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Change is Constant, Growth is Optional

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This month, strategy team member MaryAnn McKibben Dana is curating a series of posts on our most recent National Gathering. Now that we’ve been back in the trenches of ministry for a while, what ideas have really “stuck”? What keeps nagging at us, whether in a positive or challenging way? How has our view of or approach to ministry been impacted by what we experienced? What continues to be a struggle? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Beth Merrill Neel

One of my colleagues on the church staff loves to remind all of us that “change is constant, growth is optional.” My experience at this year’s NEXT Church National Gathering confirmed the first part of that statement, and has challenged me with regards to the second.

This was my third National Gathering. I find these events a helpful and invigorating use of my time and a great way to reconnect with old friends and colleagues. This year was no different, but as I left Kansas City I realized that I left feeling old and very white – but in a growth-producing way.

It was clear to me that the leadership of NEXT Church is getting younger, and that is good. While my friend Lee Hinson-Hasty has looked at the numbers and has warned us that there will be a pastor shortage down the line, the pastors and leaders who are young now are faithful, and creative, and talented. That is great news for the PCUSA and for the world. But as a 50-something pastor, I felt a little put out to pasture. Why weren’t we singing more hymns? Don’t my 20+ years of experience count for something? Does anyone else here remember when we used to mimeograph the Sunday bulletin?

Change is constant and often hard. My growth into old age is constant. I am challenged to consider how I might give up positions and opportunities that come my way so that someone younger might have the chance to do something. I am also challenged to think about how I might mentor a younger pastor or leader, and how I will continue to learn from a younger pastor or leader.

Harder, and more serious, is my coming to terms with my own racism and the ways the NEXT Church National Gathering challenged me to continue to do that. I’m a quarter Swiss. I serve a congregation in Portland, Oregon, the whitest city in America. I have privileges out the wazoo because of the color of my skin. NEXT Church is helping me identify that privilege, helping me understand what happens to those who do not have the privilege of pale skin color (or education, or a decent pay with benefits, or a particular sexual orientation or gender identity, or so many other things), and helping me confront my own fears and insecurities about speaking out against racism in its many forms.

In particular, I continue to think about Paul Roberts’ workshop and how I can work on reflecting and building up the Beloved Community in my own context. His sermon, along with Alonzo Johnson’s sermon, was stirring and truth-telling – how can my preaching be the same, given that we come from such different places? Soong-Chan Rah’s presentation continues to encourage me to think about how I can lead the congregation in the present to be prepared for a church that will look very different, because of changing demographics, in the future.

I have come to terms with the fact that I am getting older, and I continue to need to confront my own racism and the racism around me, especially in the church. I am grateful to NEXT Church, and its leaders who give so much of their time and energy, to the endeavor: you encourage me to grow amid so much change.

Beth Merrill Neel serves as Co-Pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon.  She blogs at www.holdfasttowhatisgood.com, and she is excited about turning 53 in July.  When not at church she enjoys baking with her 11-year-old daughter and coloring as meditation.

2017 National Gathering Testimony: Tom Cramer & Tamara John

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Tom Cramer and Tamara John of Los Ranchos Presbytery share their stories of ministry. Tom Cramer serves as the Presbytery Leader for Vision and Mission for the Presbytery of Los Ranchos. He brings together leaders to grow healthy congregations and start new ones. Tamara John is director for the Hope for Life Chapel RV ministry. At her RV Chapel, Tamara provides pastoral counseling and prayerfully guides and assists with needed resources and leads group gatherings.

Tamara John has a Master of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary and is ordained by the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) as evangelist in the Presbytery of Los Ranchos. As director for the Hope for Life Chapel RV ministry, Tamara lives onsite in a custom-made fifth-wheel RV with a 12X10 chapel in the back. At her RV Chapel, Tamara provides pastoral counseling and prayerfully guides and assists with needed resources and leads group gatherings. Hope for Life Chapel (HFLC) RV Ministry serves the desperate, dechurched and unchurched people who live at an RV park on a permanent as well as short-term, transitional basis. Some have lost their homes, are going through divorce, are sick and need to be near a hospital, or because of their choices or other people’s choices–are in an upside-down emotional situation. The HFLC RV Ministry has a passion for the lost and hurting and helps those in the community who have derailed in life to get back up and walk boldly in the way God calls them.

Tom Cramer serves as the Presbytery Leader for Vision and Mission for the Presbytery of Los Ranchos. He brings together leaders to grow healthy congregations and start new ones. Tom received a B.A. in English Literature and Economics from UC Berkeley, and worked as a trade association executive in Washington, D.C. After earning his M.Div. degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, he served as an associate pastor of Geneva Presbyterian Church for 21 years before being called to executive work at the presbytery. In his free time, Tom loves to spend time with his family and friends, cook and grill, travel, read, exercise, and play golf.

2017 National Gathering: Transformative Learning IV

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Jen Kottler and Leslie Mott served as our Transformation Leaders at the 2017 National Gathering, joining us throughout the week during plenary sessions to help us find ways to process what we experienced and equip us to take those learnings home with us. Here is their final session from Wednesday morning.

