On his blog post entitled “Loyal Radicals” Adam Walker Cleaveland writes:
“Can Presbyterians (and other mainliners) be open enough to loyal radicals? Will a senior pastor “fudge” a bit on the Book of Order? Will a Session be willing to try something that everyone “knows” is going to fail, in order to allow for the possibility that there might be a different way of doing church.”
There’s a good chance that if one is here and reading this site they are a “loyal radical.” With that in mind, what are the key elements in the PC(USA) polity that cause us to need to “fudge” a bit on the Book of Order?
My goal in raising this is to help us to learn to “think creatively” about the PC(USA) polity. While I think that much of what is in the Book of Order was put there for a good reason I find that it can often be oppressive and downright suffocating when it comes to new ideas. So what are the road blocks? And how have people worked around them?
About Brian Wallace
I have found that the BoO is generally a permission-giving document. The challenge comes in how we read and interpret. Lots of things my church said, “it’s in the Book of Order” isn’t. It was just protocol or the way we’ve always done it.
With that said, there are some major stumbling blocks to transformation and emerging churches in our polity … the biggest has to do with seminary trained clergy. Many emerging congregations are raising up leadership from within their community … we need to find ways to enable the leaders to get the proper mentoring, education, etc. while growing other Christians in their church. It can be done, just needs to be creative.
Another is the counting of membership … some emerging churches are counting everyone as members, and others are just counting their leadership team as members.
The other issues is Communion … I have seen the invitation to the table and the sharing of the bread and cup be a conversion experience for people. To require that they already be baptized before participating in the Lord’s Supper can be a real hindrance … I just invite everybody.
That’s enough to get us started …
Alt.worship & sacraments is one area of conversation that I’d love to see us get into on this site. It’s something that I think is, as mentioned above, a problem with our polity.
I have written about this before in two posts: Epiclesis Necessitates Open Table and Fencing in the Table?.
In emerging churches, where belonging should precede believing, we must think about what it means to say that the sacraments are only for those of us who “belong.” This is something important to think about anyway in today’s age where we can’t be sure that everyone attending our church is even Presbyterian. I grew up Presbyterian but was raised by a mother who has strong Mennonite roots so I wasn’t baptized as an infant.
I attended a Presbyterian church, camp, college and even worked on staff at a PCUSA church before I was baptized. (It just took me awhile). Yet I continued to receive communion. And I see nothing wrong with that.
Especially for those of us who may be interested in starting up NCD Emergent churches, reading out to those who would never show up in a church…I’m certainly not going to invite them in and then tell them they can’t partake in communion…but perhaps this is where I’m a little bit too Wesleyan – I’m in agreement with Wendy about seeing communion as a potential type of conversion experience…
Thoughts?
Yeah, I think Wendy nailed it. And I would even take the last two issues one step further:
Membership: I’ve visited a few emergent churches outside of the PCUSA that reject the language of “membership” entirely, on the grounds that (like much of the emergent conversation) the second you define something (i.e. belief or membership) you have created a system based on exclusivity. But how does a church/gathering (especially a Presbyterian New Church Development trying meet Presbytery imposed “quotas”) deal with this? I’m especially curious to hear from Hot Metal Bridge on this one.
Communion: The issue of who’s in, who’s out is certainly a point of contention (although in my limited experience even many non-emergent PCUSA congregations are pretty open on this one), but what about the “who gets to administer” the sacrament part? And what happens when communion starts to look less like communion and more like a shared meal among friends? (kind of like the original). Can we still call it communion? I must confess I don’t know the stance of the BoO on this one, but even my usually open-minded pastor is pretty hold-the-line on this subject. Perhaps he knows and appreciates something I don’t yet.
Ooh, and Rodger, I’d like to hear from you on the membership issue, too. When last we talked, I seem to remember you were feeling some pressure from your Presbytery on that one? Or was that something completely different?
Oh, Mr. Locke… you have NO idea!
I’m working on what to say about this whole thing… agreeing with a lot of what I hear posted, and wondering about what to say in “open” forum… due SOLELY to that “pressure”
Suffice this… it IS, a constitutional crisis, whether we admit that or not, and perhaps this whole conversation will even “evolve” into the concurrent conversation about “scruples” (Why are we assuming that to ONLY mean things about sexuality, etc.?)
I’d recomend the whole conversation surf over to what Jan. E. and Neil C. are saying about “Everything must change” and see all this as a part of that greater whole. I posted about it here (including links)…
http://www.rodgersellers.com/wordpress/?p=133
Add to that the indea Terry Mann in Pittsburgh (http://matrixminister.blogspot.com/) is talking about the difference in being “missional” vs. being “attractional” — the two are really farther apart than most would assume — and that difference will really impact things like how numbers, finances, etc. are incorporated into our metrics of “success” etc.
(Adam: not sure how to submit that in code so the link is active)
RPS
The issue of the closed table is bewildering to me, because for a denomination that has broken its back to be ecumenical we don’t do such a good job when it comes to the Lord’s table. Just within the last year the Office of Theology and Worship recommended that no change be made to that section of the Directory for Worship, so I don’t think it’ll be changing anytime soon.
