our schemes and
toward our Scriptural/theological heritage and the God who speaks to
us through it. Many of us are able to say quite quickly what we want
from the church; it takes humility and patience and effort to try to
learn what God wants. But it is through such discipline that we have
a chance of glimpsing anew the big picture of God’s dealings with us
and of placing ourselves at God’s service (instead of placing God at
ours!).
I had the privilege yesterday of presiding at the sacrament of
communion in one of our churches. The kind of problem and
challenge Dr. Burgess is talking about comes to clear focus there.
How many of us come to Christ’s table with our minds and hearts so
full of what we want or need from the sacrament that it never occurs
to us to ask ourselves why God in Christ instituted this act of
worship and what God in Christ is still wanting to do through
it? Under the influence of our own desires and needs, we might seek
at the table some feeling of assurance that we are forgiven. But
unless we think long and hard about God’s purposes for the sacrament
(and listen to scripture and tradition), we might miss entirely the
truth that God is in this way, in addition to forgiving us, creating
and nurturing a people whose life together is to be a sign to a
broken world of God’s coming reign and of God’s determination, in
spite of our sin, to bring it to pass.
In other words,
thinking theologically about the church is not an academic exercise
for snobbish people who consider themselves intellectuals. It is,
rather, what Dr. Burgess calls “a divine discipline” through the use
of which the Holy Spirit impacts our thinking and acts in and on our
lives. I always listen closely when someone urges us to recover
some such form of “divine discipline.” I’ve always suspected that
“disciples” require such reminders from time to time.
Next week, I want
to explore what Dr. Burgess means when he says, throughout his
essay, that one of the great metaphors for the church – which we
need to recover for our time - is that of “a pilgrim people.”
In the meantime, I hope you will keep praying with me for the
renewal of our church and our churches and, especially, that all of
us will open our hearts more mindfully to what God is asking of us
and wanting to do in and through us.
May the Peace of
Christ Sustain You,
Steve Minnema
December 1, 2009
Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Presbytery,
With the beginning of Advent this past
Sunday, many of us heard the admonition of Jesus in Luke 21:28 that
when we see certain signs we should lift up our heads because our
redemption is “drawing near.” Hearing that got me to wondering:
what are the signs we might be looking for – in our churches and
in our presbytery’s life – to indicate that our redemption is near?
Having concluded my reading of J. Russell
Crabtree’s The Fly in the Ointment, I have four responses to
that question that help me – and perhaps might help you as well – to
focus our time of waiting and praying as we look for the coming of
Christ.
First, we are looking for a church or
presbytery that is more externally focused. Instead of being
preoccupied with ourselves and our own internal issues, we have our
gaze firmly focused on the world and its need for the reign of God
and on our calling to be agents of its announcement. When a church
or a presbytery starts becoming more concerned about what God wants
to do through it in the world than about how happy everyone is
inside the church, then we can lift up our heads; our redemption
draws near.
Second, we are looking for a church or a
presbytery in which the morale is high because people’s gifts and
skills are being put to good use in tasks aimed at purposes that
they support and believe in. Crabtree actually talks about a
two-tiered approach to morale building. The first tier addresses
“baseline” issues that are essential for high morale but not
sufficient in themselves to generate it. You have to attend to
things like competent leadership and positive relationships and fair
policies and practices. To get to the highest level of morale,
you also need to attend to what he calls the “premium” factors and
that includes making sure that people see the goals of the church as
significant and that their unique gifts are being well utilized in
the service of those goals. It also includes recognizing
people for the good they do. Whatever it takes, when we see high
morale in the church or presbytery, we can certainly lift up our
heads: our redemption is near.
Third, when we find a way to make sure that
the naysayers, resisters, obstructionists, and chaos makers are not
allowed to disrupt the progress of the church toward its goals, we
can also lift up our heads for our redemption draws near. It’s an
unpleasant but often present reality: some people – or groups of
people – exhibit habits that interfere with the church’s efforts to
achieve its goals. This, alone, is not the problem. The
problem happens when such folks are allowed to have too much power
or influence and thus to obstruct the forward movement toward the
vision that has been accepted and is being pursued. When a church or
presbytery learns how to name and disempower the behavior that hurts
or hinders its progress, lift up your heads since here too you can
see our redemption drawing near.
Finally, when money is given freely,
generously and joyfully, to our churches or our presbytery, you can
really believe that something new and special is happening. My
impression is that the majority of giving that is going on right now
– including what goes to our congregations and what comes in to the
presbytery office to support its work – is the result of
longstanding habits that have not been reexamined in some time.
Crabtree talks about something he calls “servant based fundraising.”
What he really means is finding a way to make sure that the church
is offering givers the chance to serve what they really and truly
care about. Until that can happen in some kind of way, it is hard to
imagine how our giving will be anything more than perfunctory.
When we start seeing cheerful givers because they are glad to be
serving what they are serving with their financial gifts, then too
we can lift up our heads since our redemption draws near.
