Some Presbymergent friends recently began a new venture in creating an alternative worship service at their church, Come ToGather. After receiving some criticism from other members of the Presbyterian (USA) church, they are now meeting in a new location and are questioning whether or not they want to identify the service as a Presbyterian one or not. I think their story offers some good insights into the challenges of trying new ways of being the church together. It sounds like they were doing some good work, and it just didn’t jibe with enough members at the church, thus prompting the decision to move the service.

To read all about it and hear Andy Smith share some about the story – check out The Messiah’s Misfits.

I came into the PCUSA through the emergent movement. Coming from a conservative evangelical background, I followed the emergent movement (before it was called emergent) into an emergent seminary until life circumstances led me to a mainline PCUSA seminary. I feared my emergent postmodern theology would be co-opted by modern mainline constructs, but I found the opposite. My theological imagination went deeper as I read constructive and post-colonial texts and learned to think more critically. Many of the theological and spiritual resources I had been longing for were present in the history and ongoing trajectory of progressive mainline theology.

However, my experience in mainline churches was just the opposite. I felt I had stepped back decades in worship experience, accessibility, and engagement with the world. My struggle went beyond traditional versus contemporary styles. I wondered, where was the imagination I found in the classroom on Sunday morning? How did this exciting theology translate into visible action that invited others outside our communities to participate? Denominational structures and programs felt like an insider’s world that was completely foreign to me.

Carol Howard Merritt, in her new book, Reframing Hope, responds to these concerns. Like me, Merritt has found the progressive mainline tradition life-giving and supportive. She believes the history of the mainline church’s concern for justice and peace-making is a profound resource that American culture and our world are looking for. Merritt is passionate in her belief that mainline communities embody hope for a postmodern globalized world, however we must reframe that hope to make it accessible to younger generations.

Merritt speaks with a pastor’s heart and a researcher’s mind. Her conversational writing is in a language that is native to progressive mainline congregations. While her first book, Tribal Church, addressed how to include a younger generation in churches, this second offering looks at how the mainline tradition can reimagine its structures in the contemporary world. She examines authority, community, communication, message, activism, creation care and spirituality–offering insightful perspective and a way forward on how the contemporary church can respond and find new life.

This book is an essential resource in many ways. Presbymergents and “loyal radicals” of other denominations will find a helpful discussion of what makes us distinct in the emergent movement. Merritt puts voice to why I, and many others, choose to be in a denomination and what our hopes are for the future. Generation X-ers will find resonance in Carol’s experience of the world and view of faith and why something just doesn’t quite feel right about many churches. Church leaders will find a multitude of ideas and directions for how to restructure all aspects of their church. Prayerfully reading this book and considering its ramifications will spur many congregations’ vision and mission.

Reframing Hope is not a call to be less than we are as mainline congregations. Instead, Merritt passionately, prophetically and tenderly calls us out to be more fully who we are. As we move into naming our past and imagining our future, we will grasp the hope that Merritt holds out for the church in contemporary society.

Over on my blog, Pomomusings, I just completed a 3-part series entitled, “A Brief History of Presbymergent.” If you’d like to read the entries, you can begin here with Part 1.

Below is an excerpt from Part 3 of the series, and offers some thoughts and hopes about the future of Presbymergent.

I’m not entirely sure where we go from here. But I’m confident in the amazing group of folks who self-identify as part of the Presbymergent community. I’m hopeful that there will continue to be ways that people find to “hack the Book of Order” and be able to do new and creative ministry in a time of mainline decline. I’m hopeful that the denomination may begin to realize that they need the loyal radicals and work harder to find ways to support those of us who want to try new things. I hope that there will be groups who are not afraid of failure and committees who are not afraid to put their trust in younger pastors. I pray that more and more seminarians will feel confident enough to continue asking “WHY?” when professors at our seminaries teach us the same old things and tell us what worship is “supposed” to look like.

“Welcome to Presbymergent. What’s the first rule of Presbymergent? You do not talk about Presbymergent.”

Sure there will probably be some organization at some point…sure we’ll have to talk about our goals and discern more what our purpose is in the church that is emerging. But for now…maybe we don’t need to talk about Presbymergent – maybe we just need to be Presbymergent…maybe we just need to be out there, engaging the world, being the church and perhaps the rest will follow.

