Presbytery of the Northern Plains - Musings from Minnema

Musings from Minnema

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?)
An often ignored duty of session is this: “to engage in a process for education and mutual growth of the members of session.” (But when was the last time your agenda was devoted to the elders’ own continuing education – or even to a discussion it?)

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?

One of the great books many sessions have found helpful is a book by Chuck Olson called Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Leaders. In that book Olson writes: “As I see it, the level of commitment in a congregation will never rise above that of their elected leaders.” Somehow it is so easy for elders to sit around and wring their hands about the low level of commitment of others in the church without ever asking themselves about the tone they are setting. As we stressed last week with regard to individual elders, it is also true that the session as a group must in some sense be exemplary of the kind of commitment God is asking of all of us.

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.

Though there are 19 specific duties assigned to session in chapter ten, Wright stresses four primary ones and suggests that we look at our agendas to determine if they are getting the time and attention they deserve. They are: 1) “to assist the pastor in the oversight of the spiritual welfare of the congregation; 2) “To provide for the worship of the people of God…”; 3) To oversee the program of Christian nurture”; and 4) “to challenge the people of God with the privilege of responsible Christian stewardship” and then to use the people’s gifts wisely to support the ministry of the church at all its levels.

Over the years the most common complaint I have heard from elders is that the session’s agenda so frequently gets bogged down in trivial concerns. How can we let that happen with such weighty matters assigned to us? And could we not avoid such a bogging down in trivia by understanding that it is the responsibility of each elder and the session as a whole to be mindful of how well our actual agenda reflects our deepest calling?

Finally, Wright reminds us that one of the good ways wise sessions promote the spiritual health of their congregations is in the way they organize the people’s work via committees, task forces or ministry teams. In larger churches such groups are standard but even in smaller churches they are often helpful. A session that really wants to renew and revitalize its church will always consider four factors in creating or re-creating such small working groups:

What is the clear and compelling reason for this group and how will that serve the greater mission of the whole church?
How can we recruit people who will have a heart for this work?
How will we provide and support leadership for this effort?
To whom will this group be accountable and how will we evaluate its effectiveness?

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).

Originally, I had planned three musings from Wright’s book but now I am going to add a fourth. His chapter five, “The Churches and the Church,” offers me an important opportunity to talk with you about the role of sessions in strengthening the connection between their particular congregations and the larger church. So that will be next week’s topic.

I hope you are well and thank you again for your attention to these matters and your willingness to join me in thinking them through.

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.

Steve Minnema

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 want to offer both you and myself a rest from the hard thinking we’ve been doing together and, more importantly, an invitation to join me in being thankful this week for all the blessings God has blessed us with, as Christians, as Presbyterians and as Americans who live on the Great Plains.

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