What it Takes to Transform

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jessica Tate and Jen James are curating a series featuring videos from National Gatherings and suggestions for how they might serve as resources for ministry. We’re revisiting speakers from this most recent National Gathering in Seattle as well as speakers from previous years. Our hope is that inviting you to engage (or reengage) their work might invite deeper reflection and possibly yield more fruit. What is taking root and bearing fruit in your own life and ministry? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

In their testimony at the 2019 National Gathering in Seattle, Heidi Husted Armstrong and Scott Lumsden talk about the story of First Seattle Presbyterian Church – a church that went from being one of the biggest churches in the country to total membership collapse. This 30-minute video is a resource for any church group – the session, committees, or teams – to dig into what it takes to transform into the new thing in which God is calling them.

Heidi talks about three things that keep her “hanging in there.” Consider those three things below.

1. I have never been more free to say “I do not know what I’m doing.” How many 5 year plans have been run through this place? Like I’m going to come up with the one that works?! The phrase solvitur ambulando has been attributed to Saint Augustine, which translates as “it is solved by walking.” It means to just take the next step, and the next step, and God will show the way.

What is the hard thing before you in ministry that you need to take the next step toward? What might be an initial first step?

2. Letting go of “churchiness” so that I can embrace the quirkiness, the uniqueness, and the messiness that is in this place. Let me be present for what you have for us today. Let me show up. Help me show up for what is.

What is quirky, unique, and messy about what is in your place? How might you be more present to show up for what is?

3. Remember God is a God of resurrection. Resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing (Frederick Buechner). Being in a struggling church mean there’s lots of room for God to show up! There is one Lord of the Church who is still in the business of raising from the dead what is dead in us. Raising what is dead through us. Raising what is dead around us. Raising what is dead in spite of us.

What is dying around you? What might God be resurrecting and raising up in your midst? What are the spaces in your context where there is room for God to show up?

Scott closes their testimony by saying that the church has to admit we no longer have all the answers and instead need to start asking questions of ourselves, of our neighborhoods, and of God.

What questions do you need to start asking of yourself, of your neighborhood, and of God? What questions keep you up at night?

Addressing the Evil That is Racism

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jessica Tate and Jen James are curating a series featuring videos from National Gatherings and suggestions for how they might serve as resources for ministry. We’re revisiting speakers from this most recent National Gathering in Seattle as well as speakers from previous years. Our hope is that inviting you to engage (or reengage) their work might invite deeper reflection and possibly yield more fruit. What is taking root and bearing fruit in your own life and ministry? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

In her testimony during the 2016 National Gathering, Jessica Vazquez Torres offers a strong challenge to the church to get serious about addressing the evil that is racism in meaningful ways. This 30 minute video is a resource for leaders and congregations who are already talking about race, racism, and white supremacy and want to lean into that tension. It is a challenging personal introduction for leaders who want to deepen their own wrestling with racism and white supremacy.

As you finish the video, what word or phrase describes how you feel after watching this? (in a group setting, be sure to allow for complexity of reaction and varied reactions)What is hard to hear in what Jessica says? How might you lean into that discomfort?

Jessica offers four insights in addressing racism that the church needs to be clearer about:

  1. Racism can’t be understood aside from white supremacy.
  2. History matters.
  3. Racism is structural, not relational.
  4. All of us are made complicit.

Thinking about your own context or your own life, which of these insights is most recognizable to you? Which is the most daunting?

What’s one step toward learning you can do in one of these areas?

Jessica she offers four actions to take:

  1. Own your complicity.
  2. Develop a thicker, more complex, intersectional analysis of racism.
  3. Be political (because racism is lived out in the public sphere).
  4. Talk about whiteness and the benefits to white people, not just the oppression of people of color.

Which of these actions could you lean into most easily as an individual or as a congregation? What’s one step you/your church could take?

Which of these actions would be the most difficult to lean into? Is there an initial step you could take toward that larger action?

Holy Spirit, this is a challenging word. Help us to hear your liberating promise within this challenge. Open us to the tension and discomfort that we pray is in service of sanctification. Amen.

2019 National Gathering Testimony: Suzzanne Lacey

Suzzanne Lacey, founder of Museum Without Walls, gives a testimony presentation on her work in experiential learning with young people at the 2019 NEXT Church National Gathering in Seattle.

2019 National Gathering Testimony: Corey Greaves

Corey Greaves, co-founder of Mending Wings, gives a testimony presentation about his work with Native American youth at the 2019 NEXT Church National Gathering in Seattle.

2019 National Gathering Testimony: Ken Evers-Hood

Ken Evers-Hood, pastor of Tualatin Presbyterian Church in Tualatin OR, gives a testimony presentation on ministry with depression at the 2019 NEXT Church National Gathering.

2019 NEXT Church Update

NEXT Church co-chairs Shavon Starling-Louis and Adam Fronczek give an update on NEXT Church at the 2019 National Gathering in Seattle.

2019 National Gathering Keynote: Tali Hairston

Tali Hairston, Senior Advisor for Community Engagement at the Seattle Presbytery, gives a keynote presentation on community at the 2019 NEXT Church National Gathering in Seattle.

2019 National Gathering Testimony: Heidi Armstrong and Scott Lumsden

Heidi Armstrong, transitional pastor of Seattle First Presbyterian Church, and Scott Lumsden, co-executive presbyter of the Seattle Presbytery, give a testimony presentation at the NEXT Church National Gathering about Seattle First Presbyterian Church.

2019 National Gathering Monday Opening Worship

Welcome & Opening Prayer

Song: All Creatures of Our God and King

Song: We Worship You

Scripture: Ruth 1:1-19

Sermon Part 1: The Story Behind the Story

Response: Holding the Threads of Our Story

Sermon Part 2: Memories Long Held

Kriah: Tearing of Cloth

Video available here.

Confession & Assurance

Song: From the Depths of Woe

Scripture: Hebrews 12:12-16

Read in Spanish from the NTV translation.

Sermon Part 3: Aspiring to be Community

Weaving Our Stories Together: Tying of Cloth

Song: 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

Song: I Then Shall Live

Benediction

2019 National Gathering Monday Worship Kriah

Led by Rev. Tasha Hicks McCray.

Kriah is a Hebrew word meaning “tearing.” It refers to the act of tearing one’s clothes or cutting a black ribbon worn on one’s clothes. This rending is a striking expression of grief and anger at the loss of a loved one. Kriah is an ancient tradition.