I’d love for you to check out the series and let me know your thoughts.

Whether we talk of the “emerging church” church or “the “emergent church,” the root word is the same- “merge,” syn.= “combine, coalesce, unite, join, amalgamate, consolidate, blend, mix, mingle, fuse, conflate, commingle pool.” Add the prefix “e-” = “out of” = “to (Fill in your favorite synonym from the preceding list) out of the previous state of being.”

However we define what is happening in this current re-formation of the church, it is about change. The Holy Spirit, as we affirm when we talk of “the church reformed and always being reformed,” is at work in the world pushing us out of what we have been to become something else through a process of coming together with others.

If we have forgotten something important it may be this: God called a community out of bondage through Moses, then they learned what God wanted them to know about faith and life. Jesus gathered the “First Church, Disciples” without first asking them what they believed. Paul shaped communities out of people of widely disparate beliefs- on purpose! Forming community before forming confession is the rule of Scripture.

Taken together, the whole witness of Scripture is God’s invitation to come belong to the Kingdom, then to learn the Way.

Following this model, the call is for the identity of the local congregation in its context to shift from maintaining distinctions between “what we believe” to demonstrations of “who we are.” This will touch on every facet of congregational life: re-focusing the mission; re-structuring the organization; re-presenting Christ.

Ask the question: How did the gospel move and grow from a tiny group of frightened people in a backwater province of the Roman Empire to become a bold proclamation right under the nose of Caesar in Rome in one short lifetime, and this without an evangelism budget? Answer: People were attracted to what they saw in the lives of “belongers” and wanted to experience it before they ever became “believers.” Goodness knows, they didn’t all believe the same things!

“Go…make disciples…baptize…teach” are the verbs in the order our Lord gave them. We will attract others by doing what we do and by being who we are because “Jesus is Lord.” We can explain what that means all in good time. They will be more open to believing if they already belong.

Meanwhile, first things first, in the order of Scripture: an emerging/emergent congregation will look like a place where people are eager to belong without demanding that they first believe certain things.

There’s so much excitement going on in the Church right now.  Too bad, just like in the media, that the stories that often get passed along have to do with the negatives–”society is degrading”; “homosexuals are taking over the church”; “we’ve got to save our children from this corrupt generation”.  I live in Florida, which is a generous mix of cultures, politics, social stratospheres and the like.  If you can think up some name for a church, we probably have it within a stone’s throw.  What is easy to see is that there are many things that divide us, but as a Presbyterian, I’m always looking for ways that we are connected.  Doing some community work to bring folks together has not been easy, especially when a few want to highlight the divides.

I’m one of these who is pretty certain we’re going through a time of Reformation once again, and as Phyllis Tickle might say, it’s not just the church that’s reforming, but every aspect of human society.  Everything is being brought into question and everything is on the table.  The appeal of Emergence is evidence of this as well.  If everyone were satisfied with the state of the Church, then there wouldn’t be such a movement of new ideas, questions and challenges.  I think the Presbyterian Church (USA) is slow to change and transform.  In some ways this has served us well, but when it comes to thinking about the future, we are either stuck in the present or trying to reclaim the past.  We are tied to some methods and systems that are antiquated, and yet the traditions of our faith don’t necessarily need to be re-written.  How can we learn from the emergent community how to let go and untie ourselves from the things that bind (imprison) us rather than seeing what might bind (unite) us together in the Spirit of Christ?

The Emergent church, at the same time, is asking questions to make us all a bit uncomfortable.  In many ways I appreciate being dislodged from the “zone”, but I also wonder if we lose something of Jesus in the midst of our questioning of all things faith.  What, within our tradition, is worth preserving?  I see so many (mostly out of fear) trying to preserve a Church that simply cannot remain static any longer.  In this regard, the emergent conversation has helped a great deal.  But what the emergent church can probably gain from the PC(USA) is the idea that we are not set apart from one another, but we are willing to persevere through times of difference and disagreement.  I’m extremely saddened by the congregations who leave the denomination because they don’t want to go through the marriage counseling.  Yes, it’s hard.  Any relationship is hard.  But in the end it’s worth the effort.  It’s how Jesus draws us together, I think.  Those of us who are Presbyterian have witnessed the Spirit at work within our bodies when we disagree.  Clarity does not come quickly, or even in our time, but it does come.  We could all stand to live with a little more patience.  We could also stand to gain by listening and not talking.  Just one pastor’s opinion . . .