To tack on to Adam’s comment – one of the mindsets that I personally have tried to get away from is the difference between those who are “in” and those who are “out”. As I read the New Testament baptism is certainly an important element when it comes to formal entry into the life of the community, but to say that once someone is baptized they’re “in” I think is presumptuous and vice versa. If we understand faith as a journey (which the Reformed tradition generally has) I find it odd that entry to the table is based solely on one, albeit important, step.
All that being said – I think it’s also interesting that this is the one area of the Book of Order where PC(USA) pastors practice the most civil disobedience (and this includes pastors of all ages and theological orientations)
I’m not quite there when it comes to seeing communion as a “conversion” experience but I’m not going to argue against it
I think the training issue is an interesting one actually, because this has been highlighted by a lot of people as a pressing issue. Some believe that the system for pastors in the PCUSA is simply unworkable when it comes to forming the type of communities they believe embody the vision of the church. The idea of developing leadership from within and equipping them makes perfect sense, but with the current system of congregations calling pastors I see a ton of challenges when it comes to developing pastors from within a community, given the current system. But again – the problem may be the system.
On the membership issue – I think where things get complicated is when it comes time for to make a decision – who gets to serve on the steering committee/leadership team/session? The current category of membership gives an easy way to say it – anyone who is an active member. Who gets to serve on a committee to select the next pastor? etc. I almost see membership as a necessary evil to avoid complete chaos when it comes time to make decisions that might be tough.
Just a note on Hot Metal Bridge (I don’t presume to speak for them, but I know of them since they’re in the same Presbytery and I know the two pastors) they’re a combo United Methodist and PC(USA) development – so they can be creative when it comes to polity. I know when it comes to the Lord’s table they tend to be methodist, which have a more open table. I don’t know what they do on membership but I’m going to tag my friend BJ Woodworth, lead pastor of The Open Door (another NCD in Pittsburgh) and ask him how they handle the membership issue.
Brian: Can we invite your Presbytery’s NCD director to be part of this conversation? I got to meet her this summer at the PCUSA New Church Development conference, and I’m amazed at what the Pittsburgh Presbytery has done to make emergent and alternative church planting work — as evidenced by the number of non-traditional church plants like Open Door and Hot Metal Bridge.
Anyhow, I think she could be a valuable resource to this group, especially when it comes to creative ways to negotiate the differences between Presbyterian polity and Emergent ethos.
I will e-mail her and let her know.
On top of the above conversation about open communion or a closed table, the issue of who institutes the Lord’s Supper seems a question emergent Presbyterians have to wrestle with. While many PC(USA) churches won’t strictly enforce the closed table, almost all that I know of will expect that only a Minister of Word & Sacrament (or Commissioned Lay Pastor) be present to read words of institution for the Lord’s Supper. I just finished reading Pagitt’s “Preaching Re-Imagined”, in which he mentions that Solomon’s Porch is very comfortable with letting anyone administer sacraments. Is that theologically proper for Presbyterians as well?
In class a couple days ago, Andrew Purves made the point that the efficacy of a sacrament has nothing to do with the holiness of the people, citing the historical precedent of the Donatist controversy. Purves emphasized that Jesus Himself is the only mediator of the sacraments. When I asked him why we are so protective about only having ordained people present communion, his response was, “Purely for the sake of order.”
The emerging church is decidedly (and I think rightly) less concerned with proper order – how much flexibility do we have with communion?
I would be very pleased to excise the whole concept of “membership roles” from the BOO. Congregations devote enormous amounts of time to maintaining these lists with very little gain, high motivation often being given to not having to pay per capita on inactive members. Seems like a vestage of when we all lived in geographic “parishes” to me.
Not so sure about Communion though. Might cheapen baptism to open the table. I bounce back and forth between thinking very open-”join, then believe” is the way to go versus very high barriers that require a lot of intentionality and give a sense of having done something really meaningful and important when you are done.
What we have now doesn’t work. Low standards and once you are on the “active member role”, then you are not really expected to ever learn anything further. At least that is my experience in the northeast.
Mike
I was Baptized, Confirmed and raised in the Presbyterian Church but left it many years ago. In later life, I became a licensed lay minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). To my very great surprise, a year ago, a Presbyterian church , completely out of the blue, asked me to be their pastor, to which I could only reply, “You guys are Presbyterian. You can’t do that!” I’ve been there a year and a quarter, and my current contract will end in May.
To say that my introduction to the Book of Order has gone smoothly would just be silly. It has been frustrating, but that is perhaps to be expected. We’ve felt our way through, and that’s good enough. Chris Brown’s comments, though, goaded me to write on the topic of the Eucharist.
We DOC, of course, believe that any time two believers shake hands, somebody better break out a loaf and a cup, so Communion is central to my thinking. Arranging it, however, has been something else. Navigating the bureaucratic requirements to commission an elder to preside has left my congregation without Communion for two quarters. We’ve got it worked out, and will celebrate the Lord’s Supper this Sunday, but man! what a job!
I couldn’t agree more with Chris’ observation that “the efficacy of a sacrament has nothing to do with the holiness of the people”. In this case, the search for order has deprived a congregation of its spiritual food. Surely, there must be some room for necessity to birth invention. I’m hardly a bare-foot heathen. My training is from a DOC seminary. I would be unlikely to offer up baconbits and Kool-aid. Doesn’t the PC(USA), by its insistence on things being decent and in good order risk placing order above Gospel?
stew