The church I’m currently interning with, The Open Door, is entering into a new phase in its life. In the coming weeks BJ will be leading us through a series considering what it means to be “covenant partners” with God, with one another, and with the world around us. Another side of that covenant partnership for us is our relationship with the denomination. As a new-church-development of Pittsburgh Presbytery, The Open Door has been Presbyterian by default since its inception. But what does it mean for us to really be Presbyterian? Why should an emergent church-plant need to have a connection to what seems like the overly-institutional PC(USA)?

A compelling answer for me comes from our sisters and brothers in the New Monasticism. Of the 12 Marks of the new monasticism, the fifth is “Humble submission to Christ’s body, the Church.” Ivan Kauffman has written a great essay in the book School(s) for Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism (Eugene, OR: Cascade 2005) explaining what this meant for him and his community. Reflecting on his roots in Amish and Anabaptist traditions, he notes that through their separation from the Church, the radical reformers lost the lessons that the Church had learned throughout its history. This led to what he describes as an inwardly-focused legalism. “Even though we were once again proving the futility of Pelagius’ teachings (and the realism of Augustine’s arguments against them), we had no way of knowing this since we were cut off from the church’s past” (p. 70). In contrast, the communities associated with the New Monasticism are following the example of older monastic communities and sustaining relationships with various denominations. By remaining connected to some form of the visible church, monastic communities connect to what Kauffman calls the Great Tradition of the Church, including the great lessons of its history.

But monastic communities don’t just receive the tradition: they have the power to influence and shape the future of the tradition. To show this principle, Kauffman refers to the impact Benedictine monasteries have had on the Church. “The Benedictine’s submission to the church did not result in their being submerged in the much laxer practices of the wider church; it instead resulted in the wider church being transformed by the example and teaching of the monastic communities” (p. 75). This is the exciting part for those of us who see hope for new life coming into the Church right now. For a denomination preoccupied with divisive and bitter in-fighting, the presbymergent community’s ties to the PC(USA) show a new way to be the Church. By modeling community instead of bureaucracy we are agents of change. There is a subversive (in the bottom-up sense) but positive quality to our submission to the church that eventually transforms it and blesses it.

I agree with previous posts that Presbymergent is not here to “save” the PC(USA), but we can serve the denomination as a part of Christ’s body. Describing the challenges of his community’s relationships to both the Mennonites and Roman Catholic Church, Kauffman says “We tried to make it clear that our goal is to serve the church” (p. 78). As The Open Door matures, I’m praying our community will be a servant to the presbytery and the denomination. We already maintain active partnerships with several other churches in our presbytery. What does it mean for us to be the ecclesiola in the ecclesia, a fringe of the church working to bless the whole church? I don’t think it means being another special interest group, lobbying at GA, but this is why we should be excited about what Bruce Reyes-Chow is doing by running for Moderator. If we are intentional about our connection to our presbyteries and the General Assembly, the effects of the Holy Spirit’s work through us can ripple out wider and wider, bringing missional reorientation in the larger church. Then, like a monastic community blessing the institution of the Church, the thoughts, voices, and ministries here can be a blessing to the denomination and the individual congregations to whom we’re bound in Christ.