I’ve been reading Bonhoeffer again after spending a Saturday night in a crowded basement in the East Village for Pete Rollin’s Insurrection Tour.  Thought I would share this reflection.  As Pete says, “to believe is human, to doubt is divine.” Speaks to the strangely familiar way doubt seems to open me up to God.

Peace, Terry

“Religious people speak of God when human knowledge (perhaps simply because they are too lazy to think) has come to an end, or when human resources fail – in fact it is always the deus ex machina that they bring on the scene, either for the apparent solution of insoluble problems or as strength in human failure – always, that is to say, exploiting human weakness of human problems.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 283.

Holy Ground

The congregation affirmed their faith

as they do each week with the Creed.

“I believe…” they routinely proclaimed

and then uttered that which in another

place would be quite unbelievable.

“Father almighty, maker of all

Son of a virgin…

crucified dead and buried” – easy to believe,

but “resurrected from the dead”… now that’s a stretch.

You know the rest.

An old man stood and interrupted

the familiar rhythmic chant

with a anguished whisper now

amplified by the dead silence

“How can this be?”

A teenager near the back

spoke in a clear unspoiled tone

“How can God have a son?

And … by a virgin?

Are you on drugs?”

By now all but the shocked,

paralyzed into silence, began

to also confess their doubts.

As if cork was pulled from bottled up

faith turned upside down, they spilled out.

Stories were shared that day.

Dramas played out.

messy, inconsolable, unsolvable

plots began to emerge

while many healing tears were shed.

Then suddenly the preacher tapped

on the microphone three times

to silence the cacophony

and began to lead the song

“Surely God is in this place…. Holy Ground”.

Some felt like it was a deus ex machina

meant to put salve on the

open wounds of doubt

and anesthetize what was

only but truly human.

Others breathed a sigh of relief

and went back to

the safe place between the

pages of their true and

tried belief.

Which ground do you

suppose was holy,

that is set apart for the Divine,

the solid ground of unfettered belief

or the ground that doubt opened up?

A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a previously intractable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with an often contrived introduction of a new character, ability, or object. It is generally considered to be a poor storytelling technique by critics because it undermines the story’s internal logic, although it is sometimes employed deliberately for this reason.

Greetings from Mexico to all Presbymergent readers. I wanted to fill you in on some very exciting ministry being done in the Southern Mexico state of Chiapas.

The new ministry will be called the Chiapas Missionary Community. The community will follow a modified rule of St. Benedict and keep in order the Benedictine priorities of prayer, then work. That is to say Benedict saw the Christian life as a life of prayer to which we add our daily labor and not the other way around as secular culture would have us to do. The community will also be evangelistic so it will not be isolated from the needs of the world around it. Many of us think of evangelism primarily as visiting people in their houses, preaching in the park, inviting people to a Bible Study or worship. These are all excellent things. They are responding to the Great Commission to “go into all the world”. However Benedict also saw the huge value of creating a safe and welcoming place where one could receive all “who are tired and heavy laden” and offer them rest. We can call this open door evangelism. The community trusts in the Holy Spirit to bring those people God chooses to their door. The community then receives the stranger as Christ himself.

There is a lot more to all of this but I will save that for now and go on say where this is happening. We have purchased a small farm, 25 acres, near the city Comitan, to be used to develop the new religious community. Comitan is easy to get to on several good roads. The airport at Tuxla is only about 2 hours away. We will have 6 to 8 sisters living there full time. They will be doing several things. One is offering spiritual retreats for members of local churches. Provide shelter for indigent or abused women and children and others as they arrive. They will also have a semi residential Bible School for women. A semi-residential program means that sisters will come for one week a month and then return to their homes. This makes getting Bible and music training much less expensive. By rotating different groups of students the farm-school-retreat center can stay busy all month. The intention of the community is to be as self supporting as is possible. Therefore there will be some income producing efforts. Things like quilting, roasting coffee, a cut-flower nursery and the surprises the Lord has for us that we don’t know about yet.

