2018 National Gathering: NEXT Church Update

NEXT Church co-chairs Lori Raible, Shavon Starling-Louis, and Adam Fronczek provide an update on the work of NEXT Church at our 2018 National Gathering.

2018 National Gathering Tuesday Morning Worship

Jess Cook, John Molina-Moore, and Erin Counihan provided testimonies during Tuesday morning worship at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering. The worship service theme: dying.

Here is the liturgy for the service.

Call to Worship

People of God, we have a story to tell
of life and death,
joy and sorrow
as we live in God’s Holy Way.
God is with us, even when we fear.

People of God, we have a story to tell
of lives cut short,
of life-times fulfilled
as we live in God’s Holy Way.
God is with us, even when we fear.

People of God, we have a story to tell of
our cities, farms,
and towns, desperately wondering
how they will begin again
as we live in God’s Holy Way.
God is with us, even when we fear.

People of God, we have a story to tell
of heartache and brokenness in our bodies
as we live in God’s Holy Way.
God is with us, even when we fear.

People of God, we have a story to tell.
Surrounded by God’s Great Cloud of Witnesses,
we give testimony to our stories of grief and loss,
as we are sustained by water, songs and prayers.
We are living in God’s Holy Way.
God is with us, even when we fear.

Let us worship God.

Litany

“We are a resurrection people,” we like to say.
And we say it often.
It is true.
But resurrection doesn’t erase or replace
the real life that happens before, during and after.
The real life that we all know –
the places where we are broken,
where we are grieving,
where we are sad,
where we are angry,
where we are hurting,
where we are anxious,
where we are lonely.
For we are human – fully.
And we each carry around
the experiences of trauma, and loss, and hurt
that are a real part of life.
Those experiences live within us,
and they exist
before, during and after
resurrection.
Yes, we are a resurrection people.
But we are also human –
Fully.
And that means that we know death
just as surely as we know life.
Death is real, it is excruciating, and painful, and it is a part of life.
But God is not afraid of death.
God is big enough to hold us
in our hurt, in our brokenness,
in those places of death where we cannot hold ourselves.
When we find ourselves in those places,
when we cannot imagine
ever feeling joy again,
may we remember
that although God will not erase the pain,
God will hold us, God will stand with us.

Psalm 27 (from Ann Weems)

O God of my heart
it is your name I call
when the stars do not come out.
O God of my soul,
it is to you I turn
when the torrents of terror
drown me.
O God of mercy,
it is for your hand I reach
when I stumble
on the stones of sorrow.
O God of justice,
it is to you I cry
when the landslide of grief
buries me.
I stand beneath the night
where stars used to shine
and remember
gazing mesmerized
at the luminaries of the sky
until I could walk
the ink-blue beach
between their shining.
Then their shining stopped,
for they left the sky,
and you, O God,
left with them.
And I am left
alone
beneath a starless sky
with a starless heart
that barely beats.
Will your stars
never shine again?
Will they never again
speak of your mystery?
Will they never again sing
their songs
to my soul?
Will I never again know
the wonder
of the God
of star and sky?
O God of my heart,
peel back the night
and let the starlight
pour out upon
my upturned face.
Let my eyes drink
a sky of stars.
Let my heart bathe
in the stunning light
until my soul sings again
with the conviction
of the faithful.
In your mercy and justice,
O God of my heart,
call me by name,
and the stars will shine
once more,
as they did
on that morning
when they first began
to sing.

Sung Response (from Psalm 27)

[O God], Will your stars
never shine again?
Will they never again sing
their songs
to my soul?

Unison Prayer

O God of my heart,
peel back the night
and let the starlight
pour out upon
my upturned face.
Let my eyes drink
a sky of stars.
Let my heart bathe
in the stunning light
until my soul sings again
with the conviction
of the faithful.
In your mercy and justice,
O God of my heart,
call me by name,
and the stars will shine
once more,
as they did
on that morning
when they first began
to sing.