What I’ve always liked about the message of
Advent was its reminder that our first responsibility is to make
room in our own hearts and lives for the realities we want to see
come into the church and world. To the degree that we can see the
above developments in ourselves, we can celebrate the fulfillment of
the promise: our redemption has drawn near.
Peace to you all in this season of waiting and
watching,
Steve Minnema
Interim Executive Presbyter
November 24, 2009
Dear Friends Around the Presbytery,
I read yesterday (I cannot avoid at least one
reference to my reading) that perspective is a critical factor in
how we approach everything we do in life. I believe that and I thus
want to urge us to make sure that our perspective – on our lives,
our families, our churches and our country – is one that always
recognizes and celebrates the fact that everything we have to enjoy
is a sheer gift from our Maker, our Savior and our Holy Sustainer.
Grace is the ground in which gratitude grows. It is my prayer
for you all that you will know that and show that in all that you do
in this festive week and in the weeks, months, and years to come.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love
of God and the power and peace of the Holy Spirit be with you and
your families.
Your brother in Christ,
Steve Minnema
November 10, 2009
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Presbytery,
November has come on gently and I hope you have found ample opportunities to enjoy the warmth and beauty of these days. I would urge you in such times to put “God is good” into your conversations regularly. (That might make it more possible to continue saying those words when circumstances change.)
Last week we began a discussion taking off from A Fly in the Ointment by J. Russell Crabtree.
Following his lead, I described “the five factors that create high energy churches.” But I also promised that I would move on this week to the question of how a regional body like the presbytery might support congregations that are hoping to become such churches themselves. In short, our urgent question is: how might the Presbytery of the Northern Plains serve the energizing of its member congregations?
In his book Crabtree rightfully focuses first on the critical issue of leadership. There is no way around the fact that congregations need energized leaders if they are going to become energized communities. So our question about the Presbytery’s role can be made more specific: how might the presbytery support its congregations in the whole matter of leadership recruitment, empowerment and training?
Crabtree begins his discussion with what I believe to be a crucial distinction between leaders and managers. Managers are oriented toward the maintenance of the status quo while leaders are committed to the growth and improvement of the organizations they serve. “I define a leader,” he writes, as someone who has the capacity to bring his or her church through the necessary changes that will increase the church’s effectiveness in achieving its mission.” Thus, a leader cannot fear change or the conflict it inevitably brings.
So our initial question can be sharpened even further. Given the widespread conviction that our churches need to change or slowly die and given the fact that such necessary change carries with it the need for leaders who can lead us through it, how might the Presbytery support the emergence of empowered leaders (and not managers) in the life of our churches?
I want to share five thoughts about this, some from Crabtree and some from my own experience. I hope in time to hear your thoughts on this as well.
First, Crabtree emphasizes that regional governing bodies- along with their staff - simply need to make this work their highest priority. I suspect that most of us would readily acknowledge that this has not always been the case in the past. Though there have clearly been efforts in this direction, other priorities have often crowded this one out.
Second, Crabtree rightly urges us to give some time to our “theology of leadership.” The Bible is full of stories of courageous leaders and it would be highly energizing for us to meditate on those stories and thus come to expect that God will work with us as we try to support the emergence and empowerment of a new generation of leaders for the church.
Third, Crabtree emphasizes the importance of equipping leaders in “cascading training” that reaches into the various levels of a church’s functioning. In our particular case, that means giving due attention to pastors, elders, deacons and commissioned lay pastors. (In olden days, presbyteries also trained Sunday School leaders.) But the point is that effective leadership is always shared leadership and that needs to be kept in mind as we plan whatever programs we might consider.
Fourth, whatever leadership training the presbytery does should aim at building the capacity of local church leaders to think and act strategically. That means helping leaders to identify the challenges and opportunities facing their communities and plan appropriate responses. For instance, one of Crabtree’s strongest recommendations is that people like myself who serve in an executive capacity with the regional governing body are most effective when we take the role of a coach to those who are wanting to develop their capacities for strategic leadership in their local setting. (And I am very willing to do this for anyone who might be open to it.)
Finally, there are a host of special skills leaders need to acquire if they are to be more effective in energizing their congregations. These include the ability to discern a new vision for the church’s future, the ability to cope with conflict, the ability to cultivate the grace of stewardship in members, the ability to help the church identify and embrace opportunities to reach out to its community and beyond, and so on. A presbytery that is truly making leadership development a priority would be seeking to offer a wide array of such opportunities for training and skill development.
I know all this sounds very daunting. But what we most need, I believe, is a clear, compelling and focused vision of what we as a presbytery need to be about. Without that, nothing much good can come. But with it, we might just surprise ourselves (or be surprised by One who is the source of all real energy and is, the last I checked, still working among us.)
Peace to you all in Christ,
Steve Minnema
Interim Executive Presbyter