How can Presbymergents help?

First we would like to know who will commit to praying for this ministry. We will do our best to keep you posted on what is happening and what our prayer needs are. We will also be receiving individuals and mission work teams to build the facilities. In fact if you have a special interest like solar electrics, construction, small scale farming, and teaching music, etc. please write and let us know. Volunteers in all areas will be much needed in planning, teaching and working with the local Presbyterians. If you want to learn Spanish this will be a 100% immersion opportunity; also Tzeltal, Tojolabal and Chol are spoken in the area. Of course we will need financial help and the community has been incorporated as a non-profit ministry in Mexico. Financial aid helps in two ways. First we can get some volunteer labor from the local churches but the believers do not have cash to buy building materials. So your financial aid allows us to buy the materials and then the local church members can donate their time and skills to the ministry. Secondly it will take a couple of years before the community is self supporting. We will need help during that time.

What is some of the motivation behind this new ministry?

First, our Lord has called us as a community or a covenant people to serve Him. Local churches do form communities but they are dispersed during most of the week. This limits the kinds of ministry they can take on, especially the long term care of individuals. A religious community is like a local church that has their door open 24-7. Secondly many local churches simply have lost their vision for life together. Many Presbyterian churches in Mexico are more an assembly of individuals than they are a community. Furthermore the families are under tremendous pressures as often both parents work outside the home, the men often traveling to other cities for weeks or months at a time. So it is hard for church members to actually visit a healthy, loving community. Our prayer is that visiting the Chiapas Missionary Community will allow visitors to take a vision back to their local churches.

If you are interested in any of these ideas please send me a note. By the way you can come and help even if you don’t speak Spanish. Sign language works fine!

A core value that Presbyterians hold is that of “connectionalism”.   The discovery or rediscovery the nature of this connectionalism is, I think, at the heart of the matter.

Previously held models of connection were based mostly on local initiatives, small story contexts, and homogeneous conversation partners.  The glue that held the PC(USA) together has been mostly institutionally based polity and judicatory structures.  This seemed to work pretty well until the middle of the last century when the world began to shift.  The scaffolding of this structure remains intact but the building that it once supported is going through a major renovation.  Like the anonymous poet said, “I thought the fire was out.  I stirred the ashes and burnt my finger.”  This core value of connectionalism can be a wonderful gift to the emerging world, IF we can find a way to change the scaffolding to fit the emerging structure.

This new structure, or emerging structure, is the gift that can be offered to the PC(USA) institution.  Here are a few aspects of a new connectionalism that I think can once again become a core value and gift to the wider church.

1. Connectionalism fueled by networking technologies creating new opportunities to engage with “others” beyond small geographic, cultural, and theological contexts.
2. Connectionalism opened up by an emerging epistemological humility.  Emerging folks are more comfortable with questions than answers, conversation than conversion, dialogue than dogma.  Emerging followers of Jesus have an increasing capacity to suspend judgement when faced with what appear to be conflicting world views.
3. Connectionalism in the emerging context is forged in the crucible of life and grounded real life situations. With some of the scaffolding of a previous way of being together removed by virtue of an emerging entrepreneurial spirit new ways of seeking justice and peace in the world will help nurture a new connectionalism.
4. Connectionalism informed by new discoveries in the world of social technologies that posit a connectionism inherent in God’s created order.  For instance, Spiritual Direction, Theory U, Art of Convening, Collective Wisdom etc.

“We believe there exists a field of collective consciousness — often seen and expressed through metaphor — that is real and influential, yet invisible. When we come into alignment with this field, there is a deeper understanding of our connection with others, with life, and with a source of collective wisdom. We are calling into awareness this field of collective consciousness and invite you to join us in building this discipline of collective wisdom, its study and practice.”  (From: The Power of Collective Wisdom and the trap of collective folly, by Briskin, Erickson, Ott and Callanan.)