Watch Jen and Leslie’s other sessions:

Transformative Learning I
Transformative Learning II
Transformative Learning III

2017 National Gathering Transformative Learning III

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Jen Kottler and Leslie Mott served as our Transformation Leaders at the 2017 National Gathering, joining us throughout the week during plenary sessions to help us find ways to process what we experienced and equip us to take those learnings home with us. Here is their third session from Tuesday morning.

Watch Jen and Leslie’s other sessions:

Transformative Learning I
Transformative Learning II
Transformative Learning IV

Called To The Uncomfortable Place

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Brandon Frick is curating a series about the Sarasota Statement, a new confessional statement in response to the current state of the church and world. The series will feature insights from the writers and conveners of the group. What are your thoughts on the Statement? How might you use it in your context? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Layton Williams

I sometimes struggle to figure out where I belong in the church. I am an openly bisexual woman and a strong advocate justice for those the church has historically neglected. At times, I dream of being one of those unapologetically radical liberal Christians, who pull the church forward by refusing to compromise their ideals. But over and over, I find myself at the table instead, trying to remain true to my convictions and bring people along at the same time. It’s a role I can’t seem to get away from, though I am not always comfortable with it.

So, when Jessica Tate reached out to me last November and asked if I’d be interested in joining a task force to work on a new statement of faith in response to our current reality, I told her I needed to think about it. And then, I immediately sent a message to my friend Brandon, who Jessica had told me was the person who had sparked the idea. I asked Brandon, “Can you promise me this isn’t just a statement to force unity or appease people? Can you promise we’re really going to dig into the hard stuff and wrestle to figure out what our faith is saying?”

Brandon said yes, he could promise me those things. So I said yes to Jessica too.

The reason for my hesitation is pretty simple, and when — on our first group call — we explained to each other why we had signed on to work on this statement, my reason for hesitating was also my explanation for why I said yes. I told the others on the team that I had seen the church fail to show up when it really counted on more than one occasion and this time, I wanted to be a part of the church doing better and really showing up.

On the far end of this experience, with the Sarasota Statement making its way into churches and conversations, I am proud of our efforts to show up in the way I had hoped we would. It was not easy process, and the statement is an imperfect document, but I know that it was the result of hard faithful wrestling between people of different perspectives.

At one point, I told one of my colleagues on the team that I had never been so aware of both my privilege and lack thereof as I was during this process. My race, gender, and sexual identity combined with my traditional Presbyterian education and my untraditional non-parish job placed me uniquely and intensely in the midst of the various identities represented in the group.

I was acutely aware of the need for those who were people of color in our group to be heard, respected, and trusted. I knew, too, that it is unbelievably rare for a bisexual voice to represented in a conversation about the church, faithful living, and justice. I found myself constantly pushing for us to be more outspoken that we were entirely comfortable with; I kept saying I wanted the document to be “an equal opportunity squirmer.” Meanwhile, I spent much of my energy in the group helping folks keep dialoguing, reframing, hoping, and trusting that we would find our way forward together — into a document of which we could all be proud.

It was an incredible experience to be a part of this writing team — humbling and encouraging at the same time. It was also as uncomfortable a place as it has always been for me — fighting for us to be bolder and more just while trying to do so in a way that many different people could hear and be convicted by. I suppose it will always be an uncomfortable place — to be at the table — but I’m so glad it’s where I’m called to be.

Layton E. Williams is an ordained PCUSA teaching elder currently serving as the Audience Engagement Associate for Sojourners in Washington D.C.. Her work combines data analysis, creative communications, new media strategy, and relationship building to grow the Sojourners community in both breadth and depth. She is also a writer, focusing on intersections of faith, justice, politics, and culture with an emphasis on sexuality and gender. She previously served as Pastoral Resident at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, and received her M.Div from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

2017 National Gathering Reflection: Tim Hart-Andersen

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Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen, senior pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, MN, gives a reflection on interfaith dialogue during Tuesday morning worship at the 2017 NEXT Church National Gathering.

Tim has also made his manuscript available as a resource:

REFLECTION MANUSCRIPT

We are grateful to Tim for providing his thoughts; to Meghan Gage-Finn for coordinating the video and text components of the reflection; and to Eric Adams for editing providing the video to be used during this reflection.

2017 National Gathering Keynote: Soong-Chan Rah

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Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL, presents a keynote at the 2017 NEXT Church National Gathering entitled: “The Changing Face of the Church.”

Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL and the author of The Next Evangelicalism; Many Colors; Prophetic Lament; co-author of Forgive Us; and Return to Justice.

Soong-Chan is formerly the founding Senior Pastor of Cambridge Community Fellowship Church (CCFC), a multi-ethnic church living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context. He currently serves on the board of World Vision and Evangelicals 4 Justice. He has previously served on the board of Sojourners and the Christian Community Development Association.

Soong-Chan received his B.A. from Columbia University; his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; his Th.M. from Harvard University; his D.Min. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and his Th.D. from Duke University.