Scripture Reading

John 13:1-17

Invitation for Remembrance and Handwashing

As death approached, Jesus commanded his disciples to love.
even as denial and betrayal, rejection and unworthiness
was mixed-up in that love.
Holy One, in washing and remembering, call us to love.
As death approached, Jesus gave his disciples ways to grieve:
a tender touch, washing with water, telling of a story,
being together in community.
Holy One, in washing and remembering, call us to love.
As death approached, Jesus gave his disciples a place to be together:
a table, a water basin, a home.
Holy One, in washing and remembering, call us to love.

Unison Prayer

O God of our hearts,
peel back the night
and let the starlight
pour out upon
our upturned faces.
Let our eyes drink
a sky of stars.
Let our hearts bathe
in the stunning light
until our soul sing again
with the conviction
of the faithful.
In your mercy and justice,
O God of our hearts,
call us by name,
and the stars will shine
once more,
as they did
on that morning
when they first began
to sing.

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Lisa Scott Jones

Lisa Scott Jones, Children & Young Family Minister at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, gives an Ignite presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering about her ministry with toddlers and their families.

Rockin’ Toddlers is a fun-filled, easy-to-do church outreach program designed to serve and engage young families.

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Heather Colletto

Heather Colletto, Director of Communication and Mission at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids, MI, gives an Ignite presentation at the 2018 National Gathering about ServeGR.

Westminster founded ServeGR.com in 2016 to help all Grand Rapidians link their lives together in meaningful ways by finding ongoing volunteer opportunities that play to their strengths, use their passion, and fit their schedule.

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Christin Thorpe

Christin Thorpe is the Fellows and Community Engagement Coordinator at Metro-Urban Institute at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and gave an Ignite presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering. Christin’s ignite presentation on Interactive Theological Education aims to get you to think about how academic institutions can bridge the gap between day-to-day realities faced within our very complex communities and our classical theological training.

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Linda Kurtz

Linda Kurtz, student at Union Presbyterian Seminary, gives an Ignite presentation about her experience completing a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at a behavioral health hospital.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. How might you mark this in your own context? How might you minister to those impacted by mental illness?

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Mark Elsdon

Mark Elsdon, Executive Director and Campus Minister at Pres House, gives an Ignite presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering.

Mark shares a story about how creative revenue generation and a major PCUSA impact investment turned a campus ministry on the verge of closing into a vibrant multi-million dollar ministry serving 750 students per year. How might church capital be leveraged for mission impact in other new and innovative ways in your own context?

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Jason Santos

Jason Santos, Mission Coordinator for Christian Formation at Presbyterian Mission Agency, gives an Ignite presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering.

His Ignite presentation is called “Killing Church Softly.” For the last half-century, we’ve increasingly formed our children and youth through developmentally-centered, age and stage, peer-oriented ministry programs that essentially removed them from the corporate life of the church–this ignite presentation highlights the failure of those efforts through generational and identity formation theory.

2018 National Gathering Ignite: Not So Churchy

Paul Vasile and Mieke Vandersall give an Ignite presentation about Not-So-Churchy, located in New York City.

Not So Churchy embarked on a project in which the congregants themselves would interpret and present the scripture readings through song, movement, or other creative means. This project, which has become an integrated part of their liturgical year, has been a rich learning experience for the congregation, and provided an opportunity for the congregants to exercise their creative authority and leadership capacities. Mieke and Paul talk about what they learned and how this has transformed their community’s relationship with Scripture.

2018 National Gathering Keynote: David Leong

Professor David Leong of Seattle Pacific University gives a keynote presentation at the 2018 NEXT Church National Gathering in Baltimore, MD.

David Leong, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Missiology at Seattle Pacific University and Seminary, where he directs the Global and Urban Ministry program. Dr. Leong’s teaching and research examine the theological meaning of the city, and he is passionate about churches engaging their neighborhood communities with creativity and compassion to bridge racial and cultural divisions. David lives in Seattle’s beautifully diverse Rainier Valley with his wife and two sons.