I hope these few thoughts can help us explore the intersection of what was and what will be in in our life together in the PC(USA).  Finally here’s a poem I wrote with the question of connectionalism in mind.

Designer Jewelry

There was once a

beautiful beaded necklace

each bead hand crafted

unique in shape, color, texture

through the empty space that

runs trough the center of

each bead ran a strong thread

holding the parts in the whole

in time and with the shifting

tugging desires of the

ones who held the necklace the

thread broke and the beads scattered

no one can recall the moment

of separation and few remember

what the many beads looked like

blessed by the tie that binds

now the parts are held by varied

bead lovers with different ideas of

how each bead, now with a life of its own

might once again become the one

those who remember the whole

grieve the loss of connection

those who still see the beauty

hope that the Jeweler will

once again pull a binding thread

through the emptiness in the middle

before the opening is closed by

some sediment of corruptive desire

If by the Jeweler’s delight and will

the beads are brought together

the whole will take a different shape

perhaps bearing no resemblance to

the necklace that once was

The world is evolving.  New things, new knowledge and experience, new shit, as the Big Lebowski put it, comes to light every day.  Ask Galileo if things remain to be discovered.  Ask the historic Church how they like confronting new realities that have come to light.

People, particularly ‘religious types’, are averse to change.  Quite happy to perceive life as it has been.  Being in an in-group only strengthens the human resolve to maintain tradition and refuse change, especially when the group has enjoyed some amount of dominance.  Movement requires effort.  Movement expends energy.  Ideologically and religiously speaking, mass movement rarely happens unless a crisis looms or devastation ensues.  Thankfully we do indeed have an obvious Presbymergency.

The lack of changeability is all very ironic when it comes to critiquing the Reformed Church – a prophetic movement founded upon a shift from the status quo.  Presbyterian USA folk like to think they are Reformed and Always Reforming, yet through the years there has been little reform, despite splits with the PCA, EPC, etc.  Certainly there has been pockets of movement in the Church theologically and socially – and more movement is always required!  We religious tend to resist change by citing that God never changes, and somehow that equates we should never change.  We are not God and our theology and way of being are not infallible but subject to our murky vision and finite position as particular human beings – even together.

To compound the PCUSA dilemma, people do not tend to shift when it seems they are at the top of the heap.  Many of the established rank in the denomination, remember the church at a stronger position numerically and financially.  People tend to hang on to what they have known and over time grow sentimental.  Often it seems, people that experience decline perceive that things are simply going to seed all around them, and so resolve to hang on all more to what they know.

The Church is not to simply shift by the whims of society.  The Church is to shift as it speaks and acts prophetically. If a church/denomination does exercise the prophetic function it will always be on the move.  If not, the church will certainly devolve into a social club, as Martin Luther King Jr. warned, and in time flake up and blow away, leaving the work of the Church to the prophetic.

The Emerging voice in the PCUSA is important for the Traditional PCUSA to hear and listen to as new things continually come to light.  May the Emerging voice allow for the tent of the PCUSA to be extended, not so that there is agreement on all issues, but  an awareness that we do not know all that we think we do – and together, with tolerance, we can reflect a broad range of opinion, and live in the dissonance of humility.

We decided it was time to overhaul our old design we’d been using for a few years, so we did a redesign over the past weekend. We hope that you will come and check out the new site and let us know what you think. Presbymergent.org is much more than just a blog, and we wanted our new redesign to reflect that. We also wanted you to be able to connect with us more easily to Facebook & Twitter from our website, and we think that was accomplished with this redesign.

It’s also our hope to feature photos on the front page of what your Presbymergent community looks like around the United States – so please send us your photos of community gatherings, worship experiences, etc., and we’ll try to keep new photos rotating through the homepage.

One feature that we’re still trying to determine the best way to handle is the list of Presbymergent churches, worship gatherings and bloggers. Sticking lists of bloggers in our sidebars just became too unwieldy, so be looking for a “Friends of Presbymergent” page to come soon that will highlight some of you and your communities that self-identify with Presbymergent.

There are probably still some tweaks that need to be made, so if you see something, please let us know and we’ll try to take care of it. But we hope you’ll all enjoy our new website!