Soong-Chan and his wife Sue and their two children, Annah and Elijah live in Chicago.

Workshop Materials: Church Transformation Track

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For the first time ever, the 2017 National Gathering featured a workshop track we called the “Church Transformation Track.” The following workshops were part of the track:

  • “Acceleration for Impact”
  • “Ideation for Innovation”
  • “Immunity to Change”

The workshop presenters have made materials available for anyone interested. Materials for all three workshops are available on Dropbox.

GET THE MATERIALS

In addition, In addition, they have various Flipboard magazines (Android, iPhone) on the topics of innovation and city transformation should you be interested (search for @billhabicht in the app).

2017 National Gathering Keynote: Linda Mercadante

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Rev. Dr. Linda Mercadante, Professor of Theology at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio, gives a keynote address about those who identify as spiritual but not religious at the 2017 NEXT Church National Gathering.

Linda Mercadante is Professor of Theology at The Methodist Theological School in Ohio. She was once a “spiritual but not religious” person, but through an intensive spiritual journey has become a seminary professor, theologian, and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). You can read about this in her memoir, Bloomfield Avenue: A Jewish-Catholic Jersey Girl’s Spiritual Journey. A former journalist, she has won many awards for her research in such areas as the theology of culture, film and theology, addiction recovery spirituality, conversion narratives, and the SBNR movement. She has published five books, nearly 100 articles, and speaks internationally on a variety of topics.

Dr. Mercadante received her Ph.D. from Princeton and has been serving at The Methodist Theological School for more than 25 years. She is married to Joseph Mas, a native Cuban, an attorney, a leader in the Ohio Hispanic community and a political commentator on the TV show Columbus on the Record (WOSU). They have three children, Sarah, Emily and David.

A Confession for This Moment

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by Brandon Frick

“the church writes confessions of faith when it faces a situation of life or a situation of death so urgent that it cannot remain silent but must speak, even at the cost of its own security, popularity, and success.”

– “Confessional Nature of the Church Report, I.B.,” PC(USA) Book of Confessions

It began almost a year ago.

In May of 2016, I submitted an article to the Presbyterian Outlook about the promise and possibilities of a Reformed confession of faith for the 21st century. As I surveyed the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Confessions, replete with helpful theological language, there was a nagging feeling that those confessions and statements seemed to be speaking past our current cultural moment. I didn’t realize it then, but what I was struggling with was how the church could reverse the disintegration of communal bonds in the midst of what has since been defined as the “post-truth” era – an era in which “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In short, I was plagued by this question: How could we proclaim Jesus as Truth in the midst of a world that, like Pilate, could look right at it and ask “What is truth?”

As election season wore on (and wore everyone out), I grew to believe ever more strongly that the church needed to speak a word of hope in the midst of cynicism and despair. As I watched my congregants, yellow-dog Democrats, Tea-Party Republicans, and everyone in between, get ground up in the gears of the politics of antagonism, it became clear they needed a word of renewal. Then, the morning after the election, friends who felt, too, the election as a rejection of their right to belong and congregants who needed their church reached out en masse.

As I sat in our sanctuary, wrestling with the pain that so many — conservative and liberal — were voicing, I asked God the questions that would ultimately lead to the composition of the Sarasota Statement: “God, what am I supposed to do? As a pastor, what is my responsibility in all this?” The answer was revealed over the course of a day: it was time to put my money where my mouth was. If I really believed all the things I claimed in that article, then we needed a confession to address the world and the church and claim our hope in God for this particular moment.

So, there was the answer, all I had to do was get a team of people together to write a confession. Funny thing though: no one has written Confession-writing for Dummies. I needed help, so I reached out to Glen Bell, who I had recently gotten to know in the Pastoral Development Seminar hosted by the saints at First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota, FL. Several weeks later, both NEXT Church and the Presbyterian Foundation pledged their support to the endeavor.

Through Glen and Jessica Tate’s hard work, a team (that I am now privileged to count as friends, and from whom you’ll be hearing this month) was put together. We began corresponding over the intervening weeks, sharing resources and ideas, and then met in January at First Pres Sarasota for a little over a day of intensive work.  What began there, and was shaped over ensuing weeks by our group (thank God for the internet!), has become a document that I am honored to have had a part in crafting.

In the trust, grief, and commitment described in the Sarasota Statement, I take great hope for myself, the church, and the world, and I pray others do as well. What I did not expect is the degree to which I find hope in the process of actually composing the Statement and the friendships that have been formed there. Eight people who love God and the church, but who come from different contexts and perceive the world differently, gathered together to hash through some massive theological and cultural questions, and now together, we lift our voices to witness to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer and Reconciler of all things. What a testimony to God’s goodness and fidelity in a world where we told consensus is impossible!

This month, the NEXT Church blog will feature reflections from the team on the Statement and the writing process. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing from them over the month of April; I know I will.

Brandon Frick is Associate Pastor for Adult Education, Small Groups, and Young Adults at Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church in Severna Park, MD. He is married to Aaryn and has played in almost every sandbox around the Chesapeake Bay with his two boys.